What Had Happened Was...

The American Dream was Offshored

Leave it to Beaver, 1958 PUBLIC DOMAIN WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Hello Friend,

When the new administration waxes poetic about the ‘golden age of America’, they mean the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, not the post WWII golden age of capitalism. MAGA voters seem more enamored with the latter, which they envision as a Leave it to Beaver Caucasian fantasy. Like all mythology, the imagined versions of both of these golden eras lack subtlety and nuance. The Gilded Age was only golden for the monied classes, and the post WWII golden age was not so golden for everyone. It was a complex time, tumultuous and chaotic, filled with sweeping change. Beyond the Pleasant Valley Sunday oasis of emerging middle class white America, tensions brewed, bubbled, and exploded. Tensions that arose from the struggles of those who did not live in that Leave it Beaver fantasy, and rightly wanted their fair share of the American Dream.

That second golden age began to tarnish after Nixon lifted the Chinese embargo in 1971 and corporate America saw the opportunity to cultivate a promising new market. (There is more to the story, of course, but this is a key factor.) What began as a vision to export US made goods to China soon shifted into the vision of manufacturing goods in China to import back to America for a fraction of what it would cost to make the same items here. Labor rights hard won in America would not apply in China. Capitalism did what capitalism does, it kept stretching towards maximum profitability. America was transformed from a manufacturing giant to a service economy. Reagan convinced the masses that the wealthy needed to be freed from regulation and high taxes and their prosperity would trickle down to the rest of us. The unleashed Free Market would usher in a new golden era.

Factories shut down. Boom towns went bust. Main streets were shuttered and replaced by shiny shopping malls. In the end the bottom line mattered more than the future of working class America. They sold our soul for sweatshops pumping out an increasing supply of cheaply made Chinese goods. Entire industries moved overseas. We evolved away from factory jobs, steel mills, and coal mines, but what we failed to do was to include all Americans in this evolution. Network TV became Cable TV and eventually streaming. The Sackler Family got rural America hooked on opiates, devastating already struggling communities. The internet entered our homes with PCs and eventually smart phones allowing us 24/7 access to everything, everywhere, all at once. The digital economy emerged and shopping malls were abandoned for Amazon Prime. We were no longer receiving the same information. We were encouraged to consume more stuff and more content.

We became increasingly addicted, distracted, disconnected, and self absorbed.

This moment in which we find ourselves is directly descended from the methodical way the frustrations of those left behind have been manipulated to shift focus from the class wars to the manufactured culture wars. This is not by chance. Our media and anti-social media have been weaponized to deepen these divides.

We are reaching the inevitable outcome of this purposeful division. While we attack and blame each other, the monied class is hammering the final nail into the coffin of the post WWII golden age American Dream. They are dismantling our safety nets, pilfering our coffers, draining our will to fight, and scaring us into submission. They’re stuffing their bank accounts to overflowing while giving us lectures on austerity tempered with vague promises of coming days of prosperity. Yes, it will be difficult for a while, they admit, but if we can stay the course things will improve. What they’re not admitting is the golden age to come financed by us is the neo-Gilded Age being constructed for them.

My mother and I have postulated for decades that eventually Americans would be working in sweatshops again making cheap goods for the emerging middle class in other countries. It seems we may have been partially right, but with AI and robotics, those sweatshop jobs may not re-appear. What that means for Americans in the face of what’s happening to our government is what keeps me up at night. I believe the only way to reclaim the future is to stop participating in the hyper-consumer economy and to stop consuming the propaganda and micro-targeted messaging that keeps us distracted and deepens our divisions. We have to delete the apps, put down the phones, step away from the keyboards, and reconnect with each other and the world in which we live.

Donny Two Dolls is right about one thing, we would be happier with less. Cheap stuff is not bringing us joy. It is destroying us and the world in which we live. We’re being inundated with microplastics. Our oceans are filling with toxic debris. The detritus of our consumer culture is piling up in landfills in third world nations. The planet is heating up, with devastating and yet to be fully comprehended consequences.

There is nothing to be gained from outrageous tariffs or increased isolationism. We can’t go back. We have to find a new way forward. If we work together, pool resources, create our own systems of commerce and community, we can circumnavigate the existing imploding paradigms. We can make the grifters, the oligarchs, the accelerationists, and the Tech Bros irrelevant. America may be a lot of things, but our greatest resource is our people. We’re tenacious, creative, innovative, smart, and hard working. I believe it is possible to build a future where our planet can heal, our children can prosper, and no one gets left behind.

I remain hopeful we’ll find our way to a real golden age that shines for everyone.

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