ARE THEY MISDIRECTED MOVES?

Before getting into this posting’s business, this writer hopes that all the readers of this blog enjoyed the Fourth.  In a time of noted division among the electorate, the nation’s shared holidays take on a more strident quality.  Hopefully, yesterday served to encourage a spirit of unity.

And now to the business of this posting.  Inevitably, civics teachers must deal with economic information.  When this writer taught seniors in high school, the last year being 2000, Florida mandated that these students take one semester course in American government and one semester in economics.  The economics course was one that approached the subject from the macroeconomic perspective.  But even the government course would have to deal with economic factors and developments that affect the nation.

          For example, when dealing with interest groups and lobbyists, there are business and labor groups that sponsor lobbying efforts to influence public policy.  Surely, given the current political array of issues, one that dominates a lot of media attention is how economic development affects civic matters and, therefore, calls upon citizens to pay attention to the state of the economy.  One issue:  there has been a great deal of political action and consequent governmental concern over the state of depressed wages among many Americans. 

          Some attribute Trump’s election to the presidency as being an expression of this concern.  His ability to win states in what is commonly referred to as the rust belt, directly reflects the discontent with the paucity of good paying jobs, jobs that were part of the manufacturing segment of the economy.  This blog has addressed how foreign competitors have allured many manufacturing concerns from this nation to theirs.  And there has also been the advancement in labor saving machines referred to as automation.

          A question one can ask is:  what happened, why are American workers subject to these detrimental conditions?  William K. Tabb addresses this question.[1]  This and later postings will share some quotes from his book that provides an interesting and informative account of what is affecting the economy, why these factors are viable, and how government and Americans in general have conceptualized these changes.

          In terms of the economy’s structural weaknesses, Tabb writes:

Short-term speculative gambits, the maximization of shareholder value, and the pressure of debt on companies and households produced [in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis] a growth dynamic that is not dependent on rising real incomes of American, but is built on asset bubbles, capital gains, and debt-driven consumption.  Technology, globalization, and the ability of firms to reset employment contracts (so they no longer tied worker pay to productivity) caused employment to become less well remunerated and more insecure.[2]

If this writer were to use this quote in the classroom, he would emphasize several issues.

          For one thing, there is the issue of businesses, in the search of cheaper labor costs, having moved their manufacturing activities to such countries like China, Vietnam, and India.  It is difficult to compete against Chinese workers who make on average between $250 and $500 a month.  In America, in “right-to-work” states (were weak to non-existing union representation exists), the average worker makes at minimum three times higher wages then those Chinese workers and, therefore, can’t compete.

          Tabb writes on:  “Serious social control of the economic surplus, channeling it away from speculation and into job creation, is essential; major redistribution of income and reorientation of priorities are required.”[3]  This reference focuses on how capital is being invested and how it should be invested to meet the maldistribution of income the nation is experiencing.  First though a word concerning how this is a “maldistribution.”

          One can argue that if one believes in capitalism, then wages are simply yielding to demand and supply forces.  But that, to many is an abstract notion.  What is real are comparisons.  And in the minds of many, one compares how well he/she is doing with how previous generations of Americans did or with how one did in earlier years.  And the immediate past was a bit unusual.

          Taking the post-World War II years – 1945 to 1965 – as the immediate past, America was the sole manufacturing nation in the world – or just about.  Why?  The war effectively destroyed the manufacturing capacities of just about every industrial nation of the world.  Both in European and Asian (like Japan) countries experienced sustained bombing from above.  Bombing sorties effectively leveled the industrial facilities of the belligerents.  Because of the protection the oceans provided, America was sparred.

          So, for the years following the war, America supplied the world with manufactured goods and there was little or no competition in those related markets, including the market for workers.  This led to higher wages and Americans became easily accustomed to the better lives those wages allowed.  But starting in the 1970s this began to change.  Today, the amount of manufacturing jobs once prevalent is but a small percentage of what it was.

          This has also led to what this second quote highlights.  That is, capital has been directed toward financial opportunities – stock markets, bond markets, lending opportunities – and away from manufacturing.  This can be risky.  Suddenly, over a few years, money can be attracted to artificial opportunities – like mortgage portfolios with high risk mortgages as happened in the years leading to 2008 – and financial bubbles result. 

People become aware of the rising profits such bubbles are generating, furthering the bubble effect.  But bubbles eventually burst, and the resulting loss of money and the accompanying undermining of the viability of financial institutions cause panic and that further intensifies the collapse of those institutions undergirding the global economy.  That is what happened in the 1930s with Great Depression and almost happened in 2008-09.  As it was, many of those institutions are no longer in operation.

