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We Americans are repeatedly told that the United States is a conservative country in which the 50-yard line of ideology is situated significantly to the right of the Western European representative democracies from which our political culture derives and to which we are most often compared. But there is a gaping chasm between the policy orientation of the two major parties that receive mainstream-media coverage and the leanings of the American people they purport to represent.
Gallup’s decade-plus poll of basic opinions consistently finds that 4 in 10 Americans have a positive view of socialism. (Half of these are also favorably predisposed toward capitalism.) When given a chance to demonstrate that, they do. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist,” received 43% of the Democratic primary popular vote in 2016 and 26% in 2020. Four members of the Democratic Socialists of America are currently serving in Congress. Despite a century of reactionary Cold War suppression and McCarthyite propaganda, U.S. voters have moved more left since the heyday of the old Socialist Party, whose four-time presidential standard-bearer Eugene Debs peaked at 6% in 1912.
History is punctuated by periodic spasms of protest that reveal Americans’ yearning for a world with greater economic equality, a merciful justice system, increased individual rights and the prioritization of human needs over corporate profits: the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and riots of 2020, Occupy Wall Street in 2011, marches against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the 1999 Battle of Seattle, etc., all the way back to the women’s suffrage and abolitionist movements at the dawn of the republic. These leftist movements were ruthlessly crushed by state violence and marginalization by the media before, in some instances, ultimately achieving their goals. Like streetcar tracks that keep having to be repaved over as asphalt erodes, however, fundamental human cravings for fairness and equality always reemerge despite the U.S. political system’s suppression.
I write this at one of those times between uprisings, when the presence of the Left in Americans’ lives feels irrelevant. (We’re talking here about the actual, socialist/communist-influenced Left of the sort we find in Europe, not the corporate “liberal” Democratic Party.) The Green Party, the nation’s biggest Left party, received 0.2% of the vote in the last presidential election; it will probably not appear on the ballot in many states, including New York, this year. There are no sustained street protests about any issue, including the Supreme Court’s radical repeal of abortion rights. Israel’s war against Gaza inspired one major (over 100,000 attendees) anti-war demonstration, in Washington, and it was matched in size by an opposing march in favor of Israel. Sanders and his fellow socialists have been absorbed into the Democratic Borg.
What’s Left?
There is no organized Left in the U.S. We are pre-organized. We are bereft of leaders. We have no presence in the media. We have no realistic prospect of having our positions aired, much less seriously considered and debates or enacted into law.
The Left may not exist as a political force. Yet we exist. Polls show that there are tens of millions of individual leftists here in the United States. Sanders’ massive campaign rallies, with tens of thousands of attendees in numerous cities, proved that we’re able and willing to mobilize when we feel hope. Our record of taking to the streets to fight racist cops and warmongers and strikebreakers and gay bashers, despite formidable risks, point to our revolutionary spirit.
Four out of 10 Americans view socialism favorably. How many more would feel the same way if they were exposed to leftist ideas? What if there was a socialist party that might possibly win?
Some readers criticized my 2011 book “The Anti-American Manifesto” because it called for revolution, or more accurately for opening rhetorical space for revolution as a viable political option, without laying out a step-by-step path for organizing a revolutionary organization. My omission was intentional. Allowing ourselves psychological access to the R-word must precede organization, revolution must be led by the masses rather than an individual, and in any case, I am not blessed with the gifts of an organizer and wouldn’t know where to begin to build a grassroots movement. Still, no doubt about it, we have a lot to do. We must agitate and confront and organize and work inside electoral politics and out in the streets.
But for what?
What do we want?
What should we fight for?
Karl Marx and his socialist contemporaries would call this a programme — a list of demands and desires, like a political party platform in the not-so-distant past, which confronts the biggest problems facing us and lays out specific ways to solve them if and when we win power at the ballot box or seize power at the point of a gun as the culmination of a revolutionary movement.
We need a coherent vision for the country. We must build credibility by demonstrating that we know what has people worried, terrified and merely annoyed; successfully identifying people’s concerns shows that we get it, that we get them. We need solutions to their problems. We need to walk people through our ideas, listen to their thoughts and adjust our programme in response to their feedback.
