by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog
TITANIC LARGEST SHIP IN THE WORLD SINKING
personally I am not sure that the twelvehour day is bad for employees especially when they insist on working that long in order to make more money
— John Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel, part one of the U.S.A. trilogy
What if the bailouts actually work?
Naturally, socialists aren’t inclined to explore this question, but what’s so interesting is that the Western Mainstream Media doesn’t want to admit the truth: the US bailouts for the lower classes have been hugely effective.
Too effective, they fear, and their fears are entirely correct. Make sure to circle August 1 on your calendar because that will be something of a US class war D-Day.
The Mainstream Media does not want to touch this issue with a 10-foot pole, so we cannot find much coverage of the reality that the Great Lockdown payouts to the lower classes have been – by US standards – incredibly generous. (Note: this article was written last week. The latest Fed Beige Book came out yesterday and addressed this issue, so I bumped this column up in the queue.)
2020 saw the very first “People’s QE”, with $1,200 in direct payments and a $600 increase per week in unemployment insurance until July 31.
Even if the bureaucracy sometimes moved too slowly and there were inevitable issues with this enormous and unprecedented redistribution, the verdict was in immediately: this was a hugely popular success with the lower classes. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s the most generous unemployment payout since the 1930s. For the first time in recent memory governmental policy favoured the lower class worker instead of the upper-middle and upper classes.
The average worker went from $378 per week in state unemployment benefits to $978 per week – a jump of 160%. You ever get a 160% raise before? I haven’t. Indeed, a socialist had to have gotten a lump in their throats when this was announced. One study showed that a whopping 68 percent of unemployed workers who can receive benefits are eligible for payments that are greater than their lost earnings. That number seems a bit high, but the massive desire to support the stay-at-home orders was surely a reflection of a desire to support this radically different approach to poverty prevention.
For the incredibly stingy US system the payout was unexpectedly generous and even based on good sense: the payout was $978 per week because the national average salary for unemployment recipients is $970 per week. It passed the smell test, too: $4,000 per month is a pretty good salary in the US… if you have no kids. However, if you have a very good upper-middle class job then it’s a pay cut, but democratically orienting policy to the needs of the lower classes and not the upper and upper-middle classes in the US? Since when?!
This is when socialists had to think – maybe these bailouts will actually work?
But it’s not as if they pulled the plug on capitalist-imperialist culture, so I think the US 1% made a major mistake in suddenly growing a conscience – they have unwittingly done more to raise class consciousness than any union or socialist party has done for many decades.
Buy some popcorn and watch the show – August 1 is going to see public labor-related rage for the first time since the 1930s.
Big, big problems in almost too many ways to count starting August 1
Michiganders demanding their constitutional right to fish was interesting, courageous and an example of ancestor worship any East Asian would be proud of, but let’s talk turkey about why in May – when it became clear that comparisons of coronavirus with the Spanish Flu of 1918 were obviously tabloid journalism – polls showed so many people refused to go back to work:
The early reopening of the economy was shot in the foot by this “unemployment bailout” – why on earth would the lower classes want to return to their low-paid jobs, where they could contract huge corona-related health care costs, when they can be totally safe and paid better to boot?
Don’t get it twisted for even a moment: the problem was NOT an excessive government handout but the TERRIBLE wages lower class workers have to endure since 1980. What “shot the recovery in the foot”, therefore, was capitalist greed and decades of stagnant wages, not “overly-generous government programs”. If the US had paid proper wages, and had shown proper skepticism to the now-unproven claims of corona hysterics, then they wouldn’t have so many employees telling bosses to take their job and shove it.
And the anger will seethe long-term, because the long, long, LONG overdue payout only sowed the seeds of future class discontent: it took a deadly pandemic for America’s most abused workers to finally get a living wage of above $15/hour. How can the lower classes – who are totally denied class consciousness by the US education system and pop culture – now ever forget that money for them really is there, but it is unfairly redistributed?
The US already has 41 million unemployed officially – given that the median weekly income in the US is $865, we are conservatively talking about 20 million workers who will only go back to work grudgingly on August 1.
The long-term cultural ramifications of that should not be underestimated.
