Southern Poverty Pimps

[4588686]

This article is spot on.

 

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/southern_poverty_pimps/

 

 

 

Contemporary American politics cannot be understood apart from the North-South divide in the U.S., as I and others have argued.  Neither can contemporary American economic debates.  The real choice facing America in the 21st century is the same one that faced it in the 19th and 20th centuries — Northernomics or Southernomics?

Northernomics is the high-road strategy of building a flourishing national economy by means of government-business cooperation and government investment in R&D, infrastructure and education.  Although this program of Hamiltonianism (named after Washington’s first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton) has been championed by maverick Southerners as prominent as George Washington, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln (born in Kentucky to a Southern family), the building of a modern, high-tech, high-wage economy has been supported chiefly by political parties based in New England and the Midwest, from the Federalists and the Whigs through the Lincoln Republicans and today’s Northern Democrats.

Southernomics is radically different.  The purpose of the age-old economic development strategy of the Southern states has never been to allow them to compete with other states or countries on the basis of superior innovation or living standards.  Instead, for generations Southern economic policymakers have sought to secure a lucrative second-tier role for the South in the national and world economies, as a supplier of commodities like cotton and oil and gas and a source of cheap labor for footloose corporations.  This strategy of specializing in commodities and cheap labor is intended to enrich the Southern oligarchy.  It doesn’t enrich the majority of Southerners, white, black or brown, but it is not intended to.

Contrary to what is often said, the “original sin” of the South is not slavery, or even racism.  It is cheap, powerless labor.

Before 1900, the cheap labor was used to harvest export crops like cotton and lumber.  Beginning around 1900, Southern states sought to reap benefits from the new industrial economy by supplying national manufacturing companies with pools of cheap, powerless labor as well.  For a century now, Southern state economic development policies have sought to lure companies from high-wage, high-service states, by promising low wages and docile workers.  Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent appeals to California businesses to relocate to the Lone Star State are the most recent example.

The essence of the Southern economic model is not low taxation, but a lack of bargaining power by Southern workers of all races. Bargaining power at the bottom of the income scale is created by tight labor markets; unions; minimum wage laws combined with unemployment insurance; and social insurance, such as Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.

Naturally, the 21st-century descendants of Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun want to weaken everything that strengthens the ability of a Southern worker to say to a Southern employer:  “Take this job and shove it!”

Tight labor markets are anathema to Southern employers.  They want loose labor markets that create a buyer’s market in wage labor.  That is why, at a time of mass unemployment among low-skilled workers in the U.S., most of the calls for expanding unskilled immigration in the form of “guest worker” programs are coming from Southern and Southwestern politicians.  Guest workers — that is, indentured servants bound to a single employer and unable to quit — are the ideal workers, from a neo-Confederate perspective.  They are cheap and unfree.

Needless to say, private sector unions that pool worker bargaining power are anathema to today’s suave metropolitan successors to the slave-owning plantocracy.  The whole point of the Southern model of economic development is to create a non-union region from Virginia to Texas, to which companies can be induced to move from states with unionized workforces.  Besides, unions engage in collective bargaining, in violation of the Southern ideal of employer-worker relations, in which the master gives orders and the fearful worker obeys without question.

A high national minimum wage also threatens the Southern conservative program for stealing jobs and industries from other states and other countries.  Particularly if it is combined with generous unemployment insurance, a high minimum wage gives Southern workers the ability to turn down jobs that pay poorly — that is to say, the majority of jobs in the South, if the Southern elite has its way.  While the Southern right opposes a higher federal minimum wage, it has no objection to increases in the minimum wage by Northern states, which thereby help the South lure more businesses.

Ruthless and callous as they are, the old families and nouveaux riches who make up the Southern elite don’t want their workers to starve.  On the other hand, they prefer not to pay a wage adequate for the necessities of life.   The solution favored by the Southern oligarchy is the earned income tax credit, a wage subsidy to workers that tops up a too-low wage paid by the employer.

