Governance in the Days of Capitalist Absolutism

(“There are known unknonws…But there are also unknown unkowns.”–Donald Rumsfeld)

“The preoccupation with derivatives forecloses debate about the worth of the underlying investment–the value or non-value of the war as a thing in itself–and shifts the discussion to the positioning of the political risk. Process, not product. Not why or to what end do we continue to kill our own soldiers (the known unknowns) as well as Iraqi civilians (the unknown unknowns), but which artful dodge stands the best chance of beguiling the voters in next year’s elections while at the same time preserving the bubble floated on the belief that America’s invincible military power serves as collateral for the $2.5 trillion debt to foreign central banks that America has neither the means nor the intention to repay.”

–Lapham, Lewis H. 2007. “Blowing Bubbles.” Harpers, November: 10.

Modern Primitives

In the context of high inequality, all the money and technology in the world can’t buy you rationality. We have never been modern.

On how the Southern religio-fascist right (along with rightwing Zionists and Mormons) steers politics in the US):

Silverstein, Ken. 2007. “Making Mitt Romney: How to Fabricate a Conservative.” Harpers, November: 33-40.

If there were more than 8 or 9 progressives in all of the US, they would look at history and realize the crucial importance and effectiveness of going out into the countryside (and now suburbs) and organizing rural people into a Red-Green coalition. But since there are not more than a handful of progressives in the US, the country has instead fashioned rural idiocy (in its Greek sense):

From P. Mancus:

“I call to your attention that the commander in chief believes armageddon to be inevitable and believes himself to be appointed by god to lead the united states to protect israel against the antichrist, which evangelical christian ministries have, ‘interpreting the bible’ –a supposed non-possibility amongst fundies–singled out as coming somewhere from the arab/persian middle east; ahem, iran. global warming is just more self-fulfilling prophecy to the likes of schmucks who get their counseling from billy graham.

so, under such an expectation of god’s judgement as an inevitability, is it any wonder that news stories like the one below are taken as good signs(?): the world is in climate meltdown and jesus is coming back to rapture the faithful, woo hoo! after all, why do anything about life, or the planet, the natural wild, or scarce resources, when it all belongs to the ‘prince and power of the air’, mr. satan himself. if you truly believe that nature is fallen, then its not worth saving, is it? think about that one for a moment.

and if you think that this is some fringe element mentality, consider the following: between cottage grove, oregon and coalinga, california, on a trip i just took, i found the dominant ‘left’ of the fm dial radio broadcast to be evangelical, bible-thumping, armageddonish, zionist, christian programming. SRN, for example, which stands for ‘salvation radio network’ gives news broadcasts that sound eerily like CNN until the part about jesus as lord and savior comes simmering into your eardrums. only one section of I-5 did i find absence of religious ideology passing as ‘public radio.’ more often than not, i found more than one (at one point, 3) stations pumping out the same crap at the same time, between 87.9 and 91.1 on your fm dial. i’m talking about shit that would have been laughed out of the room back in the 1970s and 80s and has now come to be one of the multiple, necessary to respect perspectives on cultural and political discourse. at least among sociologists. do i need to say these developments reflect the current means by which the dominant power structure maintains its hegemony?

remember when lebanon was being bombed by israel and the fundies were celebrating, hoping that armageddon was coming and the rapture was nigh? with people like this deciding foreign policy, global warming and the increasingly rapid and violent firestorms we are seeing (not only southern california now, but recall what greece went through this summer) will be cause to jump for joy. the only two historical agents in their melodrama are god and satan, and of course the self-appointed faith-based ‘leaders’ with their militarism, patriarchy, nationalism, and religion…a boiling cauldron of self-righteousness and destruction.

so, the big question: what makes religion any different than religious fundamentalism, if it tells you that someone else is in charge (i.e., you are not the historical agent) and the events that unfold are part of a divine plan (whether that plan be love or vengeance)?

and why, oh why, must we tolerate fascists whose cosmology personifies existence with a deity who has the worst traits of a spoiled 2 year old brat (‘worship me, i demand it, or i’ll punish you’) and whose ‘faith’ tells them that there’s someone up there (in the corporate boardroom or the heavenly towers?) who must be appeased? what kind of god-the-parent would abandon its children, or desire that they stay in servitude their entire lives? the kind whom you must fear or else, and the kind whom is acceptable, standard american fare, from bill o’reilly to the mighty dollar bill.

