How we got here

The question I am answering is: ‘How did we get to a stage where one-third of Americans believe in more government, more even distribution of income and wealth; and every large city in the U.S. run by unions?’

CheI am able to trace the change back to the mid-1960’s when mainstream religions (Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopal) became Leftwing advocates.  Their role as champions of America and as rungs on the social-climbing ladder had disappeared. They tried to appeal to the urban immigrant neo-communists and failed because the new base was anti-theist like post war Europe.  The core pro-Americans joined the Baptist, Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches where community was the dominant chord.

Three major changes can be dated to this period. The demise of the the hereditary elite.  The purification of the Democrat Party. The decline in the relative importance of industry in America.

The underlying ground of 21st Century America began during the 1850's. It was the vast immigration of neo-communists from Europe and Eastern Europe (that includes socialists, anarchists, syndicalists, wobblies and the myriad other similar political pathologies). Together they were todays neo-communists.

Liz warrenThese immigrants brought the European neo-communist model from Italy, Greece, the Jewish Pale of Settlement in Western Russia and from Prussia.  These people were urban settlers in the U.S. and, over the next century, gained control of the world of academic teaching, as well as the movies, theatre, arts and the intellectual milieu. In the 20th century they came to control nearly all of education and the mass media.

Understanding that the ground of the United States in urban, coastal immigrant areas was neo-communist allows us to understand the question of why this group rose to importance after the 1960’s. They didn't emerge.  They were already in place when other forces disappeared.

The hereditary elite of America was in control of the United States until the late 1950’s.  By 1970 the hereditary elites were weak and unimportant. Replaced by the long underlying ground of neo-communists.

What happened?  America had an hereditary elite from its founding.  Americans escaped its oppressive power by moving West for most of our history.  The elite controlled industry and provided jobs and income to its members via this industrial control.

The end came with World War II where officer status was given to college graduates, a population that was no longer hereditary elite, and to meritocracy in the form of field promotions and the highly technical needs of the military.

By the mid 1950’s the WWII veterans, with meritocratic skills, became the managers of industry and displaced the hereditary elite, destroying the elites ability to give jobs to their own and finance their class.

That absence of hereditary power and dominance also left local political control to the only remaining organized entity in urban areas, the unions. Unions have controlled all urban areas since then with police unions, fire unions and education unions as their power base.

ObamaSimultaneously the dominant Democrat Party expelled its racist wing, the Dixiecrats, leaving itself open to slow emerging control of membership by the unassimilated European neo-communists.  By the end of the Cold War, 1992, the anti-communists were also removed from the Democrat Party or died like Scoop Jackson, leaving it entirely to the European immigrant neo-communists.

Concurrent with these postwar changes the dominance of industrial firms in commerce was replaced with non-industrial, technical and service firms. The top firms in 1955 were GM, Exxon, U.S. Steel, GE, and Dupont.

By 1970 the top included IBM. ITT and AT&T.

By the 1990’s top corporations were in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. They became wealthy locales with neo-communists in the movie, theatre, Arts, TV and academia. Over the last half century the media became the major spokespeople for neo-communist America as well as for the guilty nouveau riche of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

The modern political world is:

  • the century long creation of our unassimilated European immigrants who brought neo-communism to coastal urban areas all over the country. They never assimilated. They found work in the non-industrial sectors.
  • WWII had consequences that significantly replaced the hereditary elite with meritocratic commercial forces in the post war era.
  • A replacement of industrial America after the 1980's with the neo-communist dominated non-industrial, technical, service world of commerce.  
  • And changes in the Democrat Party that first purified itself of the Dixiecrats and then the anti-communist wing, leaving itself open to seizure by the neo-communist zealots.

Responses

  1. David Avatar

    I respectfully disagree. Many of these same trends can be seen in places like Ireland, Sweden, and Australia with very different histories regarding elites and immigration.
    So what accounts for the strength of the modern left. First I don’t think most pro-commerce views come naturally to people, especially from traditional societies. Second the academies and some of the professions embrace some form of meritocracy, but not other pro-commerce views making them the modern equivalent of the Medieval Catholic Church and guilds. Third the very success of capitalism and modern technology has divorced white progressives of some of the realities of life. Thus the virtue signaling spirals on social media or turning conservationism into the quasi-religious environmental movement. Finally it is not clear that the very large post 1965 immigration wave will prove to be a boon. So far the new immigrants vote mostly for the left and have greatly expanded the coastal urban enclaves.