The major champions of the EITC in national politics have tended to be conservative Democrats from the South, like the late Lloyd Bentsen, a reactionary born into the South Texas aristocracy, and Louisiana’s Sen. Russell Long.  What makes the EITC so appealing to Southern Democrats and Southern Republicans alike is that it forces the Northern and Western states, by means of the Internal Revenue Service, to subsidize low-wage businesses in the South, even as the South is using the poverty of its workforce to lure high-wage businesses from the North and West. Every penny spent on the federal EITC is a penny that Southern state governments and Southern employers do not have to spend on Southern workers to keep them from starving. By paying taxes to the federal government to fund the EITC, Americans in high-wage states are literally subsidizing the South’s job-stealing program. The progressive policy wonks who prefer a higher EITC to a higher minimum wage are useful idiots, from the perspective of the crafty Southern political-business elite.

Finally, there is the welfare state. Universal, portable social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare increase the bargaining power of workers, by reducing the penalty for quitting a job because of poor wages or poor treatment.  If they quit, they don’t endanger their healthcare access or their retirement security. Workers with adequate social insurance are more likely — to use a time-honored Southern phrase — to be “uppity.”

Apart from a high federal minimum wage, nothing could be a greater threat to the Southern cheap-labor economic strategy than universal, standardized federal social insurance. In order to maximize the dependence of Southern workers on Southern employers in the great low-wage labor pool of the former Confederacy, it would be best to have no welfare at all, only local charity (funded and controlled, naturally, by the local wealthy families).

But if there must be a modern welfare system, then the Southern oligarchy prefers a system that allows state governments, rather than Washington, D.C., to control eligibility and benefit levels.  By controlling eligibility, Southern state governments can minimize the amount of the local workforce that has access to good social insurance, reducing the power of Southern workers to be “uppity.” At the same time, giving Southern states the option to have lower benefit levels provides the neo-Confederates with yet another bargaining chip, along with low wages and low taxes, that can be used by Southern state governments to lure business from more generous states or nations.

It is all a system, you see.  Southern conservative policies toward immigration, labor unions, the minimum wage and social insurance don’t reflect supposed conservative or libertarian ideologies or values, even if conservative or libertarian intellectuals are paid to dream up after-the-fact rationalizations.  These policies are reinforcing components of a well-thought-out economic grand strategy to permit the South, as a nation-within-a-nation in the U.S., to pimp its cheap, dependent labor for the benefit of local and foreign (non-Southern) corporations and investors.

“Pimp” is the mot juste.  In the 1960s, conservatives referred derisively to community activists who were accused of lining their own pockets while representing the urban poor as “poverty pimps.”  But the real “poverty pimps” in America are members of the Southern political class — many Southern Democrats and practically all Southern Republicans.  By means of permanent economic repression of most Southerners of all races, Southern strategists hope to strip the non-Southern states of the Union of their best companies and industries, thereby crippling Northern revenue bases and sending Northern economies into death spirals.

The defeat of Southernomics is therefore in the interest of most Southerners and most non-Southerners alike.  And the defeat of Southernomics requires the radical empowerment of Southern workers — white, black and brown alike. No American workers anywhere in the nation can ever be secure until the wage earners of the South are powerful and prosperous.  And uppity.

 

[Evangetholic]

Well I do de-clare. It's lefty, but it describes the state I live in quite well. This would be why I am a distributist and an actual conservative. This and the fact that being a libertarian and an actual conservative allows me to devote the time to Jesus, that would have otherwise had to go to: secular progressives, illuminati, Alinskyians, Obama, dem GAYYYYYYSSS,  "I'm not racist, but," invading random countries, voting for "pro-life" politicians as if they would actually do something about abortion, believing that the State can send men to Heaven, a culture war that attempts to compel the Pagan state to stop its Pagan citizens from living like Pagans, etc

Yes I am violating my non-engagement rule on political matters. (IDC that you didn't know I had such a rule--Hasan knew.)

