JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XV

 

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

Student Political Interests [2]

          To address the political interests of students in relation to parochial / traditional federalist ideals, an aspect of the current American political landscape should be addressed.  That is, Americans have come to place enormous responsibilities on government that before were definitely under the purview of private entities.  So common has this development been, the online service, Quizlet (an educational site), offers the following general descriptive question and answer:

 

Question;  How has the power of the federal government developed over time?

Answer:  The federal government’s power has INCREASED over time, particularly through the New Deal programs during the Great Depression.[3]

A more insightful account is offered by Robert Bellah, et al.  They write:

 

We expect government to protect children against abusive parents, wives against battering husbands, and employees against sexual harassment by their bosses.  More and more we think of problems that government cannot or will not solve – infant mortality in poor communities, the AIDS epidemic, rising drug use – as public problems for which government is responsible. And this expansion of public responsibility leads us to experience an interdependence that we both recognize and resent.  Very little in our social world remains “private” in a meaningful sense.[4]

 

When these expectations are juxtaposed with a political culture that glorifies liberty – what this account calls natural liberty – and a strong individualistic mindset,[5] the match is ill-suited.  Ironically, current levels of consciousness of how interdependent Americans are politically, seem to be generated more from their mutual dependence on government services than any republican sense.

          Further, this juxtaposition has led to some curious practices.  Among them have been the systems tools such as cost-benefit analysis.[6]  In accordance with the general liberal desire to cast government as a neutral entity, cost-benefit analysis typifies the process that government employs to determine public policy.  Bellah et al.’s take on this issue still holds up today:

 

Cost-benefit analysis has the apparent virtue of allowing a purely neutral weighing of advantages and disadvantages of any given policy in monetary terms, though its critics argue that it systematically overlooks important public concerns that cannot be quantified … [I]t holds out the possibility, however visionary, of an integrated approach to policy, of doing what is really important rather than whatever happens to be politically popular.  Its most fallacious, but equally appealing, claim is that it offers a set of neutral rules, a methodology, for arriving at just decisions.[7]

 

Using this tool, analysis can even neutrally place value on factors such as life itself.  Value becomes a product of total preferences expressed by autonomous individuals through their choices and measured in market accounting terms (dollars and cents).

          This method places an inordinate premium on current preferences without any overarching moral principles or theory to guide these choices and no accounting for the interests of those yet to be born.  The only real factor is current utilitarian calculations to maximize perceived benefits.  Defenders see this type of policy making as truly democratic which avoids imposing someone’s values on others.[8]

          The political interests of today’s students, first, demand that students become aware of the way related policy decisions are made.  Applying parochial federalist ideals, they, while seeing cost-benefit’s usefulness in public policy debates, would demand that such practices are not the sole way to determine that policy.  They would deal with the question of whether such analysis should replace meaningful democratic debate. 

To rely solely on market choice models as cost-benefit analysis would be to give up on people’s responsibilities to inform themselves and others and discuss the issues.  This basically undemocratic practice as the exclusive method of determining policy should become intolerable to people who are socialized according to the parochial federal tradition.

          To them, such calculations are intolerable because they put dollar values on priceless commitments such as human life, and chisel away at the moral assumptions and understandings that hold a society together.  Many of these understandings are intangible, and those who harbor these cohesive views, even if some do not live by their ideals one hundred percent, espouse them as the moral glue in a republican society and government.

          More recent literature has at least given this concern some attention.  For example, in a more recent article, Pamela Misuraca adds this concern almost as an afterthought in that article’s abstract.  She writes, “It [also notes, however, that because not all costs and benefits can be quantified, measures other than CBA [cost-benefit analysis] should be considered in making investment decisions.”[9]

          Moral assumptions that support equal opportunity are such an intangible.  Social policy should not undermine these intangibles, but should preserve them, help to make them as real and tangible as possible, and preserve the moral tradition from which they sprang.  This at times might lead to economically irrational policy (or seem to be in the short run), but it would provide the opportunity to arrive at rational or optimally disposed policy that would protect or even advance the common good in the long run.

          What are the implications at the student level of such turns in the national political environment?  Based on the general notion that one’s interests are, if not advanced, protected by a political arena that does not avoid quantitative analysis, but healthfully utilizes qualitative ones as well.  Parochial federalism demands that political study strives to advance and protect justice (a normative, mostly an intangible factor) within a polity and along with those resulting insights – as to what creates what is (quantitative studies) – help to assure a civil society.[10]

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[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The meaning of this term has been shared in previous postings and refers to the political interests of students that curriculum developers should consider in their plans.