so, you think your immune? trying turning on your public airwaves tv, using your antenna and not your cyborg cable cable company, and conduct a simple exercise of content analysis: how many stations have religious fundamentalism affiliation out of the ones you can get in eugene? count them: 3 out of 9, or ONE-THIRD! you too, if you are a grad student or someone whose too poor to afford cable can watch the following claptrap:

channel 23: the one-and-only pat robertson selling his latest product along side his religious ministry, on a station that uses covert dramatic programming about good girls and boys against bad boys and girls.
channel 36: some dude from white horse media telling us about israel in prophecy who cautions us to “be ready for armageddon.”
channel 59: “bible prophecy revealed with grant jeffery” … just ask grant what the bible means and he’ll tell you!

oh yeah, that and 5 stations other with cop/crime scene/detective shows ‘reminding’ us how corrupt, dangerous and dastardly the world is (arousal) paired with commercial programming (tension reduction): won’t that all new gooey cookie dough make you feel better? how many guns, karate fights and antagonist one-liners do i have to endure?

and then there is opb, increasing colonized by the right wing, but still there…

meanwhile, the really, really, really concerned news anchor on abc is telling us about that great refuge for the evacuees down south. its name: QUALCOMM stadium. disaster capitalism in full force–chalk one up for the not-so-stealthy advertisers: cha-ching!

you will be assimilated… unless, of course, you resist.”

–P. Mancus. November 25, 2007.

it’s the tree wot did it

In Gena, Alabama, the high school administration cut down a courtyard shade tree.
The tree’s crime?
Racist white kids used it as Whites-Only public space.

Elaine Scarry (if memory serves me) relates an interesting story of how the US army in Vietnam mutilated and destroyed a tree in retribution–not strategically, but in retribution–as well. Opposition soldiers had used it as a shield in an offensive.

One wonders why the school administration could not have established a rule that desegregated public space.
I suppose because the fascist US Supreme Court made such sensible options illegal.

So the conservatives have sent us more marching orders: It’s off to destroy the roots of biological and public life again!

O Great Men, you rule us with such blinding sagacity. No wonder your royal court comes up with these Social Darwinian and Neoclassical Econ theories. How else could we fathom your indisputable fitness to rule?

a society based on laws?

US legal precedence for indefinite detention, military tribunals, and torture is based on rulings from the 1940s:

Korematsu: The Court ruled that Americans of Japanese ethnicity can be imprisoned in interment camps.

Korematsu was based on:

Quinin: Which created the power of the executive to establish military tribunals.

The legal precedence for Quinin?
There was no legal precedence in US law.
So the Court based Quinin on the Divine Right of Henry III, King of England.

Thus, the legality of military tribunals in the U.S. is based on the Divine Right of Kings.
In other words, military tribunals are based on: lawless tyranny.

Beautiful. What do you get when you mix tyranny with inequality with massive wealth and power?
Get. Me. Out. of. Here.

1.5 political parties

Bush quietly advising Hillary Clinton, top Democrats, says new book
Bill Sammon, The Examiner
2007-09-24 23:33:00.0
Current rank: # 4 of 5,087

Washington, D.C. –
President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.

In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’ ”

Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there.”

“Especially if it’s a Democrat,” the chief of staff told The Examiner in his West Wing office. “He wants to create the conditions where a Democrat not only will have the leeway, but the obligation to see it out.”

To that end, the president has been sending advice, mostly through aides, aimed at preventing an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq in the event of a Democratic victory in November 2008.

“It’s different being a candidate and being the president,” Bush said in an Oval Office interview. “No matter who the president is, no matter what party, when they sit here in the Oval Office and seriously consider the effect of a vacuum being created in the Middle East, particularly one trying to be created by al Qaeda, they will then begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.”

To that end, Bush is institutionalizing controversial anti-terror programs so they can be used by the next president.

“Look, I’d like to make as many hard decisions as I can make, and do a lot of the heavy lifting prior to whoever my successor is,” Bush said. “And then that person is going to have to come and look at the same data I’ve been looking at, and come to their own conclusion.”