Edited February 20, 2013 by Evangetholic

[Groo the Wanderer]

tl;dr

 

i think it said 'obama is a ninny and wants everyone on welfare so he can be the boss of them'

[4588686]

tl;dr

 

i think it said 'obama is a ninny and wants everyone on welfare so he can be the boss of them'

 

 

Basically

[r2Dtoo]

No mention of the Southern GOP plan to phase out state income taxes and make the poor pay the same as the rich?

 

But no, let's talk about unions, and racism, and non-racism, and how tax credits are BAAAAAD. 

Edited February 20, 2013 by r2Dtoo

[4588686]

No mention of the Southern GOP plan to phase out state income taxes and make the poor pay the same as the rich?

 

But no, let's talk about unions, and racism, and non-racism, and how tax credits are BAAAAAD. 

 

 

Huh?

[r2Dtoo]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/31/emboldened-gop-wants-to-abolish-state-income-taxes/

[Autumn Dusk]

I'm not sure this article dosn't take other things into consideration.  

 

The average rent in my area is around $900 a month for a small 2 bedroom apt, or a large 1 bedroom.  Closer to the city the costs double, and in Boston it's easy triple that.

 

A box of cereal costs $4.  The fixation on organic food has driven the cost of all fresh produce up.  Gas costs more, etc.

 

This is the plight of the north. 

 

In the south $30k will buy you a house you can live in.  within 50 miles of DC/NYC/Boston and anywhere near the seaboard or mountians tiny houses go for upwards of $200k.

 

I have friends who take their bachellors and get teaching jobs that pay well and are able to buy a huge house and live very well.  The teachers who stayed in the northeast rent and even though their pay is much higher aren't doing as well.  Both are good with handling money.

 

I don't believe it's all "to keep the man down".  Quite frankly it's far more costly to live in north and that alone drives up prices.

[4588686]

I'm not sure this article dosn't take other things into consideration.  

 

The average rent in my area is around $900 a month for a small 2 bedroom apt, or a large 1 bedroom.  Closer to the city the costs double, and in Boston it's easy triple that.

 

A box of cereal costs $4.  The fixation on organic food has driven the cost of all fresh produce up.  Gas costs more, etc.

 

This is the plight of the north. 

 

In the south $30k will buy you a house you can live in.  within 50 miles of DC/NYC/Boston and anywhere near the seaboard or mountians tiny houses go for upwards of $200k.

 

I have friends who take their bachellors and get teaching jobs that pay well and are able to buy a huge house and live very well.  The teachers who stayed in the northeast rent and even though their pay is much higher aren't doing as well.  Both are good with handling money.

 

I don't believe it's all "to keep the man down".  Quite frankly it's far more costly to live in north and that alone drives up prices.

 

 

None of that really has much of anything to do with the author's argument in way of refutation.   Prices are lower in the South but poverty is still more rampant.

 

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/09/latest-census-numbers-show-deepening-southern-poverty.html

 

Is it all 'the man keeping us down'?  No.  But that is a major aspect of it.  If you would like a specific case study in the way that the economic and social elites have used racism to keep workers down I'd recommend Civil Rights Unionism.  It's about the attempts of tobacco workers to unionize and the concerted strategy employed to keep those workers divided by hyping up racism.  

http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-6216.html

[Evangetholic]

.

Edited February 20, 2013 by Evangetholic

[Era Might]

Great article, thanks. I've lived in the South twice now (just moved back), and I have to laugh at the wages advertised for jobs. I'm talking about ads looking to pay $9 an hour for a college graduate with lots of very valuable skills like web design. Here in Louisiana the rents are certainly a LOT cheaper, which is a positive, but there is less opportunity as well. Some interesting ideas in this article about why the south can be pathetic for wages. But someone with a head on their shoulders and drive can succeed anywhere...some of these labor issues have to be put on the shoulders of laborers. If you're just looking to get buy with a job, it's going to be tough. The article is right that we need to empower people, but we need to empower them to feed their minds and their lives, and not just empower them politically. I don't see myself as a "conservative" in the usual sense of the word, but I think the emphasis on old-fashioned American self-reliance in conservative discourse is one positive point.