What is the Left?
The Left is the idea that everyone is entitled to the good things in life by virtue of existing, that we should all have equal rights and opportunities and that the basic necessities of life like food, shelter, health care, education and transportation should be guaranteed by the government.
In this richest nation that has ever existed anywhere, albeit the one with the biggest wealth gap, we can get there. But we will never accomplish anything within the constructs of the electoral politics trap. Never has the dysfunction and uselessness of the duopoly been clearer than in this election cycle, when most voters say they wish neither of the two major-party candidates were running.
Let’s figure out how.
Next week, I’ll take a look at the tax code, federal government revenues and spending priorities.
Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis.
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Oh boy another “real socialism has never been tried” article straight out of 2008. Dazzling stuff.
You’re in big trouble as a writer when your rhetoric is almost 20 years dated, Ted.
Anyways, you’ll never achieve your socialist utopia in the US. Such things are reserved for ethnically homogenous, intrinsically high-trust societies. The future of the US racial jungle is anarcho-tyranny and total bankster control.
“Next week, I’ll take a look at the tax code…”
THAT’S comedy!
On the low side the tax code is 5,000 pages. 75,000 if you include the appendices.
We’ll see you in a few months.
Be well.
I was hoping for a comic but disappointed again. A comic would really bring you new readers. I used to love your GWB comics. Here’s one:
https://rall.com/comic/best-bush
The fist thing we need to do is end private equity and the principle that you can invest for private profit of your business partners to the detriment of the common good or some community. People revolt and the idea we copy China, so instead we should copy Japanese central planning and capital allocation. That would mean in the near term: (1) no business could close domestic production and outsource (2) all business that today outsources, would have to bring production back to the US (3) all retailers would be expected to purchase and sell only those goods manufactured America (4) we would end investment in air travel and build out high speed rail (That would have the effect of ending the defense civilian reserve fleet) (6) we would end suburbs and build out only mass transit supported walking cities. We might even go so far as to adopt 1950s style urban renewal, but call the suburbs blighted and tear them down (7) we would cap new house size at the 1965 average house size (8) we would ban gasoline cars by 2035 and likely ban private ownership of cars on the same time frame (9) we would adopt Chinese style educational testing and (10) we would end all overseas military deployments, end nuclear air craft carriers, end the marines, and dramatically cut defense spending.
That would be the start …
Just please don’t do that thing where aspiring US intelligentsia pose a normative question, then ignore the established consensus of the whole world and reinvent the wheel. They know more about this than you do. At least listen to them. Because ultimately, the sovereignty of your revolutionary successor state depends on committing to this.
https://previous.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/UniversalHumanRightsInstruments.aspx
In particular, socialism is a meaningless epithet, while the ICESCR is tightly drafted binding law. It’s not a matter of ownership of the means of production, it’s a matter of allocating available resources to rights. Not cops in tanks. Not guns and bombs. Not bailouts for crooked banks. Rights.
Don’t make that does-not-compute face they all make, just figure it out. It’s not hard.
….other than the position-airing that controls virtually all media, academia, tv commercials, movies, the executive agencies (especially the “justice” department), and the military leadership. What remains on your “airing” wish list? Ah, yes, of course…Gun-store owners! Bass fishermen! Gotta bring them on board to do airing.
O, Cheezis K. Rist. “Socialism” just means a strong safety net and nationalizing a couple big industries that are so big they are just like public utilities anyway (if not small countries). You know, like the internet?
The idea has nothing to do with mass murder or Stalin or killing killing killing. Or taking away your own private teddy bears, either.
People who are vehemently against socialism are for rich people to be allowed to do anything they want and suck all our money up by price-gouging.
If you think non-socialism is so good, what do you propose to do about The Rich People Question?
This article does not spend one second distinguishing between the old-fashioned, gray-metal-desk, economic leftism, and the modern, rainbow-flag, no-sense-of-economics-at-all, anti-racist, identity-politics leftism.
And that’s the big issue. The powers that be deliberately foster and nurture and love up identity politics wherever they find it. Including conservative powers that be. Why? Because it diverts people from asking simple old-fashioned questions like “Wha de money go?”