As an example, Bush cited his detainee program, which allows him to keep enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay while they await adjudication. Bush is unmoved by endless criticism of the program because he says his successor will need it.

“I specifically talked about it so that a candidate and/or president wouldn’t have to deal with the issue,” he said. “The next person has got the opportunity to analyze the utility of the program and make his or her decision about whether or not it is necessary to protect the homeland. I suspect they’ll find that it is necessary. But my only point to you is that it was important for me to lay it out there, so that the politics wouldn’t enter into whether or not the program ought to survive beyond my period.”

The Examiner asked Bush why Democratic candidates such as Clinton and Barack Obama, who routinely lambaste his handling of Iraq, should take his advice.

“First of all, I expect them to criticize me. That’s one way you get elected in the Democratic primary, is to criticize the president,” Bush replied. “I don’t expect them to necessarily take advice from me. I would expect their insiders to at least get a perspective about how we see things.”

He added: “We have an obligation to make sure that whoever is interested, they get our point of view, because you want somebody running for president to at least understand all perspectives, apart from the politics.”

Besides, Bush suggested that Clinton and Obama just might benefit from his advice.

“If I were a candidate running for president in a complex world that we’re in, I would be asking my national security team to touch base with the White House just to at least listen about plans, thoughts,” he said.

So far, Bush has been encouraged by the fact that Democratic candidates are preserving enough wiggle room in their anti-war rhetoric to enable them to keep at least some troops in Iraq.

“If you listen carefully, there are Democrats that say, ‘Well, there needs to be some kind of presence,’” Bush said.

A senior White House official said the administration did not put much stock in pledges by Democratic presidential candidates to swiftly end the Iraq war if elected.

“Well, first of all, if you’re a presidential candidate,” the official said, “you’re able to [finesse] the public posturing that you may be required to do, or that you fall into doing.

“The other thing is, they are being advised by smart people,” the official said. “We’ve got colleagues here on the staff who have good communications with some of the thinkers on that side.

“And there is a recognition by most of them that there has to be a long-term presence by the United States if we hope to avoid America being brought back into the region in a very precarious way, at a point where all-out resources are required.”

One topic discussed by the White House and Democratic presidential campaigns is whether such a long-term presence should be inside Iraq, as Clinton prefers, or just outside, as Democratic candidate John Edwards has suggested.

Asked by The Examiner whether the Democrats were reluctant to have private contacts with the administration, the White House official replied: “No, I think they sort of welcome conversation.”

Besides, he said, Democrats understand the negative consequences of moving too quickly to reverse Bush’s Iraq policy. The official noted that in the wake of Vietnam, anti-war Democrats “suffered for 20-some-odd years because they were identified as the party, when it came to national security, of being weak.”

“If I were a Democrat, I would not want to be in a place where I was forcing us to withdraw in ’08,” he said. “It’s an election year and any bad consequences would immediately be on their head.

“One of two things will happen if a Democrat gets elected president,” he said. “They will either have to withdraw U.S. troops in order to remain true to the rhetoric — in which case, any consequences in the aftermath fall on their heads. Or they have to break their word, in which case they encourage fratricide on the left of their party. Now that’s a thorny issue to work through.”

Vice President Dick Cheney was philosophical about the possibility of a Democratic president fundamentally reversing the policies that he and Bush have worked so hard to implement in Iraq.

“It’s the nature of the business, in a sense,” he shrugged during an interview in his West Wing office. “I mean, you get two terms. We were fortunate to get two terms. And I think we’ll increasingly see a lot of emphasis on deciding who the next occupant of the Oval Office is going to be.”

The 2 justifications for Capitalist Absolutism

The Bush regime is a simple aristocratic executive. As far as I can tell they only have two (2) rationales for every despotic and destructive piece of policy, legislation, rule, and executive order:

(1) Terrorism;

(2) Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil.

It’s such a simple mantra, used to justify eveything from anulling habeas corpus to helping mining robber barons blow off the tops of mountains, that the Two Universal Justifications are even conceptually related. The Two Universal Justifications are so simple, all Communications Professionals can repeat them for every single fucking piece of schlock they pump out, as if they were stating reasons for policies and mandates. Thus all discussion and explanation ends, nowhere, and the holy Capitalist Absolutist era may shine on in all its rapacious glory.

