#and as wage labor became more regulated and demanding

[odinsblog]

Billionaire fossil fuel mogul David Koch died August 23, 2019. Though he will rightfully be remembered for his role in the destruction of the earth, David Koch’s influence went far beyond climate denial. Ronald Reagan may have uttered the famous words, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” back in 1981—but it was David Koch, along with his elder brother Charles and a cabal of other ultrarich individuals, who truly reframed the popular view of government. Once a democratic tool used to shape the country’s future, government became seen as something intrusive and inefficient—indeed, something to be feared.

“While Charles was the mastermind of the social reengineering of the America he envisioned,” said Lisa Graves, co-director of the corporate watchdog group Documented, “David was an enthusiastic lieutenant.”

David Koch was particularly instrumental in legitimizing anti-government ideology—one the GOP now holds as gospel. In 1980, the younger Koch ran as the vice-presidential nominee for the nascent Libertarian Party. And a newly unearthed document shows Koch personally donated more than $2 million to the party—an astounding amount for the time—to promote the Ed Clark–David Koch ticket.

“Few people realize that the anti-American government antecedent to the Tea Party was fomented in the late ’70s with money from Charles and David Koch,” Graves continued. “The Libertarian Party, fueled in part with David’s wealth, pushed hard on the idea that government was the problem and the free market was the solution to everything.”

In fact, according to Graves, “The Koch-funded Libertarian Party helped spur on Ronald Reagan’s anti-government, free-market-solves-all agenda as president.”

Even by contemporary standards, the 1980 Libertarian Party platform was extreme. It called for the abolition of a wide swath of federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Election Commission, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Federal Trade Commission, and “all government agencies concerned with transportation.” It railed against campaign finance and consumer protection laws, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, any regulations of the firearm industry (including tear gas), and government intervention in labor negotiations. And the platform demanded the repeal of all taxation, and sought amnesty for those convicted of tax “resistance.”

Koch and his libertarian allies moreover advocated for the repeal of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs. They wanted to abolish federally mandated speed limits. They opposed occupational licensure, antitrust laws, labor laws protecting women and children, and “all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates.” And in true libertarian fashion, the platform urged the privatization of all schools (with an end to compulsory education laws), the railroad system, public roads and the national highway system, inland waterways, water distribution systems, public lands, and dam sites.

The Libertarian Party never made much of a splash in the election—though it did garner almost 12 percent of the vote in Alaska—but doing so was never the point. Rather, the Kochs were engaged in a long-term effort to normalize the aforementioned ideas and mainstream them into American politics.

(continue reading)

[landmark-manpower-solutions]

The Rise of Nepalese Manpower: A Success Story in Foreign Job Markets

Over the past few decades, Nepal, a small landlocked country nestled in the Himalayas, has seen a significant transformation in its socio-economic landscape. One of the most remarkable aspects of this transformation is the rise of manpower agency in Nepal in foreign job markets. From construction sites in the Middle East to nursing homes in Europe, Nepalese workers have established a strong presence, contributing not only to the economies of their host countries but also sending vital remittances back home, thus playing a pivotal role in Nepal's economic development. This blog explores the factors behind this rise, the success stories, and the challenges faced by Nepalese workers abroad.

Historical Context

The history of Nepalese migration for work dates back to the early 19th century when young men were recruited into the British Gurkha regiments. However, it was in the latter half of the 20th century, particularly post-1990s, that large-scale labor migration began to take shape. Political instability, limited job opportunities, and economic challenges in Nepal pushed many to seek employment abroad. The liberalization of the economy and globalization further facilitated this trend.

Factors Contributing to the Rise

Economic Necessity

Nepal is an agrarian country, and while agriculture employs a significant portion of the population, it often does not provide sufficient income. With limited industrialization and high unemployment rates, working abroad became a viable option for many Nepalese. The allure of higher wages and better living standards in countries like Qatar, the UAE, Malaysia, and South Korea attracted a large number of workers.

Government Policies

The Nepalese government recognized the potential of foreign employment early on and established policies and institutions to facilitate labor migration. The establishment of the Department of Foreign Employment and the Foreign Employment Promotion Board played crucial roles in regulating and promoting overseas employment. The government also signed bilateral agreements with several countries to ensure better working conditions and rights for Nepalese workers.

Training and Skill Development

The demand for skilled labor in various sectors abroad led to the establishment of vocational training centers in Nepal. These centers provide training in fields such as construction, healthcare, hospitality, and IT, equipping workers with the necessary skills to compete in the global job market. The emphasis on skill development has significantly enhanced the employability of Nepalese workers.

Network and Community Support

Over the years, a strong network of Nepalese communities has developed in major destination countries. These communities provide crucial support to new migrants, helping them navigate the challenges of living and working in a foreign land. The presence of established Nepalese diaspora also creates a positive feedback loop, encouraging more people to migrate.

Success Stories

Middle East Construction Workers

One of the most notable success stories is that of Nepalese construction workers in the Middle East. Countries like Qatar and the UAE have witnessed rapid infrastructural development, leading to a high demand for construction labor. Nepalese workers have been instrumental in building some of the most iconic structures in these countries, including stadiums for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. Their hard work and dedication have earned them a reputation for reliability and skill.

Healthcare Professionals

Another area where Nepalese manpower has excelled is the healthcare sector. Nurses and caregivers from Nepal are highly sought after in countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia. Their proficiency in English, coupled with their training and compassionate nature, makes them ideal candidates for healthcare roles. Many Nepalese nurses have advanced their careers abroad, contributing significantly to the healthcare systems of their host countries.

Entrepreneurship and Business

Beyond blue-collar jobs, Nepalese migrants have also made their mark as entrepreneurs and business professionals. In countries with significant Nepalese populations, such as the UK and the US, Nepalese entrepreneurs have established successful businesses ranging from restaurants to IT firms. These businesses not only provide employment to fellow Nepalese but also contribute to the multicultural fabric of their host societies.

Challenges and Issues

Despite these success stories, Nepalese workers face several challenges in foreign job markets.

Exploitation and Abuse

Reports of exploitation and abuse of migrant workers, particularly in the Middle East, are not uncommon. Issues such as withholding of passports, non-payment of wages, and poor working conditions are prevalent. Although bilateral agreements and international advocacy have led to some improvements, much remains to be done to ensure the protection of workers' rights.

Social and Psychological Impact

Working abroad often means being away from family and loved ones for extended periods. This separation can have profound social and psychological impacts on both the workers and their families. Issues such as loneliness, stress, and cultural adjustment are common challenges faced by Nepalese workers abroad.

Economic Dependence

While remittances play a crucial role in Nepal's economy, there is a growing concern about the country's over-reliance on foreign employment. The dependence on remittances can be a double-edged sword, making the economy vulnerable to fluctuations in global job markets and political changes in host countries.

Looking Ahead

The rise of Nepalese manpower in foreign job markets is a testament to the resilience and determination of Nepalese people. However, there is a need for a more sustainable approach to labor migration. The Nepalese government, along with international organizations, must continue to work towards ensuring the rights and welfare of migrant workers. Additionally, efforts to create more job opportunities within Nepal through industrialization and economic diversification are essential to reduce the dependence on foreign employment.

In conclusion, the story of Nepalese manpower in foreign job markets is one of both success and challenge. The contributions of Nepalese workers to the global economy and their own country's development are immense. As Nepal continues to evolve, it is crucial to build on this success while addressing the underlying issues to ensure a brighter future for all Nepalese workers.

[tastydregs]

OpenAI Says Stonemasons Should Be Fine in the Brave New World

A new paper released Monday says that 80% of the U.S. workforce will see the impact of large language models on their work. While some will only experience a moderate amount of impact on their day to day workload, close to 20% of those working today will likely find about half of their tasks automated to some extent by AI.

The paper published by Cornell University was led by several OpenAI researchers working alongside a researcher at nonprofit lab OpenResearch, which is chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. With the release of OpenAI’s latest version of its LLM, GPT-4, the company is already promoting how it can score well on tests like the Biology Olympiad, but this report also analyzes likely applications for AI that are capable with current LLM models. AI already has text and code-generation capabilities (even if AI developers are still trying to convince people to not trust content their AI creates), as well as the routinely discussed implications for art, speech, and video.

All in all, the paper strays from making any declarative statements about job impacts. It instead analyzes jobs that are more likely to have some “exposure” to AI generation, meaning it will take 50% less time to complete a job’s common task. All in all, most high-paying white collar work will find AI pushing into their fields. Those in science or “critical thinking” fields, as the paper calls it, will have less exposure, pointing to the modern AI’s utter limitations in creating novel content. Programmers and writers, on the other hand, are likely to see quite a lot of exposure.

Though the paper describes this “exposure” to AI without identifying if it has any real labor-displacing effects, it’s not easy to identify the companies who are already looking at AI as a way to reduce labor costs. CNET’s parent company Red Ventures has been held under the microscope for its use of AI-written articles, after it was discovered how inaccurate the articles often were. Earlier this month, CNET laid off around a dozen staffers. According to The Verge, the editor in chief Connie Guglielmo became the company’s senior VP of AI content strategy.

Of course, there’s a difference between white collar workers playing around with ChatGPT and the workplace demanding workers use a chatbot to automate their work. An IBM and Morning Consult survey from last year said 66% of companies worldwide are either using or exploring AI, and that was before the AI hype train took on more coal at the end of last year with ChatGPT. The survey said 42% of that adoption was driven by the need to reduce costs and “automate key processes.” You can very well argue that programmers and writers are often engaging in that previously mentioned “critical thinking” as much as any other subject, but will some managers and company owners think the same way if they’re told AI can help them reduce head counts?

And of course, your average blue collar job won’t see any real impact. The paper makes special mention of a few of these jobs, making oddly specific mention of derrick operators, cutlers, pile driver operators, and stonemasons. Those without higher education degrees will experience less impact by AI, and some of these unaffected jobs, like short order cooks or dishwashers, are already far on the lower end of the pay scale. It’s still unlikely that these jobs will be re-evaluated to finally think about offering these workers a living wage, even if other jobs may suffer.

And as these models improve over time, the effect will only grow. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has mentioned some more light-touch regulation, but the President Joe Biden administration’s own Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights mentions people should be able to “opt out” of AI systems in favor of human alternatives. The bill of rights does not really mention any ways to mitigate the impacts AI could have on the labor market. The report notes the “difficulty” of regulating AI because of its constant shifts, but it shies away from any noted general thoughts lawmakers could follow.

Sure, the paper doesn’t analyze the likelihood of a job being substituted by AI, but it doesn’t take much to get there. The paper describes most jobs by their simple “tasks” rather than their application, which is a problem when you’re trying to discuss whether an AI can perform at the same level as a human. Simply put, at this point, AI-generated content is nowhere near surpassing the quality or originality as human-created content. 

A report from the US-EU Trade and Technology Council published by the White House last December mentions AI can potentially “expos[e] large new swaths of the workforce to potential disruption.” The report mentioned while past automation impacted “routine” tasks, AI can impact “nonroutine” tasks. Now it’s up to employers just how much “nonroutine” tasks they think they still need actual humans to perform.

