With a national stagnation of wages and an unemployment rate of 8.1%, it would be an understatement to label the current economic “recovery” sluggish. Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel is but one among the many analysts who have charted this disaster. In a report titled Generate Jobs Now he grimly notes that “our failure to adequately address the persistent high unemployment rate means we can expect depressed wages; eroded benefits; wrecked career trajectories, especially for the young; and years before family incomes return to their pre-recession levels.” Engineering graduates like myself who are seeking employment in the manufacturing sector are sure to be among those to have their “career trajectories wrecked”. The unemployment rate in my home state of Georgia now stands at 9.3%, over a full percentage point higher than the national average (8.1%). Dalton, the “carpet-capital” of the nation, was hardest hit. Bloomberg reports that its unemployment is “the highest in the state” at an alarming 11.4%.
Neither President Obama nor Romney have addressed this problem in a serious way. Useful solutions are sidelined in favor of “free enterprise”, “market solutions”, or messianic vows to “restore prosperity.” Outside of third party candidates like Jill Stein, the possibility that anyone will address the systemic flaws of the US economy remain slim. For example, we should not expect President Obama or Mitt Romney to propose that the US adopt a nationalized healthcare system. Although a considerable majority of the American population supports universal healthcare, it is practically unmentionable in the mainstream discussion. This contempt for democracy among America’s political elite is amplified when US social policies are compared to those of much poorer countries which were able to adopt such a system.
Take for instance Thailand, a country that is ranked 103rd on the Human Development Index. According to the World Bank Thailand “was able to make healthcare more accessible to all and reduced the burden of health costs on the poor”. More significantly, “99.5% of the population now have health protection coverage.” Conversely, the United States, ranked 4th on the Human Development Index, has the worst healthcare system in the industrialized world, principally because it is privately owned.
The harmful effects of the US healthcare system is matched by a dedicated assault on organized labor. In a report titled Unions, inequality, and faltering middle-class wages Mishel refers to the decade between 2001 and 2010 as the “lost decade,” which was “characterized by increased wage inequality between workers at the top and those at the middle, and …the continued divergence between overall productivity and the wages or compensation of the typical worker”. Meanwhile both prominent political parties are in favor of lowering the top corporate tax rate. While Obama proposes to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 28%, Romney proposes to lower it to 25%. This virtual consensus on core issues of fiscal policy is a further illustration of the increasingly anti-democratic character of the American political process. And this disregard of the public transfers over quite neatly into matters of US foreign policy. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs reports that 2/3 of the American public is in favor of cutting the military budget and 50% of the public said it should be cut “the same or more than other government programs”. Expectedly, this is also off the national agenda.
Observations of this kind suggest that a barrier exists between the public and both political parties. These barriers forbid meaningful public participation in decisions that affect our lives. It is therefore understandable that more Americans are interested in learning what’s in the GOP platform than in the speeches by either Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. Speeches, no matter how eloquent, will do little to attack the systemic failures that led to the “lost decade” that Mishel described. Based on current economic policies, the more pessimistic could be led to conclude that we are irretrievably lost. Maybe we are but this no reason for us to allow the powerful to pretend it’s fun to be stranded in the woods.
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