Americans Are Utterly Powerless, The Former Secretary Of Labor

Being two of the most respected and qualified academicians on public policy, Charles Murray, and Robert B. Reich have never been short of making controversial and contradicting statements which arguably serves only their interest of getting an audience. Public policy as it is has been subjected to lots of changes throughout the history leading to different reactions and opinions from different individuals. “What it means to be a Libertarian-A Personal Interpretation” written by Charles Murray, explicitly describes how the society should view the government by claiming it can help in achieving overall happiness and allowing members of the society to have a right to individual freedom when coping with the changes brought by public policy. On the other hand, Robert B. Reich’s “Aftershock the next Economy and America’s Future” talks about overcoming our problems by keeping a tier of classes. This paper discusses the contradicting views of these two writers.

Reich starts his exordium with a distribution of where American workers found themselves in the early 1990’s in reference to where almost all American workers were just 20 years before. Reich placed most of the workers that contributed to the economy during the Nixon administration as being in one boat, analogous to the famous quote by G.K. Chesterton, “We are all in the same boat, in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.” Under Reich’s distribution you were still in a lifeboat, but the sea state and your future could be rough or smooth sailing depending upon your chosen profession. To which boat one found his or her self was directly related to how

America is the land of opportunity and equality. Many people grow up believing this to be absolutely true, but Stephen Marche feels otherwise. He wrote “We Are Not All Created Equal,” arguing his point that opportunities in this country are strictly determined by the fate of ones class in society. Marche starts off making a strong case by mentioning the United States’ third place ranking for the least amount of social mobility. In further attempts to prove his point he outlines how class determines the fate of Americans place in society by comparing it’s rigid divisions to those of the aristocracy in Britain. There is a repeating idea throughout the paper that many people in the upper classes love to assume that the poor should fault themselves for their predicament due to their lack of hard work. Marche knocks that assumption out the park with statistical evidence to back up his claims. Although he made a very convincing argument with facts, he had a host of overgeneralized statements throughout the paper, which ultimately weakened his argument of class being the only determining factor of success in America.

Paul Krugman, author of “The Death of Horatio Alger,” evaluates the declining social mobility in America. He proposes that the decline in social mobility is causing the rich to continue to get richer and the poor to continue to get poorer. Krugman was inspired to discuss how this would result in the shocking loss of the American Dream, after he read a Business Week article that made him fearful of the considerable and drastic decline that would destroy the livelihood of many Americans. Krugman’s purpose was to make his audience; those of lower socioeconomic status, aware that the American Dream they hoped to achieve would soon become extinct. He creates a fearful and negative tone, in order to grab his audience's attention and inform them about the economic downfall. Krugman strongly conveys his message not only through his harsh tone, but by appealing to pathos, incorporating rhetorical questions that create a fearful mood, and appealing to logos to make a credible and sound argument.

Since the time we are born we are fed the lies of capitalism. We are taught that capitalism hurts no one and that capitalism is the only way. Johnson and Robbins have some very influential ideas about capitalism. Johnson writes about the complexity of privilege. He also addresses why some privileged people do not feel privileged through the matrix of capitalist domination. Robbins gives us a background on how privilege became what it is today. He addresses the anatomy of the working class by drawing attention to how they were mobile, divided, powerless, and anxious for a revolution. Through Johnson and Robbins’ eyes we can begin to see how the world is not the one we were taught it was.

In “inequality for all”, a documentary presented and narrated by Robert Reich, Reich discusses what is happening in terms of the distribution of income and wealth in the US, why it is happening, and is it a problem. “Inequality for all” is directed by Jacob Kornbluth, it premiered in 2013, and it runs for 90 minutes. Reich studied at the University of Oxford in during the late 1960’s, where he befriended future president Bill Clinton. Subsequently, they kept in touch, and in 1993, when Clinton was elected president, he reached out to Reich, to be secretary of labor. Reich was in office for the following four years, and today he is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. For about three decades now, Reich announced that out of all developed countries, the US has the most unequal distribution of wealth, and that inequality is getting even greater in the US. In the documentary, the most compelling topics covered by Reich, are the changes that started happening in the late 1970’s, the fact that 42 percent of Americans born into poverty stay poor, and that nowadays, money controls politics.