Power’s Memo on Neocon Foreign Policy Dogma

Is Obama the public face of a semi-elite political community (who besides Samantha Power?) trying to reorient the bulk of the Israeli-US-UK foreign policy community? What are the fine distinctions among these belligerents? Bush and Clinton are the public faces of the ruling elite. Their public discourse and policy approach is obviously riddled with flaws. But in the New Absolutism, are they not impervious?

The foreign policy establishment’s opposition to “targeting terrorists” suggests that there may in fact be no terrorist-Others per se. It suggests that “terrorists” are window dressing, and that is why focusing on them is considered “unserious”.

August 3, 2007
To: Interested Parties
From: Samantha Power — Founding Executive Director, Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Re: Conventional Washington versus the Change We Need

It was Washington’s conventional wisdom that led us into the worst strategic blunder in the history of US foreign policy. The rush to invade Iraq was a position advocated by not only the Bush Administration, but also by editorial pages, the foreign policy establishment of both parties, and majorities in both houses of Congress. Those who opposed the war were often labeled weak, inexperienced, and even naïve.
Barack Obama defied conventional wisdom and opposed invading Iraq. He did so at a time when some told him that doing so would doom his political future. He took that risk because he thought it essential that the United States “finish the fight with bin Laden and al Qaeda.” He warned that a “dumb war, a rash war” in Iraq would result in an “occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”
Barack Obama was right; the conventional wisdom was wrong. And today, we see the consequences. Iraq is in chaos. According to the National Intelligence Estimate, the threat to our homeland from terrorist groups is “persistent and evolving.” Al-Qaeda has a safe-haven in Pakistan. Iran has only grown stronger and bolder. The American people are less safe because of a rash war.
Over the last few weeks, Barack Obama has once again taken positions that challenge Washington’s conventional wisdom on foreign policy. And once again, pundits and politicians have leveled charges that are now bankrupt of credibility and devoid of the new ideas that the American people desperately want.
On each point in the last few weeks, Barack Obama has called for a break from a broken way of doing things. On each point, he has brought fresh strategic thinking and common sense that break with the very conventional wisdom that has led us into Iraq.
Diplomacy: For years, conventional wisdom in Washington has said that the United States cannot talk to its adversaries because it would reward them. Here is the result:
* The United States has not talked directly to Iran at a high level, and they have continued to build their nuclear weapons program, wreak havoc in Iraq, and support terror.
* The United States has not talked directly to Syria at a high level, and they have continued to meddle in Lebanon and support terror.
* The United States did not talk to North Korea for years, and they were able to produce enough material for 6 to 8 more nuclear bombs.
By any measure, not talking has not worked. Conventional wisdom would have us continue this policy; Barack Obama would turn the page. He knows that not talking has made us look weak and stubborn in the world; that skillful diplomacy can drive wedges between your adversaries; that the only way to know your enemy is to take his measure; and that tough talk is of little use if you’re not willing to do it directly to your adversary. Barack Obama is not afraid of losing a PR battle to a dictator – he’s ready to tell them what they don’t want to hear because that’s how tough, smart diplomacy works, and that’s how American leaders have scored some of the greatest strategic successes in US history.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right; the conventional wisdom is wrong. We need a new era of tough, principled and engaged American diplomacy to deal with 21st century challenges.
Terrorist Sanctuaries: For years, we have given President Musharraf hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid, while deferring to his cautious judgment on how to take out high-level al Qaeda targets – including, most likely, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Here is the result:
* Bin Laden and Zawahiri – two men with direct responsibility for 9/11– remain at large.
* Al Qaeda has trained and deployed hundreds of fighters worldwide from its sanctuary in northwest Pakistan.
* Afghanistan is far less secure because the Taliban can strike across the border, and then return to safety in Pakistan.
By any measure, this strategy has not worked. Conventional wisdom would have us defer to Musharraf in perpetuity. Barack Obama wants to turn the page. If Musharraf is willing to go after the terrorists and stop the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base of operations, Obama would give him all of the support he needs. But Obama made clear that as President, if he had actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan – and the Pakistanis continued to refuse to act against terrorists known to be behind attacks on American civilians – then he will use highly targeted force to do so.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right; the conventional wisdom is wrong. We need a new era that moves beyond the conventional wisdom that has brought us over-reliance on an unreliable dictator in Pakistan and an occupation of Iraq.
Nuclear Attacks on Terrorist Targets: For years, Washington’s conventional wisdom has held that candidates for President are judged not by their wisdom, but rather by their adherence to hackneyed rhetoric that make little sense beyond the Beltway. When asked whether he would use nuclear weapons to take out terrorist targets in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Barack Obama gave the sensible answer that nuclear force was not necessary, and would kill too many civilians. Conventional wisdom held this up as a sign of inexperience. But if experience leads you to make gratuitous threats about nuclear use – inflaming fears at home and abroad, and signaling nuclear powers and nuclear aspirants that using nuclear weapons is acceptable behavior, it is experience that should not be relied upon.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It is wrong to propose that we would drop nuclear bombs on terrorist training camps in Pakistan, potentially killing tens of thousands of people and sending America’s prestige in the world to a level that not even George Bush could take it. We should judge presidential candidates on their judgment and their plans, not on their ability to recite platitudes.
Vision: American foreign policy is broken. It has been broken by people who supported the Iraq War, opposed talking to our adversaries, failed to finish the job with al Qaeda, and alienated the world with our belligerence. Yet conventional wisdom holds that people whose experience includes taking these positions are held up as examples of what America needs in times of trouble.
Barack Obama says we have to turn the page. We cannot afford any more of this kind of bankrupt conventional wisdom. He has laid out a foreign policy that is bold, clear, principled, and tailored for the 21st century. End a war we should never have fought, concentrate our resources against terrorists who threaten America. End the counter-productive policy of lumping together our adversaries and avoiding talking to our foes. End the era of politics that is all sound-bites and no substance, and offer the American people the change that they need.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right. It is conventional wisdom that has to change.