Equally necessary to not underestimate: after August 1 many millions of workers won’t have these proper unemployment benefits nor a job either – at least 25% to up to over 40% of jobs aren’t coming back. So, conservatively, 20-30 million workers are going to get a huge pay cut as they have to survive on the “normal” benefit of just $378 per week.
Again, the cultural ramifications add up to massive discontent.
I think there is no chance that the US 1% authorises an extension of the $600 per week extra past August 1 – it was totally out of keeping with US ideology to begin with, and yet another indicator of the hysteria which swept the US regarding coronavirus. If unemployment benefits remained that high the only choice would be for bosses to raise wages to attract workers, and 40 years of recent shows that simply won’t be allowed to happen in the US.
Congress will, however, likely extend the number of weeks workers can live on the inadequate $378 wage (usually around 6 months in the US) but that will hardly be viewed as sufficient. They are talking about giving a $450 back to work bonus to get workers to accept jobs, and this only shows what a huge mistake the US 1% made amid the corona hysteria (thankfully!) and how they are now scrambling to erase it by offering crumbs.
The Democratic leadership has proposed extending the $600/week until 2021, but that’s typically-empty Democratic electioneering: if they really wanted to protect the lower classes and not corporations then they would have included that proposal in the first bailout package. Democrats waited until they knew extending $600 plus had no chance of getting passed
The cultural discontent will also be amplified and extended by the upcoming US elections in November.
Should we expect on August 1st the media to “play ball” with the 1%, like they normally do, and shepherd the masses to go back to work? Not hardly. I think it’s staggeringly unpatriotic to have “played politics” during this pandemic but nobody would doubt that many journalists, politicians and governors have done and are doing exactly that – why would they stop just a few months prior to Trump’s re-election vote?
(Indeed, whereas pre-corona I viewed Trump as a near-lock to be re-elected the odds of him winning amid such economic depression now seems rather illogical. As he is an extreme narcissist Trump views absolutely everything as being all about him, but I can see why he said back in February that corona was being overhyped to damage him politically.)
Will the fake-leftist MSM agitate in favor of labor/the unemployed army, thus against the 1%? That would be rather amazing, and something not seen since the 1970s, but it actually seems likely because they want to better Democratic election chances. It is only a temporary change caused by the corona hysteria and won’t stick long-term, of course.
Countering the fake-leftist MSM will be the always unwanted presence of Austrians/Chicagoans/Republicans who sanctimoniously rail about the “moral hazard” of “incentivising sloth” – people who never knew working hard at a lousy job yet still being unable to pay the most basic bills – will be equating extending the $600/week with the arrival of Satan, whom they are sure is also a Stalinist socialist. These greedy toads had effectively kept a lid on class consciousness for four decades, but no longer.
By August 1 all will be reminded: the problem remains unequal distribution
The term “working class” is so distorted in US culture that the term has no meaning anymore – I prefer the Iranian term “the lower classes” because everybody instinctively knows if they are in the “upper class” or one of all those “lower classes”. And, far more importantly, is that everyone knows whom they politically support: Mao came from a wealthy family but lived his motto of “Serve the People”, whereas plenty of New York City rappers would set an urban housing project on fire just to get on MTV. Many in the US are aware of Eugene “Daddy Socialist” V. Debs’ saying “while there is a soul in prison, I am not free,” but they are not told what preceded it: “while there is a lower class, I am in it”.
So support/opposition to $600 extra per week is going to go a long way in showing who supports which class.
Ultimately, the bailouts will not work – in terms of aiding society – for the three other major components of the US economy: the small- and medium-sized business, corporations and high finance. Addressing “Will the bailouts work?” for those sectors requires another article, but this column democratically addressed the bailouts’ effect on the largest sector of society – the lower classes.
August 1 will mark a critical new era in which domestic disenchantment with the American system reaches an all-time peak, and then only increase from there. Mark your calendars.
It’s not as if American socialism doesn’t have a history to draw upon for strength and guidance, such as John Dos Passos. The U.S.A. trilogy was ranked 23rd on Modern Library’s 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, but today Dos Passos has been banished from schools, academia and public consciousness – he chronicled the early years of American socialism.
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Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis.