Edited February 20, 2013 by Era Might

[Autumn Dusk]

Great article, thanks. I've lived in the South twice now (just moved back), and I have to laugh at the wages advertised for jobs. I'm talking about ads looking to pay $9 an hour for a college graduate with lots of very valuable skills like web design. Here in Louisiana the rents are certainly a LOT cheaper, which is a positive, but there is less opportunity as well. Some interesting ideas in this article about why the south can be pathetic for wages. But someone with a head on their shoulders and drive can succeed anywhere...some of these labor issues have to be put on the shoulders of laborers. If you're just looking to get buy with a job, it's going to be tough. The article is right that we need to empower people, but we need to empower them to feed their minds and their lives, and not just empower them politically. I don't see myself as a "conservative" in the usual sense of the word, but I think the emphasis on old-fashioned American self-reliance in conservative discourse is one positive point.

 

One of the arguments I've heard is that segregation actually harmed more blacks than it helped beucase there was a deep entrepreneurial spirit.  This is from one predominat black author that I forget the name of now.  They had their own grocers, lawyers, etc.    When segregation occurred they could shop at the large corporations and abandoned the smaller stores.  The pay was worse.  The opportunity to succeed had suddenly been removed.  The author inferred that the loss of this spirit did perminant damage to the psyce of the area and they developed a go with the flow attitude that is pervasive to today.

 

As far as the poverty rate

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate...sort by adjusted level to see what I mean.

 

When looking at the detailed map one can see that while the poorest states do include many southern states it also includes northern states.   Climate and dense cities have a HUGE affect, as well as large populations of native americans (see New Mexico/AZ).  "The Man" may be part, but it's not near the giant conspirisy that the first article would indicate

Edited February 21, 2013 by Autumn Dusk

[Evangetholic]

Segregation forced families like mine, college educated, middle class, Catholic/Episcopalian/Presbyterian/Methodist, and (typically) lighter skinned to live in the same communities or at least move in the same milieu as poor blacks. We served as a kind of symbol of potential to achieve. With integration we more or less left "blackness" which then left poor, Baptist/Seventh Day Adventist/Pentecostal/Holiness, and (typically) dark skinned blacks to bear the entire burden of our historic oppression, but with neither our money, our talent, or our example being offered to help them rise. Integration actually came radically too soon for poor blacks, and the black elites disinterest was and is colossal (our interests do not rest with Lakeisha and Bobo from 'round the way).

Edited February 21, 2013 by Evangetholic

[Era Might]

One of the arguments I've heard is that segregation actually harmed more blacks than it helped beucase there was a deep entrepreneurial spirit.  This is from one predominat black author that I forget the name of now.  They had their own grocers, lawyers, etc.    When segregation occurred they could shop at the large corporations and abandoned the smaller stores.  The pay was worse.  The opportunity to succeed had suddenly been removed.  The author inferred that the loss of this spirit did perminant damage to the psyce of the area and they developed a go with the flow attitude that is pervasive to today.

 

As far as the poverty rate

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate

 

When looking at the detailed map one can see that while the poorest states do include many southern states it also includes northern states.   Climate and dense cities have a HUGE affect, as well as large populations of native americans (see New Mexico/AZ).  "The Man" may be part, but it's not near the giant conspirisy that the first article would indicate

 

There was definitely a divide among blacks. MLK was the more middle class integrationist whereas Malcolm was about empowering black communities, including getting blacks to be the businesspeople in their own communities. Without a doubt the integrationists managed to forge political freedom for blacks, but perhaps Malcolm's vision still needs to be fleshed out.

[Evangetholic]

Even Dr. King, especially by the end of his life, was further to the left than the black upper and middle classes. As for Malcolm, the man was a racist.