[3] “Inquisitive Questions,” Quizlet (n.d.), accessed May 18, 2022, https://quizlet.com/269099694/inquisitive-questions-flash-cards/ .

[4] Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, The Good Society (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 113.

[5] The cultural literature is replete with sources supporting this claim.  Just of cite a more recent source, see Ava Rosenbaum, “Personal Space and American Individualism,” Brown Political Review (October 31, 2018), accessed May 18, 2022, https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2018/10/personal-space-american-individualism/ AND a more time honored source see Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism:  A Double-Edged Sword (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton and Company, 1996).

[6] Bellah, et al., The Good Society.

[7] Ibid., 115-116.  This quote reminds one of incubation problems – that might take the form of problems one does not know he/she doesn’t know exist (a la Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld).  See Sidney Dekker and Shawn Pruchinicki, “Drifting into Failure:  Theorising the Dynamics of Disaster Incubation,” Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science (2013), accessed May 15, 2021, Drifting into failure theorising the dynamics of (safetydifferently.com) .

[8] Bellah, et al., The Good Society.

[9] Pamela Misuraca, “Effectiveness of a Cost and Benefit Analysis in Making Federal Government Decisions:  A Literature Review,” MITRE (August 6, 2014) accessed May 19, 2022, https://www.mitre.org/publications/technical-papers/the-effectiveness-of-a-costs-and-benefits-analysis-in-making-federal OR for the actual article, https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/publications/cost-benefit-analysis-govt-decisions-14-0929.pdf . 

[10] See Daniel J. Elazar Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).

JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XIV

 

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

Student Economic Interests [2] (cont.)

This posting begins with a continued discussion over the motivation to start a business and the opportunities to do so.  The reason for this concern is to what extent parochial/traditional federalism encourages such an activity.  That would be not only to be so engaged but also to do so within the guides of federalist values, i.e., not to offend through one’s actions the common good.

Some years ago, a lot of discussion – pointed out in the last posting – was over how the exiting of manufacturing to low-wage nations was affecting how viable the US production of goods was.  As Robert Reich[3] pointed out, due to resulting downsizing and consequential disruptions to market controls by large corporations, there have been many new opportunities for a whole new generation of entrepreneurs to begin small businesses.  But, in more recent years, some question this general judgement.

These other commentators cast doubt on this general cause, but they do not question Reich’s generally identified consequence.  In the ensuing years since his book was published, large corporations (valued at $1 billion or more) have resumed their dominant positions in OECD nations’ economies (like that of the US, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan).  Here is a quote from a McKinsey & Company article:

 

The size of the business sector varies only slightly within each of the major economies, and their share has remained steady for the past 60 years. This steadiness masks significant underlying shifts, notably including the growth of corporations over $1 billion in revenue, which increased their global revenues by 60 percent relative to their home country’s GDP since 1995.[4]

 

That business landscape has been fertile ground; those current economies, including the US’s economy, do afford newly found opportunities.  This is not an easy topic to summarize in this sort of review – there are a variety of factors affecting manufacturing advancements, for example, in the US including emissions and power generation – but the general literature does report an optimistic future.[5]

Across the board (manufacturing and service businesses), this might very well be the result of technological advancements – one thinks of online accesses – that have proven to lead to a meaningful uptick in the number of businesses getting started.  In terms of small businesses (those with fewer than 100 employees), the following is reported:

 

The strengthening United States economy in recent years has nurtured many opportunities for entrepreneurs, with the number of small businesses in the US on the rise.

          In 2021, the number of small businesses in the US reached 32.5 million, making up nearly all (99.9 percent) US businesses.

          The increase in the number of small businesses in the US in 2021 is representative of the sustained growth as it makes a 2.5 percent increase from the previous year and a growth of 9.8 percent over the four-year period from 2017 to 2021.[6]

         

Perhaps a parochial/traditional federalist perspective would encourage many more young people to seize these opportunities and become more actively engaged in the economic as well as political world than would otherwise be the case.  This is not to indicate that insufficient numbers are drawn to entrepreneurial pursuits when they are only spurred on by acquisitive motives, but for the sake of the nation, one is justified to hope for better. 