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
MSNBC: Chicago price gouging up 9,000% & the sports-journalization of US media – March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? – March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30, 2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20, 2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26,
2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
ZeroHedge, a response to Mr. Littlejohn & the future of dollar dominance – April 30, 2020
Given Western history, is it the ‘Great Segregation’ and not the ‘Great Lockdown’? – May 2, 2020
The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy? – May 4, 2020
May 17: The date the Great Lockdown must end or Everything Bubble 2 pops – May 6, 2020
Reading Piketty: Does corona delay the Greens’ fake-leftist, sure-to-fail victory? – May 8, 2020
Picturing the media campaign needed to get the US back to work – May 11, 2020
Scarce jobs + revenue desperation = sure Western stagflation post-corona – May 13, 2020
France’s nurses march – are they now deplorable Michiganders to fake-leftists? – May 15, 2020
Why haven’t we called it ‘QE 5’ yet? And why we must call it ‘QE 2.1’ instead – May 16, 2020
‘Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty public servant!’ That’s Orwell? – May 17, 2021
The Great Lockdown: The political apex of US single Moms & Western matriarchy? May 21, 2021
I was wrong on corona – by not pushing for a US Cultural Revolution immediately – May 25, 2021
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the NEW ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
Ramin wrote: 2020 saw the very first “People’s QE”, with $1,200 in direct payments and a $600 increase per week in unemployment insurance until July 31.
Now is it not strange that Australia also pays extra benefits, above the usual unemployment rates, payments which are due to run out in September? People in Australia are already talking about the September cliff edge.
This has the smell of the usual bankers’ ‘bag of dirty tricks’, a financial ‘Patriot Act’ designed to deflect the people’s rage, to corral the sheeple, and then to slam the gate shut upon them.
The virus panic then is just a scam, used to fulfill a bankers scheme for social engineering, and perhaps eventual genocide!
Friend of mine in Canada was relating how students are getting $2,000 canadian this summer (something like that, I didn’t check it yet) if they can’t find a job – so what 20-year old is going to look to work at some lousy job for peanuts instead of living off that dole? I worked for peanuts at that age, like a moron, but I was a moron who had no choice. I’m glad those young people are getting $2k – better than going to stupid bankers who would keep that money out of the real economy. I’m sure many of those 20-year olds already paid plenty into their tax system, so of course they deserve to get something out of it now.
So I’m sure there’s similar discussions about “cliffs” in Australia and many other countries – gonna be very interesting, to say the least. I just focused on the US to keep these articles not too long – very interesting to hear some specifics on Australia. thanks Ric.
The Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB) provides financial support to post-secondary students, and recent post-secondary and high school graduates who are unable to find work due to COVID-19.
This benefit is for students who do not qualify for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) or Employment Insurance (EI).
From May to August 2020, the CESB provides a payment to eligible students of:
$1,250
For each 4-week period
or
$2,000
For each 4-week period, if you have dependants or a disability.
Adult Canadian workers receive $2,000 a month during this time.
Adult Canadians ‘out’ of work recieve $2000 per month, many of us still go work every day, regardless, and pay for the hand outs. Very nice of the Queen to let Justin give it away, even if it’s her ugly mug on the bill$.
Cheers
So it’s $1,250 for the average student, who does not have dependents – thanks.
Like I wrote, I’m sure many of them have worked part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer and paid into the system – they deserve the money morally, no doubt, and this money’s economic utility is even less doubtful.
If employers won’t pay these students just $7.82 an hour (i.e. a better wage by $0.01), the problem is their low wages, not the handouts.
If the student worked the summer prior, they’d be considered a seasonal worker and are entitled to the CERB of $2000. Minimun wage in Canada is $11.65
The 1% think the lower class employment situation is stabilizing due to the rapid decline of continuing claims, down several million in the 5/28 report, a number that is much higher than the couple of million in new claims. This is misleading, however, as it represents the rehiring of some workers as the economy reopens. But it masks a continuing deterioration in employment due to a decline in demand long-term. This only strengthens the argument in Ramin’s article that the 1% will not extend the extra $600 per week on August 1st.
Aristotle explained what is possible just society .
Natural way of exchange is Crematistic – between free subjects.
