USA: Business class abandons inner city poor FWD
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Fri, 23 Oct 1998 20:55:13 -0400
FWD For entire article, see:
http://www.econet.apc.org:80/igc/en/hl/98101929656/hl8.html
RACHEL Report: Bridge To The High Road, Part III
/* Written 8:06 PM Oct 16, 1998 by rachel@rachel.org in haz.forum
BRIDGE TO THE HIGH ROAD, PART 3
In his path-breaking paper, BUILDING THE BRIDGE TO THE HIGH
ROAD,[1] Dan Swinney tells two stories that illustrate "the low
road of economic development."
[excerpt]
As speculators created the "casino economy" and sold off many of
the nation's productive assets, those hardest hit were people of
color and women in the central cities. In every serious analysis
of these problems, race remains a key indicator of inequality,
discrimination and oppression.[3] While Republicans and
Democrats both sing the praises of our "Dream Economy," many U.S.
inner cities have become indistinguishable from the poorest parts
of the developing world. Fifty-percent (or greater) unemployment,
soaring infant mortality, hunger and homelessness are
characteristic. If there is work to be had, it pays poverty
wages that won't support a family, so people grow cynical and
start seeing the underground economy as the only possible path to
success. Over the past 25 years, life in our central cities has
become distorted by crime, drugs and all the other forms of
social pathology that accompany extreme poverty.[3] The larger
society has responded with a policy of mass incarceration, plus
"white flight" to the suburbs, thus creating all the
environmental and social dislocations known as "sprawl."
As these events have unfolded, it has become clear that many
members of the business class have abandoned the obligations of
stewardship of the economy. For the first 75 years of this
century, wealthy industrialists claimed the exclusive right to
make decisions about what products would be produced from what
raw materials, using what processes. They controlled decisions
about management, investment, and production. In return for this
awesome (and largely undisputed) power, they agreed to share a
modicum of the available wealth, thus creating the middle class.
Most of the time this social contract has worked well enough to
avoid major strife.
But starting in the '70s, it became clear that many of the
nation's business leaders were abandoning the social contract,
selling off the nation's assets, destroying America's productive
capacity, abandoning communities that depended on the jobs.
Now, Dan Swinney says, conditions are ripe for a new paradigm of
economic development --one aimed at ending historical
oppressions, putting democratic control and community well being
at the center of the picture, accepting responsibility for lean,
efficient, productive, profitable, and environmentally
sustainable business enterprises, rebuilding the nation's cities,
and thus putting limits on the environmental desecration and
social isolation created by sprawl. Swinney believes we can
attract a majority of Americans to such a vision because --done
right --the vast majority of people will benefit.
END FORWARD
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