Foundational Policy Moments

… brought to you, courtesy of academic professionalization:

In The Mismeasure of Man (1981), Stephen Jay Gould demonstrates that one of the founding moments in 20th century US political history is a technocratic racism moment as well.

At the turn of the twentieth century, a psychology academic functionary, Robert Yerkes, aimed to establish his discipline as a policy-contributing science by offering, to that fundamental American institution the US Army, to administer to all recruits intelligence tests–devised by himself. This was a period of high immigration and high inequality. The US government agreed. Yerkes was able to process millions of tests, which–very biased, very poorly formulated–“showed” that the average American male in the army was…mentally retarded.

The policy conclusion?

To psychologists and policymakers, Yerkes’ results authorized the conclusion that US political and economic policy should be run–not to reduce inequality and improve human capital across the immigrant population, as you might think–but rather to preserve and manage a population kept functionally retarded. This is what Goran Therborn (2013) means by conservative stunting, in the psychological militaristic-society-meets-slaver-society knowledge and governance program. The army brass and helpful, professional psychologists concluded (surprise, surprise) that democracy is not feasible, given the U.S. population is filled with what they regarded as mentally-retarded ethnic others and working class mental-deficients, a natural resource of inferiors.

Academic ambitions reinforced the American conservative anti-democratic bent through scientism.

 

…

 

Radically-individualistic Anglo-American Psychology is a standout in its professional political conservatism. It’s the crudely biased, politically-mobilized, gaudily-marketed construction of knowledge in the fashion of Psychologists Yerkes and Jonathan Haidt that lends credence to 20th century social philosophy’s claim, as per Foucault, that all non-economics social scientific knowledge is nothing more than parasitical governance technology. (Foucault thinks that conservative economics, implicitly like that other true ruling knowledge, philosophy, escapes subordination to the parasitical knowledge-power regulation function, by deploying a strict discourse of objective, apolitical logic and truth. Eyeroll.)

 

As well, clearly other scholars have lent their sanction to conservative politics and policy, in order to further their professional goals. Ehrenreich discusses a conservative policy position (the culture of poverty theoretical construct) unwittingly unleashed by anthropologists and sociologists concerned with professionalism and career (although, more understandably, in the face of repression, and again, a little more unwittingly. It’s a good example of how socialists can produce conservatism to stay in a terribly-rigged game). Fraser describes how feminists and other post-modernists were similarly incentivized to contribute to conservatization.

