Howzat famed American middle class doing?
Me and the dog were walking down to the local brewery t'other day when we spotted an especially nice pick-up truck coming our way. Spelled across the front in broad letters it said:
"SHELBY"
A little bit of Googling told me that's a $124K truck.
Apparently a lot of them are doing pretty well. Even down here around poverty level things are okay. My government stipend covers my expenses and I never wonder where the next meal is coming from. And judging from the vehicles I see on the streets and the level of spending I see all around me, things are ticking along nicely.
One daughter just received a doctorate and the other just landed a job as head barista at a cafe in Portland, Maine.
Commerce continues to continue. Yes, I'm aware that there are some issues. Some will get fixed, some won't, same as always.
China is no workers paradise. They pulled people out of poverty by forcing them off the farms where they needed no money into jobs where they never had enough. To make useless plastic widgets for the world.
I don't consume a lot of widgets. Many of my widgets were made in China though because Chinese drive to become the world's maker of widgets has made it impossible to buy widgets made anywhere else.
They aren't doing it for the benefit of the workers. And they aren't a shining city on a hill.
If you'll turn your steely gaze toward some of the Northern European
democracies you will find something nearer to the mixed economies that modern socialists are looking for.
These are the missing link in Marxist theory I think, not huge autocratic governments regulating every aspect of people's lives.
There is currently no stomach for serious social reform in the US and no voter base to bring them about. And so we watch our government fumble and bumble along, just as others around the world watch their own governments fumble and bumble along.
Progress is never fast and it's never easy.