[mbdailynews]

More Companies Than Ever Are Sharing How Much Jobs Pay

Ready or not, what your job pays is about to get a lot less private. California, with its roughly 19 million workers and some of the biggest US companies, Tuesday became the latest state to join a quickly growing nationwide salary transparency movement. Just a year ago, only Colorado required employers to list salary ranges on job postings. In November, a similar rule in New York City will go into effect followed by another in Washington state early next year. With California joining, companies like Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. will have to comply by January 2023. New York state Governor Kathy Hochul also has a bill on her desk, which would kick in 270 days after its signed, and a few other states mandate companies share pay pay expectations for open roles on demand. Even in places where it’s not required, employers have started listing pay information on job ads — with more likely to follow. A recent survey of executives from Willis Towers Watson Plc found that 17% of companies already voluntarily list pay ranges and another 62% of organizations are planning to do the same or are considering it. Subscribe today and get 52 weeks of The WSJ Print Edition with daily delivery for $318 “We’re approaching the point at which a job posting without pay will be like going through a supermarket and not seeing a price on your can of soup,” said Scott Moss, director of the division of labor and statistics at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, where he oversees enforcement of the state’s pay transparency law. Regulators have latched onto salary transparency as a way to chip away at the stubborn gender and racial wage gaps. Historically, employers have kept pay shrouded in secrecy, reinforcing longstanding taboos that keep workers hush about what they make. That can lead to inconsistencies that disproportionately hurt women and other underrepresented workers. A little sunlight, however, can reveal discrepancies and force corrections. These new crop of laws doesn’t mean everyone will know exactly how much their desk-mates are making. But they demand just enough information to help employees suss if they’re underpaid. All anyone has to do is look at open positions for their current role and see if, or where, they fall in the range. “Companies are extremely concerned and they are anticipating employees raising their hands ” said Nancy Romanyshyn, a director at Syndio, which makes software that helps companies eliminate pay disparities. At the very least, managers need to be ready to explain why some jobs pay more or less than others to help workers understand where they fit in. In some cases, they may even have to reset or reevaluate pay. Get a 5-years subscription to the WSJ and Barrons News for $89 The process can be disruptive and uncomfortable, though it ultimately leads to more fairness, Romanyshyn said. “I know I feel icky talking about salaries. I’m of an age where you don’t talk about your politics, you don’t talk about your salary, you don’t talk about religion,” she said. “But why shouldn’t somebody know what a job pays?” Workers increasingly agree with that sentiment. In a recent survey from the human resources analytics platform Visier, 80% of respondents said they wanted some form of salary transparency and 68% said they would switch jobs to work somewhere with greater visibility into pay. Younger generations are also much more likely to feel comfortable sharing how much they make than older ones. Generational Divide Younger workers are more comfortable talking about their salary Andrew Wright, a Denver based finance professional currently on the hunt for a new job gets turned off when he comes across otherwise good opportunities missing that crucial data. “Even if there’s a job where the duties and the day to day things sound interesting to me, if I know that they are supposed to be listing the salary and they don’t, that does lose a bit of trust,” the 31-year-old said. Wright says he has seen postings that try to skirt Colorado’s rules by being vague where the job can be done. “Are they trying to hold back for some specific reason? Are they trying to hide it because they aren’t going to offer very much?” he said. Some companies, trying to get ahead of regulations and appeal to workers like Wright in a tight labor market, have decided to be upfront about pay for all new roles, regardless of location. Seattle-based Microsoft Corp., for example, announced a blanket salary-range rule for all postings — not just ones based in Washington state, as will be required by the state’s law in a few months. Job search portal Indeed earlier this year said 75% of new postings to its site include salary expectations; LinkedIn reported a 35% increase in the phenomenon in the first half of this year. Justin Hampton, a compensation specialist, has also seen a rise in public pay data in the UK, India, Australia, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates. Buy The New York Times+Wall Street Journal 5-Year Digital Subscription, and take 77% off Some organizations may continue to resist the trend. State fines for violating pay transparency laws are relatively minor, starting as low as $100 per incident. Some, like New York’s, exclude first-time offenders. And of course, many states don’t have such laws. In addition, there are no requirements about listing bonuses or benefits, which make up a good chunk of compensation. And, to skirt the rules, employers could forgo posting openings altogether, using backchannel recruiting and networking to fill jobs, which can hinder diversity efforts. Though, that's difficult to do when hiring on a large scale. Still, Colorado so far has only fined three companies out of the 278 complaints it has investigated. Moss, Colorado’s enforcer, said most big firms got on board almost immediately. Some smaller companies weren’t initially aware of the law or didn’t have the staff to quickly comply. “Companies are smart enough to know ‘We can like it, we can hate it, it’s happening regardless. So it would behoove us to prepare and make sure we’re putting our best foot forward.’” Syndio pay consultant Romanyshyn said. “Companies need to have a grown-up conversation with employees about how they get paid.” Read the full article

[thelibraryiscool]

“... Women also predominate in accounts of gathering and scavenging activities associated with the commons and wastes. The berry gatherers and besom makers of Surrey were women. Women and girls, in gangs and independently, cockled and musselled around the Lancashire coast and along the shores of the Wash. Although all family members took pride in their pig, mothers and children were particularly creative in their use of humble resources in its fattening...”

“... Women were also the principal gatherers of fuel: in Cornwall they would cut furze in early summer from thickets up to ten feet high, in the Midlands collect straw and stubble, and in Surrey bring home prodigious loads of wood or sacks of fir cones picked up in the woods a mile or more away. And they combined this with other responsibilities: George Sturt remembered meeting women bent nearly double under loads of fire wood, "toiling painfully along, with hats or bonnets pushed awry ... occasionally tiny urchins, too small to be left at home alone, would be clinging to their mothers' frocks...”

“... By providing some members of the laborer's family with alternatives to wage labor, the commons liberated them from the beck and call of the farmers. Access to other sources of subsistence meant that, in the short term at least, a wageless laborer would not starve. Nor would his family. In the terms of the times these were not paltry degrees of freedom.”

-- Jane Humphries, “Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” in The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Mar., 1990), pp. 17-42

[yourreddancer]

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

August 13, 2022 (Saturday)

Since it seems clear we will be deciding whether we want to preserve the Social Security Act by our choice of leaders in the next few elections, I thought it not unreasonable to reprint this piece from last year about why people in the 1930s thought the measure was imperative. There is more news about the classified material at Mar-a-Lago, but nothing that can’t wait another day so I can catch this anniversary.

By the time most of you will read this, it will be August 14, and on this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While FDR’s New Deal had put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that. It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

The driving force behind the law was FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she lasted from 1933 to 1945.

She brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men worked their way up, providing for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that people in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support.

As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, where the old-fashioned, close-knit community supported those in need. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying.

The next year, in 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and fire in the factory, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire turned Perkins away from voluntary organizations to improve workers’ lives and toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system, the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive.

The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering caused by the Great Depression made Perkins realize that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

Through her Tammany connections, Perkins met FDR, and when he asked her to be his Secretary of Labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation. They said they worried that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that those displaced by the Depression had added new pressure to the idea of old-age insurance.

In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy.

Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric, and together, they began to change the public conversation about social welfare policies.

They spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn't have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn't stay long enough in any one place, they didn't have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.”

FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan to create a basic social safety net, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with a final plan, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.”By the time the bill came to a vote in Congress, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.

When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.”

With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.

When she recalled the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins recalled: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

[acronymking4tdp]

History I Have Forgotten - Or Never Learned

August 13, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 14

Since it seems clear we will be deciding whether we want to preserve the Social Security Act by our choice of leaders in the next few elections, I thought it not unreasonable to reprint this piece from last year about why people in the 1930s thought the measure was imperative. There is more news about the classified material at Mar-a-Lago, but nothing that can’t wait another day so I can catch this anniversary. By the time most of you will read this, it will be August 14, and on this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While FDR’s New Deal had put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government. The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that. It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net. The driving force behind the law was FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she lasted from 1933 to 1945. She brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men worked their way up, providing for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that people in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support. As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, where the old-fashioned, close-knit community supported those in need. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying. The next year, in 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and fire in the factory, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire turned Perkins away from voluntary organizations to improve workers’ lives and toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system, the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive. The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering caused by the Great Depression made Perkins realize that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.” Through her Tammany connections, Perkins met FDR, and when he asked her to be his Secretary of Labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’” Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation. They said they worried that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that those displaced by the Depression had added new pressure to the idea of old-age insurance. In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy. Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric, and together, they began to change the public conversation about social welfare policies. They spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn't have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn't stay long enough in any one place, they didn't have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.” FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan to create a basic social safety net, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with a final plan, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.” By the time the bill came to a vote in Congress, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate. When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.” With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself. When she recalled the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins recalled: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

—

Notes:

https://www.ssa.gov/history/35actinx.html

https://www.ssa.gov/history/perkins5.html

https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

[dwellordream]

“...By the 1920s, only the very poorest Danish families had to depend on the economic contributions of adolescent children for survival, but in most households daughters were still expected to help supplement the household income by handing over their pay. Especially in their first years as wage earners, parental control over children's income was considerable. Mothers in charge of the family budget generally kept most of the wages, permitting adolescent wage earners only a limited weekly allowance for personal expenses. Young women's family responsibilities continued in other ways as well. 

While sons were given much more leeway, daughters were generally expected to contribute their labor to the household after they arrived home from work. "In my family, all the children were sent out to work after their [Christian] confirmation [at the age of thirteen or fourteen], and we all had to give mother some of the money we earned for housekeeping," Gerda Eriksen recalled of her working class youth in the early 1920s. "But," she continued, "the girls also had their chores—running errands, peeling potatoes, setting and cleaning the table, doing the dishes, bringing up coal from the basement. My brothers never had to do any of that. That was women's work."

But if contributing wages and labor to the household continued to be the unquestioned norm, young women's sense of their rights and obligations vis-a-vis the family was nevertheless changing in other ways in the early decades of the twentieth century. When earnings were sufficient, some daughters decided to strike out on their own and live independently in rented rooms, small apartments, or boarding houses, but given their low wages this was a possibility for the very few. More frequently, young working women sought to use their earnings as leverage to negotiate a stronger position within the family. Especially after World War I, when most families were able to place themselves safely beyond the poverty line, the necessity of individual sacrifice for household survival began to fade.

This allowed even working-class daughters to assert their right to new privileges in exchange for their economic contributions, and in the 1920s they did so in increasing numbers. Young women's sense of what they could legitimately demand from their families clearly sprang from their status and experiences as wage earners outside the home. In the labor market, and particularly in jobs other than domestic service, young women learned a rhythm of time and labor that divided daily life into paid work and one's "own" time. This was a rhythm already familiar to most men, whose lives had long been split into realms of work and leisure. Therefore, (male) wage earners were the obvious beneficiaries when Danish government regulations in 1919 limited the work day to eight hours, allowing working men more free time than ever before. 

Married women, on the other hand, did not experience a similar shortening of the workday. Whether they worked outside the home or not, housework, child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning were never ending tasks, and unlike their husbands, they had to snatch their few leisured moments in between domestic responsibilities. As working women, daughters were precariously positioned between these different patterns of daily life. Even though they took on wage labor much like their fathers and brothers, young women were simultaneously expected to share the steady burdens of domestic work with their mothers and to devote their nonworking time to household labor. 

It was this discrepancy between expectations fostered by labor market participation in the context of increasing standards of living, and the realities of family life that became increasingly intolerable for many young women in the 1910s and 1920s. In their minds, earning a living and bringing home money positioned them on a par with male members of the family, entitling them to at least some of the same prerogatives. Consequently, while they did not resist having to hand over a substantial part of their earnings, they more and more openly resented that their financial contribution did not always earn them what they considered its reasonable counterpart, namely the right to free time. As a result, families with adolescent daughters were plunged into conflicts about the degree of personal autonomy that labor market participation and wages ought to bestow. 