What planet are you from? The whole St. Floyd ‘murder’ and BLM riots thing was an oligarchy/state sponsored and staged hoax.
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What’s next? “Pro-lockdown and pro-vaccination mass movements during the COVID plandemic were ruthlessly crushed by state violence and marginalization by the media”?
Sanders is faux left. In actuality, when it matters, he’s Zionist. Look at his voting record. Pro war, Pro Israel.
Blacks account for 13% of US population but responsible for the vast majority of violence & crime: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7226a9.htm#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20among%20males%2C%20Black,the%20lowest%20rate%20(0.5)
Just to further that point: UK has no guns but has mass black stabbings: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/commission-on-knife-crime-in-black-community#:~:text=Heading_,53%25%20of%20knife%20crime%20perpetrators
BLM is a victimhood movement led by narcissists. ie. Shaun King, a white man according to his birth certificate but claim his father is black, fleeced BLM, took that money, fled the innercity & moved to NJ to live with white people. Shaun King is not the only grifter.. Google.
Blacks are not victims but oppressors. Infact, take a stroll through any innercity & you’ll see violence, crime, drugs, graffiti, degradation. America is being dumbed down to appease blacks. Black culture is perverse. Wherever blacks go, low IQ, degradation of society follow.
Supporting blacks =/= being righteous. On the contrary, it makes you naive.
While i tend to lean left .. ie. more equal world, equal justice, sovereignty & right to self-determination for all. I would never label myself ‘Left’. Lefties, just like Republicans are ideologues. Group thinkers.
A couple of questions to those who defend the current system of domination:
– Is Free Lunch a fair deal for the exploitation of the people of the world or a bandit issue.
– It is fair to bomb, killing even the children, those who oppose this Free Lunch to terrorize other countries and keep them subject to exploitation.
Some honest answers indicate very clearly which side justice, freedom and true democracy are on. And the West must live from its work and not from the theft of other people’s work.
Even bourgeois democracy is supposed to provide some political alternative for the common citizen. Socialism is supposed to be a step further where inequality is totally abolished.
But in America (and apparently much of Europe as well) there is this mystery where the people doesn’t even have that minimal amount of choice, and the whole of Congress and all viable presidential candidates are unanimous that wars on distant places have greater priority than the welfare of the local population.
This is a bit of a mystery to me. My hypothesis is that the U.S. has just the right amount of well-being which ensures that the government can afford some impopular extravagances and still get away with it.
If Marx is correct, this is the stage of capitalism where revolutions occur.
Thanks for this thoughtful essay. In the storm of rightwing blather these days about all-powerful Leftists running the show, it is refreshing to remember who we are and what we stand for. As a historian I have studied firsthand the hurricane of elitist propaganda against socialism in all its forms, in a campaign of disinformation that goes back all the way to Jacksonian times. The central illusion of the American flavor of capitalism is that meaningful freedom and civil rights can exist without a basis in economic justice. The public has been conditioned to whine like frightened puppies at the mere mention of the S-word, convinced that freedom is slavery, that we will turn into impoverished East German serfs overnight if effective controls are ever placed on the rapacious elite that runs our republic-in-name-only. No one knows about the faction of the Revolutionary generation who attempted to address the problem of too much money in too few hands, because they were silenced and then deleted from history. Nor is the current of progressive socialism remembered, although it runs like a river under the official narrative that profit is all.
No modern socialist has any objection to a man having, say, five million dollars, with which he can buy a nice home and comfortable life. But we all must object to a man having five hundred million dollars, with which he can buy a nice government. The handful of people who rise to such levels get there because they are in a sense, insane, addicted to wealth and power just as any junkie or drunk is to his substance. They find no contentment in what they get –how can they? – so they are ever on the prowl for the next hit, and there is nothing they will not do to get it. A billionaire bribing a local zoning board or a congressperson, a junkie stabbing an old lady for her purse – there is no difference in the danger bath kinds of criminals pose to society. They are in need of some restraint.