Economy is about the Wealth and Possessions which presumes existence of Slaves .
Concept of what is the Slave changes in history : Slave, Fief, Worker (unemployed
that is forced to work for pin-nuts)
So Economy is always based on some form of slavery.
‘Tax Slavery’; they freed the slaves and put them on the tax roll, before slaves were not taxable and provided free labour for massar. Industrialist who had to hire freemen didn’t appreciate the fact that some competitors had free labour, can’t have that, let’s free the slaves, and tax them………………….capitalist equaqlity for all.
Slave owners had to clothe and feed their slaves, as well as providing them basic medical help and housing.
Capitalism means slaves are free to fend for themselves.
The rationale for the American Civil War right there in a nutshell. Capitalism demands that anything and everyone be freely available for exploitation.
Steak and eggs for breakfast, a trip to Tiffany’s for some habadashery, then retreat to the den for a smoke and some conjac…………….slavery sound ideal, no?
Master or (and) Slave?
When we are not Masters of our-self’s,of our body and soul –
then we are Slaves of our desires and pleasures .
Cognac is not always way to freedom as hard work is not always
slavery .
But sure , between Cognac and hard work I also choose Cognac.
I marked 1Aug several weeks ago as a date to watch the US closely when i read a few stories in some “#maga “news” sites complaining about ppl not going back to work bc of the 600$ extra pay..
Your book is finally available @ adlibris. no btw, woohoo.
I will order it as soon as i can afford it, unfortunately books are effing expensive up here at the edge of the continent so i will have to wait a few weeks b4 my budget allows me to splurge 25£ on “non essential” stuff bc i ordered Martianov`s first book and the last Pratchett and Terry Goodkind books. But buy it i will.
Hi Per,
I can’t say for sure if that adlibris isn’t getting it from Amazon – I don’t know how else they would get it my book.
Thanks for your support, much appreciated!
Yes, Ramin, your analysis has internal logic.
But events on the ground are moving much faster than August 1st. Please see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1u_ugVK4ME
The USSA is a society divided against itself, fragmented, disaffected, ignorant, exploited, poor, unemployed, embittered, frustrated, angry, seething with discontent.
The argument you advance is cogent; it’s only that the social unrest has already begun in earnest. June and July will be off the charts in the USSA. The events of August will be like throwing gasoline on an already roaring bonfire.
Of course, the state will intervene — but to protect its own interests, not those of the civil population.
The business of the USSA is war, so look for the state to engineer a horrific false flag attack, or series of such attacks, as a pretext for and rallying point for WAR against an external enemy. And quite possibly martial law at home, to quell civil insurrection in the streets. A genuine, popular, grass roots political movement will not be permitted.
Police station set ablaze in Minneapolis after latest cop murder of a Black man – sure looks like events are moving fast on the ground indeed.
Could be another long, hot summer, like 1967.
Yes, and this report in the Guardian was right next to another on the same page reporting riots in HongKong. I wonder if the Guardian saw the irony of this.
Minnie and what’s comming is just more diversion, failed Russiagate, failed Impeachgate, failed Ukriainigate. failed Virusgate……….now they will start social unrest, it’s all about November. The stops will be pulled out, it has nothing to do with reality, it’s staged.
And how did you obtain this crystal ball of yours, Mr. Mazaheri? Again, I find your analysis way, way too deterministic as if economic pressures , presto, turn into conscious action. Didn’t an Italian called Gramsci lay waste to that fond fancy in the 1920’s?
You overestimate the capability of popular leadership ( religious, trade union– they back Biden– or academic)
to organize or even inspire people around a coherent program of action.
and to keep with your penchant for polarity,
You also underestimate the ability of the ruling class to divide people along race, age, sexual identity, and religious lines thereby inducing conflict.
I urge you to contemplate the idealistic simplicity of your schema for the US political future and at least brace yourself for disillusionment. And, to get real here, I hope you are totally correct and I am absolutely wrong but I have watched the American working class vote against its class interests for years, in fact ever since the
Vietnam war and the election of Nixon, Reagan etc. etc.
Great observation on the state of the average US citizens cognitive disabilities!