  2. Michael Phillips Avatar

    David,
    David, I love your comment. I don’t think it is a contradiction.
    Europe is a similar example. The neo-communist revolutionaries were a large but not dominant force in Europe from the French Revolution. The hereditary elite were weakened by both World Wars and temporarily defeated in England and Germany. But they returned to near total power today while supporting the neo-communism that had become successful and popular. That is where they are today.
    Europe never had the vast open lands for citizens to escape to. Europe only had America, where the first true pro-commerce society emerged away from the coasts. That is the source of our current pro-American Trump revolution.
    Michael

  3. Mark Avatar

    >Many of these same trends can be seen in places like Ireland, Sweden, and Australia with very different histories regarding elites and immigration.
    Do you mean after WWII? Because after WWII, Hollywood became effectively the cultural center of the world. Hollywood, located in America. And American diplomacy began enforcing its will all over the place; this is probably best seen in the case of Rhodesia -> Zimbabwe. Before its encounter with Kissinger, a peaceful, prosperous country with a sound agrarian-industrial economy and reasonably representative democracy in the classical Anglo style; after its encounter with Kissinger, a poor, dangerous, disease-ridden, and starving territory with a smash-and-grab “economy” and an American-appointed dictatorial “banana republic”.

  4. Mark Avatar

    I find it plausible, your theory that most post-Revolution immigration has turned out to be a disaster for American and her ultimate protectorates, i.e. most of the world.
    I guess my question is: as a Jew, a member of a historically wildly overachieving people, how great do you think the Jewish role was in all of this? I ask because I look at things like, for example, the Russian and German communist revolutions, and pretty much all the leadership is Jewish. Or in something like neoconservatism. And many others.
    Do you think the “neo-communist” immigrant elements would have succeeded nearly to the degree that they did without the aid of Jewish excellence?
    And what will happen to “neo-communism” without full-blooded Jews as its standard-bearers (71% outmarriage rate)? Will it just sort of peter out? Or will we just end up, ultimately, with full-scale forever-monotonous commerce-hostile pseudo-aristo Brazilification?

  5. Michael Phillips Avatar

    Mark
    Are you my good friend Hans who asked the same question at dinner on Saturday night?
    Yes, we Jews are responsible for much of the awful state of the neo-communism in the U.S. thanks to our immigrant ancestors. Mine were particularly bad on the matrilineal side.
    We can only give thanks for people like Milton Friedman and Jared Kushner.
    I dare not make predictions. But at the moment I am optimistic thanks to heartland America.
    Michael

  6. Mark Avatar

    I’m no Hans, but he sounds like a pretty cool guy.
    Had I lived in the past, I would no doubt have led the Know-Nothings to astonishing victory, but we rapidly approacheth 2019, not 1849 — the goose is cooked; the milk is spilt; the omelette is scrambled.
    I’m glad for the Friedmans and Kushners of the world, but we have a long road ahead of us. We’re going to need a major reorganization after the slow-boil of the last century or so. Alotta WWII-born subversives must needs meet their ovens — the OSS and all its spawn: heirs, bastards, and zombie thralls equally.
    Fortunately, thanks entirely to the efforts of one Teutonic superman, I really think we might be at one of those epoch-making hinge-points of history.
    At least we live in interesting times.