The point is that in addition to the desires for ever higher levels of material well-being, individuals can be motivated to such endeavors by the old republican, federalist desire to expand one’s liberty (through the entailed enhancement of one’s dignity) and gain a larger control over one’s life by being of service to a commonwealth.  By doing so, individuals create for themselves a more interactive role in the welfare of the broader community.

Stated in other words:  entrepreneurs, with their heightened financial commitment, find it in their interest to become more involved with the social conditions of their community.  Often, the welfare of the community will affect the health of their businesses.  In addition, the polity is benefited by more of its members having a greater personal stake in the general welfare of that community.  When one thinks of it, the natural rights argument of this dialectic struggle can also cite this advantage.

Young people should be introduced to this broader image and language – of parochial federalism – in how businesses are portrayed during their secondary school years.  This notion also plays as a segue to the next topic, political student interests.  What the nation is coming to see, given the rise of polarized politics, is that relying on a system in which off-setting interests check one another – a la Madisonian federalism (reviewed in the last posting) – is not enough.

What at minimum is needed, in part, are espoused values that promote virtue for its own sake and that view does not rise naturally – it needs to be encouraged or socialized.[7]  And to further make the point, one cannot merely count on this more communal view as being an outward perspective relating to or an off-shoot of a natural rights-based sense of personal interest.  As this blog has argued, if anything, that view actively encourages – most of the time[8] – the individual to form and hold a shallow concern for the advancement or even the maintenance of the common good.

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[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The meaning of this term has been shared in previous postings.

[3] Robert B. Reich, The Work of Nation:  Preparing Ourselves for the 21^st-Century Capitalism (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1992).

[4] “A New Look at How Corporations Impact the Economy and Households:  A Discussion Paper,” McKinsey & Company (May 31, 2021), accessed May 12, 2022, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/a-new-look-at-how-corporations-impact-the-economy-and-households .

[5] For example, see Torsten Lichtenau, Mattis C. Karlsson, Karl Strempel, and Emmet Gaffney, “The Great Retooling for Sustainability Is a Huge Opportunity in Machinery,” Bain & Company (May, 2, 2022), accessed May 15, 2022, https://www.bain.com/insights/great-retooling-for-sustainability-is-a-huge-opportunity-global-machinery-and-equipment-report-2022/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwyYKUBhDJARIsAMj9lkHLPDj59oGFs1h1wQRLQRlHHz4kKx61T8ONaulmkAxON5qCWZXoxvwaAgO_EALw_wcB .  While this cited report addresses the topic from a global perspective, it pertains to the US.

[6] “How Many Small Businesses Are There in the US in 2022?,” Oberlo (n.d.), accessed May 12, 2022, https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/number-of-small-business-in-the-us#:~:text=The%20increase%20in%20the%20number,period%20from%202017%20to%202021.  Of course, the COVID pandemic affected this general condition, but reflects a background for the quickening recovery of business activity during the last year or so.

[7] Public schools can legitimately do the former and parents should be obliged to do the latter.

[8] For a vivid depiction of natural rights values at work and posing dangerous results, see MSNBC’s documentary on the case study of the travails of GameStop and the roller coaster progression of its stock.  “‘Diamond Hands’ doc Explores the Rise and Fall of GameStop Stock,” MSNBC (n.d.), accessed May 16, 2022, https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/-diamond-hands-doc-explores-the-rise-and-fall-of-gamestop-stock-139993669626 .  This cite reviews the documentary entitled, “Diamond Hands:  The Legend of Wall Street Bets.”  At one point, the TV presentation quotes the baby boomer, Mike Bloomberg, who in a short statement captures a lot of the difference between the espoused values that are expressed by today’s millennials and those values emanating from a time closer to when federalist values dominated.

JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XIII

 

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

Student Economic Interests [2] (cont.)

          The last posting zeroed in on this blog’s continuing reportage on the debate among the American people (and with some, within themselves) over two forces that often lure people in opposite directions.  A catchy title for the debate could be “virtue vs. interest.”  The virtue side concerns itself with the common good (a topic that deserves its own analysis) and takes on a moral sense that relates a definition for virtue to the common good.  The interest side is, of course, is the self-centered sense as to what one what wants, usually inspired by passion and emotions.

          Not all of these passions and emotions are based on selfish aims.  They can be directed to advancing the wellbeing of one’s family, neighbors, friends, and other acquaintances.  But too often, unfortunately, they are selfish and often are pitted against the wellbeing of a community, a state, or a nation.  And one can find this challenge emerge when one investigates the business class.