I’m finding this topic is becoming tiresome. I don’t say that because I have no heart for those who are truly poor. Those who may not have a stable dwelling, adequate and healthy food, clothing; the basics at least. You say the median income in the U.S. is $865 per week. That is just under $3500 per month. Wow, I’ve never seen such money! If a person is suffering with that I would like to know why. Especially since everything costs significantly more in Canada and we get less. I spent the last 26 years of my working life self employed. I didn’t get rich. I decided I’d had enough of over 45 years in one tough trade. My pension is about $1100 per month!
Initially the U.S. government was going to give everyone $1200. Don’t spend it all in one store. Millions lost their job through no fault of their own and the government throws them that? While bailing out mega-corporations and banks for trillions? Any extra perks thrown to the little people is only for a few months. It is going to run out soon. If there is going to be rioting, it isn’t going to be caused by discontented people who now have to go back to a crappy, low paying job. It will be caused by not being able to pay for the bare necessities of life, like no food! Obama gave the lower classes an Obama Phone which seemed to make them very satisfied. Maybe Trump can send them all a MAGA baseball cap? Especially the stars and stripes cap where all the stars are rotated into the shape of a Pentagram, Baphomet, goats head with the golden eagle that has no head or talons?
As one trying to live as an Orthodox Christian I view this world differently. Not that I don’t like quality things or like to see others suffer. As one elder has said “It is later than you think. The trees which will be used to make our coffins are already growing”.
Or as St. Paul the great apostle and sufferer for Christ said: “(I Timothy 6:7-10 [ESV2011])
[7] for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. [8] But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. [9] But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. [10] For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
Perhaps a wise choice by government would be to allow workplace competition except in areas of necessity. Any necessary staples have a limit as to how much can be charged. As long as the world’s money masters control the financial system of the planet we can only expect a greater surveillance state, greater control over every aspect of our lives. They have a new world order to complete after all, and most of us are ‘non-essential’.
This COVID-19 lockdown is being used as cover for a total reset of the world’s economy, which was probably going to happen anyway being as how the “everything” bubble has been ready to burst for months. It just needed this little pin-prick to happen. Thankfully, it wasn’t a major war that brought everything down.
We are in the midst of the second Industrial Revolution where most workers will be replaced by automation and robots. That’s been going on for decades, actually. The lumpen proletariate will be as superfluous as pack animals in this new economy. The “Davos crowd” has made it clear that population reduction is part of their agenda. The banksters are cooperating by bailing out the big corpse and leaving the lower classes to starve. The Cover-19 zombies who flock to the beaches and bars during the lockdown to spread the virus are doing their part, as many have been living near suicidal lifestyles for years.
As a Christian (Lutheran), I agree with you and St. Paul that our striving for wealth and power is in vain. I’m also hopeful that the powers that be will ultimately be exposed for what they really are, the Synagogue of Satan, as our Lord would say. Also, hopefully, those who have wandered away from their faith will find there way back.
As long as we are calling them “the powers that are be” nothing will change, for unknowingly we’re praying for them to be…….let us just say ” the unpowers that are not be” or something equivalent. Peace and love.
Actually, it was St. Paul who called them “the powers that be” and he made it very clear that their power is transitory and change is inevitable.
With all due respect to Saint Paul …..it is human to err…… and as i have seen in the Bible the word “be” is calling for something to come to exist and remain till the “be” is revoked. It is an extremely powerful word……..and no one is permanent here, we’re all transitory, hence i say the powers that are not be…. thus willing them out of our tranistory short life. i hope we all do the same.
The real powers that be are very old banking family dynasties whose names for the most part we never hear. And they have lots of little minions and technocrats running their world empire, new world order headlined by their financial system. Unseating this power appears near impossible from a human point of view. As it has been well described, they have created spider webs of control.
Jimmy Dore, a very popular Leftist Youtuber has this view:
https://youtu.be/QxIjbulIYDs
“Our government and the oligarchs have used this crisis….people have no idea what’s coming or what’s really happened…The CARES act was the biggest upward transfer of wealth in the history of humankind…we’re gonna have a permanent underclass, we’re gonna have permanent unemployment…..”
By the way, I still haven’t gotten my $1200.
