A United Working Class Can Save Democracy
The Power of Millions
Elites want a democratic process, but without democracy
A recent example is the reaction to the Sept. 29 debate between Biden and Trump, which even the TV interpreters, who spoke immediately after its conclusion, said was an “embarrassment,” a “disaster,” and that both candidates lost the debate. Cooler heads are likely to tell us in the coming days that, on consideration, Biden did quite well. Yet, in spite of party rhetoric to come, a reasonable analysis is that the only winners were those looking for an excuse not to vote. Now they have it.
The undemocratic selection process that led up to that fateful meeting of Trump and Biden had been contrived by the respective political parties who knew that the status quo must be protected from rabble rousers like Sanders, Gabbard, Williamson and Yang. With this priority in mind, they were forced to turn to a Game Show Host and a retired politician, and hope for the best.
The majority of Democrats should have been able to have had their voice heard in the primary process, but that was not possible once the DNC got involved and flooded the race with candidates in order to dilute Sanders’ vote margin. In recent years, the race has started with primaries in rural states, while avoiding large urban working class states. When it looked like Sanders might still be the nominee, former president Barack Obama persuaded most of the candidates to drop out and endorse Biden, who had been running a lackluster campaign.
The Sanders’ campaign folded under the pressure, paving the way for the Democratic National Committee’s candidate to waltz into the nomination without most of the party’s voters being able to express a preference. The presidential selection process is a textbook example of how the majority will can be thwarted. We may witness an even startling example after Nov. 3. This time, once again, involving the Supreme Court.
Stop the Legal Lynching of Democracy
No matter the ultimate result of this year’s presidential election, the terrible divisions in the working class must be healed if we are to avoid further violence and social disintegration.
But even without violence, a close election can be stolen by machinations that involve a bias judiciary. In 2000, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop its vote recount when it appeared Al Gore would prevail in the final tabulation. Later investigation proved that Gore had won Florida, but, sorry, too late.
Subsequently, a number of news organizations paid for a comprehensive count of all disputed ballots by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. After a detailed examination of the ballots, it concluded that Gore had received more votes than George W. Bush. Al Gore, who is now a very rich man, discouraged his supporters, including Jesse Jackson, from fighting the robbery. Gore didn’t become president, but he remained a valued member of the 1 percent.
How often are elections stolen? Quite often, if investigative reporter Greg Palast is correct. He alleges that in the 2004 election John Kerry was robbed of the presidency by the Republican manipulation of voting machines in Ohio and other states, as well as mass intimidation of voters.
Who would be a Better President, a Billionaire or a Working Class person?
Would a working class candidate have given up so easily, knowing that millions of people were suffering and dying because of the lack of medical care, housing and food? The last two working class presidents of Brazil, Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, have continued fighting for democracy, ending poverty, and enacting more rights for the poor and for workers, in spite of their beliefs and actions sending both of them to prison at various times. They are both members of the Workers’ Party, a Social Democratic organization, whose base is overwhelmingly working class.
In the U.S., not much is going to change until there is a viable third party which belongs to, and advocates for, the working class, which, as the largest class, by far, has an interest in establishing economic democracy for all. The process of building such a party should begin no later than Nov. 4, 2020.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t publish statistics that are specifically about the working class, however, its “Table 1.4, Employment by Major Industry Sector,” gives a rough approximation (see below). It gives a total job count for 2019 of 162,795,600. This does not include thousands of workers in non-standard work, casual labor and independent contracting. Nor does it count work in the home, which is a full-time job for millions of women. This official tabulation is, therefore, missing 10 to 20 million additional workers.
In the United States, according to the Census Bureau’s estimate, there are about 325 million adults in the US. This means that according to my estimate, at least 70 percent, and possibly as many as 80 percent, of the adult population are members of the working class.
The electorate in 2020 will be about 60 percent white, and 40 percent people of color. The working class is even more diverse since the top rungs of the income scale are predominately white, and definitely not working class.
Two things can be learned from this information:
The working class is potentially the most powerful force in the country, if it is united.
Since racism directly affects about half of the working class, a sustained effort must be made to educate white workers that the reduction or eradication of racism will benefit them by eliminating the major impediment to unity. That is, it is in the interest of white workers to fight racism.
Always A Bridesmaid…
It’s shocking to realize that for all its size and power, the working class, that is, the majority of the population, has never held power on its own.
Just to summarize the situation in western capitalist countries: The wealthy, the 1 percent, hold power. They do this through their instruments of social control, which in the United States includes Wall Street, the Federal Reserve Bank system, the secret police (aka “intelligence” agencies), the Main Stream Media, the military, the two “official” political parties, as well as the legislative, executive and judiciary branches of government. Taken together, this grouping is called the “Deep State,” “the Establishment,” or the “Ruling Class,” among other names.
This group is in control of the operation of the country, its domestic and foreign policy, and all other important decision-making issues.
The UMC
Below the “ruling class,” resides the Upper Middle Class. Most of its members come from relatively wealthy families, attend private elementary and secondary schools, and go to Ivy League Universities where they meet their future friends and business associates. They become investors, fund managers, spies, upper-ranking military officers, academics, TV personalities, writers and editors in major media and book publishing corporations.
Much of the information, and culture, that the public consumes comes from their production, or influence. For example, lower status writers and reporters at institutions such as the New York Times do not have to be censored or even instructed on the “slant” their articles should take. They understand from the atmosphere in the editorial offices what is acceptable and what is not. Those who don’t learn how to play the game are soon looking for another job, perhaps in Pittsburgh.
Is what they write trustworthy? Yes, if it conforms with the “slant” that the system is fundamentally just and good. In this bizarre world that we call reality, all the problems are simply aberrations that can be fixed by the good people who run things.