To the extent any civic message might take on importance in a civics classroom – that is, a study into how one should decide in a given situation where virtue is pitted against interest, or vice-versa – one can only speculate.  As of today, there is evidence that the distinction Robert Dahl identifies (and was quoted in the last posting [3]) still reflects what is brewing among the American public. 

Here is one study that suggests to which direction many Americans, including the youth, seem to aspire.

 

The study generated responses from 1,250 adults and highlights trends across various industries. 

The study shows that 2 in 5 people plan to start a business this year. Forty-seven percent of Americans who want to start a business are currently working for an employer, 34% are self-employed and 19% are unemployed. Fifty-five percent of aspiring new business owners will leave their current jobs within the next 12 months. 

According to the survey, most future business owners who plan to leave their jobs are from the health care, construction, education and finance industries. Employees in the health care and social assistance industry account for 8% of aspiring entrepreneurs. Construction workers and education employees represent 8% and 7% of people who want to start a business respectively.[4] 

 

Is this relevant?  This blogger believes it is.  No, it is not to say that starting a business is anti-communal or against the common good.  Such an effort might even advance those concerns.  But starting a business calls for courage, self-assuredness, and an optimistic outlook on life, the national scene, and one’s abilities.  It prioritizes for most how one advances self-interest. 

And as this blog has repeatedly argued:  that’s okay, as long as one does not choose, in seeking that self-interest, a course of action that counters the common good.  Within that parameter, parochial federalism-inspired instruction at school could help assure that a young entrepreneur does not cross that line.  But before elaborating on this guidepost, one more point should be made concerning the role this debate has had on the establishment and development of the US.

Madisonian federalism, as J. G. A. Pocock shares the views of various commentators, was a system that could allow for the self-centeredness of people to run in an unlimited fashion.  But given the ground rules that the nation’s constitution allows and encourages, such a system would create protocols where these interest positions (among the populace and among the pols) would check each other from being abusive.[5]  In addition, since the system is large – being a national market and/or arena – no one or a limited set of interests would be able to take control.[6] 

To the extent that this is either true in terms of what Madison helped set up or merely what he set out to do, parochial federalism does not agree with this being an attribute of federalism.  Why?  Because it undermines the whole rationale of a compact, that being a shared sense of partnership that a compact-al agreement strives to be.  Instead, parochial federalism would merely consider these attributes of the republic as an effort to deal with a practical set of realities that do not inhibit that sense of partnership.  Yes, as with any friendly competition, one aims to undermine the efforts of others, but plays willingly by the rules of the game.

          In any event, as what was pointed out in this blog’s review of the “student social interest,” this debate over a citizenry’s commitment to republican values (the virtue side of the debate) is not new; one can trace debates over these issues all the way back to the 1600s.[7]  Its actual points of contention have changed but at a fundamental level, it’s the same thing.

          Michael Sandel[8] supports this theme and points out that an integral element of Americans’ view of freedom through most of the early portion of the nation’s history was the ambition of owning one’s own business.  This goal usually meant owning a farm, but the essential concern was that owning a business gave a person control over a large part of one’s life.

          What was the alternative?  Wage labor jobs were considered akin to slavery or even worse in some ways.  After all, common belief held that a slave owner had a vested interest in caring for slaves, where a wage boss did not.  And one can see that currently the economy is open and encouraging the starting of new businesses.  Why?  Well, this elicits different reasons.

          This posting will end here – its main theme turns out to be a longer description than originally thought it to be.  The next posting will pick up on this notion of how inviting the current national economic conditions are to those interested in starting businesses.  It turns out that this concern over the motivation that spurs on this sort of action can be of much interest to an advocate of parochial/traditional federalism.

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[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The meaning of this term has been shared in previous postings.

[3] A citation that comments on the historical recurrence of this debate.  See the last posting AND Robert Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1985).  The cited quote is excerpted from pages 162-163.

[4] “Survey:  43% of Americans Plan to Start a Business in 2022, One-Third Are First Time Entrepreneurs,” Upper Cumberland Business Journal (January 18, 2022), accessed May 5, 2022, https://www.ucbjournal.com/survey-43-of-americans-plan-to-start-a-business-in-2022-one-third-are-first-time-entrepreneurs/#:~:text=The%20study%20generated%20responses%20from,employed%20and%2019%25%20are%20unemployed.