And what about all the people who don’t have a job and are working in the gig economy, and their work has dried up because small self employed business people can’t afford to pay them for a gig.
Oh, and by the way… millions of people who have blogs where they get paid promoting other people’s product, called Affiliate marketers, just got kicked in the teeth by Amazon, because Bezos just cut promotional fees to them by 35 to 60%!
So Bezos profits off of the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars independent bloggers and social media people sank into building their businesses.
The economic damage is equivalent to national suicide.
In days of old, we’d promote other peoples business and we didn’t get paid for it, it was called a referal. If some got of their affiliate ass maybe they could go out and do an honest days work, find the entrepenurial spirit, be a shepard not a sheeeeep……….some of us still do. See comment above.
Cheers, M
Why do you think that the payments will end on August 1, 2020 if there is still massive unemployment in the US? It would seem to me that the Democrats will be demanding an extension if only as an election ploy. For the same reason the Republicans will have to go along with it. Trump should stiff the Republicans and come out for a Universal Basic Income. Particularly, after August 1, 2020.
In any case, the longer the economy remains in recession or depression, the more likely that some sort of Universal Basic Income will be legislated. The possibility of labor strife will lead to a preemption of this risk. Labor strife risk is the reason for the current payments to the bottom.
There is the quote from Ben Franklin, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” But we already have that in the form of: “When the wealthy find that they can lobby themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” I submit the republic has already ended for the rich have been on the public dole for many decades so the end of the republic has already come. We need no longer worry about that kind of issue. The people need only fight for precedence in the state of affairs we have now.
Socialism need not be implemented. We need not take up that baggage. We have plenty of baggage arising from capitalist ideology to sort through. Just pass the Universal Basic Income and keep raising it over time to make capitalist ideology start working for the people.
Truly the problem with the lower class or the working class is their failure to accept the obvious meaning and consequence of capitalism. The acquisition of capital by any means necessary is the only real goal of this ideology. People need to take it to heart.
Since we live in a capitalist state with a capitalist ideology struggle for control over capital by one means or another is the only truly important goal so it must be taken up by all. Call it redistribution or call it anything you like the struggle for control over capital is the paramount issue of our time. To paraphrase Richard Nixon, “We are all capitalists now.”
Why would one wish to give control over capital to the state which is as distant from the people as the great capitalists themselves? The real issue is how every individual can gain effective control over capital or at least the income of capital for themselves. The UBI, if institutionalized and jealously protected, is one way to address the underlying issue.
The underlying logic of all the bailouts is such that the greater they are the more likely they will have to be extended to everyone. The inertia of the age argues that the ultimate end of it all requires everyone to be paid off. I conclude that the additional payments will not end on August 1, 2020. One might say that Pandora’s Box has been opened. A QE for the people will not go away but sink in more deeply as the recession continues and deepens. One need only demand that payoffs to the people be made permanent now that it has started and protected from any restrictions.
Ultimately, the question is not the UBI as such but the power of the people over the state. Will the people acquire power over the state or will the state keep its power over the people? If the state keeps its power over the people then UBI can be another chain around the people’s necks, but these chains may also be used to bind the state to the will of the people. Let the sheep turn into wolves as the financial pressure on them increases and the future may be very different from the fears of many people in this regard.
I have to take issue with a few points here:
First off, a large portion of the working class is not getting any checks at all, as they are gig workers, self-employed etc.
Secondly, when you say “For the first time in recent memory governmental policy favoured the lower class worker instead of the upper-middle and upper classes” that just isn’t true, as the vast majority of the bailouts was for the upper 10% or so.
Just consider, the 3 trillion or so spent divided by 330 million = $9,000 per person, divided by 128 million households = $23,000.
The working class is getting only a small percentage of the bailout.
Q: What if the bailouts actually work?
A: Well, at least, one could hope that they will serve the purpose of having the Pindos forget about their braindead, masturbatory fantasies about gargantuan lawsuits against China. The Pindos’ attention span isn’t too big, after all. However, if by ”work” we mean ”MAGA” it’s not going to happen. Thanks to neoliberalism, the West’s rot, decay, and imbecilification is plain unstoppable, especially as its ruling clique itself happily lives under these spells.