Maslow’s Triangle
Feb 18th, 2008 at 7:58 am by Susie
Chris Bowers points out that Obama does very well in the creative class - and that’s what worries me. Richard Florida, who researches the effect of the creative class, has some thoughts:
I think Bowers is right about this. And it seems to me the 2008 election may well turn on class lines. I have long said the central animating issue in American politics is neither partisan polarization nor the culture wars but a festering class divide. Obama may appeal to progressive members of the creative class who swung Iowa, but can that group (roughly a third of the workforce) swing the general election his way. Seems to me there is an even larger group of working and service class people who are frightened, scared, anxious, angry and resentful about what is happening to “their” America. Critics of my own work have already attempted to reduce the creative class to “yuppies, sophistos, trendoids, and gays.” My hunch is these same types will be all too eager to hang the label “elitist” all over Obama, framing him as a Harvard educated, Washington insider surrounded by a gaggle of Hollywood glitterati backers and the same old liberal establishment economic advisers (think Robert Rubin and Larry Summers). If the Democrats (and the creative class) cannot figure a way out of this box - to articulate an inclusive agenda for the future which shows in plain and simple terms how working class and service class people can participate and prosper from the global creative economy, my assessment is that the electoral playing field will remain heavily tilted toward a reinvigorating Republican populism. Huckabee has the potential to tap into this zeitgeist in a way that could move far beyond the “Reagan democrats.” And Obama, despite his personal attractiveness and oratorical skills, runs the risk of being framed as another Gore or even Kerry. I’m just saying …
I’ll add a more direct caveat. The creatives need to find a way to share real power with working class and service class people. Otherwise, we’ll end up with an American hybrid of Bolshevism. And we all know how well that worked out .
What draws many of the people I know to Obama seems to have more to do with transcendence and self-actualization (the tip of Maslow’s triangle) than political class restructuring - and without clear leadership from Obama (and no, “change” isn’t specific enough, and you can’t refer people without computers to his website), it will drive many of the voters back to the Republicans. In “Deer Hunting With Jesus,” Joe Bageant talks about this. He says contrary to what liberals think, the right-wing working class doesn’t spend a lot of time watching Ann Coulter on Fox News - they’re too busy working two or three jobs to stay afloat:
So we go into the holy roller praise temples — my brother is a fundamentalist minister who casts out demons — and drink a lot of beer with the forklift drivers and single moms at the dreary night shift gulag of the local Rubbermaid plant. These are people condemned to a life of white trashonomics, preyed upon by mobile home salesmen and the credit card rackets designed especially for people like them. The ones with bad credit and worse teeth. Only about 20% of Americans get a college degree. The rest are working mooks kept convinced they are “middle class” by bullshit media and advertising. Yet they are told when to work, how much they will be paid, how to do their work, piss tested on the job until they are blind, and told to take a hike when corporations no longer find them useful.
That’s called working for “the man” and it’s called working class everywhere but in this country. Sixty percent of Americans fall into this category. So what we have is a class war going, but only one side knows it. Is it any wonder they are mad? Now what we gotta do is teach ‘em to be mad at the right damned people and quit believing what they hear on talk radio.
Now, one of the points I’ve hammered here for years is that the class divide is ever-widening, and it wasn’t all that small to begin with. The corporate media is made up of members of a privileged class, and they slant coverage toward their perception of reality as seen from their bubble. There’s no way you’ll ever convince me the problem with John Edwards was his populist message; it was the media shutout that resulted from that populist message.
And whether it’s Clinton or Obama who gets the nomination, we’ve basically told the hourly-wages class of America to take a hike. But come on, this election can’t -shouldn’t be about making the educated, informed elite feel better about themselves. It shouldn’t be about the first this or that. It isn’t about you. It’s about our country.
It’s about hopelessness. It’s about people whose boats haven’t risen with the tide for a long, long time. It’s about lousy education, downward mobility, crumbling infrastructure and crime-ridden cities. It’s about people having to choose between food and heat, and whether their children will ever have anything resembling a brighter tomorrow.
Today’s Krugman:
“Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life.
So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.
So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.
L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.
But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted from the suffering of the poor to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.
In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably understates the true depth of many children’s misery.
Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.
Can you see either of these two remaining candidates declaring a new War on Poverty, or offering any more than a token solution? I can’t.
And how can they? They’re both too deep in the pocket of corporate America, and they’re a little too comfortable with “compromise” free-market solutions. I know they’re not indifferent to the plight of the poor, but they’re not committed to them the same way Edwards was. I can’t see either of them expending precious political capital or knocking themselves out to lead on the hard, thankless work that needs to be done. (Or the tax increases.)
I know John Edwards is wrestling with these same questions. I wait with interest to see who he endorses, and why.