[5] J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 1975).

[6] James Madison, “Federalist Paper Number 10,” in The Federalist Papers, authors Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (New York, NY:  Signet, 2003).

[7] Ibid.

[8] Michael J. Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent:  America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA:  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996).

JUDGING PAROCHIAL FEDERALISM, XII

 

An advocate of parochial federalism continues his/her presentation[1] …

Student Economic Interests [2]

          As often stated in this blog, the US has opted for an individualistic perspective in its economic activities.  As is usually the case, this has affected Americans across the board.  This and the next posting will look at two groups and how current economic factors are affecting their, including their families’, economic interests.  The two groups are manufacturing laborers and prospective business owners.

But to start, it is worth pointing out that while economic developments and actual economic conditions are in constant flux, some general principles seem to hold through the years.  In general, one can attribute economic growth to increased levels of productivity.  That is, the more the production of goods and services take less amounts of production inputs (raw materials, labor, and management) to produce them, the more the economy is prone to grow. 

Beginning in the 1990s, to a significant degree, productivity increases regarding goods were due to corporate downsizing – especially in American factories and other production facilities – which entailed the exporting of production jobs.  One economist who wrote back then of this move was Robert Reich.[3]  He pointed out that these moves have lowered costs which have made American prices more competitive. 

For years, the rate of inflation had been very low until the more recent developments caused by the COVID pandemic and now enhanced by the war in Ukraine.  That lower inflation rate and its causes had consequences.  One has been that real wages have been lowered for millions of Americans – mostly those who held the production jobs that are now located abroad. 

Considering the average standard of living statistic, it can be misleading when judging the welfare of individuals. They occupy various life situations relative to how the economy functions.  Overall, Americans find themselves in very favorable positions relative to those in other countries.  But one needs to look more closely at how different segments of the workforce have been affected.

The following excerpt gives the reader a sense of the advantages many have experienced.  In terms of aggregate standard of living measurements, Americans rank first.  But even when one considers more quality-of-life measurements, they do very well, thank you.

 

[Based on the standard of living statistic, it] confirms the conventional view that, broadly measured, American living standards are comparable to those of the richest Western European nations but much higher than the living standards in emerging market economies. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97 percent of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22 percent. Interestingly, this comparison shows that Western European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Italy are considerably closer to the United States in terms of economic welfare than differences in per capita income or consumption would suggest, reflecting the fact that Western European countries do relatively well on the other evaluated criteria (namely, leisure, life expectancy, and inequality). For emerging and developing economies, however, differences in income or consumption per person generally understate the advantage of the United States, according to this measure, largely due to the greater levels of inequality and lower life expectancies in those countries.[4]

 

All in all, Americans are doing well whether one looks at aggregate numbers of income and wealth or more relative numbers such as measurements of leisure, life expectancy, and inequality.  But this overlooks the plight of the former manufacturing job holders. 

Given the changes that the economy has experienced, there have been pockets of workers (or other citizens) who have experienced changes that are not in line with this overall picture.  In this blogger’s book, Toward a Federated Nation, he reports the following:

 

The inevitable ranking of individuals leads to an uneven distribution of material values.  Such a reality, though, threatens the level of moral equality in the commonwealth – especially if the unevenness is extreme or functions to prohibit others from aspiring to improve their level of advantages.[5]  In current parlance, the problem is not that there is a top 1% (that’s a mathematical certainty), the problem lies in that 1% enjoys inordinate percentage of the national income or the national wealth.[6] 

If that is the case, not only does such a condition threaten the integrity of those not enjoying a reasonable income, but it makes those upper-class individuals have inordinate resources to affect the formulation of public policy.[7] 

 

And at this point, one is well served to look at the interest of young people who are caught up or reflect the financial situation their home or family situation sustains.

The point is whether young people have been raised in the tumultuous years since the 1990s during which this shift in production transferred those manufacturing jobs to low-wage nations such as China or Vietnam.  Some have argued that a more communal approach – perhaps as those used in Germany and Japan[8] – would encourage a more involved perspective among the young as their parents tell of their daily job experiences at home. 