The kind of government the Founders did set up was purposely made to suit their interests. America’s great tragedy is that we got our independence two generations too soon, in the age of aristocracy that preceded the age of revolutionary socialism. It persists long after its expiration date by a campaign of lies and intimidation. Its main survival tools are distraction and divide-and-conquer. Even on this site, a corporate propagandist in sheep’s clothing proclaims “the death of white America” by compiling a salacious monthly narrative of the 25 or so black monsters who murdered whites. Not a word about the other forty-seven million black people who harmed no one – that would be doubleplus ungood to acknowledge our common circumstances.
It seems inevitable that the next stage of America is neofeudalism. The empire that stole our republic is coming undone. We have nothing to offer the people of the world but violence, and they have had enough. The balance of world power is shifting to a more just order, which cannot fully emerge until the US permanent war state has been neutralized. Long ago Aristotle observed that each time democracy fails, the people clamor for a god-king to make them feel safe again. I expect a handful of “Christian patriots” will attempt to do the bosses’ dirty work this time around. It seems inevitable that a period of what liberals scare themselves to call fascism may be a necessary corrective phase to test and strengthen a people grown fearful and foolish. In 1798 Jefferson described the process this way, after the antidemocratic Federalist regime came to power, “A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight,…If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake.”
In America the Left/Right spectrum simply does not work. Consider these options instead:
POPULIST — Labour, pro-peace, Judeo-Christian values, limited immigration, low taxes, limits government
GLOBALIST — Corporate, pro-war, SJW values, open borders, high taxes, expansive social services
To the extent that the Left in the U.S are labour, they are headed to MAGA. Those who want to end Forever Wars are making the same shift to pro-peace Populism.
The remaining Left, including progressives, are being absorbed by SJW Globalism. MegaCorporations and Big Government merging to expand control “for the greater good”.
PEACE 😇
Socialism’s appeal is based on the feeling that it’s unfair if some people are smarter, superior, plan better, and behave better than others. The notion that someone is superior to others drives socialists bat crazy.
The antidote to socialism is to grow up. If one of your siblings or friends or acquaintances is much more successful than you, or smarter, or plans better, or is richer than you, accept it, admire them, and be happy that they’ve succeeded. Life’s not fair. Cancer, illness, accidents strike people randomly. Accept it. Socialism appeals to people who refuse to grow up.
bravo Harry, terrific comment. Of course, in the spirit of covering our bases, we should probably include a number (11) to your list: all those failing to get on-board with any central plan will be made to kneel before a man-made trench with hands tied behind their back, and “dealt with.” I suppose as an alternative, we could locate some area, perhaps somewhere between Glacier National Park and the Canadian border, where these persons could be segregated from the good people in society. I mean, quaint notions such as individuality, or free-will, or possessing an understanding of things like property rights, all seem to be fairly prevalent and will need to be stomped out similar to a brush fire, lest they persist and get out of control. Any radicals fortunate enough to remain outside of our watchful gaze can be marginalized and silenced, or possibly re-educated, by our allies in the media and academies. Even though central planning of this nature has never been attempted before, I feel we can accomplish much in this direction since the persons who would be directing and enforcing these dictates have previously demonstrated their incorruptibility as well as an unceasing dedication to performing as servants of the public, and for the greater good. Again, bravo and congratulations on such a wonderful, original idea.
Globalist = Capitalism
Populist = Capitalism
ie. Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, pretty much all of government including Democrats are Zionist. they only differ superficially.
Both parties support genocide. Both parties support Israel. Both parties want war with China.
There’s only 1 thing worth fighting for: FREEDOM
Government & politicians take freedom.
Man, back when I was in college, I was this working-class broke-ass conservative Catholic guy who washed dishes and scrubbed toilets for a living — but I also somehow managed to be this hard-core avant-garde artistic maniac who was known for infuriating people in three different genres. My girlfriend on the other hand was this old-money rich chick who was predictably leftist in everything, and had the most tiresome left-wad opinions about Anything Ya Need To Know. She was a great gal, but for pete’s sake you could read her like a clock.
Video Link
Video Link
Success is partly random, partly not.
Rall:
The key insight of science is evolution by survival of the fittest. The Left is founded on denying this.