UPDATE: Via Bad Attitudes, Vicente Navarro:
The class divide is larger than ever. Obama and (later) Clinton have called for ending this divide and healing this schism. One can understand the calls to end the race and gender divide. But, what is meant by ending class division? The call by Obama to “unite the rich and the poor” is intriguing to say the least. It seems to assume that rich and poor have a commonality of interests that simply needs to be mobilized for a better America. This certainly makes Obama nonthreatening to the media and to the political establishments (the rich), which may explain the very favorable coverage he is receiving from the establishments’ media.
Delete my comment if you must, but I’m not a troll. I’m an American whose opinion matters as much as yours does.
It’s true that this isn’t about me. It’s about my kids. That’s why I voted for Obama in the primary and will never vote for Hillary under any circumstances. I won’t vote if it comes to Hillary being the nominee. I will also consider renewing my passport. Our collective standard of living will never get any better than it is now. Cheap liquid fuels have made this incredible boom possible, and there is no political solution, short of permanent resource wars, to keep the “growth” going. Put the big picture together and you see a recession sliding into a depression, which, for the planet won’t be a bad thing. The corporations will wither and die and humans will become relocalized in outlook and economy. Ask yourself what part of the fractured states of America do you want to get stranded in when the pillars of our present lifestyle (cheap liquid fuel and cheap, easy credit) crumble? There’s your solution.
Railing about how the creatives need to reconcile with the workers is senseless. The historical dynamic is the inverse of the bolshevik formation — we’re on the way down, not on the way up. Status quo or change? Change is always better than the static hell we’ve been forced into by 20 years of Bushes and Clintons. This is just my 2 cents wearing my global glasses.
I delete your comments when you’re an asshole who makes personal attacks on me in my living room. If you can stick to comments like this, you’re more than welcome.
I got news for you, its not just the late night shift at the Rubbermaid plant, more and more employees, including white collar folks earning high 5 figures are being told when to work, how long to work, piss tested until they are blind and thrown out when they are no longer needed.
In my own particular company (a large financial institution) we have had one of our best year’s ever. Profits are remarkable (we don’t do mortgages) new business is booming and the stock price is at record highs. To reward us for our efforts management has announced that 16pct of the jobs in our division will be outsourced this year. (They call it “Knowledge Transfer”).
As a baby boomer over 50, I can kiss-off any chance of finding similar employment (or even employment with a 30 pct pay cut).
The issue here isn’t the size of the Divide between classes, its the size of the classes themselves. The issue is the destruction of the middle and even upper middle classes in this country. Its the creation of a larger and larger group of politically powerless economic hostages; locked into their commitements and completely at the mercy of the ruling class.
We are stuck in a Dickensian world where a tiny elite rules over a mass of terrorized and powerless workers. I am voting for Obama because both Hillary and McCain helped create this current class structure and have a vested interest in the growth of a lower class. While Obama’s progressive bone-fides are questionable he is looking in the right direction and talking about the right things. With Obama we have a chance, with Hillary (if she wins, which is doubtful) we will just get more of the same.
I don’t pay that much attention to what they say. I look at where the big money comes from, and Obama’s start-up campaign was heavily funded by Wall St. - just like Clinton’s.
What draws many of the people I know to Obama seems to have more to do with transcendence and self-actualization
hey, don’t i know you? my support for obama has nothing to do with either of those things. i just think he’s better than clinton on foreign policy matters.
i also think he’s the more electable of the two democratic candidates (not that clinton is unelectable. she just has already accumulated a much higher negative score than obama has and that will make the race harder)
but other than that, i basically like both of them.
so tell me, we know several obama supporters in common, which ones like him for reasons of “transcendance and self-actualization”?
“Many,” not all. Believe it or not, Noz, I know many people you don’t.
From the Obama website:
“Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.
The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics. ”
Isn’t that some, however small, evidence of a concern for the unprivileged class? It’s certainly more than I did.
Senator Clinton certainly has argued long and hard on behalf of the unprivileged class, children in particular. But Senator Clinton has a lot of baggage, not just Whitewater but her votes in support of the Debacle in Iraq.
I may be as wrong about Senator Obama as I was about Governor Carter, but do I vote for his enthusiasm and message of Hope (backed up by more successes than Senator Clinton would acknowledge), or Senator Clinton’s deeper knowledge and experience but flawed judgment and unwillingness to admit mistakes? I miss the Edwards choice. And in the end I keep coming back to Senator Obama — potential wins out over a failure in judgment.