When the top 20% has almost all of the influence in society—including political power—they “exert inordinate power over the lives of the less affluent…determining what public services will be available, if any, what minimum wage, what laws governing the treatment of labor” (117). Creating a system where millions of people rely on a select few to determine their standard of living entraps people in an endless cycle of subordination and poverty. Ehrenreich argues it is essential to acknowledge the problems within the system to enhance the lives of the people who do so many of the jobs that we take for granted. Once we improve conditions for them, Ehrenreich argues, society as a whole will

In ”Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer” Robert Reich talks about the growing gap of higher class and the lower class of today’s society. He states that the rich are getting richer because they are the ones trying to take over the lower paying jobs.Along with that, the poor are getting poorer because of many losing their jobs due to competition with other countries because they are willing to work for less money. With today’s society it is common to replace low paying jobs with machines that end up cheaper and more efficient. Reich uses a metaphor to describe how the economy is doing for the rich and poor. This essay is informational and mature. In choosing this topic, Reich was reaching out to the older audiences by using

Although Hitler’s motives were more clear towards the end of World War II, Adolf did tackle the unemployment and stimulate Germany’s failing economy. Once Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30th, 1933 The economic policy for Hitler’s regime involved large scale borrowing for public expenditures which created railroads, canals, and the Autobahnen or the German highway network. The result of Hitler’s economic policy was more effective against unemployment than any other country. By late 1935 , unemployment was almost eliminated and by 1936 high income was pulling up prices or making it possible to raise them. By the late 1930s Germany had full employment at stable prices. This was, in the industrial world, a unique achievement. Hitler was able to anticipate modern economic policy as well, he recognized that a rapid approach to full employment is only possible if it was combined with wage and price controls. A nation oppressed by economic fears would not fare well for Hitler’s endeavors. Two days after Hitler took office as Chancellor, Adolf addressed the nation by radio and had proclaimed that the new government would “achieve the great task of reorganizing our nation’s economy by means of two great four-year plans. The German farmer must be rescued to maintain the nation’s food supply and, in consequence, the nation’s vital foundation. The German worker will be saved from ruin with a concerted and all-embracing attack against unemployment.” Hitler continued to

The hunters, gatherers, and entrepreneurs of free-willed, independent people are quickly being supplanted by beggars and unmotivated hoards of whining miscreants. They prefer to accept the federal government as the ultimate power over their economic and personal lives, and in turn, mortgage their future and their children’s futures for more government induced euphoria.

Reich would counter Marx’s fears of globalism by stating that it was equalizing the playing field in such a way as to bring the low wages of the third world back here along with the goods. And the countries where the cheap labor is exploited now are plutocracies that control their populations the same way—by economic hardship and huge income disparity. There is no nationalism or efforts to bring manufacturing back here when keeping people poor works so well for corporate profits and control. Keeping the poor very poor, and very desperate, they have no time to follow politics, or get an education when it is all about survival and it is a control mechanism.

The government in the United States supposedly revolves around American ideals such as equality and diversity; however, this is simply not the case as perpetuated by class inequalities. The meaning of democracy has been skewed in the United States to represent something entirely different than it did in 1776. Today, American democracy behaves more like an aristocracy, where the upper class exercises power within the government and state, influencing discourse and therefore the laws and resources in our country, which are purportedly “for the people”. Democracy is presumed to provide everyone with equal political power, but the government in today’s America, although seemingly following this ideal model, does not. Instead, the elite upper class has a monopoly over the political influence and are the sole benefactors from public policies due to their influence over the policy making process. The upper class has an overall benefit from class inequality, as it greatly impacts American ‘democracy’ through the significant power gained through money and status, leadership roles that impact government, and the influence in the policymaking process that creates upper class advantages.

2006. "Unemployment in Interwar Germany. An Analysis of the Labor Market, 192 7-1936." Journal Of Economic History 66, no. 3: 778-808.

While ineffective at diverting class conflict, the Nazis had successfully quelled unemployment. But they did not do it alone. Before the government was overthrown, the Weimar Republic had already taken steps to relieve the unemployment issue. Workers had paid into an unemployment insurance fund. In 1932, the Weimar Republic had used those funds to create 250,000 jobs (83). Despite this fact, the Nazis’ demand for armaments was the primary catalyst for recovery from unemployment. In itself, recovery from unemployment was not really harm workers. After all, it is better to be underemployed than unemployed.

Unemployment was widespread and a whole generation of young Germans was left hopeless and without direction. For many Germans during these terrible times, mere survival was a challenge. This wretched condition is apparent in Heinrich Hauser’s description of Germany’s unemployed who lined the highways, homeless and destitute, with no place to go. As he describes it, “unskilled young people, for the most part… had been unable to find a place for themselves in any city or town in Germany, and… had never had a job and never expected to have one.” Germany had been forced to her knees.