I agree re. his old comics. He is, though, a total fake. I tried to find a photo of his luxury residence, didn’t find one, but did find a photo of him. Ted Rall is certainly a fake name.
Yitshak Rallvitchenstein? Don’t know for sure, but ‘Ted Rall’ is 100% fake.
You seem to buy into the fictions, and they are fictions, that property rights are real tangible things, and that there is individuality. Property rights only exist to the extent government grants them and enforces them. Fact is all property belongs to the government which allows persons some limited “right” to use property. In America, rich folks successfully use government to get more property and more rights than others. likewise you have no real choices. You must own an automobile because we don’t have other transit choices, you must wear certain kinds of clothes because we don’t still others, and also because modern mass merchandising has driven tailors out of business. You must eat certain foods because that is all stores sell. Your ‘individuality” is quite narrowly channelled. You cannot today even really go and live off the land. Assume, for the sake of argument you bought yourself a few hundred acres. You still need to have cash to pay property tax. Even though it’s your land, you may still only hunt during hunting season. If you try to grow crops a company like Monsanto may accuses of violating their patents–because they have better property rights than you. Are you seeing the picture? Your line of argument is the standard 1% gaslight defending the status quo.
We know central planning has worked in Japan and China. There is years of experience.
The 1912 Socialist Party [of America] platform can be found here. A few of its industrial demands, albeit in watered down forms, became the law of the land in subsequent decades. Many of its political demands would have required a constitutional convention to implement (calling such a convention itself was one of the demands), short of “workers [seizing] the whole powers of government”. I’m not sure how popular its collective ownership planks would be among current U. S. voters; if voters have moved sufficiently more left since 1912, they could look for Socialist Party [USA] or Socialist Equality Party (United States) candidates, if not others, on the ballots of their respective jurisdictions, or write in their preferred candidates if their names are not on their ballots.
You appear to suggest that the solution to government overreach in society is to grant the government more control and discretion over the functioning of society, which is counter-intuitive nonsense. And the rejection of your ridiculous wish-list of centrally-planned mandates does not imply support for any existing government policies or the status quo. It should be blindingly obvious at this point that the US federal government has become a massively bloated and highly corrupted entity that negatively pervades nearly every aspect of its citizen’s lives, from its outrageous taxation schedules and schemes to its counter-productive market regulations to its rotten legal system. In fact, it is not hyperbole to suggest that the fed-gov, even though it may posture and nominally function as a servant of the public, is essentially a giant spoils system based on power, privilege, and influence-peddling. Its primary concerns seem to be self-preservation and transferring wealth by any possible avenue to the corrupt political and bureaucratic classes, as well as to every form of rent-seeking crony or hanger-on that will support the whole fetid mess. It should go without saying that increasing the size and scope of central bureaucracies derived from this system will not produce a solution for any economic or social problems that exist, particularly when prior intervention by the system is nearly always the original source of these same problems. What we need is far less government, not more. It takes a truly obtuse individual to look at the government-induced wreckage of the past 40-50 years and conclude that the way forward is to expand central-planning and control over the private lives of citizens.
Important to separate real meaning, socialism or communism, since over time there has been psyops using the word socialism or more often communism, to confuse as if its dictator govt, to steer people away from sharing or tribalism, while the cons are tribe, with their ‘govt’ and false ‘voting, which is only socialism for them, their schemes, not us.
Real socialism is personal effort, not focus on breeding and expect to only ‘vote and be handed power. No such thing. The false image is temporary.
Real life and control or defense requires self-determination, and some things with others in tribe. True socialism is doing, and by doing, making further possible. Steps of creating, sharing info, doing things, so possible to do others, whether growing food, or shutting down ‘police which only exist to protect criminals and jail good people, or removing selfish ignorants from the territory etc, whatever, Its doing socialist, for socialism, so by effort and sharing, earn benefit of control and territory, future.
In other words act-u-al socialism is doing, like cavemen did, when we lived real lives.
Appreciate the article, ideals are what begins.