Intrafamilial conflicts are often difficult for historians to document, but in this case tensions between parents and children are easily discernible. They surface, for instance, in the immensely popular advice columns of the 1910s and 1920s. Convinced of their right as wage earners to at least some free time and exasperated by their parents' unwillingness to grant them this privilege, some young women turned to advice columnists, hoping for replies that would affirm the legitimacy of their demands. 

Among the correspondents was "Betty" who openly questioned her parents' authority. "I work from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. every day," she explained. "When I come home, I am tired, but I still have to fix dinner and look after my younger sister. In the evenings my parents say I have to do needle-work, but I would rather read or go for a walk. Can they really demand that I stay at home? I am seventeen and a half years old, and I pay my mother Dkr. 8 every week."

Similarly, "a Copenhagen girl" found the relationship between rights and duties in her life unreasonable. "Before I leave in the morning," she complained, "I have to light the fire, make coffee and pack lunches. When I come home, the dishes are still sitting there, and there are errands to be run. Sometimes I want to meet my girlfriend at night, but my parents will almost never let me go. They say there is no reason to 'gad about,' but I don't understand what is wrong with having a little bit of fun at night when you work all day." Other evidence also suggests that many young women openly struggled to obtain the right to leisure and independent activities they thought they deserved. 

Personal narratives often reveal both the intensity of such conflicts and the ingenuity of young women bent on getting their way. Emilie Johansen, who grew up in a middle-class family in a suburb of Aarhus recalled, for example, how she and her sister enlisted the help of an older aunt in their conflicts with an authoritarian father. "He was so strict. He would never allow us to have any fun, never allow us to go anywhere. It was hopeless. But then my aunt—I guess she was feeling sorry for us— we talked to her, and she hired us to do some cleaning and stuff. And we would get there and she would say, 'Why don't you girls run off to see a movie?' I don't remember if we ever actually did any work."

Equally resourceful, Copenhagen native Anna Eriksen depended on the backing of an older brother, who, in exchange for small favors, would promise to act as her chaperon outside the home only to vanish as soon as the siblings were out of their parents' sight. In addition to such evidence, numerous magazine articles and newspaper columns from the 1910s and 1920s chronicle the anger and bewilderment of parents who found themselves in constant conflict with their daughters. For mothers, this seemed particularly difficult. Not only did their daughters' desire for a "modern" life seem a rejection of their own norms and values, which in itself was hard to bear, but on top of that, some girls directly flaunted their disrespect of maternal authority, especially if fathers were absent, indulgent, or merely lackadaisical.

"When my daughter is not at the office, she thinks life has to be lived in a cafe, or in other places where people are judged according to their dress and style," "Ninka's mother" wrote to a women's magazine in 1921. "If I tell her to stay home even a few nights a week, she acts as if I've just imposed a life sentence on her." "She doesn't listen to me," another mother complained of her seventeen-year-old daughter. "When I tell her to stay home, she just laughs and says that you are only young once, that this is the twentieth century and not the Middle Ages, and that she is already wasting too much of her youth in a dirty factory. Besides that, she has her own money."

Even more desperate, the mother of one of the much maligned Langelinie girls told a newspaper journalist that she had "begged and pleaded with [her daughter] not to go there, but it doesn't help. I have to go to work, and my neighbor tells me that as soon as I am out the door, she takes off." Using whatever means it took, many young working women who came of age in the late 1910s and 1920s thus pushed for new personal freedoms and especially the right to free time. While some parents never gave in to their pressure, most young women seemed gradually to succeed in carving out of daily life at least some uninterrupted time devoted to relaxation and their own enjoyment. 

From the mid-1920s, the frequency of daughters' publicly voiced complaints declined dramatically, and coming-of-age stories no longer featured such conflicts. Apparently, Ernestine P. Poulsen, born in 1902, described a phenomenon that extended beyond her family when she explained that "I fought a lot of battles with my parents [over the right to leisure]. Perhaps I cleared the way because when my [younger] sisters came along, they did not have to do the same. My parents had kind of accepted that girls also needed time of their own."

This did not mean, however, that conflicts between parents and daughters faded. Rather, the grounds of conflict merely shifted. Much resistance to giving young women free time derived from the material conditions of daily life—the practical assistance of grown daughters was still important for the well-being of many working-class households—and from a more general reluctance to give up control over children. But parents' reluctance also stemmed from their misgivings about young women's actual use of their leisure time. 

Had daughters simply demanded more time to pursue leisure activities within the home, had they insisted on participating in cooking classes and sewing circles, or had they wanted to attend lectures on hygiene and housewifery, they would probably have been met with more understanding. But these were not the kinds of activities young women longed to engage in, and therefore the question of female leisure remained a contentious issue throughout the postwar decade.

Working-class and middle-class daughters had of course not been entirely without time of their own prior to the 1920s. Nor had they been completely confined to the home. Girls from the countryside had always been allowed to participate in regional fairs, celebrations, and local get-togethers of young people. Urban working-class daughters had long socialized outside the home on staircase landings and front steps, in backyards, and on city streets or in neighborhood parks, and many middle-class daughters belonged to women's clubs and organizations. 

What constituted the major departure from convention in the 1910s and 1920s was young women's insistence on their right to "go out," an activity significantly different from the kind of casual socializing that took place outside their parents' windows or in clubs and organizations under adult supervision. "Going out," Regitze Nielsen recalled, "that was when we got dressed up and went somewhere." More specifically, "going out" meant pursuing pleasures that took young women away from home and family, into the public, and, in particular, toward new forms of commercial recreation, including movie theaters, cafes, dance places, and amusement parks. As a social practice, this form of "going out" challenged older norms for female behavior in several ways. 

First, it obviously entailed their deliberate desertion from the domestic world, if only momentarily. Second, "going out" meant young women venturing outside familiar neighborhoods and beyond the realm of adult control and surveillance, claiming for themselves the right to an independent, unsupervised social life distinct from familial traditions. Third, as opposed to more traditional forms of leisure for women, "going out" was a strictly peer-oriented activity in which kinship ties had much less significance than freely chosen and carefully cultivated friendships among girls and young women who usually met in school, at work, in clubs and organizations, or in the neighborhood where they lived. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, "going out" meant women's entrance into public spaces traditionally defined as male territory and often imagined as sites of immoral activity where men and women freely mingled, potentially transgressing social and sexual boundaries. Because each of these four aspects seemed to pose a fundamental threat to the social and sexual status quo, intense controversies between parents and children over young women's new leisure activities reverberated throughout the postwar decade. Years after families had conceded to daughters' demands for more time of their own, parents struggled to control or at least influence their use of that time. 

By dictating curfews, prohibiting particular activities and specific locations, insisting on being introduced to friends and companions, and demanding the chaperonage of brothers, parents sought not only to protect their daughters against potential dangers but also to maintain at least some authority. Consequently, when young women ventured out into the public sphere, they generally did so under the intense scrutiny of parents who continued to hold some power to revoke their newly won privileges. Thus, even as "going out" gradually became a regular part of young women's lives, treading carefully remained an often perplexing prerequisite.”

- Birgitte Soland, “Good Girls and Bad Girls.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

[cloviaglade]

THE CRIMSON FLOWER ROUTE CORPORATE UNION AU

Yeah it came to me in a dream shared it with a friend and she said I should inflict it on the world so here we go

Warning: It's super long but I broke it up into chunks

(note not all members of the house fall into the categories listed also I'm not the best with corporate terms and positions. Also this was made for fun and isn't that serious)

The houses

The Black eagles generally were in accounting or sales. They dealt with a lot of the customers firsthand and were considered expendable

Blue lions where mostly in HR or IT

Golden deer mostly worked in maintenance and public relations.

Staff and church members are members of the board. Flayn has her position on the board despite her age because nepotism

The Seiros Co:

It's a large company that provide a large array of services and products that promote physical and emotional well-being. The company started out with good intentions but soon became a corporate monster

The company provides a host of benefits to its employees including on site housing, on site restraunts, on site pools gyms ect. They even have the best insurance on the planet. They even have horse therapy.

However they have to pay premiums on the health insurance, their rent is docted from their pay, they have to pay for on-site facilities, and those living on site are heavily encouraged to work overtime.

a lot of this is justified by cover every single health expense and days of for minor colds. Many employees seek mental health care more often than they seek physical care.

The on site living conditions vary heavily. Most are just a small white room with a single bed and a dresser. No visitors after certain hours and forget about outside visitors. However rumors are spreading that the board members have spacious luxury apartments.

The pay without all the benefits is not a wage you could live off of. But with the rent for these rooms doct from your pay you couldn't reasonably save up for different arrangements.

The strike begins:

Edelguard was finally fed up watching her team struggling. She hears constantly about how her workers are not making enough. How they have to scrape because they needed new clothes or shoes. Or worse how Petra wasn't able to support her sick grandfather

She hired a lawyer Hubert to look into information about their contracts and compare everything to labor laws. She needed to know how much of this was legal and if there was anything to be done about it.

Huberts lawfirm dealt with several lawsuits in the past. They are considered ruthless in court however media painted them out to be money hungry and demented

As expected, it was legal (mostly due to lack of regulation for these types of benefits) but really unfair, So Hubert suggested a strike. His firm would handle all the legal matters as they prepared a lawsuit and to unionize.

Edelguard was careful to organize it in private. Nothing was emailed. Nothing to tract them. Flyers were handwritten and posted in the dorms inviting members to secret meeting on slow hours.

Roles

What everyone did on the day of the strike/position they were in the office.

Black eagles

Edalguard: head of sales- she got everyone in her department and many others in different departments to simply stop working for the day when she commanded everyone to stop working via megaphone. She suck in hubert and went to a private meeting room to set up a list of demands.

Hubert: head of Vestra lawfirm- he snuck past security with the help of Edelguard. He brought a laptop and a phone with Hotspot so he could video call the rest of his attorneys from inside the conference room. Once the strike was in full swing he toured the place with Edelguard gathering evidence.

Ferdinand: senior sale manager has the highest customer satisfaction - when the strike was well underway he sent a mass email to everyone in every department including the CEO and founder herself in a very professional tone about how there is a strike. Lornez replied immediately and they when to the breakroom to enjoy tea while on the clock.

Lindhart: IT software specialist - first thing he did was turn off all the bans on websites. Everyone could go on whatever website they wanted to. He left the download blocker up and other safety precautions in place. Others could looks at memes and scroll through social media ect. He then returns to his dorm and takes a paid nap.

Caspar: manager in accounting slow but very accurate and a real team player - he hated the no pets policy with a burning passion so he let all the stray and feral cats that hang around the building in through one of the side doors. They stayed mostly on the ground floor and a few made a mess under the desks. He played with the strays with a few of his co-workers.

Bernadette: customer service rep. - she hated the calls filled with angry people. She clocked out, disconnected he phone, ran into her dorm and screamed into her pillow until calm. Once she calmed down enough she did some embroidery.

Dorothea: sales representative- has the highest upsale rate - she gets into her car and just leaves. She is still clocked in. Nobody knows where she went. Some say she met with a lover, others say she went on a binge. Nobody really knows.

Petra: bilingual sales rep. - she signed her phone off and immediately called up her family overseas. She proceeded to catch up and talk with her family for hours. She rarely got to speak with them due to the difference in timezones.