 

I’m still waiting on Careerism: Prolegomena to a Political Theory.

the context of falling bridges

Empire Burlesque has a good analysis of the crumbling US infrastructure.

See: http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Everything_is_Broken%3A_Money_Power_and_the_Minneapolis_Bridge/

Look at the recent collapse of a major Minneapolis bridge. It was a bridge over 60 feet above the Mississippi, over 1000 feet long (450 of which were only supported by a steel beam inserted in 1967), smack in the middle of the city.
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6927113.stm.

The communications professionals are reporting it as “not involving a terrorist attack”. OK. Good semi-diversion. But what is it–and all the other growing infrastructure fatalities around the US–the result of then?

Q. What do you get after 25 years with the dogma “No taxes”?

A. The infrastructure of the US is collapsing.

Get it?

Here’s the report card on American infrastructure from the American Society of Civil Engineers:
http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/page.cfm?id=103.

If you want to be honest about it, it’s not just transportation infrastructure. It’s obviously education. Plus the complete lack of healthcare for the underclass. In our faith that inequality is OK, we are bringing not just the underclass but the whole society down, while the happy, blithe, unaccountable overclass builds themselves golden rafts.

With any luck, MInnesota will realize what they’ve done to themselves, vote the Republicans out, start paying taxes again, and stick in a light rail where the bridge used to be.

Don’t know where to start? Call up the Swedes. Go ahead. They speak English really well, due to their excellent and affordable PUBLIC education system. And don’t call up those fucking Alliance vultures. Call the LO economists. They’ll help you figure out how to run a vibrant society that doesn’t foster greed and corruption. I’d recommend doing it quickly, before the neoliberals eradicate social democracy and all we’ve got left is our fat asses propped up by the stump of the giving tree.

US Infrastructure Collapse

Below Christopher Dreher interviews Richard Florida on the collapse of our cities, since we have stopped trying to improve mass quality of life.

“Florida: Cities are the places that attract talent. I mean, consider that 90 percent of GDP comes out of metropolitan areas. And yet somehow some people think that we don’t need cities. Not only do we have to open our borders, we have to strengthen our cities massively because they’re the cornerstones of our ability to compete for talent. But for the past four years the Bush administration has done everything to prevent that, from huge decreases in infrastructure spending to drastic cuts in block grants.

And now most cities aren’t equipped to compete anymore. The only policy we seem to have to revive our cities is to build another stadium. What does that have to do with attracting foreign talent? Who cares? No one cares. I’ve never met one foreign-born person that said “a new stadium” was an important factor when deciding where to live and work. The national government is clueless and our cities would rather be distracted by sports mania instead of paying attention to more serious issues.

Once I heard a former high-ranking member of the Bush administration on economic policy, when asked about immigration and national security, say, “If it comes down to a question of national security and economic growth, we will always choose in favor of national security. I don’t care if it means that the next Bill Gates can’t get in …” And that’s a view shared by many members of the administration, at least what we’ve seen in policy.

But the bigger issue is not the Bush administration. The bigger issue is the class divide, which is destroying our country. And that divide is between people who are members of the creative class and fortunate enough to migrate from Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Buffalo or St. Louis to these great thriving creative centers like New York and Boston and Washington and San Francisco and Chicago and Los Angeles. Those people are doing just fine. But the people left behind got really pissed off and got angrier and angrier and madder and madder, and they looked at these cities filled with single people, filled with young people, filled with successful people, filled with immigrants, filled with people cohabitating, having fun, vibrant night life, filled with gay people, and they said “Enough’s enough!”

The blame for this situation also goes to the Democrats, because when the Democrats were in power President Clinton, whom I admire greatly, did not build a society that provided a way for these people to become part of the creative economy. So it’s this anxiety that’s grown up as a result of the rise of the creative economy — whose benefits are extraordinarily concentrated among a relatively small group of people in an even smaller group of regions — that’s ripping this society apart. And that’s what political polarization really is. It isn’t just an issue between red and blue states, it’s a political polarization which has underneath it a new economic geography of class. And it’s terrifying.

What (Franklin) Roosevelt (said is), ‘I’m going to make sure that these working-class people get to be part of the industrial economy. I’m going to build an industrial society that allows people to organize and bargain collectively, raise their wages, has affordable housing, get long-term mortgages, provides occupational safety and health, Social Security in their old age and welfare in their spells of poverty. And I’m going to make sure that their kids can go to college.’