You have a well-intentioned spirt, but miss entirely the cause of the present problem. One hint is in John Kenneth Galbraith’s idea of counter-vailing forces. The problem today is that wealthy individuals, business partnerships, and corporations have all the power. They do not agree with one another, but they still have all the power. Government is under their thumb and incapable of acting in the public interest. Thus the key is end private equity, end corporations (as understood today), end the 1% and have simply government power. We know in Japan and China, that government focused on the public good does a great job with central planning. China even lets you become rich, but executes you if you become corrupt. It is an excellent model. Bureaucracy is just a tool, and like all tools it can be good or bad depending on how it is used. The reality is that if there is private profit prices are too high or wages are too low or capital investment is too low.
It was never hip or “cool” to be a Trotskyite or any other variant of Marxist, even on college campuses in 1950-1970s America. Those of us who studied hard in college in rigorous professional majors looked down on Liberal Arts students who thought they were seen as hip, when parroting Marxism. We in professional degrees were burden with extreme workloads in college, but almost all of us shared a belief that success comes from hard work, as evidenced by the years of hard work to earn those degrees. Those in Liberal Arts majors too often took the easy indolent path, endlessly partying, working towards easy but worthless majors, while trying to convince themselves that we are all equal, except the achievers, who are evil and should be punished.
You have now learned in the world of work that “hard work” produces no rewards and might even be punished. Depending on your field, you were replaced by H1B visa people and forced to train them. Private equity outsourced your job (especially in engineering) to India. If you are of the generation that started work in the 1950s, your job was downsized out by computers — in the years when middle management went away. Today, MBAs cannot find work. The most evil thing is the private equity model. Even as late at the 1990s, small business could get some support from local small banks. By about 2010 that went away. You can create a business today, but to grow, you ultimately will take on venture capital or private equity money. That means THEY Take all the upside in your business from your work. The most public case of that was when the bond holders forced Dov Charney out at American Apparel. All of his hard work was for naught. We have seen this in the past few years in oil where the biggest oil companies bought out smaller companies with good drilling rights. Multiple dozens of very good engineers and managers lost jobs in the acquisition. Hard work made their company profitable but cost them their jobs as a result. For 95% (or more) of Americans today hard work will get you zero. In 1965 America one hard working man with a union job could buy a house, support a stay at home wife who raised the kids, own two cars, and send kids to the state university debt free. Not today, that world does not exist. American capitalism today takes from others, that is how it operates. It is a vicious system that will collapse ultimately, but we should end it first.
Hard work surely brought me success. There are many opportunities for young people today, but few are taking them.
When I built my pole barn several years ago, I contracted the concrete slab work out to a company. On the day the concrete was to pour, five older guys, all above 60, showed up to do the work. I couldn’t help but ask them: “You got to be kidding!, concrete work is a young person’s job. Why don’t you have any young people doing this work?!” I asked this because I was over 60, so I knew the physical effects it would have on them. The foreman responded “We pay high rates, but few young people will take the work. The ones that do take the job will last only a few weeks. Many of them simply don’t show up on time, or wake up and decide they want that day off. They are worthless. ” I was so impressed with these older workers’ work ethic, I jumped in and helped them.
I hired an electrical company to wire the barn. Same problem. The owner said he visited every high school in the County, pleading with young people to take the job. He would start them at $80,000, with no experience, but promised to pay them over $100,000 when they became licensed. He also promised them he would pay for all schooling. He got no tackers. All of his crew were older workers, above 40.
When I worked at a large corporation, I got huge stacks of resumes from Americans for engineering jobs. I estimated 70% or more of them were fake resumes or overstated their work. We learned the hard way, that when we hired one of these fake applicants, we were usually stuck with a poor performing or worthless worker that was hard to fire (too much cost and risk). But, we found the Asian countries were very good at weeding out the bad apples, so we contracted out much work to them. American engineering wrap rates were five times higher, but even with these rates we would have greatly preferred American workers to the foreign, because of communication and time zone issues. We preferred the Asian workers, because their employers had the uncanny knack for weeding out bad workers.
As for equity stakes, that is not the norm at least in my experience. I did work for a startup that gave me a very generous equity stake. That startup failed. But, I have a relative who recently did extremely well at a startup.
