What’s Going On: Then and Now

 

By Steve Halpern

This December I will be celebrating my 70th Birthday. During my life, I’ve seen many changes in the world. Recently I’ve thought about the difference between the political atmosphere in the 1970s and today. 

I believe that one clear difference comes from the state of the capitalist economy then and now. From the end of the Second World War to the early 1970s, the United States industrial economy dominated the world. Today we see much of the manufacturing in the world has shifted to other nations. In order to think about the dramatic changes that have taken place, I think it is useful to look at the reality of then and now. First, I’ll look at the way things used to be.

1945 - 1971

Labor

During the depression of the 1930s, working people barely had enough of an income to sustain themselves. At that time workers found it difficult to feed their families. They might live in a one or two room cold water flat.

Then in the 1930s Unions started to win important labor battles. After the Second World War hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike. These strikes forced employers to come up with significant concessions. As a result, there was a significant improvement in the standard of living that peaked around the year 1970.

Black liberation

From the years 1877 to the mid-1960s, the United States government effectively denied Black people citizenship rights in this country. The legal basis for this denial of rights was known as Jim Crow segregation. Jim Crow was always a flagrant violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court, as well as the members of the other branches of government violated their Oath of Office by flagrantly violating the Constitution. This indifference to Constitutional law allowed Jim Crow segregation to be a fact of life for decades. 

Then the Black community and their allies made a determined effort to defy the Jim Crow laws. That mass effort effectively forced the government to enact laws that did away with Jim Crow. We should keep in mind that Jim Crow segregation was always a violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

Vietnam and the world

William Blum wrote a book published in 1995 titled: Killing Hope – U.S. military and CIA interventions since World War II. This book gives a detailed history of all the U.S. interventions in the world after the Second World War. At the end of the book there is a nine-page list that summarized U.S. interventions that took place before the year 1945. 

Recently Democratic Party politicians expressed outrage about the attack on the capitol on January 6, 2021. This outrage stemmed from the idea that the attackers attempted to unseat the elected government. 

However, when we read Blum’s book, we see how the United States government has made it their routine policy of overthrowing elected governments all over the world. We have seen this with the overthrow of Mohammed Mosaddegh in Iran, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Salvador Allende and Chile, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti. 

However, in Vietnam the United States government had a serious problem in their attempt to install a compliant government. President Lyndon Baines Johnson ordered the U.S. Air Force to carry out operation Rolling Thunder. This was a massive bombing campaign aimed at coercing the Vietnamese people to submit to the will of the United States government. 

Then, after the U.S. armed forces had been thoroughly demoralized and defeated, President Nixon ordered the Air Force to carry out the bombing campaigns he called Linebacker I and Linebacker II. These massive bombing raids included targets that were not affected in the Rolling Thunder genocidal mission. Only after millions of people died because of this mass murder, did the United States withdraw their forces from Vietnam. 

However, aside from their defeats in Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, the United States government was able to install ruthless dictatorships in nations all over the world. For a time, those dictatorships established relative stability.

Women’s liberation

Back in the 1960s women in this country didn’t have many of the rights they have today. Most women worked as secretaries or housekeepers. Women were, for the most part, kept out of many of the occupations they have today. Dress codes prohibiting women from wearing pants were rigidly enforced. Sexual harassment on the job was routine and rarely challenged. 

Then in the year 1971 women demonstrated in cities all over this country. They demanded basic rights they were being denied. Because abortion was illegal, thousands of women died or were mutilated because of unsafe procedures known as back-alley abortions. 

The Supreme Court responded to this movement with their Roe v. Wade decision that gave women a limited right to abortion. We should keep in mind that this decision was not based on an enforcement of the 14th Amendment to the constitution that argued for equal protection under the law. Had that been the case, reversal of Roe v Wade would have required a Constitutional Amendment.

Today

Labor

Since the 1970s much of the manufacturing of the United States has either left the country or was made obsolete by automation. There have been many recent union battles. Two of those battles were at Amazon and Starbucks. Some of the workers at those corporations voted to join unions. However, even after unions won elections, corporate officers refused to negotiate with the elected union representatives. 

In other battles against corporate power, unions have won concessions. However, after about fifty years of a deteriorating standard of living, the percentage of workers who are in unions has significantly decreased.

Black Liberation

Since the overturn of Jim Crow segregation, Michelle Alexander wrote her book The New Jim Crow – Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. This book documents how the prison population has exploded in recent decades. Alexander showed how the Black population in the prison system is grossly disproportionate to the percentage of the Black population in this country.

