[lbo-talk] Christian Parenti interviews me on the bust

[socialismorbarbarism]

Doug H to C. Parenti: "The auto industry has been vilified as
dinosaur-like or fully incompetent, whereas the financial sector has
pretty much gotten a blank check. GM and Chrysler have had to submit
all kinds of elaborate plans for restructuring, and they had to argue
for their long-term viability. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs never had
to go through that. In this culture there is something about people
who make things, they have a much lower prestige than people who trade
in fictitious capital."

I watched some of the ritualistic humiliation, under the name of
"hearings," of auto industry execs (who deserve public humiliation,
but for different reasons) and I don't think relatively vague concepts
like "prestige" are necessary to explain why the "culture" devalues
production. Production requires a proletariat; and the auto industry
not only produced the quintessential American proletarian, but allowed
(yes, "allowed"--think like a particularly reactionary representative
of capital now) that proletarian to--gasp!--provide a decent living
for one household, get medical coverage and old-age pensions, and by
extension "allowed" some of that over-privileged, greedy proletariat
to think of not only wanting but expecting more--hey, it was only 35
years ago, y'know. Representatives from both parties (especially from
the South, bless their hearts) were more or less explicit about this;
the idea that "the unions" would be allowed anything, even vague
promises of getting their supposedly contractually-guaranteed pensions
from some sorta-kinda claim on future earnings, simply galled these
representatives of the people to no end. "You losers couldn't keep
your workers in line and damned if we're going to help you"--that was
the all-but-explicit message. Didn't anybody else hear this?

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 2:33 AM, Doug Henwood<dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Christian Parenti interviews me (with the assistance of respectable
> quantities of red wine):
>
> http://bit.ly/Fols4
> ___________________________________
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>