So, in my view, what has changed over the decades is the work ethic which is almost non-existent today. More Americans are also dishonest, making hiring them a risk.
My view is evidenced by a recent Gallop survey. It found that Millennials, those born between 1980 and 1996, jump jobs frequently. 21% of them have changed their job in the past year. But, it gets worse. Only 30% of them are engaged at work, “emotionally and behaviorally” (quotes supplied by Gallup). 55% are disengaged, which is alarming. But, the real shocker is the remaining 16% are actively disengaged, which means they are working to harm their company.
Why would a company want to risk hiring these workers, when they have a 16% chance of hiring a young person who actively tries to harm their company? Or the even more likely 70% who are not engaged in the work?
I think you are trying too hard to fit reality to your socialist perspective. The harsh reality in America is that we now have a generation of workers that are worse than worthless. In general, they are spoiled brats, with almost no work ethic.
I take it that this article refers to that survey? If so, then this extract from the article might be one explanation behind the phenomenon:
The article doesn’t mention details that might have influenced the views of the Millennials that they’d polled, e.g. how satisfied they were in their current jobs, which could well influence their engagement in those jobs, and their willingness to stay in those jobs more than one year after the poll, but perhaps the corresponding Gallup report does offer such details.
In any case, if a company takes this poll as being absolutely representative of all Millennials in all fields, and thus decides to not hire any Millennials at all to avoid that risk, then that company will need to come up with a way to thrive without the Millennial cohort. Will Generation X and Generation Z employees suffice? How do those cohorts compare in their respective work engagement?
First, you told me you outsourced to Asia. That is strike one.
Then about your pole barn, if I was a 20 something I would not take that job. I can do the math and look at the places we can pour concrete in the next 40 years and see this is not a local job, and maybe not a regional job. It used to be, you could work crafts locally, but the current economics cast that in doubt.
A good buddy of mine, engineering degree, good construction company, is always shifting jobs between Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Lots of time away from home. He has no kids. And his “girlfriend” splits time between Indiana and Mexico for her job. That is not the old stable life.
For most construction work, if you are skilled you will be replaced by illegals. In my Chicago high-rise building. Management replaced our illegal polish painters with illegal Mexicans because the rate was cheaper. We never used union painters.
Why would anyone take a trade job when GOP companies will replace them with illegals?
Sorry to fix this nation we need central planning and total management of labor.
Excellent response. As you mentioned, the Gallup poll didn’t try to determine the “whys.”
The “whys” are often hard to figure out. An example is a very old 1990’s survey that showed 80% of software engineer graduates leave the field by the time they reach 40 years of age. For other engineering fields it was similar, but lower. Those figures are shocking. Everyone wondered “why” they were leaving the field. The common guess was that older engineers were not keeping up with the technology. But, I found based on almost 40 years in engineering that the best engineers were the older workers — their productivity rates were “statistically” much higher and their quality of work was much higher (I actually measured this). Another guess was that the older engineers’ salaries were generally higher, so they were priced out of the field. Labor is a huge component of non-recurring costs (developmental costs), but most companies try to reduce developmental costs through better methods and their main focus is trying to reduce the recurring costs of the product. The small difference in pay between an older worker and a younger worker is more than offset by the value of their experience. In my own experience, I found huge conflicts between younger managers and older workers. The older workers resented younger and inexperienced engineers directing them, while the younger managers did not feel comfortable directing older people. As an engineer ages, their chances of working under a younger manager goes up, unless they go into management.
By the time that I retired, 10 years ago, I found the biggest issue on almost all programs/projects was the labor problems, especially workers not getting along with other workers. The technical problems are sometime very challenging, but not nearly as challenging as labor issues.
If you can solve those “whys,” you’d be worth your weight in gold in today’s businesses.
What’s left? I looked up the World Socialist Web Site over the weekend.
As even Anglin points out, and I’ve long known, some of the writing they post is worth reading.
However, you have to know where they come from if the article has anything to do with Trotskyite dogma.
In this case, the most amusing parts were to do with the hundredth anniversary of the death of Ulyanov a.k.a. Lenin.
Many omissions and distortions.