Blue lions

Dimitri: head of IT - he doesn't actually know much about IT and has little intrest in it. He got the job because his dad recommended him. With the outside website ban lifted and the lost of control of his department he frantically tried to get everything under control

Dedue: cyber security and protocol educator - although the bans are lifted he is still concerned about a cyber attack. He is frantically try to restore the ban but it seems like lindhart deleted the code.

Felix: hardware specialists - he was the one who should've been promoted into Dimitri's position and is a bit smug about how everything is falling apart in front of his boss. He bypasses the download blocker and plays minecraft on the company computer. Dimitri is too busy to notice that felix isn't helping.

Sylvain: HR rep. - he knew from the start that working conditions were shit. He was tired of trying to raise moral by doing everything but paying the employees more, giving them time off, and reasonable working hours. He went to the break room where Ferdinand and Lornez were having tea and ate a bunch of the snacks the company was reselling at super high prices then faxed a picture of his ass and balls to rhea herself as a letter of resignation.

Ashe: new hire in IT - was called down to the first floor to replace a keyboard a cat peed on. Found caspar was the reason the cats were let in. Caspar then persuaded him to play with the cats instead of shooing them out. 3 hours later he completely forgot about the strike and clocked out per usual. He completely forgot about the strike

Mercedes: head of HR - she meets with the board and discussed what to do about the strikers. They can't force them to go home since everyone striking lives on site and has every right to be there. No significant damages is being done to property. The only loss is from those not working (and a keyboard covered in cat piss and $35 worth of snacks) Mercedes is forced to find a way to get them to stop but in a way that doesn't really change anything. She leaves the meeting when it is over clocks out and returns to her modest house she calls out sick for the next couple of months.

Annette: HR rep - she tries to stop the chaos on the floor and to convince everyone to return to work. She is ignored. She wanted to ask for a megaphone to help gain attention but edelguard took the one from HR and the person with the key to one in the event closet is striking as well. She runs around in a paint trying to answer emails and settle everyone down.

Ingrid: IT helpline rep - helping Dimitri reset the ban on outside websites is above her pay grade. She at least know some of the terminology and the basics. She manages to set up a very basic blocker but it didn't block whole domains just the homepage of every website she could think of that's wasn't appropriate for work. Logging into the site allowed you to bypass the block. Ingrid feels like she will be fired for not being able to do more

Golden deer:

Claude: event planner - noticing that there was no work happening he finally decided it was time to actually do his job. He dipped into those sweet event funds and ordered as many pizza's as he could from every pizza join that could deliver. He busted out the sport balls and got employees to clear some room for flag football on the 3rd floor. He got Hilda to organize games of hide and go seek in floors 4 and 5. All games and activities were not officially approved but followed all guidelines.

Hilda: claudes assistant - organized games on the 4th and 5th floors. The cubicle although uniform made excellent hiding spaces and the food plaza just got rid of the old tables and chairs awaiting delivery of new ones so there was a ton of space to run around. Hidia had to jump between floors pretty often which was a workout all on its own but it was worth it to see everyone smile at work for once.

Lornez: head of advertising - he was tired of writing jingles and stupid commercials for the company. He wasn't aware of the strike until he got the email from Ferdinand. He offered to treat him to some tea he brought from home. They had a lovely talk and watched Sylvain stress eat. He tried to talk Sylvain out of resigning but failed.

Raphael: pizza delivery guy - he thought it was a joke at first since they never delivered pizza to the Serios Co but was persuaded by Claude. He got stopped at the front by the front desk clerk who was ordered not to allow any deliveries. Soon more pizza guys showed up and some of them where not as nice as Raphael. He eventually got in and successfully delivered his pizza.

Ignatz: accountant - he wanted no part of this and tried to work despite being on the 3rd floor. He doesn't have any PTO and is frantically trying to get his absence approved because he cannot work under these conditions. He got walled in with desks and chairs and hand to crawl his way out to try to find someone in HR to help him but found their office empty. Worst day of work ever.

Lysithia: Intern- hopes to join the advertising department - She needs this job for school credits so finding out that her boss told her to take the day off because of strike she immediately thought of her record. Lorenz assured her that she would get credit as long as he had any say in it. She played a round of hide and go seek before studying in Lornez's office

Marianne: customer service rep.- she heard the rumors and on the day of the strike she freaked out and when to have a panic attack in her car. She was on lunch technically but she took a 3 hour lunch. She came back in clocked out and decided to try that horse therapy.

Leonnie: pizza delivery guy (not nice) - she knows the customer didn't care that the order took so long to complete and was very understanding that the 30mins or less delivery time but seriously! 50 PIZZAS!! She had to stretch and press dough at top speed for like 45 mins then she burnt her hand while boxing some of the pizza's and she had to deliver all of it to this company just outside of town and now the person at the front door is insisting that the pizza was ordered by mistake oh no! Not today! You will take the pizza and you will pay for it and tip 25%.

Church

Rhea: CEO and founder - she honestly believes her practices are helping the community. She doesn't realize that she doesn't give her employees much choice. She thinks her employees are ungrateful.

Seteth: president - also believes the company is doing the best they can. He knows the dorms are small and brand but they house 78.364% of their employees and they all see a doctor at least 3 times a month. He hates that he has difficulty finding a balance between competitive prices, compensating workers, and turning a profit.

Flayn: secretary - she saw the fun going on in the 5th floor while on her lunch and thought it was organized by staff and didn't connect it as part of the strike.

Catherine: front desk - tried to turn away all the delivery drivers but more kept coming. She kept getting calls from upper management about the social media platforms and tried frantically to get in to make a statement but had little luck. She gave up when Leonnie demanded payment and let all the delivery people in.

Shamir: social media manager- she originally attended the meetings as a mole but soon learned that her fellow employees hardships. She drafted huge posts on every platform exposing the truth, changed all the passwords then took a vacation during the strike.

Hanneman: chief operational officer - he is calling and emailing the IT department about the bans every moment he can. He organized the meeting as soon as the strikers got rowdy.

Manuela: chief financial officer - although she is worried about the finances she has also been pressing about where to cut the budget first. Horse therapy is ridiculous! They own the whole ranch and are responsible for the upkeep of every horse. And all the horses are carefully hand selected and trained too. It's too much nobody uses the horse therapy because nobody has the time off to go to horse therapy!

Alois: Chairman - his title is mostly empty. He joined the strikers in a game of flag football scored a touchdown. Then went back to work as usual. Didn't check his emails about the strike since he only checks them in the morning when he first comes into work.

Gilbert: treasurer - he puts business first. Doesn't know his daughter works for the same company. Was friends with Dimitri's father. He is stressing about how the company will recover financially. He is the reason for the pay cuts so they can fund most of the benefits.

Cyrill: gopher - he gets paid minimum wage and lives on site. He considers himself lucky that he can drive the company car to go pick up office supplies from the store. He was homeless before he got a job at Seiros and feels like he is important.

Results

Since several members of the board were caught participating in strike activities the hubert and his firm counted them at strikers and used this in court.

The dorms were not considered responsible accommodations saying that prisoners in jail cells at least have their own toilet.

The news when crazy with the posts on social media. The account never replied to any dms or comments. When called they said a rogue employee posted them falsely because she was being fired.

Rhea was forced to pay a lawsuit that gave all dormitory workers an allowance of $1000 for rent for life. Even if they choose to leave the company.

Dimitri was fired for not actually having any training. Felix was promoted to the head of IT and everyone respects him.

Rhea looses her company. And most of her assets. She kept the therapy horse ranch and manages that for a living.

With the entire company now belonging to her since everyone above her resigned she made a ton of changes making the company more normal. She pays a fair livable wage to every employee. She repurposed the dorms into offices or solitary break rooms.

Huberts firm gets rebranded as a honest firm that wants to help the little guys. He later goes on to help other corporations unionize.

[robertreich]

The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It 

The coronavirus has starkly revealed what most of us already knew: The concentration of wealth in America has created a a health care system in which the wealthy can buy care others can't. 

It’s also created an education system in which the super-rich can buy admission to college for their children, a political system in which they can buy Congress and the presidency,  and a justice system in which they can buy their way out of jail. 

Almost everyone else has been hurled into a dystopia of bureaucratic arbitrariness, corporate indifference, and the legal and financial sinkholes that have become hallmarks of modern American life. The system is rigged. But we can fix it. Today, the great divide in American politics isn’t between right and left. The underlying contest is between a small minority who have gained power over the system, and the vast majority who have little or none. 

Forget politics as you’ve come to see it -- as contests between Democrats and Republicans. The real divide is between democracy and oligarchy.

The market has been organized to serve the wealthy. Since 1980, the percentage of the nation’s wealth owned by the richest four hundred Americans has quadrupled (from less than 1 percent to 3.5 percent) while the share owned by the entire bottom half of America has dropped to 1.3 percent.

The three wealthiest Americans own as much as the entire bottom half of the population. Big corporations, CEOs, and a handful of extremely rich people have vastly more influence on public policy than the average American. Wealth and power have become one and the same. As the oligarchs tighten their hold over our system, they have lambasted efforts to rein in their greed as “socialism”, which, to them, means getting something for doing nothing.

But “getting something for doing nothing” seems to better describe the handouts being given to large corporations and their CEOs. 

General Motors, for example, has received $600 million in federal contracts and $500 million in tax breaks since Donald Trump took office. Much of this “corporate welfare” has gone to executives, including CEO Mary Barra, who raked in almost $22 million in compensation in 2018 alone. GM employees, on the other hand, have faced over 14,000 layoffs and the closing of three assembly plants and two component factories.

And now, in the midst of a pandemic, big corporations are getting $500 billion from taxpayers. 

Our system, it turns out, does practice one form of socialism -- socialism for the rich. Everyone else is subject to harsh capitalism.

Socialism for the rich means people at the top are not held accountable. Harsh capitalism for the many, means most Americans are at risk for events over which they have no control, and have no safety nets to catch them if they fall.

Among those who are particularly complicit in rigging the system are the CEOs of America’s corporate behemoths. 

Take Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, whose net worth is $1.4 billion. He comes as close as anyone to embodying the American system as it functions today.

Dimon describes himself as “a patriot before I’m the CEO of JPMorgan.” He brags about the corporate philanthropy of his bank, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to his company’s net income, which in 2018 was $30.7 billion -- roughly one hundred times the size of his company's investment program for America’s poor cities. 

Much of JP Morgan’s income gain in 2018 came from savings from the giant Republican tax cut enacted at the end of 2017 -- a tax cut that Dimon intensively lobbied Congress for.

Dimon doesn’t acknowledge the inconsistencies between his self-image as “patriot first” and his role as CEO of America’s largest bank. He doesn’t understand how he has hijacked the system.

Perhaps he should read my new book.

To understand how the system has been hijacked, we must understand how it went from being accountable to all stakeholders -- not just stockholders but also workers, consumers, and citizens in the communities where companies are headquartered and do business -- to intensely shareholder-focused capitalism.

In the post-WWII era, American capitalism assumed that large corporations had responsibilities to all their stakeholders. CEOs of that era saw themselves as “corporate statesmen” responsible for the common good.

But by the 1980s, shareholder capitalism (which focuses on maximizing profits) replaced stakeholder capitalism. That was largely due to the corporate raiders -- ultra-rich investors who hollowed-out once-thriving companies and left workers to fend for themselves.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, for example, targeted major companies like Texaco and Nabisco by acquiring enough shares of their stock to force major changes that increased their stock value -- such as suppressing wages, fighting unions, laying off workers, abandoning communities for cheaper labor elsewhere, and taking on debt -- and then selling his shares for a fat profit. In 1985, after winning control of Trans World Airlines, he loaded the airline with more than $500 million in debt, stripped it of its assets, and pocketed nearly $500 million in profits.

