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Business and Labor Now Must Both Support Industrial Policy

Article  Conservative hostility to the very idea of 'industrial policy' has helped lead to the present economic crisis. Time for a new look...   7/5/2009  (191)

Peak Oil and Peak Capitalism

Rick Wolff - Article  If corporations are run by the decisions of boards of directors, then current economic problems are the result of those decisions. Here is an option.   4/2/2009  (276)

The Right-Wing, Neocon Orientation of the Washington Post

Robert Parry - Article  An insidious power of a propagandistic newspaper – especially one with great influence – is how it can 'frame' an issue so the assumptions behind a story guide readers to a preordained conclusion.   3/20/2009  (238)

Real Solutions: A Tax Credit for Paid Time Off, A Financial Transactions Tax

Dean Baker - Article  Tom Delay on Hardball blamed the market crash on those govt programs, Fannie and Freddie. Dean Baker knows what did it, and offers real solutions.   3/4/2009  (304)

The City Belongs to All of Us

Phillip Cryan - Article  New organizing on economic issues is fueled by the idea of an urban commons. Ideas from Boston, Oakland, Portland and the Twin Cities.   3/2/2009  (268)

Take Over the Big Banks, Fire Existing Management, and Break Them Up

Nick Baumann - Article  James K. Galbraith proposes several bolder actions to fix the economy than the Obama administration has contemplated.   2/27/2009  (314)

Media Marxists in Reverse

Jamison Foser - Article  Why do so many in the media, like Michelle Bernard, Carlos Quintanilla, Jennifer Loven, and Jeanne Cummings, talk about class warfare when they don't know what they are talking about?   2/27/2009  (294)

The Central Role of Power and Violence in the Creation of Wealth

Marcellus Andrews - Article  Climate change will force us to abandon the practice of creating disposable classes of persons as buffers who absorb the risks of life at the cost of their bodies and souls.   2/25/2009  (249)

Massive Civil Unrest Possible Due to Economic Crisis

Chris Hedges - Article  The new director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, warns extremism of the 20s and 30s may threaten social stability and national security.   2/22/2009  (486)

Organized Violence Against Labor, and Otherwise

Kevin Baker - Article  A review of a book by Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded. Violence in labor disputes has a long history in this country.   2/20/2009  (320)

The Social Democratic Prospect

Sidney Hook - Article  Reflection on this speech by a leading intellectual in the history of Social Democracy can stimulate thought on how it can become a more wide-spread political philosophy today.   2/20/2009  (372)

Why Planning and Policy are So Important!

Ed Knudson - Article  Three reasons for why the work of public planning professionals is important for all of us.   2/14/2009  (549)

Plunder and Blunder: How the 'Financial Experts' Keep Screwing You

Dean Baker - Article  An excerpt from Dean Baker's new book on the rise and fall of the bubble economy.   2/7/2009  (372)

Liberal Media Promote Conservative Spin

Ed Knudson - Article  Why liberals in the media present conservative views when a liberal is president. It's happening again!   2/5/2009  (346)

Global Social Democracy is Possible Now

Walden Bello - Article  A consensus is emerging now for a new economic order, says Walden Bello. Obama is in a position to do it.   1/24/2009  (476)

Bold Proposal: Seriously Restructure Taxes in the USA

David Cay Johnston - Article  Want fair taxes and real economic justice? Read this article by David Cay Johnston and write congress now!   1/12/2009  (243)

Regional Cities May End Urban Sprawl

Suzannah Lessard - Article  A review of a book by Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton discussing Lewis Mumford and the failure of urban renewal.   11/13/2008  (253)

Beyond Professionalism and the Meritocratic American Dream

Aziz Rana - Article  In a profound analysis, Aziz Rana says Obama and Democrats must open their eyes to a new-old vision of American society.   10/22/2008  (287)

A Hedge Fund Manager Says Goodbye: 'I Hate It'

Andrew Lahde - Article  A professional tells what it's like to work inside the financial system that has now crashed, the people he took money from, and what government should do.   10/17/2008  (670)

The Era of the Faith-Based Economy

Arjun Appadurai - Article  The economy as understood by George W. Bush is faith-based in a way not so good for Main Street.   10/14/2008  (245)

Bank Bailout: Rational Choice Theory? No, a Nation of Gamblers

Otto Spengler - Article  In the Asia Times Spengler goes after Hank Paulson for the blank check to the banks in the bailout. Why so little protest?   9/23/2008  (268)

Working America Organizes

David Moberg - Article  About a new political organization of 2.5 million members: 'Working America,'   9/2/2008  (298)

A Living Wage for All

Ed Knudson - Article  Why I am supporting the election of Barack Obama.   2/28/2007  (168)

Good Economic Planning? Some See Major Crisis Coming

Ed Knudson - Article  Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, and Stephen Roach have become economic prophets of doom. But the people who can do something about it don't believe in good economic planning.   12/6/2004  (275)

How Liberal Reporters Promote Conservative Public Consciousness

Ed Knudson - Article  Media professionals want to be fair to conservatives. We are ending up with Pravda, the Russian paper in the Cold War, says Ernest Partridge.   9/16/2004  (298)

The Democratic City of the Future

Ed Knudson - Article  A new Democratic majority is emerging uniting city and suburb against still Republican rural areas according to authors John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira.   2/21/2003  (249)

The American Corporate Oligarchy

Michael Lind - Reprint  Average Americans have not only been taxed instead of the rich; they have been taxed to repay the rich. In Harper's, June, 1995.   11/17/2002  (534)
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Workers-Professionals

Today there is a great need to develop a new solidarity between workers and professionals. Those educated in the professions in business, law, social-medical services and education, as well as clergy, need to see themselves not as different from those who traditionally understood as industrial workers. The changing nature of "work" in contemporary culture requires a rethinking of both personal and professional identity.

In Social Democratic countries, such as Germany and the Nordic region of Europe, it is workers and salaried professionals who make up the primary constituencies which vote for and elect Social Democratic candidates. Ideas of Social Democracy have not enjoyed the same level of support among professionals in the United States. This is because professionals have identified themselves "above" other workers, in a different class position, and their social consciousness has been oriented to their employers rather than with other workers. That needs to change now that there are relatively few employers and most everyone is a "worker" for a salary. Old ideology in this country now supports the interests of the relatively few wealthy over against everyone else, including most professionals.

The economist Thorstein Veblen (in photo) saw the truth of this even in his own time, the first half of the 20th century. In Veblen's own experience, the bankers and lawyers in towns in the midwest made their fortunes taking advantage of immigrant farmers, even forcing them off the farms improved by those immigrants over years. Being able to "see" into the truth of how the few often benefit from the oppression of the many is one of the goals of this website. Both workers and professionals have a stake in seeing such truth in economic life today.





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