Robert Bischoff

“Domestically, we do not allow child labor, or unsafe labor, or labor that pays less than a minimum wage. Those policy choices reflect a century of domestic political struggle. To allow the fruits of such labor to enter via the back door of trade was a conscious political choice by elites. The orthodox view is that these shifts resulted from changes in the nature of the economy. The market, naturally, rewarded those with more advanced skills and education, while routine workers whose jobs could be done by machines or by cheaper labor offshore lost out. The basic problem with this story is that the postwar blue-collar middle class did not have college degrees, and most semiskilled factory workers had not graduated from high school. Yet the social contract of that era called for paying them decently. For a century, markets have often been wrong, and good social policy has overridden their verdicts. The US, on average, is more than twice as rich as it was in the postwar era. But those riches are being shared very differently today.”
― Robert Kuttner, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?

“It speaks volumes about where the real power in America lies that Democrats found it easier to move to the left on an array of identity issues than to move left on pocketbook issues and challenge the dominance of finance.”
― Robert Kuttner, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?

“Some have argued that capitalism promotes democracy, because of common norms of transparency, rule of law, and free competition—for markets, for ideas, for votes. In some idealized world, capitalism may enhance democracy, but in the history of the West, democracy has expanded by limiting the power of capitalists. When that project fails, dark forces are often unleashed. In the twentieth century, capitalism coexisted nicely with dictatorships, which conveniently create friendly business climates and repress independent worker organizations. Western capitalists have enriched and propped up third-world despots who crush local democracy. Hitler had a nice understanding with German corporations and bankers, who thrived until the unfortunate miscalculation of World War II. Communist China works hand in glove with its capitalist business partners to destroy free trade unions and to preserve the political monopoly of the Party. Vladimir Putin presides over a rigged brand of capitalism and governs in harmony with kleptocrats. When push comes to shove, the story that capitalism and democracy are natural complements is a myth. Corporations are happy to make a separate peace with dictators—and short of that, to narrow the domain of civic deliberation even in democracies. After Trump’s election, we saw corporations standing up for immigrants and saluting the happy rainbow of identity politics, but lining up to back Trump’s program of gutting taxes and regulation. Some individual executives belatedly broke with Trump over his racist comments, but not a single large company has resisted the broad right-wing assault on democracy that began long before Trump, and all have been happy with the dismantling of regulation. If democracy is revived, the movement will come from empowered citizens, not from corporations.”
― Robert Kuttner, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
― John Rogers