“Many,” not all. Believe it or not, Noz, I know many people you don’t.
i understand. but that’s why i asked whether any of the obama people we do know in common fall into that category. i mean, while i certainly don’t know all the people you do know, after years of hanging around the philly DL together, we certainly do know a lot of politically active people in common.
sometimes “many of the people i know” can start to sound a little like “some people say“
Noz, sometimes you can be a little, um, tactless. Do you really think I would have that discussion in public?
Good piece Suz. I remember when Tunney ran against Murphy (1970) on “hope” and he lasted just one term before being beat by Hayakawa. Hope isn’t enough, change isn’t enough, there has to be real policy, and the policy has to be quantifiable, so we know when we get there, and when we haven’t.
public housing
single payer
shrink the iron triangle’s welfare claims
shrink the corporate welfare claims
regulate and tax white collar speculation
prosecute corporate crime
increase the minimum wage
repeal taft-hartley (yes, i know, the leadership will still endorse corporate dems)
The representation that there are policy differences between Clinton and Obama is predictable and absurd.
I really liked your piece.
Noz, sometimes you can be a little, um, tactless
no argument there.
by the way, mithras smells funny.
Richard Florida is one of the best readers of class distinctions in contemporary America, and he’s right about the class divide. What he doesn’t say outright but implies is how do we get poor Americans to listen, openly, to real conversations about the widening income gap? In regard to the current presidential race, I’m fascinated to see to what degree Obama will step into Edwards’ poverty shoes. In fact, I write about Obama, Clinton, and poverty in my post today on The Weekly Rader:
http://weeklyrader.blogspot.com/2008/02/p-word-why-hillary-and-barack-wont-say.html
I grew up poor. My Mom was barefoot poor in The Great Depression, but no longer is. The only poisoning I’ve seen is a distrust of the very rich. My Mom’s very comfortable now, yet still feels uncomfortable buying things for herself if she thinks the old thing she’s replacing is ‘adequate’.
I’ve helped persuade her that all rich people aren’t corrupt, just the majority of them. Ack! It must be the poisoning.
Yeah, I’m not dancing in the streets about our pro-corporate choices, though I see clear differences in their outlooks, concerns, achievements and styles. And the main reason Edwards was more appealling was because he escaped the poverty trap and didn’t forget those who didn’t.
Kucinich, too, knew a deeper poverty.
I fall into poverty at every economic downturn, when I re-learn that, for those with lots of disposable income, I’m disposable, too. Skills, talent, professionalism, adaptability and loyalty matter not. So my bias, my poisoning remains, not as a chip on my shoulder, but as a realistic view of how callous most successful business people are.
And I convey to my kids not to let it affect their self-worth. It’s just human nature within a consumerist society to throw everything and everyone away.
I shrug, find a way to make it through the winters and car repairs during the down cycles, then move back into my car, always certain that I’ll be back on my feet before the next frost. Content that my soul won’t be sold to make it better for myself. And on the upturns, I give my disposable income to those I think can use what little I have to spare.
Poisoned? Maybe I am. I don’t suggest I’m close to perfect, but I try to get by on the least I can even when all the bills are paid because I can’t justify throwing things and people away.
I think Pat Lang nails a big part of the problem in his blog post here:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2008/02/america-the-ill.html
When something like this comes from a retired Army colonel, it’s time to do something entirely different with our resources.
(BTW, when I’m faced with the disaster-in-progress that is our country, I reserve the right to be an asshole anywhere and anytime I choose to do so. Surely Joe Bageant would agree with me on that.)
No, he wouldn’t. Joe Bageant is a real gentleman in every sense of the word.
You can be an asshole over at your own blog, where you have attacked me to your heart’s content. You don’t get to attack me here, on mine.
Great post! Lots of good comment.
As usual, NO implementation.
1: carry out, accomplish; especially : to give practical effect to and ensure of actual fulfillment by concrete measures(.) (Merriam-Webster Online)
Great post and great thread. Hit’s the nail on its head.
Obama and Clinton are both corporate candidates, clearly. Where’s the money? That’s where the answer lies. And obviously both have substantial corporate ties. How could it be otherwise?
Just riffing on all this. But my gut feeling is Obama has a better chance to win - contrast him visually and aurally with a slow and cranky old McCain, and Obama’s dynamism and charisma present a far more appealing image. Which matters, I guess, whether it should or not. Hill and Barrack are pretty similar on the issues, so for me it comes down to damage control: who can we get elected that will do the least damge? I guess it’s Barrack.
Wanted Edwards, but not to be … can he endorse either of these candidates? He’ll have to hold his nose, but politics makes strange bedfellows, so I imagine he can support one of them in the end.
Obama reminds me all too much of Bill Clinton. Remember? That was the last campaign that was all about “Hope.” He managed to erode the Democratic party by moving to the right in order to keep himself alive politically.
See how well that worked out.