A future posting will look at an important question.  Are such developments the result of what government does or are they the result of what markets do?  This basic question or how one leans in one direction or another, goes a long way in determining if one is a left of center, liberal or a right of center, conservative; if one is a Democrat or a Republican.

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[1] William K. Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 2012).

[2] Ibid., 5 (Kindle edition).

[3] Ibid.

THE LAND OF DREAMS AND OATHS

One thing every citizen of the US should do, at least once, is attend a naturalization ceremony for new citizens.  As part of that event, those seeking citizenship need to take an oath of allegiance.  By taking the oath, the person makes a set of promises and those promises have been part of the ceremony since the 1700s.  The promises are duties that include:

·        Support and defend the constitution of the United States and its laws; particularly those laws formulated to protect the nation from its enemies;

·        Forego any allegiance to other nations or sovereigns;

·        Renounce any hereditary – such as those of nobility – titles;

·        And submit to military and civilian service when the government calls for such service.

This oath is taken from a person’s volition – he/she chooses to take it; no coercion involved.

          This step in becoming a citizen reflects a federal bias.  To remind the reader, previous postings have outlined the central concept of that construct; a federal union is one in which a group of people come together and inviolably promise to do something.  At times, this might have called for a promise to be witnessed by God and, if so, the promise is a covenant.  Or it might not have, in which case the promise is a compact.  The word federal is derived from the Latin word, foedus, which means covenant.[1]

          Some might argue that this oath should not be limited to immigrants who are seeking citizenship but one in which natural born citizen be called upon to take.  As it is, just being born within the borders of the nation ascribes to a person the status of citizen.  Of course, such a person, if he/she does not want to be part of the union compact, can renounce his/her citizenry.  That person can seek citizenship in another country.  The assumption here – both culturally and legally – is that if a citizen resides here, he/she voluntarily agrees to that promise or oath.

          But beyond the legality, one can, this writer believes, endow that oath with a spirit.  The promise is a minimum.  One can reasonably read into that promise a commitment for a citizen to express allegiance in a pro-active fashion, not because he/she is forced, but because he/she loves that union. 

To describe this spirit, in an earlier posting, this blog shared an extended quote by the political writer, Alexi de Tocqueville.  To remind the reader, here is a short excerpt of that more extensive quote describing America in the 1830s:

… [T]he political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood  … Everything is in motion around you; here, the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a church; there, the election of a representative is going on; a little further, the delegates of a district are traveling in a hurry to the town in order to consult upon some local improvements; or in another place the labourers of a village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon the project of a road or a public school … Societies are formed which regard drunkenness as the principal cause of the evils under which the State labours, and which solemnly bind themselves to give a constant example of temperance … [2]

This, according to Tocqueville, represented common scenes of those years.

          America has changed.  One would be hard pressed to describe this nation in this fashion today.  This blog has offered ample evidence of the general reluctance Americans have in becoming politically engaged.  Yet structurally, Americans are still a federalist union.  This blog is dedicated toward informing and encouraging a more general understanding and commitment to a federal disposition among students and citizens, in general.  Is there any evidence indicating a move toward a more involved citizenry?

          This blog has also provided a general description – as a topic for students to investigate – of the opioid crisis.  To use a more concrete issue to describe what is happening in terms of citizen involvement, this crisis is helpful.  In that light, this posting will now describe a more current instance of how this issue of non-involvement has played a role in this crisis.

One aspect of this crisis is the role Mexican heroin dealers have played.  This blog has been reluctant to report on this aspect due to a generally perceived prejudice some Americans have voiced against Mexican immigrants.  But to be complete, this blog should report on the role a small percentage of Mexicans have filled.

          As it turns out, this drug trade originates from a small town, Xalisco, Nayarit, in Mexico.  The town’s name is pronounced as another Mexican city, Jalisco, but is spelled with an “X.”  Near that town, the opium poppy plant grew extensively.  The plant was harvested, and its milky fluid was extracted and cooked into a substance resembling a black tar.  This, in turn, was molded into small round shapes – marble type balls – and were smuggled into the US.  In the US, Xalisco dealers set up, across the nation, effective and extensive distribution systems using non-descript cars and an army of drivers with cell phones.

          One aspect of the distribution was its actual delivery service.  All a user or addict had to do was make a call and a driver showed up with the requested drug.  These deliveries were cheap and convenient.  They were particularly attractive to people – many of them young – who were hooked on pain pills, such as OxyContin, that were usually more expensive and harder to get.  This blog, in a previous posting, described this “medical” aspect of the opioid crisis.[3]  The point here is the victims were hooked on pills and shifted to heroin via these Xalisco distributors.