  7. Mark Avatar

    *reorganization -> reconstitution

  8. Eddie Tennison Avatar

    First…I just found your blog. Because I decided to look to see if you had one, or if you were active on utoob these days.
    I read your first book so long ago now. Soon after it was originally published, I guess. I was from a working class family and had no financial mentors. Your writing influenced me a great deal. You and others who started writing back then. Paul Hawken was another. . I was a young adult then, who had cut my teeth as a teenager on the Whole Earth Catalog. California seemed like a strange but utterly Cool Place to a kid in rural Texas.
    Eventually, in my middle age, I would come to visit San Francisco and northern California quite a lot, and sample the culture, much changed of course, but still pretty cool. The fires have changed things a lot, and it breaks my heart. I don’t think I’ve been back since 2015 or 2016.
    I’m a poster boy for meritocracy. A kid born in the 50’s, came of age in the 70’s. Worked my way through state college and borrowed to attend dental school in the 80’s. Been a practicing dentist in Texas since the late 80’s.
    Started from nothing, with nothing but desire and willingness to work. Married a great woman and raised four awesome kids who still make me proud. One teacher, one visual artist, one musician, and one who is still in the becoming stages, studying Chinese medicine, at the moment.
    I’ve lived an abundant life…lived like a king, really. I’m not a super high net worth guy, but I have done okay. Money has always been a means to various ends, and not an end in itself, for me.
    I give some thought to how we came to be here too, at this juncture. I have several Marxist friends whom I argue with online and in person, in a friendly way. I’m not an angry white guy, although I guess I fit the demographic. I’m considered to be the ugly capitalist of the group. I hear about how I’m a member of an elitist gate-kept profession and I hear myself described as a criminal racketeer. Laughable, if one knows my real story.
    I consider my job as half helping profession and half business. Skills and ethics in both are necessary to prosper. I view exchange on the local level to be very healthy.
    But what does bother me is what I call Corporatism, whereby the world’s biggest companies, public and private, manage to buy off the national legislative process and hollow out representative government. I think there is something to that idea of the tragedy of the commons, unfortunately. Trump has been successful in eliminating whatever barriers there were……to what looks to me to be one last long final chapter in the strip-mining of the planet. Maybe you can tell me why that shouldn’t bother me.
    And it doesn’t look healthy for small businessmen like me, when the system seems to be leading to more and more wealth inequality. We depend on people to be able to create enough surplus in their financial lives to afford to pay for our services.
    I didn’t come here to argue any of that, however. Just an aside, really, after reading your post.
    No, what really made me think of you, is a thought that occurred to me, that your own innovative thinking and the development of MC and Visa led to what was probably the most disruptive technology that affected banking and access to money, in my generation. Every bit as disruptive as the net, and necessary for the net to become the hub of commerce that it is now.
    And it made me wonder what your take is on the current wave of disruptive technology affecting banking and money, which I would posit is the rise of blockchain and cryptos. I haven’t read too much yet here on your blog, but I was wondering if you were writing much about it. This year I see the space beginning to evolve into something quite interesting. The new stablecoins (if they do prove to be stable) provide a very useful (maybe dangerous?)proxy for sovereign currencies. Certain companies (no names, this is about ideas) would seem to be on the verge of making the SWIFT system obsolete.
    It just looks big to me, and I don’t think too many people realize exactly how big. But I’m not a banker and I have no credentials as an expert.
    Frankly, I hope you might address this subject sometime in your writing. In the blog, in a book. Somewhere.
    And thank you, for what you’ve done to educate ordinary people like me about money. It helped. It still helps.
    Eddie

  9. Eddie Avatar

    Ah, I see that you HAVE been writing about cryptos. I was hoping you had. Let me catch up with where you are on that.

  10. Eddie Avatar

    I find myself coming back to the real topic of this post. It’s a subject that thinking people should have on their minds, and some small number are looking at this, at least among my widely scattered acquaintance on the net.
    I think your thesis is interesting, about the rise of Marxist thought and its influence on the liberal ethos in our country. My own working theory has been that the current divide is a reaction to the social engineering experiments started by LBJ, But maybe I wasn’t looking far enough back in history.
    I was a hippy kid who grew up and got a real job, because I was born poor and didn’t find it particularly noble. But that gave me a liberal POV. But in these past few years its become increasingly apparent that the left is controlled by a false narrative.
    I have one friend who constantly writes about the mistreatment of black people….but coming through the public university system, I saw any and all black kids who were willing to try, being given a hand up. I have knowledge of specific cases, not just what I read somewhere.
    In my view the real tragedy is that few black kids took advantage. And it bothers me now to see that the local U. has a VP of Diversity who gets paid over 300K, to do a job that appears to be telling nice white people how to talk to black people. They have a new one now. The last one went on to become a university president in another state, but he was fired when it was learned he’d been padding his CV for years. I kid you not.
    I am glad to see people with real intellect and real facts, like Jordan Peterson and others (and yourself, now I see) , successfully debunking the cultural Marxists and purveyors of identity politics. I have, myself, been accused of being “alt-right” just because I have questioned the narrative of the left. Like Dr. Peterson, I never even considered myself right-wing at all. For most of my life, politics seemed like a silly game I was lucky to manage to avoid.
    I have problems with Mr. Trump and more especially with what I perceive as the powers behind his throne. The rise of Twitterpolitik seems to have galvanized what I call Joe Bageant’s people…They are, in my opinion, an ignorant and bigoted lot, who usually vote against their own interests. I find that sad, because they are MY people.
    I come from a very similar background to Joe. Southern, with ancestors whose lives were radically altered by the Civil War. That’s what brought my mother’s people to Texas. It’s a long sad story, and i’ve managed to piece it together with the aid of the net. My parents are gone now. They really had lost their own heritage, but I found it, and have written about it.
    I don’t consider myself racist or sexist or anti-gay. I’ve always worshipped tolerance as a guiding light.
    I wonder if we aren’t witnesses to the end of Western Civilization. Energy is getting more expensive. Climate is changing. I won’t argue the causes, the effects concern me more. I too am getting old. Sixty-three next month. I have lived an extraordinary life full of abundance and fun and wide experience. I feel like I’m surfing the last wave of a beautiful long summer day at the best beach in the world. I’m worried about my kids.
    Keep writing, please. I am following with interest, even if I don’t see eye-to-eye. Intelligent dialogue is dying art.

  11. Michael Phillips Avatar

    Eddie, I sure agree with you.

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