Many of the younger members of this class profess to be “liberal.” But the term can mean many things, all of them tied up with preserving capitalism. Neo-liberal is the economic philosophy of finance capital. It has become the dominant form of capital control since the late 1970s. It means, in brief, the most important thing is the drive for maximum profits, and everything else, be damned. This is the motivating force for plant closings, massive layoffs, moving production to low wage countries, busting unions, fighting against medical and pension plans, and in general, returning society to the 19th century.
Working on the Propaganda Farm
For those in the UMC who don’t want to get their hands dirty in business, there is the intelligentsia. As such, the second-born son and daughters can walk into high-paying jobs in media and academia by virtue of their family connections. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, (who I wrote about in connection with the Post Office scandal) was recently caught using his influence as a University of California Trustee to give a push to an applicant at UC Berkeley. He was probably surprised to be taken to task for such a routine exercise of class power.
The intelligentsia is solidly opposed to Trump, but is not above speculating in print on stories that have few reliable facts, or in launching numerous other trial balloons, designed to keep people confused. In the past hundred years, newspapers like The Times, has built a reputation for truthfulness, which is quickly going down the drain.
Lately, the UMC crew has become enthralled with a new game, called Cancel Culture, in which the winning strategy, against people who have transgressed in one way or another, is to utilize call-outs, cancellation, doxing, negative reviews, and even revenge porn. A recent letter published by Harper’s, claims to oppose such tactics but has aroused a storm of criticism because the signers include a number of people who are known for their cancellations of others.
Cancel Culture holds little allure for the working class, whose members are more concerned with being cancelled from their job. Economic issues are near and dear to the working class who don’t have the material advantages of the UMC.
The Working Class
Then we have the working class. We are supposed to be the consumers who swallow the pablum we are fed on a daily basis. The only problem with this pleasant fiction is that more and more of the workers just aren’t buying it any longer.
Meanwhile, things are more vibrant down in the working class. People born and raised in working class families can actually read and write, and think. Alternative media is being read or seen by millions on YouTube and other internet venues, at least until they are shut down (which presents another problem from the rulers).
The largest anti-racist rebellion since the Civil Rights Movement is underway as more and more Black working class people are being slain by police. The massive uprising began after the murder of African-American George Floyd, last Memorial Day, when millions of people of all colors as well as huge numbers of whites joined the protests. In 2020, nearly half of the entire working class are people of color. Such racial unity must be very worrying to the ruling class. Trump, likely at the urging of his advisors, has struck back by encouraging white supremist groups to attack displays of racial unity in Portland, Kenosha and elsewhere..
Many members of the UMC don’t know any working class people except those whose skills they need when something breaks. These sheltered liberals may see the working class as a drab, undifferentiated sea of people who like to drink beer and watch TV. In their imagination the working class is made up of middle age white men. Wrong on all counts.
In the U.S., the working class is made up not only of whites, Blacks and Latinos, but people who have immigrated here from nearly every country on Earth. They have all brought their cultures with them, making our working class a multi-talented and ever surprising group of people. Much of the mainstream culture, including music, food, comedy, art, murals, even poetry, comes from the working class.
The disdain for the working class that many middle class people have is to some extent a hangover from cold war counter-propaganda to the Soviet Union’s glorification of workers. In the U.S. narrative, Soviet workers were depicted as never smiling, keeping eyes on the pavement, wearing uniformly gray or dark colored clothing, and mostly tending to obesity, especially the women. One might ask (but never did), how in the world did the these people defeat the Nazi supermen who invaded their country in WWII, or menace our way of life?
While the USSR was called a workers’ state by friend and foe, it really wasn’t. After about the mid-1920s, a bureaucracy centered on the Communist Party gained a monopoly of power. Workers’ power, exerted through the soviets (councils) became subordinate. The new rulers were not a class, which is why they crumbled so quickly when mass opposition surfaced from 1989-91. At that time a new class did emerge, modeled on the 1 percenters of the West. Today, the Russian working class is subordinated to the billionaire thieves who stole the wealth of the country, which the working class had built during the previous 100 years.
This does not mean that workers cannot take power in the U.S., or even Russia or the European Union. Marx was dubious about underdeveloped countries being about to institute a socialist society. He believed that the economic base of society had to be large enough to end scarcity of food and material goods before a socialist society or government could be realized.
The United States has a large enough economic base to provide a happy and healthy life for all of its people. But first of all the working class has to come together, absent racism or bigotry against any of its members. Then it can begin moving with one voice to secure universal health care, housing for all, a universal basic income, free education, strong unions, and the right of a working class party to contest in every arena, including elections, with the two ruling class parties. These demands should be our focus of contention with the Biden administration, if there is one.
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Thanks for reading. If you agree, please forward this article to friends and family. We’re all in it together. Meanwhile, throw a little cash our way, if you’re able. More articles are available at theleftcoast.org
Jim Smith, Editor
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UMC (Upper Middle Class)
Lyrics by Bob Seger and Robert Clark, 1975
I wanna be a lawyer
Doctor or professor
A member of the UMC
I want an air conditioner
Cottage on the river
And all the money I can see
I wanna drive a Lincoln
Spend my evenings drinking
The very best Burgundy
I want a yacht for sailing
Private eye for tailing
My wife if she's a bit too free
I've been told ever since a boy
That's what one aught to be
A part of the UMC
I want a pool to swim in
Fancy suits to dress in
Some stock in GM and GE
An office in the city
Secretary pretty
Who'll take dictation on my knee
I want a paid vacation
Don't want to have to ration
A thing with anyone but me
And if there's war or famine
Promise I'll examine
The details if they're on TV
I'll pretend to be liberal
but I'll still support the GOP,
As part of the UMC
I wanna be a lawyer
Doctor or professor
A member of the UMC