What’s happening in Canada, in Australia, in Scandinavia — I went and met with the premiers of West Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. I met with labor governors and liberal party mayors. All of them are building platforms, and the one in South Australia was remarkable — they invest in productivity and prosperity, invest in economic opportunity, use the market and make sure they’re a creative society with ecological sustainability and social inclusion. So the dialogue in Australia and Canada and Scandinavia is about how to build a creative or innovation economy and how to build that kind of social safety net. Or, a better phrase than social safety net would be socially inclusive innovation. It’s not so much a social safety net like the old industrial economy but it’s a way of making sure people are included as a part of it. But that dialogue isn’t happening in the United States and this is what abjectly terrifies me.

What no one really understands is that in the creative economy, what makes us different and yet the same is our creativity. Every single human being is creative. Every single human being has creative possibility. Whether it’s a blue-collar worker or somebody who cuts your hair, or somebody who waxes your back, or somebody who works in a high-tech company, or somebody who writes poems. What we all have is our creativity. And we can actually organize people on that basis. We can say, ‘We’re all different yet we’re part of the same whole thing.’ Why can’t the Democrats articulate that message?’

Dreher: Why do you say the anti-elitism of George Bush & Co. is so harmful?

Florida: Here’s a guy who went to a private prep school, to Yale and to Harvard. And he’s developed a posture as an anti-elite to cultivate the support of the people who are terrified, legitimately terrified, about how they fit into the creative economy. He’s appealing to the common man by saying, “You know what we’re going to do, we’re going to stop this. All these things you’re afraid of, we’re going to stop. We’re going to stop this gay marriage thing and we’re going to stop women’s rights, we’re going to make sure not as many immigrants will get into your country and we’re going to make sure terrorists don’t take over your cities!” It’s the old Know Nothing platform.

Dreher: The idea of promoting “socially inclusive innovation” might fly in Australia and Scandinavia, but I can’t think of any politician out there who could weather the fury of rote partisan criticism supporting that sort of change would bring out.

Florida: Yes, what scares me is that that force is absent from present-day America. Instead of bemoaning low-wage service jobs and then just talking about restoring manufacturing and dealing with outsourcing, someone somewhere has to say that the real key to the future is to make these service jobs good jobs. I mean that’s the real policy point — the service economy, which represents 40 to 45 percent of the lowest paying jobs in our economy with the least protection, has to become part of the creative economy. We have to change those jobs in the way industrial jobs were once changed from being terrible jobs to being good jobs. We’re in deep trouble if we can’t focus on and address the externalities of the creative age — income inequality, the class divide, housing unaffordability, traffic congestion, and the one also talked about in the book, the incredible amount of mental stress, which is the occupational health and safety issue of the 21st century.

The point is that if all this continues, America’s economic advantage is gone. It’ll become an intolerant place, the kind of place where lines are drawn in the sand, where gays don’t feel comfortable, where young people don’t feel comfortable, where immigrants and newcomers don’t feel comfortable. The fact is that according to our rankings, the U.S. is 20th in tolerance out of 45 countries. As a country we’re not ranking with the equivalent of the San Franciscos or Austins, we’re ranking with the equivalent of the conservative Southern areas. And that’s a huge problem.

If we fail to address this fundamental class divide — on which these evangelicals and social conservatives and all this stuff is being promulgated — if we can’t address that class divide, we are in very deep shit. And it’s not enough anymore to just say, ‘Well, we’re going to tweak our immigration policy,’ or ‘We’ll take a closer look at what’s happening to our cities.'”

(Excerpted from Dreher, Christopher. 2005. “The Gay/Hipster Index.” Salon.com, April 21. http://dir.salon.com/story/books/int/2005/04/21/florida/.)

See: http://pragid.blogspot.com/2007/07/tolerant-creative-class.html
For a review of Florida by an urban historian.
…
As an economist, Florida doesn’t see how the traumatic and stultifying rise of inequality relates to our subserviance to the economics dogma–our elite-dictated worship of inequality and market efficiency, as well as our incapacity to overhaul a patronage and pork barrel political system.