As a result of the hostile takeovers mounted by Icahn and other raiders, a wholly different understanding about the purpose of the corporation emerged.

Even the threat of hostile takeovers forced CEOs to fall in line by maximizing shareholder profits over all else. The corporate statesmen of previous decades became the corporate butchers of the 1980s and 1990s, whose nearly exclusive focus was to “cut out the fat” and make their companies “lean and mean.”

As power increased for the wealthy and large corporations at the top, it shifted in exactly the opposite direction for workers. In the mid-1950s, 35 percent of all private-sector workers in the United States were unionized. Today, 6.4 percent of them are.

The wave of hostile takeovers pushed employers to raise profits and share prices by cutting payroll costs and crushing unions, which led to a redistribution of income and wealth from workers to the richest 1 percent. Corporations have fired workers who try to organize and have mounted campaigns against union votes. All the while, corporations have been relocating to states with few labor protections and so-called “right-to-work” laws that weaken workers’ ability to join unions.

Power is a zero-sum game. People gain it only when others lose it. The connection between the economy and power is critical. As power has concentrated in the hands of a few, those few have grabbed nearly all the economic gains for themselves.

The oligarchy has triumphed because no one has paid attention to the system as a whole – to the shifts from stakeholder to shareholder capitalism, from strong unions to giant corporations with few labor protections, and from regulated to unchecked finance.

As power has shifted to large corporations, workers have been left to fend for themselves. Most Americans developed 3 key coping mechanisms to keep afloat.

The first mechanism was women entering the paid workforce. Starting in the late 1970s, women went into paid work in record numbers, in large part to prop up family incomes, as the wages of male workers stagnated or declined. 

Then, by the late 1990s, even two incomes wasn’t enough to keep many families above water, causing them to turn to the next coping mechanism: working longer hours. By the mid-2000s a growing number of people took on two or three jobs, often demanding 50 hours or more per week.

Once the second coping mechanism was exhausted, workers turned to their last option: drawing down savings and borrowing to the hilt. The only way Americans could keep consuming was to go deeper into debt. By 2007, household debt had exploded, with the typical American household owing 138 percent of its after-tax income. Home mortgage debt soared as housing values continued to rise. Consumers refinanced their homes with even larger mortgages and used their homes as collateral for additional loans.

This last coping mechanism came to an abrupt end in 2008 when the debt bubbles burst, causing the financial crisis. Only then did Americans begin to realize what had happened to them, and to the system as a whole. That’s when our politics began to turn ugly.  

So what do we do about it? The answer is found in politics and rooted in power.

The way to overcome oligarchy is for the rest of us to join together and form a multiracial, multiethnic coalition of working-class, poor and middle-class Americans fighting for democracy.

This agenda is neither “right” nor “left.” It is the bedrock for everything America must do.

The oligarchy understands that a “divide-and-conquer” strategy gives them more room to get what they want without opposition. Lucky for them, Trump is a pro at pitting native-born Americans against immigrants, the working class against the poor, white people against people of color. His goal is cynicism, disruption, and division. Trump and the oligarchy behind him have been able to rig the system and then whip around to complain loudly that the system is rigged.

But history shows that oligarchies cannot hold on to power forever. They are inherently unstable. When a vast majority of people come to view an oligarchy as illegitimate and an obstacle to their wellbeing, oligarchies become vulnerable.

As bad as it looks right now, the great strength of this country is our resilience. We bounce back. We have before. We will again.

In order for real change to occur -- in order to reverse the vicious cycle in which we now find ourselves -- the locus of power in the system will have to change.

The challenge we face is large and complex, but we are well suited for the fight ahead. Together, we will dismantle the oligarchy. Together, we will fix the system.

[parentsnevertoldus]

Wasteland, USA

Core vs Periphery

America’s underclass of undocumented workers, Native peoples, and other impoverished peoples function as exploited outsiders contained by what is called “the Core.” The Core relies on functioning advanced technologies, so it designs systems to produce them. Though designed in the Core, these production systems are built in the ‘periphery.’ The periphery is called that because it is considered peripheral – minor, beside the point, irrelevant. This parasitic relationship further impoverishes and under-develops the periphery through coerced participation in the global capitalist economy. In the periphery, slavery is not a deviation from the norm, it is designated and regulated through the demands of the ‘Core.’

During 20th century united states, supervision of the growing Black and brown populations became more difficult as people gained more legal freedoms. Other forms of economic control emerged: bail, fines, and other legal fees became the basis of what is now the Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC). The core-periphery idea illustrates the relationship between low-income areas within the united states & the u.s. PIC, itself: slavery and coerced labor exist as a means of social control. The State itself continues to produce a labor surplus by utilizing underpaid prison labor.

The strength of the core state is dependent upon the weakness of the periphery. So, the u.s. Government wages a War on Drugs and puts hyper-militarized police in Black and brown communities to terrorize and crush all mutual aid efforts for community revitalization. The global Prison-Industrial Complex is supported by the us military. The us polices and punishes Black and brown people across the globe simply because that’s the only way to maintain carceral capitalism (the system that allows such cheap labor)–through maintenance of a Core and a Periphery.

Environmental Racism

The united states was built on policies to manage the location of non-white people. Redlining, which restricted Black access to credit, kept property ownership in white hands and to this day is responsible for much of the racial wealth gap. This practice isn’t historically suspended, though. It is one of the products of the legacy of racialized waste and racist waste distribution practices in the united states. These practices pushed waste and pollution of developing industry into immigrant and Black neighborhoods and communities. These same communities were already considered socially “dirty” in contrast to “pure whiteness.”

In the united states, proximity to ‘trash’ (objects and people) has had a historically negative correlation with proximity to whiteness– the embodiment of social and economic success. The us waste-management system is inseparable from the prison system: incarcerated labor is legalized racial slavery, and waste facility placement is determined according to neighborhood racial and class makeup. White supremacy is enacted in part by regulatory non-compliance on the part of large-scale polluting enterprises–prisons, oil and gas industries, the united states military– who systematically choose to disregard laws in place as protections of human health and the environment.

“[Prisons] function like a small city packed into one building” [1]. Like any monstrously-large, unsustainable city in the United States, prisons import goods using fossil fuels and export waste and slave labor. In the US, many prisons produce waste and pollution far beyond local and federal limits. Prisons are overcrowded hotbeds of easily transmittable diseases— they create health hazards for the inmates, staff, local wildlife and nearby communities. In 2006, the Associated Press reported that Alabama correctional facilities were dumping human waste, toxic chemicals, and other raw sewage into state waterways at twice the legal limit.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/how-mass-incarceration-takes-a-toll-on-the-environment-nearby-communities-and-prisoners)

Toxic Waste

Prisons across the country are built close to toxic incinerators or on top of toxic landfills. They are built upon corporate lies, promising economic prosperity and jobs to the nearby community. However, those benefits rarely come to fruition. At least in rural Californian towns, researcher Ruth Wilson Gilmore found that an average of less than a fifth of prison jobs actually go to current residents [1]. These communities, burdened by poverty, unemployment, and a lack of political power may choose to accept hazardous facilities—but only because they absolutely have to. Exploited people are expected to not fight back against the concentration of military power in the hands of their oppressors and commitment to the cause. White americans are taught that their well-being is wrapped up in the maintenance of military and cultural dominance. That is, the expansion of prisons and further separation from their own waste.

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/building.html#_edn11

Somebody Else's Problem

Since 2018, the year China stopped accepting the world’s recycled waste, local governments have been under fire for using prison labor to cut costs and corners in local recycling programs and other public services [1]. Before 2018, it was completely legal for corporations— including private prisons— to export waste to the Global South for much cheaper than disposing of it properly in the US. US companies once mixed one thousand tons of hazardous waste into a shipment of fertilizer sold to Bangladesh [2]. In another example, US companies attempted to convince the Marshall Islands that imported wastes “could be used to build up landmass” and ensure that islands wouldn’t be vulnerable to increases in sea level expedited by global warming (of which the US is heavily responsible).

As for “recycling,” international trade deregulation policies still allow for the shipping of post- consumer products like batteries, cell phones, heavy metals, e-wastes, and lead to be shipped to southeast Asia for disposal.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-importing-waste-has-stalled-global-recycling

Faber, Daniel. 2008. Capitalizing on Environmental Injustice: The Polluter-Industrial Complex in the Age of Globalization. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 14, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While FDR’s New Deal had put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that. It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship of the government to its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

The driving force behind the law was FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she lasted from 1933 to 1945.

She brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men worked their way up, providing for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that people in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support.

As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, where she witnessed a supportive community. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying.

The next year, in 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and fire in the factory, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire turned Perkins away from voluntary organizations to improve workers’ lives and toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system, the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive.

The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering caused by the Great Depression made Perkins realize that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

Through her Tammany connections Perkins met FDR, and when he asked her to be his Secretary of Labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation. They said they worried that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that those displaced by the Depression had added new pressure to the idea of old-age insurance.

In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy.

Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric, and together, they began to change the public conversation about social welfare policies.

They spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn't have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn't stay long enough in any one place, they didn't have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.”

FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan to create a basic social safety net, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with a final plan, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.”

By the time the bill came to a vote in Congress, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.

When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.”

With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.

When she recalled the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins recalled: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

—-

Notes:

​​https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php

https://www.ssa.gov/history/perkins5.html

https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson

August 14, 2021 (Saturday)

On this day in 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While FDR’s New Deal had put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.

The Social Security Act is known for its payments to older Americans, but it did far more than that. It established unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship of the government to its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

The driving force behind the law was FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she lasted from 1933 to 1945.

She brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had harped on the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men worked their way up, providing for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that people in communities had always supported each other. The vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support.

As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, where she witnessed a supportive community. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying.

The next year, in 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and fire in the factory, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the building, dying on the pavement.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire turned Perkins away from voluntary organizations to improve workers’ lives and toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system, the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive.

The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering caused by the Great Depression made Perkins realize that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

Through her Tammany connections Perkins met FDR, and when he asked her to be his Secretary of Labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation. They said they worried that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that those displaced by the Depression had added new pressure to the idea of old-age insurance.

In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy.

Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric, and together, they began to change the public conversation about social welfare policies.

They spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn't have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn't stay long enough in any one place, they didn't have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.”

FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan to create a basic social safety net, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with a final plan, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.”

By the time the bill came to a vote in Congress, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.

When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don't know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.”

With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.

When she recalled the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins recalled: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

[antoine-roquentin]

Now, from the point of view of many on the Labour left, the entire Brexit issue was a distraction: a way to change the subject from the bread-and-butter issues of austerity, wages, health, education, and public services that had immediate effects on voters’ lives to scapegoating and symbolism. Some were convinced the entire project was a charade; the Tory leadership had no intention of breaking with the European Union in any meaningful sense at all—as some pointed out at the time, during the entirety of May’s tenure as prime minister, her government had not seen fit to hire or retrain a single new customs official.