For a few examples, they completely distorted the roles of Mensheviki, both in terms of Lev Bronstein (Trotsky) having been a Menshevik until his conversion to opportunistically become a Bolshie boss in 1917 and in misrepesenting the Georgian situation. As in parts of Russia (including the Ukraine), Georgia’s government for a time was Menshevik.
Mention of Lenin’s serial strokes but no mention that they were almost certainly a result of his having been shot by a Jewish Social-Revolutionary, Fanny Kaplan.
Mocking Djurgashvili (Stalin) for not having had a background of wide travel outside the Russian empire. Really, he resented those types because while they lived in comfort as emigres, he was on the ground being a gangster to raise funds and organise for the SDLP (B).
So, of course, as a loyal member, he felt bitter towards those who came back from swanning around in cafes in Zurich, Vienna, London, and (in the case of people like Bronstein, a.k.a. Trotsky and his contingent of a few hundred Jews, not even party members) from N.Y.
Having seen one convincing still photo, I believe that porn acting was among Trotsky’s games (other than raising funds from Jews) in N.Y.
Really, as far as history, the W.S.W.S. articles on the centenary of Lenin’s death were exactly like the photos with erased figures and books with erased events from the former C.P.U.S.S.R.
Recommended as comedy to discerning readers.
Trotsky, Trotskyites, and Trotskyists were harmful everywhere.
In Vietnam, the C.P.V. got rid of them.
Everywhere from the U.S.A. (where they became neocons or other types of lunatic ‘wokeists’) to most U.S. vassal states, where Trots were the worst and most divisive influence on the ‘left’ in Japan and Europe in the sixties and early seventies, Trots were oblique servants of the ruling order.
That includes then Warsaw Pact countries and Yugoslavia, Trots presented themselves as the true opposition.
In all listed cases except perhaps Vietnam it is very clear that the Trots had C.I.A. support.
I once found a great chart of the ‘Fourth (Trot) International’ (recommend to others, but can’t offer a link now), it was bizarre, a giant labyrinth, and those were only the ones which still claimed allegiance to Trotsky (Bronstein), they have so many parties that are all nonsense. Also, I recommend not going to any of their social parties unless wanting to irritate them, say nothing of what you think if one is in your management and you want to keep your job.
Rallopinsky had a feud with Art Spiegelman many years ago, Spiegelman had some control over what were considered ‘art’ comics in N.Y. at the time, and excluded Tedstein. Tedstein wrote some attack articles that were entertaining at the time, but just pleas from a dumped member of the same tribe as I now realise!
Socialism isn’t just Leninism, of course. Many Buddhist and Christian movements in the past, they at times secured territory only to be defeated, only to be crushed.
The British Labour movement was a good alternative to the sov. model, but ex-Trots like Anthony Bliar (and most of his cabinet, most also former Trots) put an end to that. Even now, Brit. Labour is so full of trotskies that one must wonder how they ever leave the toilet bowl.
NSocialistDAP also did well by their people, however the declaration of war by Jewry of the world in 1933 did have an effect by 1936 or 7. So, their very effective economic model was lost in war economy.
To be clear, that’s not what I’d mentioned; what I’d mentioned is that the Gallup article didn’t mention the “whys”. Since I haven’t read the Gallup report on the poll, I have no idea whether or not the Gallup poll also inquired about the “whys”.
In my own case, being a software developer who is well past 40, what I’ve experienced is not that I’ve left the field, but that the field has left me. For some time now, the typical response that I receive to job applications—should a potential employer deign to respond—is in essence the equivalent of being patted on the head and told, “OK, Boomer”. Maybe I’ve been fortunate in that I haven’t had conflicts with managers who have been younger than me, but if such conflict is a common occurrence, then perhaps younger employers are exercising their own form of risk management by excluding the remnants of the not-yet-retired Baby Boom cohort from consideration for non-management rôles, to avoid the potential for younger manager vs. older worker conflicts.
I doubt if there’s a silver bullet to solve all of those “whys” simultaneously; each employee is going to have an individually specific “why”, so the only real solution is communication between employer and employee to discover each employee’s “why”, and if feasible, provide a mutually acceptable resolution to satisfy it.