The world

With the decline of the U.S. economy in the world, there is now a clear state of instability in every area of the planet. There have been uprisings of women in Chile and Iran, of farmers in India, of the residents of Hong Kong, Ukrainians are defending themselves from a Russian invasion.

Today, the United States isn’t the only dominant capitalist power in the world. Just as there was development in this country in the years after the Second World War, today we have seen massive capitalist development in China. In other words, the stability and domination that U.S. capitalism once had in the world is over.

Women’s liberation

Recently the Supreme Court overruled the Roe v. Wade decision. This ruling allows individual states to enact their own laws regulating or outlawing women’s right to abortion. Effectively this ruling prevents many women from having the right to decide if and when they become mothers. In other words, the Supreme Court argued that women do not have the intelligence to make judgements concerning the control over their bodies. The court believes that state government officials should have the power to dictate to women that when they become pregnant, they must give birth whether they like it or not.

We might think about the fact that affluent women will continue to have the right to abortion. They have always had the resources to go to places where they can get a safe abortion. The government is clearly indifferent to this gross discrimination against working class women.

The most affluent 9.9 percent

Matthew Stewart wrote a recent book titled: The 9.9 Percent: The New Aristocracy that is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture. Stewart gives the statistics showing that the most affluent 9.9 percent of the population of this country owns at least $1.2 million in assets. There are over thirty million people who are in this most affluent 9.9 percent. Although they are under-represented, there are many Black people and Latinos in this group. We might also assume that about half of these people are women.

I believe we can assume that many of these relatively affluent people are opposed to the discrimination against women, Latinos, Blacks, and Native Americans. Many might contribute to causes aimed at preventing the destruction of the environment. 

However, in my opinion most of the affluent people in this group have a fundamental problem. The only way we can do away with poverty, discrimination, and the destruction of the environment will be with a socialist worker’s government. Clearly many in this group are not hostile to the idea of socialism and believe that nations like Sweden are socialist. 

In my opinion, the only way to have genuine socialism is with a dictatorship of the proletariat. The routine functioning of the capitalist system dictates that corporate profits are the top priority. The most affluent 9.9 percent of the population benefits from this state of affairs. With a dictatorship of the proletariat, the priority is no longer profits, but the human needs of people who live all over the world. We can see how people who own enormous amounts of wealth will not be friendly to this idea. 

On the other hand, the working class in this country has seen our standard of living deteriorate during the past fifty years. Our lives have become more and more unstable. So, I believe that the large majority of the population will be friendly to a political orientation arguing for lifetime rights to food, housing, health care, and education. Only a worker’s government has the potential to make that idea a reality.

Education

James Loewen wrote his book Lies My Teacher Told Me. This book documented many of the falsifications contained the American History textbooks that most children are exposed to. So, when we consider this reality, we see how the educational system in the United States has always had severe problems. 

However, President Donald Trump argued that he would end funding to educational systems that exposed students to the ideas of critical race theory. I do not support all the arguments of critical race theory. Clearly there are arguments critical of all versions of history. However, the proponents of critical race theory argue that racist attitudes and discrimination have been a constant in the history of this country. That view, in my opinion, is an accurate assessment of the history of this country. This is the point of view that enrages Donald Trump who wants to make America “great again.”  

While Trump’s ideas about education are repugnant, his liberal critics aren’t any better. Because of automation and the flight of manufacturing out of this country, the workforce is changing. A larger percentage of the workforce has jobs where few skills are required. So, the government has made it a requirement for schools to concentrate their efforts on teaching students to pass basic literacy and math tests. This is a clear change from the past when students at least had an introduction to the arts and sciences.

Today, many students want to do the higher paid skilled jobs. To be qualified for those jobs, parents are paying astronomically expensive tuition fees at private schools. This is just one more example of how there is a growing divide between those who have and those who struggle to survive. 

Conclusion

So, when we look at the contrast between the past and the present, I believe there are similarities and differences. Capitalist politicians have always been hostile to genuine progressive change. However, in the past social movements effectively forced the government to come up with significant concessions. Today the government and corporations are more determined to prevent any kind of progressive change.

This state of affairs is driving people to look for alternatives to capitalism. We have seen this with the massive demonstrations protesting murders by police, support for women’s right to abortion, protests against the destruction of the environment, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people. This sentiment means that more and more people don’t just want the kind of concessions made in the past. Today people are thinking about genuine and fundamental change.