What they did not at first understand, but became all too apparent as time went on, was that in Brexit the right had discovered an almost perfect political poison, not only dividing British society into two hostile camps, but bringing out the absolute worst in both of them. Each side ended up hurling bitter invective against each other, much of which was true. Remainers insisted that many Brexit campaigners were overt racists, and that the Leave campaign was—much like Trumpism—normalizing forms of racist expression that would have been considered outrageous only a few years before. They were right. Reports of racist hate crimes, for instance, increased dramatically after the vote. Leavers countered that many of the most vociferous Remainers were overt elitists, and were likewise normalizing expressions of contempt for small-town or working-class England that would have once been considered equally outrageous. They were right, too.

It might seem odd that the ultimate beneficiary of all this was Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, an Eton-educated upper-cruster whose main occupation, before he turned his hand to politics, was as a columnist and occasional television personality notorious for his contempt for immigrants, single mothers, and the poor. But to understand what happened, I think, one must consider the broader situation of what has come to be known as “right-wing populism.” Ever since the economic crash of 2008, the left had tried to make villains of the bankers. Yet despite the fact that the City (London’s financial hub) was indeed largely responsible for the collapse of the economy and resulting austerity, this approach gained little traction. The right instead tried to make villains of the bureaucrats—of migrants, too, as they definitely did appeal to simple bigotry, but the immediate emphasis was on bureaucrats. And at least among middle-aged swing voters, this succeeded spectacularly. Why?

The answer, I think, lies in the emerging structure of class relations in societies like England, which seems to be reproduced, in one form or another, just about everywhere the radical right is on the rise. The decline of factory jobs, and of traditional working-class occupations like mining and shipbuilding, decimated the working class as a political force. What happened is usually framed as a shift from industrial, manufacturing, and farming to “service” work, but this formulation is actually rather deceptive, since service is typically defined so broadly as to obscure what’s really going on. In fact, the percentage of the population engaged in serving biscuits, driving cabs, or trimming hair has changed little since Victorian times.

The real story is the spectacular growth, on the one hand, of clerical, administrative, and supervisory work, and, on the other, of what might broadly be termed “care work”: medical, educational, maintenance, social care, and so forth. While productivity in the manufacturing sector has skyrocketed, productivity in this caring sector has actually decreased across the developed world (largely due to the weight of bureaucratization imposed by the burgeoning numbers of administrators). This decline has put the squeeze on wages: it’s hardly a coincidence that in developed economies across the world, the most dramatic strikes and labor struggles since the 2008 crash have involved teachers, nurses, junior doctors, university workers, nursing home workers, or cleaners.

One might speak of the beginnings of a veritable revolt of the caring classes, global in scale. If so, the obvious question is: Why has the global left, which has always stood for the promise of a more caring society, not been the ones to profit from this development? Why is the radical right instead everywhere on the rise? How is it possible that this could lead to the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn, a man who even his enemies would begrudgingly admit was a caring and empathetic human being, at the hands of a Tory candidate so utterly narcissistic and lacking in human feeling that he famously refused to even look at a picture of a feverish child marooned on an overcrowded hospital’s floor? The answer lies once again in the curse of centrism.

As Thomas Frank has pointed out, as early as the 1970s, formerly leftist parties from the US to Japan made a strategic decision to effectively abandon what remained of their older, working-class base and rebrand themselves primarily as parties representing the interests and sensibilities of the professional-managerial classes. This was the real social base of Clintonism in the US, Blairism in the UK, and now Macronism in France. All became the parties of administrators. (In the UK, of course, this included those endless legions of lawyers and accountants.)

Whereas the core value of the caring classes is, precisely, care, the core value of the professional-managerials might best be described as proceduralism. The rules and regulations, flow charts, quality reviews, audits and PowerPoints that form the main substance of their working life inevitably color their view of politics or even morality . These are people who tend to genuinely believe in the rules They may well be the only significant stratum of the population who do so. If it is possible to generalize about class sensibilities, one might say that members of this class see society less as a web of human relationships, of love, hate, or enthusiasm, than, precisely, as a set of rules and institutional procedures, just as they see democracy, and rule of law, as effectively the same thing. (This, for instance, accounts for Hillary Clinton’s supporters’ otherwise inexplicable inability to understand why other Americans didn’t accept the principle that if one makes bribery legal—by renaming it “campaign contributions” or half-million-dollar fees for private speeches—that makes it okay.)

The peculiar fusion of public and private, market forces and administrative oversight, the world of hallmarks, benchmarks, and stakeholders that characterizes what I’ve been calling centrism is a direct expression of the sensibilities of the professional-managerial classes. To them alone, it makes a certain sort of sense. But they had become the base of the center-left, and centrism is endlessly presented in the media as the only viable political position.

For most care-givers, however, these people are the enemy. If you are a nurse, for example, you are keenly aware that it’s the administrators upstairs who are your real, immediate class antagonist. The professional-managerials are the ones who are not only soaking up all the money for their inflated salaries, but hire useless flunkies who then justify their existence by creating endless reams of administrative paperwork whose primary effect is to make it more difficult to actually provide care.

This central class divide now runs directly through the middle of most parties on the left. Like the Democrats in the US, Labour incorporates both the teachers and the school administrators, both the nurses and their managers. It makes becoming the spokespeople for the revolt of the caring classes extraordinarily difficult.

All this also helps explain the otherwise mysterious popular appeal of the disorganized, impulsive, shambolic (but nonetheless cut-to-the-chase, get-things-done) personas cultivated by men like Trump and Johnson. Yes, they are children of privilege in every possible sense of the term. Yes, they are pathological liars. Yes, they don’t seem to care about anyone but themselves. But they also present themselves as the precise opposite of the infuriating administrator whose endless appeal to rules and demand for additional meetings, paperwork, and motivational seminars makes it impossible for you to do your job. In the UK, the game of Brexit politics has been to maneuver the Labour left into a position where it is forced to identify itself with that same infuriating administrator.

This was true from the start. The original Leave campaign took aim at immigration, but, even more, it took aim at distant and uncaring Brussels bureaucrats. And the fact that both major parties, Tories and Labour, were profoundly split over the issue—and even more, over what to do about it—led to an endless drama of legal and legislative warfare that allowed Leavers to argue that Remainers in Whitehall were using every sort of procedural trick in the book to thwart the popular will. For those in the movement to democratize the Labour Party, this was an insoluble dilemma. Most of the new, young Labour activists had enough experience with genuine directly democratic practice to understand that a 52/48 vote is effectively a tie; if it is a mandate for anything, it is for some sort of creative compromise.

This is precisely what Corbyn first attempted to do. He accepted the result of the referendum, but proposed to negotiate a deal whereby the UK would remain within the Common Market on much the same terms as Norway. The approach worked well enough in 2017 to prevent May from making the election exclusively about Brexit, and to allow Labour to make substantial gains; but as soon as the election was over and a hung parliament resulted, the centrist counter-offensive began. The most important role here was played by Alastair Campbell, Blair’s one-time press czar and crucial strategist of the People’s Vote Campaign to demand a second referendum, who immediately smelled blood. The “moderate” elements in the party pounced. Rallies and marches were organized, Remainer MPs—of both parties—threatened to jump ship if Labour did not join in calls for a second referendum, either to join the staunchly Europhile Liberal Democrats or to form a new centrist party.

At one point, several MPs, from both sides of the aisle, actually did begin setting up a centrist alternative, called (with a remarkable lack of self-awareness) Change UK—sparking the fear that disgruntled Remainers might begin a mass exodus. Since the activist youth base of the party was overwhelmingly pro-Europe, the Labour leadership eventually saw no choice but to change its position and call for a second vote in which Brexit might be reversed.

Corbyn has been widely criticized for maintaining a “wishy-washy” or indecisive position on Brexit, but from the point of view of the larger movement he represented, his position was about the only one he really could take. The Labour Left, after all, was trying to bring about dramatic social reforms, in much the way Attlee had in 1945 when he called for the creation of the NHS. Ultimately, they were revolutionaries: they aimed to set the ball rolling in the direction of the democratization of all aspects of British society. But they also knew this could only happen if they came into power in informal alliance with more radical, “extra-parliamentary” street movements pushing them ever further to the left. Taking a hardcore Remain position would mean even if they did come into power (which was by no means guaranteed), it could only be in alliance with politicians who ardently opposed this larger project, and, if Brexit was indeed reversed, that they would also be faced with radical street movements not of the left but of the right—outraged Brexiteers and outright fascists pushing in exactly the opposite direction.

The last thing Corbyn would ever want was to be forced into a position where he would have to send in riot police to control protests against the suppression of a democratic decision. This was the real reason for the initial dilemma. But eventually he had to come around to support a second vote.

At the same time as the Labour leadership was being threatened and cajoled into making common cause with militant Remainers, the Conservatives were heading in exactly the opposite direction. Boris Johnson—or, to be more precise, his strategic mastermind, Dominic Cummings—immediately filled his cabinet with hard-right Brexiters, purging Remainers first from the Cabinet and then from the party itself. He then began a heavy-handed and seemingly incompetent attempt to bludgeon some kind of Brexit bill through the House of Commons. To the casual observer, his first weeks in office appeared a combination of costume drama and slapstick comedy. Johnson lost every vote he put forward and missed his own loudly trumpeted Brexit deadline; his attempt to suspend Parliament not only failed in court but left him open to accusations of having lied to the Queen; former Tory prime ministers declared their intention to openly campaign against him; his own brother resigned from the cabinet in disgust.

Corbyn, meanwhile, began to win grudging praise from the guardians of established opinion for his willingness to coordinate the resistance. Yet this was, precisely, his undoing. Cummings’s plan had always been to win by losing. The point of the parliamentary drama was to reduce Corbyn—whose entire appeal had been based on the fact that he did not look, act, or calculate like a politician—into someone who did exactly that, and to paint the only movement in generations that had genuinely aimed to change the rules of British society as the linchpin of an alliance of professional-managerials united only by their willingness to deploy every legalistic or procedural means possible in order to reverse the results of a popular referendum and keep things exactly as they were.

If the results of the 2019 election mean anything, they reveal an overwhelming rejection of centrism. Particularly instructive here are the fates of the rebels who broke from Corbyn’s Labour to form Change UK, including Chuka Umunna, who was widely billed as Britain’s future answer to Barack Obama. On realizing that there was virtually no support for another centrist party, they ultimately joined the Lib Dems. Though the Lib Dems did increase their share of the overall vote (slightly), doing so largely served to knock out their ostensible Remainer Labour allies in close races. Not one of the defectors managed to win a seat.

Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem candidate for prime minister, who had somehow convinced herself it would be a winning formula for the Lib Dems to run as a single-issue anti-Brexit party while also making clear that under no conditions would they ever form an alliance with Corbyn’s Labour, failed to win her own district and is no longer an MP. Labour lost fifty-four seats to the Tories—fifty-two of them in Leave-voting districts. But, as James Schneider, Corbyn’s director of strategic communications, confirmed when I showed him a draft of this piece, only three (Dennis Skinner, Laura Pidcock, and Laura Smith) were from the radical left of the party. Dozens of “moderates” had, effectively, blown themselves up.

The same, incidentally, is true for the Tories: not one of the twenty-one purged Remainers who ran for their old seats as independents returned to Parliament.

The center of British politics has become a smoldering pit. The country is now being governed by a hard-right government placed in power by its oldest citizens, in the face of the active hatred of its increasingly socialist-inclined youth. It’s fairly clear that for the Johnson team, Brexit was never anything but an electoral strategy, and that they don’t have the slightest idea how to translate it into economic prosperity. (It is an unacknowledged irony of the current situation that the people most likely to profit from the Brexit process are, precisely, lawyers—and, probably secondarily, accountants. For everyone else, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they will improve their current situation, and quite easy to imagine Johnson being remembered as one of the most disastrous prime ministers in British history.)

