One of the biggest examples of the US eroding its working class is through the example of Detroit. The city of Detroit has lost a stunning 25 percent of its population between 2000 and 2010. Poverty is rampant with 3 out of 5 kids living below the poverty line. It is a startling revelation of what can happen to what was the fifth biggest city in the United States and now is merely a shell of itself. There is a documentary, Detropia which grimly shows dilapidated buildings while many tear out scrap metal to sell on the open market. You also hear from citizens trying to make sense of what is occurring. What is stunning is the population of Detroit is now back to levels last seen in the first half of the 1900s. A town built around big US automakers reflects what a country can look like when it loses a big part of its manufacturing base in pursuit of low wage capitalism. The rust belt gives us a clearer perspective as to why we have 47 million Americans on food stamps while the stock market inches closer to record levels.
This new reality is the result of technological innovation and invention, tectonic shifts in the technologies of production, and an obsolute union movement stuck in job creation and “more pay for less work” instead of bargaining for employee ownership. Result: no or significantly reduced opportunity for income.
The solution is not a focus on JOB CREATION but a focus on OWNERSHIP CREATION. There is a solution. The Just Third Way Master Plan for America’s future is published at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797.
The fundamental economic solution is to create income for EVERY American by simultaneously broadening private, individual ownership of FUTURE productive capital economic growth and fully paying the profit dividends to the new American owners of the income-producing capital assets of our corporations.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm
http://www.mybudget360.com/detroit-population-changes-detroit-real-estate-prices-and-jobs/#more-4576