“The call by Obama to “unite the rich and the poor” is intriguing to say the least.”
I thought the saying was, “Eat the rich.”
I don’t see Obama’s statement as intriguing. I see it as obfuscating.
Yep, he does remind one of Clinton. Both are supremely skilled orators with … feet of clay? And establlishment, corporate policies? We’ll see, maybe. On the other hand, Senator Clinton also … reminds me of Clinton ^_^. I don’t think there are large policy differences between Barrack and Hiiiary, and I don’t actually care about their personal lives one whit, just policies.
I just want our next president to be less damaging than McCain will be - which means either of the two remaining dems will have to do. Whichever can win, that’s who I want.
You know, I get this feeling I’ve been here before. It seems as if someone was attempting to enlighten the huddled masses with a campaign for president, oh, around 8 plus years ago. He not only was muzzled by our great corporate wizenheimers, but took a stinging cut from the “creative” sector of the BOTTOM CLASS for being too idealistic and out of touch. I truly am astounded at our selective memory because not more than three weeks ago I read a “liberal-progressive” blog piece that is still blaming RN for taking votes away from Gore-LIEBERMAN without even so much as a trace of introspection or even (cover the children’s ears) personal responsibility.
Wowsers.
Somebody had to say it… BTW, post # 1 caught my jaundiced eye. Prepare for an unforgettable year. Peace Frog…
??? The people who initiated and sustained the attacks on Al Gore weren’t poor people, it was the media and political elite.
Go read Bob Somerby’s archives. Don’t blame the poor boobs at the bottom of the food chain if they internalized the narrative the media forced down our throats.
The Republicans have successfully associated any type of government programs to address poverty with welfare and associated welfare with blacks. The one thing those rubbermaid workers you mention in your post have is, at least they’re not black. They will vote for anyone who talks up their self-esteem and will vote against anyone who makes them feel like they have somehow fallen so low as to share interests with blacks!
It’s ugly, but I think it’s an ugly truth. Yes, the media did ignore Edwards in favor of the fancy “firsts” in this primary season, but he had his shot a couple times in the past. I sent him money in his presidential campaign and then again in his vice presidential campaign, and he didn’t win either. That wasn’t due to the media ignoring him. The country has not decided to embrace the man and I’m guessing those people who do are ones who: A) are not voting according to racial politics; and B) are not members of the international wealth elite.
So you’ve got two groups that are basically in favor of the status quo, one who is benefited by it on all accounts and one who is hurt by it economically but benefited psychologically. The above refers to the second group.
In the first group is the international wealth elite that benefits for ensure poverty persists within every nation on Earth, especially the ones with free elections where an educated populace with enough free time and mental clarity to really know what benefits them and how to vote for their best interests would result in their loss of power. These ones want to make sure people have lots of babies starting early, have to work 2 jobs to support them, have to cling to their jobs just to have the safety of health care for their families, and even when the kids are out of the house have to start worrying about retirement and the demise of social security (which has funds siphoned off for other programs each year, even while we’re all threatened with the impending implosion of the program), and are convinced by the financial media establishment that they are benefited by mortgages even when renting would be better for them just so they can be further enslaved by debt. “Keep em scared and busy or they might just vote for revolution” that’s the plan, and it’s working quite well.
Hey guys - I’m not down at the bottom of the food chain, but I’m only an inch or so away. I am not part of another vaguely inferior species. I am not other. I am who you could be if you put one foot out of line. So quit talking about “the poor.” We don’t like it.
And while I will support whoever wins this horrible bitter crap, I’d much prefer Senator Clinton, because I don’t have time for pretty speeches. I need help, and I need it now.
And just what the fuck is the “creative” class, anyway? This smacks of overthink and anti-intellectualism and , dare I say it? triangulation. Why don’t we go back to calling them “people?” Or maybe “humans?”
Karl Rove has won.
K, the creative class is a term coined to describe the arts/music/restaurant types who are usually the pioneers in revitalizing urban neighborhoods. Urban planners try to attract them because they bring a lot of positive effects to a city - for instance, the resulting cultural attractions help cities retain more kids after they graduate college, instead of leaving to go someplace else that’s more fun. It benefits local economies.
[...] bans on the entire musical genre. Musicians are extremely talented and …www.contracostatimes.comMaslow??s TriangleMaslow??s Triangle Feb 18th, 2008 by Susie Chris Bowers points out that Obama does very well in the [...]
[...] My point being, all the people who recently denounced the Clintons as elitists by virtue of their net worth should be a little embarrassed. Personally, I don’t think money has anything to do with elitism - I know some dirt-poor hipsters who are some of the biggest snobs around. Elitism is the idea that the world is only valid when viewed through your filter. [...]