[kny111]

As an instrument of oppression and control, modern police departments are deeply rooted in some of the most racist and repressive colonial institutions of the United States. Since the establishment of the first policing systems like the Night Watch, the Barbadian Slave Code, the urban Slave Patrols, to the “professional” police forces and other law enforcement agencies, every one of these organizations has had the task of surveilling and controlling the population while imposing and upholding colonial law mainly through the use of force and coercion.

US police force was modeled after the British Metropolitan Police structure ; however, the modus operandi –especially when policing poor working class, migrant, brown and black neighborhoods-  in the present, resembles the procedures of the 18th century Southern slave patrols, which developed from colonial slave codes in slave-holding European settlements in the early 1600s.

Colonial Law Enforcement

Essentially every colony in the western hemisphere, be it French, Spanish, Portuguese or English, had difficulties when it came to controlling its slave population and designed similar systems to manage the problem.

As early as the 1530s, runaway Indigenous and African slaves already presented a problem for Spanish invaders in the regions now known as México, Cuba and Perú. Some of the first recognized precursors of slave patrols deployed in the 1530s were the volunteer militia Santa Hermandad or the Holly Brotherhood, which chased fugitives in Cuba. The Hermandad had been established in Spain in the 15th century to repress crime in rural areas and then transferred to the Spanish colonies. The Hermandad was later replaced by expert slave hunters known as rancheadores, who regularly employed brutal tactics.  These slave catchers used ferocious dogs to capture escapees. In Perú, enslaved and free blacks “owned by the municipality of private individuals” aided the Spaniard Cuadrilleros in Lima in the apprehension of runaways starting around the 1540s.

Administrators of the Spanish and Portuguese empires passed laws to handle slave-related situations, including the capture and punishment of renegades. Eventually, every Caribbean island and mainland settlements created their own rules and regulations and used a combination of former slaves, paid slave catchers, and the militia as apprehenders, all of them forerunners of patrols.

By the 1640s, Barbados, an English colony, had put in place a formal military structure which included white males, obviously but also indentured servants and even free blacks whose primary functions were patrolling slaves and protecting the island of foreign attacks.

“Though there be no enemy abroad, the keeping of slaves in subjection must still be provided for.” - Barbados Governor Willoughby

Years later other English island and mainland colonies adopted the Barbadian slave code as model, including Jamaica in 1664, South Carolina approximately in 1670, and Antigua in 1702.

Slave patrols in the Southern Colonies

The slave patrols emerged from a combination of the Night Watch, used in Northern colonies, and the Barbadian Slave Code initially employed by Barbadians settlers in South Carolina in the early 1700s.

As Southern colonies developed an agricultural economic system, slave trade became indispensable to keep the economy running. African slaves soon outnumbered whites in some colonies and the fear of insurrections and riots led to the establishment of organized groups of vigilantes to keep them under control.

In The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America 1638 – 1870, W.E.B Du Bois quotes South Carolinian authorities: “The great number of negroes which of late have been imported into this Colony may endanger the safety thereof.” And “…the white persons do not proportionately multiply, by reason whereof, the safety of the said Province is greatly endangered.”

All white men aged six to sixty, were required to enlist and conduct armed patrols every night which consisted of: Searching slave residences, breaking up slave gatherings, and protecting communities by patrolling the roads.  Historian Sally E. Hadden, notes:

“In the countryside, such patrols were to ‘visit every Plantation within their respective Districts once in every Month’ and whenever they thought it necessary, ‘to search and examine all Negro-Houses for offensive weapons and Ammunition.’ They were also authorized to enter any ‘disorderly tipling-House, or other Houses suspected of harboring, trafficking or dealing with Negroes’ and could inflict corporal punishment on any slave found to have left his owner's property without permission. ‘slave patrols’ had full power and authority to enter any plantation and break open Negro houses or other places when slaves were suspected of keeping arms; to punish runaways or slaves found outside their plantations without a pass; to whip any slave who should affront or abuse them in the execution of their duties; and to apprehend and take any slave suspected of stealing or other criminal offense, and bring him to the nearest magistrate.”

Free blacks and “suspicious” whites who associated with slaves were also supervised.  Slaves lived in a state of trauma and paranoia due to the terror that these patrols instilled in them. Various former slaves from different colonies provide an account of their daily lives.

“[A runaway] was with another, who was thought well of by his master. The second of whom… killed several dogs and gave Messrs, Black and Motley (patrollers) a hard fight. After the Negro had been captured they killed him, cut him up and gave his remains to the dogs.” - Jacob Stroyer (Neal, 2009)

“Running away… the night being dark… among the slaveholders and the slave hunters… was like a person entering the wilderness among wolves and vipers, blindfolded.” - Henry Bibb (Neal, 2009)

Rather than punishing, the primary purpose of this racially focused law enforcement was to, “prevent mischief before it happened”. Racial profiling became the fundamental principle of policing and the definition of law enforcement came to be white –and whitewashed- patrolmen watching, detaining, arresting and beating up people of color.

In an effort to establish a consistent surveillance and identification system, the slave pass, one of the earliest forms of IDs, was created to prevent indentured Irish servants from fleeing their master’s property, to identify Native Americans entering white colonies to trade, and to limit mobility of black slaves, of course. Still, thousands of slaves and indentured servants managed to escape into Spanish Florida, the Appalachian Mountains and the big coastal towns where, “a fugitive could mix into the large populations of free blacks and skilled slaves... (surviving)… much like the undocumented immigrants of today, hated and hunted by white society but useful to small craftsmen and other employers who hired their labor at submarket wages.” (Parenti, 2003)

After the Civil War white slave owners realized that race as obvious criteria for conviction or punishment was no longer “legal” – in theory at least.  Slave patrols were officially terminated at the end of the Civil War, but their functions were taken over by other Southern racist organizations. Their law-enforcement aspects; detaining “suspicious” persons, limiting movement, etcetera, became the duties of Southern police agencies, while their more violent and lawless aspects were taken up by militia groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

1800s; The Birth of the Modern Police Departments

Establishing the exact date to mark the beginning of modern policing in the United States is difficult, since the evolution of older systems like the Constables, Night Watches, and slave patrols into the “new police” was slow. However, we can take the mid-1800s as the years in which the present system of law enforcement dependent on a permanent agency with full-time paid officers was first conceived.

Among the first cities in the country to create such agencies were Boston in 1838, New York in 1845, Chicago in 1851 and St. Louis in 1855; and again, the motive behind the creation of these “peacekeeping” forces was the need to control the “unruly” classes as the emerging industrial economy and new Victorian standards of “morals” demanded it.

Starting in the early 1830s, a chain of riots triggered by race, religious and labor disputes, swept across various cities in the northern region of the country and authorities responded by assigning their Night Watch patrols the riot control function, but they soon learned that a volunteer watch system was ineffective. Day watches also proved to be useless. Full-time, police officers were needed.

“The process of capitalist industrialization led to increasing economic inequality and exploitation and class stratification. Rioting became an essential political strategy of an underclass (a surplus population) and a working class suffering this increasing economic deprivation. The modern system of policing evolved to control this riotous situation.” (Eitzen, Timmer 1985)

“New York City had so many racial disorders in 1834 that it was long remembered as the "year of the riots”. Boston suffered three major riots in the years 1834 to 1837, all of which focused on the issues of anti-abolitionism or anti- Catholicism. Philadelphia, the ‘City of Brotherly Love,’ experienced severe anti-Negro riots in 1838 and 1842; overall, the city had eleven major riots between 1834 and 1849. Baltimore experienced a total of nine riots, largely race-related, between 1834 and the creation of its new police in 1857. In a desperate attempt to cope with the social disorder brought about by this conflict, America's major cities resorted to the creation of police departments.“ (Williams, Murphy 1990)

The concept of a professional police force was copied from London’s Metropolitan Police Department which had been established in 1829. These “peace” agents were called Peelers or Bobbies after Sir Robert Peel, founder of the institution.  The American version of these agents were known as coppers, because they wore copper stars as badges on their uniforms. They were available 24/7, carried guns and were “trained to think of themselves as better than the working class they were recruited from.”

In order for the police force to be effective, Peel believed it should work under his Principles of Law Enforcement which explicitly stated an ideology summarized in the following nine points:

   The police exist to prevent crime and disorder.

   Police must maintain public respect and approval in order to perform their duties.

   Willing cooperation of the public to voluntarily observe laws must be secured.

   Police use of force depends on the degree of cooperation of the public.

   The police must be friendly to all members of society while enforcing the law in a non-biased manner.

   Use of physical force should be used to the extent necessary to secure the compliance of the law.

   Police are the public and public are the police.

   Police should protect and uphold the law not the state.

   Efficiency is measured by the absence of crime and disorder.

These principles seemed flawless in theory but in practice they would prove difficult to implement in the United States. Soon after their establishment, police agencies were taken over and driven by political forces. Politicians would hire, and appoint police employees and high ranking officers as they pleased resulting in corruption, nepotism and favoritism being common in police departments around the country. Years later, reformers would try to purge these and other dishonest manners from the police of the “political era”.

Being a British model, the new police had a strong Victorian influence which placed yet another burden on the back of those being monitored; namely, the working-class. Victorian morality dictated strict legal definitions of public order and behavior, especially for womyn who already had to cope with gender and class constraints.

“(W)omen were held to higher standards and subject to harsher treatment when they stepped outside the bounds of their role. Women were arrested less frequently than men, but were more likely to be jailed and served longer sentences than men convicted of the same crimes.”

"Fond paternalistic indulgence of women who conformed to domestic ideals was intimately connected with extreme condemnation of those who were outside the bonds of patronage and dependence on which the relations of men and women were based.” (Williams, 2007)

Despotic hierarchical power relations not only between womyn and men, but also between, lower classes and the state itself were further exacerbated by the introduction of this new policing force as “immoral” conduct, other working-class leisure-time activities and poverty were officially criminalized and more arrests were made based on discretion and initiative of government officers rather than in response to specific complaints.

By the early 1900s, the police was well established as the most notorious state authority figure.  Government became omnipresent by means of a more sophisticated surveillance system -over extensive geographical areas- that included, motorized patrols, wanted posters, informants, lineups, detectives, and radios.

“The Reform Era”

The 1920s-1930s reformers’ attempt to remove political influence from police – and vice versa- gave way to a more “professional” police, but in principle it remained the same.

A soft approach for restructuring the institution was taken at first. This proposal estimated that police officers could turn into some sort of “social scientist” collaborating with social workers and teachers to understand what the roots of crime and social instability were. In the end, a more enforcement-like strategy, with a “scientific and technologically advanced methodology of social control” which included a “machine-gun” school of criminology and a stricter legalistic framework was developed. In 1934, FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, would attach the concept of war to policing when he declared the first “war against crime”.

“Hoover liked to compare law enforcement officers to the soldiers and sailors who protect the state in times of war. Law enforcement was an instrument of law against disorder, a strategic weapon of war to be used against an internal enemy that was to be eradicated as an enemy of state” (Barry, 2011)

This reform coincided with one of the hardest times for the working class in the country. For disenfranchised workers, strikes and riots –especially during and economic depression, became the way to express discontent not just over low wages and working conditions, but over a lack of economic and political power as well. This obviously meant a threat for corporate elitists and their governmental allies, who didn’t hesitate in sending their armies of police officers to break and repress sit-ins and rallies. Soon, the police were on the streets carrying out some of the bloodiest massacres of “enemies of the state” during the strike waves of the 1930s like: The Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago (1937), the Battle of the Running Bulls in Flint (1937), the Battle of the Overpass in Dearborn (1937), and Bloody Friday in Minneapolis (1934) to mention a few.

