Life is getting tough for most working people in the USA. The spiralling housing crisis, turbulent financial markets, increasing oil prices, job losses and the shrinking value of people's savings is forcing people to think. The same people, who for a generation accepted the dominant ideology that the market delivered the goods, are now beginning to think that maybe this market isn't such a good thing after all.
Things are so bad that, according to Reuters/University of Michigan surveys, "consumer confidence" has slumped to the lowest levels in 50 years, and according to a recent Gallup poll 84% of Americans are convinced that the nation is on the "wrong track."
Lack of confidence in the market's ability to solve problems is compounded by government behaviour. The recent state salvaging of the two major mortgage providers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as other banks facing collapse, send out a message that the market is ok while profits are booming, but not so good when the bad times come.
The Los Angeles Times recently commented that, "Historians watching the nation's current economic and financial troubles say that just because Americans don't throw up their hands about markets and rush to an opposite pole, such as socialism, it doesn't mean that change isn't underway." And Kevin A. Hassett, economic studies director at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington added that, "There may be a backlash against markets at the moment… But the backlash doesn't seem to be informed by any alternative view of how the world works."
As is usually the case, working people know what they don't like. They don't like the system that is dragging them into poverty. But what is to replace this system? The US workers clearly want a system that provides a decent wage, decent housing, healthcare, education, nothing too extreme. The only problem is that the "market", i.e. capitalism, cannot deliver those reasonable demands. The only way those demands can be met is by introducing a socialist economy. Sooner or later the US workers will draw this conclusion from their own experience… with a little help from the Marxists!