One can argue that this other general view in society is more republican in nature.  But this nation’s more individualistic perspective has instead encouraged, one can argue, a more passive, pleasure-seeking ethos.  But this is not solidified among all Americans.  Robert Dahl wrote of this bifurcated view – the communal vs. the individualistic view – some years ago:

 

We Americans have always been torn between two conflicting visions of what American society is and ought to be.  To summarize them oversimply, one is a vision of the world’s first and grandest attempt to realize democracy, political equality, and political liberty on a continental scale.  The other is a vision of a country where unrestricted liberty to acquire unlimited wealth [and that] would produce the world’s most prosperous society.  In the first, American ideals are realized by the achievement of democracy, political equality, and the fundamental rights of all citizens in a country of vast size and diversity.  In the second, American ideals are realized by the protection of property and of opportunities to prosper materially and to grow wealthy.  In the first view, the right to self-government is among the most fundamental of all human rights, and, should they conflict, is superior to the right to property.  In the second, property is the superior, self-government the subordinate right.[9]

 

Yes, this oversimplifies a complex – what has become – international issue, but it gets at the heart of this dialectic struggle (between a parochial federalist view and the natural rights view) and provides students with a confusing economic image and befuddled ideals as to what they should be.

          This turn in the economic history of the nation, by the way, can be associated with what has come to be known as the polarized political landscape one observes today.  Those who have suffered from this loss of jobs become fodder for nationalistic political messaging.  In turn, that messaging represents policies that many describe as either authoritarian or undemocratic. 

Here’s a line of argument that has been professed in terms of explaining what has happened. 

 

1.    There is a significant number of workers who held good paying jobs.

2.    This caused them to either have rising expectations of a better financial future or an expectation that current levels of relative affluence would continue. 

3.    Then, in short order, those good paying jobs are lost. 

4.    This loss of jobs counters the rising expectations of those former workers and high levels of anger and general attitudes judging the events as illegitimate. 

5.    Rebelliousness or feelings of rebellion result. 

6.    These people become prime potential followers of any demigod who might arise promising to upend the whole existing system.[10]

 

With that line of events – here offered as form of a hypothetical chain of events or developments – this blog will end this posting. 

The reader is given the opportunity to consider it and decide how true it happens to be.  As for this blog, it is offered as a hypothetical development.  The next posting will continue with this topic, the “economic student interest,” and highlight perspective entrepreneurs.

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[1] This presentation begins with the posting, “A Parochial Subject Matter” (March 11, 2022).  The reader is reminded that the claims made in this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this blogger.  Instead, the posting is a representation of what an advocate of parochial federalism might present.  This is done to present a dialectic position of that construct.

[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum:  Perspective, Paradigm, and Possibility (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986).  The meaning of this term has been shared in previous postings.

[3] For example, Robert B. Reich, The Work of Nation:  Preparing Ourselves for the 21^st-Century Capitalism (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1992).

[4] Ben Bernanke, “Are Americans Better Off Than They Were a Decade Or Two Ago?,” Brookings (October 19, 2016), accessed May 5, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/10/19/are-americans-better-off-than-they-were-a-decade-or-two-ago/ .

[5] As the calendar approached 2020, one could report:  “Currently, the richest 1% hold about 38% of all privately held wealth in the United States; while the bottom 90% hold 73% of all debt. According to The New York Times, the richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.” “Wealth Inequality in the United States,” Wikipedia.

[6] In 2015, the average gross income of people in the top 1% was $480,930; for the top .01% it was $35.1 million, and for the top .001% it was $152 million.  The top 1% paid 39% of the federal income tax.  The gap between the top groups and the rest is growing.  See Aimee Picchi, “How Much Do the 1, .01 and .001 Percent Earn?” CBS News (February 27, 2018), accessed March 28, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-do-the-1-01-and-001-percent-really-earn/ .

[7] Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas Civics Books, 2020), 197-198.

[8] See Michael Ivanovitch, “Only Germany and Japan Have Room for Economic Stimulus,” CNBC (September 6, 2019), accessed May 9, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/06/commentary-only-germany-and-japan-have-room-for-economic-stimulus.html .  One point this cite makes is:  “Germany and, to a lesser extent, Japan have plenty of scope for large public and public-private partnership investments in growth-enhancing infrastructure projects of transportation, information technology, life science and social welfare.”

[9] Robert Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1985), 162-163.

[10] This chain reflects the theoretical ideas of the Davies “J” curve model.  See John T. Jost and Avital Mentovich, “J-Curve Hypothesis,” Sociology and Political Science, n. d., accessed October 14, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/J-curve-hypothesis .