In the next decades, the police, FBI, DEA and other law enforcement agencies, would repress, infiltrate and destroy organizations like the Black Panthers Party, American Indian Movement, and the Weather Underground, which the state and the owning classes perceived as threats to the capitalist white supremacy.

Law Enforcement In The Present

Based on the experience attained dealing with Indigenous Nations, African slaves and other threats, the state has constantly updated and perfected its strategies. One practice remains untouched in today’s policing and law enforcing methods, though; the tradition of upholding the kind of laws that made possible slavery, racism, segregation and discrimination in the country.

In the 21st century, police attitude towards poor communities of color still resembles that of its precursors 300 years ago. If we substitute the words "slave patrols" for "police departments" and to the list of "Native Americans" and "slaves" we add "undocumented migrants", "Muslims", "political activists", etcetera, we’ll see that the narrative history of our peoples in the United States hasn’t changed much.

Analyzing police slogans like: “To Protect and to Serve” and “Committed to Excellence”, in a historical context, it becomes obvious that they’re not directed at the policed neighborhoods but at those in positions of power, since most of the time interactions and “dialogue” with working class, migrant, and communities of color in general, are reduced to what has legitimated the institution in the first place; abusive behavior and the monopoly of “legalized” violence.

In conclusion, a phrase by Williams Hubert and Patrick V. Murphy is enough to describe the history of law enforcement in the United States:

   “Policing by the law for those unprotected by it”

[thevividgreenmoss]

By any reasonable measure, the neoliberal dream lies in tatters. In 2008 poorly regulated financial markets yielded a world-historic financial collapse. One generation, weaned on reveries of home ownership as the coveted badge of economic independence and old-fashioned American striving, has been plunged into foreclosure, bankruptcy, and worse. And a successor generation of aspiring college students is now discovering that their equally toxic student-loan dossiers are condemning them to lifetimes of debt. Both before and after 2008, ours has been an economic order that, largely designed to reward paper speculation and penalize work, produces neither significant job growth nor wages that keep pace with productivity. Meanwhile, the only feints at resurrecting our nation’s crumbling civic life that have gained any traction are putatively market-based reforms in education, transportation, health care, and environmental policy, which have been, reliably as ever, riddled with corruption, fraud, incompetence, and (at best) inefficiency. The Grand Guignol of deregulation continues apace.

In one dismal week this past spring, for example, a virtually unregulated fertilizer facility immolated several blocks of West, Texas, claiming at least fourteen lives (a number that would have been much higher had the junior high school adjoining the site been in session at the time of the explosion), while a shoddily constructed and militantly unregulated complex of textile factories collapsed in Savar, Bangladesh, with a death toll of more than 1,100 workers.

In the face of all this catastrophism, the placid certainties of neoliberal ideology rattle on as though nothing has happened. Remarkably, our governing elites have decided to greet a moment of existential reckoning for most of their guiding dogmas by incanting with redoubled force the basic catechism of the neoliberal faith: reduced government spending, full privatization of social goods formerly administered by the public sphere, and a socialization of risk for the upper class. When the jobs economy ground to a functional halt, our leadership class first adopted an anemic stimulus plan, and then embarked on a death spiral of austerity-minded bids to decommission government spending at the very moment it was most urgently required—measures seemingly designed to undo whatever prospective gains the stimulus might have yielded. It’s a bit as though the board of directors of the Fukushima nuclear facility in the tsunami-ravaged Japanese interior decided to go on a reactor-building spree on a floodplain, or on the lip of an active volcano.

So now, five years into a crippling economic downturn without even the conceptual framework for a genuine, broad-based, jobs-driven recovery shored up by boosts in federal spending and public services, the public legacy of these times appears to be a long series of metaphoric euphemisms for brain-locked policy inertia: the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, the sequestration, the shutdown, the grand bargain. Laid side by side, all these coinages bring to mind the claustrophobic imagery of a kidnapping montage from a noir gangster film—and it is, indeed, no great exaggeration to say that the imaginative heart of our public life is now hostage to a grinding, miniaturizing agenda of neoliberal market idolatry. As our pundit class has tirelessly flogged the non-dramas surrounding the official government’s non-confrontations over the degree and depth of the inevitable brokered deal to bring yet more austerity to the flailing American economy, we civilian observers can be forgiven for suspecting that there is, in fact, no “there” there. For all their sound and fury, these set-tos proceed from the same basic premises on both sides, and produce the same outcome: studied retreat from any sense of official economic accountability for, well, anything.

...You’d think that our recent bruising encounters with the devastating fallout from the deregulators’ handiwork in the housing market of the early aughts should, by rights, render Friedman’s complaints about the public sector’s assaults on market virtue the deadest of dead letters. But, if anything, the ritual defense of the market’s sovereign prerogative has dug in that much more intractably as its basic coordinates have been discredited. As critics such as Dean Baker routinely point out, the stalled recovery out of the Great Recession is almost exclusively a function of the failure of our neoliberal economic establishment to speak honestly about a collapsed housing bubble that created a yawning shortfall in demand—a shortfall that, amid the paralysis of credit markets in the same recession, could be jumpstarted only by government stimulus.

All sorts of absurdities have flowed from this magisterial breakdown in comprehension. Since the neoliberal catechism holds that stimulative government spending can never be justified in the long run, much of our debate over the recovery’s prospective course has been given over to speculative nonsense. Chief among these talismanic invocations of free-market faith is the great question of how to placate the jittery job creators. At virtually every turn in the course of debate over how steeply to cut government spending in this recession, our sachems of neoliberal orthodoxy have insisted that any revenue-enhancing move the government so much as contemplated would spook business leaders into mothballing plans to expand operations and add jobs. It became the all-purpose worst-case scenario of first resort. If health care reform passed, if federal deficits expanded, or if marginal tax rates were permitted to rise for the vapors-prone investor class, why, then the whole prospect of a broad-based economic recovery was as good as shot.[*]

And since neoliberalism is most notably a global—or properly speaking, the globalizing—ideology, such pat distortions of economic reality are no longer confined to the Anglo-American political economy. Nor are they confined to strictly cognitive errors in policymaking. The collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh has yielded commentary from neoliberals that might well merit entry into the psychiatric profession’s DSM-5 as textbook illustrations of moral aphasia. Here, after all, was a tragedy that would appall even the darkest Victorian imaginings of a Charles Dickens or a Karl Marx: factory workers earning a monthly wage of $38 crowded into a structurally unsound multistory facility built on a foundation of sand above a drained pond. Three stories of the factory had been hastily erected on top of an already unsound existing structure just to house the fresh battalions of underpaid workers demanded by bottom-feeding international textile contractors.

Government inspectors repeatedly demanded that the facility be shuttered on safety grounds, but the plant’s proprietors ignored their citations, reckoning that the short-term gains of maintaining peak production outweighed the negligible threat of a fine or safety citation. Nor was there likely to be any pressure from Western bastions of enlightenment and human rights. The ceremonial stream of Astroturf labor-and-safety-inspecting delegations from Western nations made zero note of the cracked and teetering foundations of the Rana Plaza structure. Lorenz Berzau, the managing director of one such industry consortium (the Business Social Compliance Initiative), primly told the Wall Street Journal that the group isn’t an engineering concern—and what’s more, “it’s very important not to expect too much from the social audit” that his group and other Western overseers conduct on production facilities. And, as Dave Jamieson and Emran Hossain reported in the Huffington Post, labor organizers have long since learned that the auditing groups serve largely as pro forma conduits of impression management for consumer markets in the West. The auditing of manufacturing facilities in the developing world “ends up catering more to the brands involved than the workers toiling on the line,” Jamieson and Hossain write.

Yes, factory owners and managers well understand the permissible bounds of discourse in such Potemkin-style inquiries—and instruct their workforce accordingly. “What to say to the auditors always comes from the owners,” a Bangladeshi line worker named Suruj Miah told the two reporters. “The owners in most cases would warn workers not to say negative things about the factories. Workers are left without a choice.” Sumi Abedin, one of the survivors of an earlier disaster—a factory fire in the nearby Tazreen plant that claimed the lives of 112 workers in November 2012—told the Huffington Post that on the day of an international audit team’s visit, management compelled workers to wear T-shirts designating them as members of a nonexistent fire safety committee, and had them brandishing prop fire-extinguishing equipment that plant managers had procured only for the duration of the audit.

What this disaster ought to have driven through the neoliberal consensus’s collective solar plexus is something close to the polar opposite of its cherished, evidence-proof theory of the captive regulator: a largely cosmetic global watchdog effort funded overwhelmingly by private-sector concerns, far from delivering oversight and accountability, has incentivized fraud and negligence. And conveniently enough, it’s the race-to-the-bottom competitive forces unleashed by the global workplace that ritually sanctify all of this routine dishonesty. In their malignant neglect of worker safety measures, local factory managers are able to cite the same market pressures to maximize production and profit that have prevented the ornamental Western groups conducting audits of workplace safety practices from releasing their findings to the workers at risk of being killed by the neoliberal regime of global manufacturing.

Still, the dogmas of neoliberal market prerogative are far sturdier than a collapsing factory or a raging fire on the production line. If the dogmatists have thrown overboard Hayek-era intellectual values like experimentation and skepticism, at least they can stave off their inevitable extinction by shoring up Friedman-era platitudes and, from the mantles of the nation’s most prestigious universities and op-ed shops, try to pass them off as the nation’s highest common sense. So former University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, who helped found the influential law and economics movement that essentially transposed the shibboleths of public choice theory into legal doctrine, has patiently explained that the just and measured response to the collapse of Rana Plaza is to seek enforcement of preexisting building codes across the Bangladeshi private sector. Writing on the heels of the disaster, in the Hoover Institution’s web journal, Defining Ideas, Epstein takes pains to rule out the passage of any “new laws” to improve worker-safety standards or international monitoring efforts.In other words: Bangladeshi workers can either be more safe or starve more rapidly.But lest even this minimal recourse to regulation sound like too heady a plunge into statist remedies, Professor Epstein also cautions that the aggrieved and grieving workers in the Bangladeshi garment trade must not veer recklessly into unionism or other non-market-approved modes of worker self-determination. After all, he reasons, “in order to stave a shutdown off by improving factory safety, the savvy firm will have to raise its asking price from foreign purchasers . . . and may have to lower wages to remain competitive.” (This is another classic myth of the neoliberal faith—the rational “trade-off” between personal safety and wages that the independent broker makes when he or she contracts with an employer to freely exchange time and skills for wages. Only, of course, the notion of such rational choice has been reduced to a bitter farce in workplaces such as Rana Plaza, where the basic human rights of workers are only acknowledged theatrically, for the purposes of Potemkin auditing tours.) A more activist approach to the crisis in global worker safety would create intolerable distress to Epstein’s utopian vision of the carefully calibrated relations of global market production. Sure, the EU might ban exports of clothes bearing the taint of labor exploitation—but such a measure would just perversely create “undeserved economic protection” for EU economies that are net clothing exporters (and by implication, would deprive consumers of the sacred right to the cheapest possible attire that bullied and undercompensated labor can provide).

Neoliberalism, the Revolution in Reverse