          While the epidemic has affected most regions of the country, one state has been particularly hit; that was/is Ohio.  One town in Ohio, Portsmouth, is highlighted by the journalist, Sam Quinones, in his book, Dreamland.[4]  He begins the book by describing a recreational area in Portsmouth that apparently was the center of the town back in the sixties.  It had a large pool and adjacent recreation area, called Dreamland, where the town “hung out” during the warmer days of the year. 

In those years, the town was relatively doing well with a strong manufacturing base.  But as with many manufacturing towns since those earlier days, Portsmouth lost those factories to mostly foreign competitors.  The results of such a development was obviously devastating.  But that is only the backdrop to the tragedy.  Then, as this blog has described, the selling of opioid in the form of pain pills took hold.  As the earlier cited posting describes, many otherwise average Americans became victims to the opioid epidemic:

They – the Mexicans – devised effective, on-demand distribution arrangements in numerous communities around the US.  Their customers are not inner-city junkies, as the heroin trade of old was and found in major urban centers, but among, in many cases, middle class whites who have gotten themselves hooked on opioids.

Oftentimes, these middle-class customers became addicted after they were exposed to some chronic pain management protocol under the supervision of legitimate doctors.  A lot of this, in turn, was based on an underestimation of the addictive quality of the drugs prescribed and aggressive drug company strategies in marketing opiates.  Once hooked, these people became desperate to find cheaper and unlimited supplies of a substitute drug – heroin, a type of opioid – to satisfy their cravings.[5] 

But times move on and many aspects of the story have changed since the early years of this century.

          One, the cartels of Mexico, earlier not interested in cheap drug sells, eventually moved in and has disrupted the Xalisco system.  Also, the general reaction to opioids in the US is taking a toll on the trade and there seems to be some improvement on meeting the crisis.  In this, Portsmouth has gone through some positive changes.  These changes remind this writer of the above cited Tocqueville quote describing an involved citizenry.

          Here is another quote offered by Quinones:

          Angie Thuma, the veteran Walmart shoplifter [to pay for her addiction] … told me the last time we spoke, “when I think about all the things I went through and I’m still alive, it gives you courage to keep bettering yourself.”

          That seemed to be Portsmouth’s attitude.  The town still looked as scarred and beaten as an addict’s arm.  Wild-eyed hookers strolled the East End railroad tracks, and too many jobs paid minimum wage and led nowhere.  Portsmouth still had hundreds of drug addicts and dealers.  But it also now had a confident, muscular culture of recovery that competed with the culture of getting high – a community slowly pitching itself.

          Proof to that was that addicts from all over Ohio were now migrating south to get clean in Portsmouth.  No place in Ohio had the town’s recovery infrastructure.

          On my last trip to Portsmouth, I met a young woman from Johnstown, a rural town northeast of Columbus that from her description sounded a lot like the 740 that RWR rapped about.  She had been buying heroin from the Xalisco Boys in Columbus for a couple years.  When she tried to quit, a driver who spoke English called her for a week straight.

          “But, senorita, we have really good stuff.  It just came in.”

          Finally, she threw away her phone.  There wasn’t much on it but dope contacts anyway.  She was twenty-three, alone with a ten-month-old son, and – seeking to get clean with nowhere else to turn – she found refuge in Portsmouth.

          “I love it here.  I’m really afraid to go back,” she told me in the lilting drawl of rural Ohio, when we met at a party for a woman celebrating her first year clean.

          So the battered old town had hung on.  It was, somehow, a beacon embracing shivering and hollow-eyed junkies, letting them know that all was not lost.  That at the bottom of the rubble was a place just like them, kicked and buried but surviving.  A place that had, like them, shredded and lost so much that was precious but was nurturing it again.  Though they were adrift, they, too, could begin to find their way back.

          Back to that place called Dreamland.[6]

Is there a silver-lining?  Perhaps.  Maybe the bottom of a nightmare offers enough motivation to rekindle the communal base of a spirited federal union.  Sadly, if so, what a price to pay.  Perhaps a more proactive civics program can help avoid such a price.  Of course, neither the nightmare nor a proactive educational program can make the total difference, but they can be exploited toward helping.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority,” Journal of Church and State, 33, (Spring, 1991):  231-254.

[2] Alexi de Tocqueville, “Political Structure of Democracy,” in Alexis de Tocqueville:  On Democracy, Revolution, and Society, eds. John Stone and Stephen Mennell (Chicago, IL:  Chicago University Press, 1980/1835), 78-101, 78-79.

[3] See Robert Gutierrez, “And Then There Is Law-Abiding Behavior, Part II,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, May 21, 2019, accessed July 1, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2019/05/and-then-there-is-law-abiding-behavior_21.html .

[4] Sam Quinones, Dreamland:  The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (New York, NY:  Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 344-345.