End to stability

The year 2020, with its pandemic and its protests, was many things to many people: a hardship for those who lost homes, livelihoods and people they loved to COVID and insufficient government support; an inspiration for activists who have been working for years to call attention to police brutality; and an imposition to those who resent anything that makes them take other people into account (like demands for racial justice or requests to follow public health protocol).

What 2020 should have been for everyone was a wake-up call that the system is not as solid as it might have seemed, and further, that that isn’t all bad.

Our culture has been operating under an outdated assumption of economic dependability and social consistency for decades now. It’s true that the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s were a period of economic growth that brought material gain to a larger percentage of (mostly white) people than before. During this time, one could succeed in the system by following particular, prescribed paths.

There’s much to criticize about this system: besides the fact that its benefits weren’t extended to everyone, it was exploitative of the planet. Factories belched pollution into the atmosphere, waterways were tainted with toxic effluent, mines tore open the earth, cars swarmed over the landscape on ribbons of asphalt, wetlands were drained for farms where DDT was sprayed, forests were razed, dams blocked fish, and hundreds of atomic bombs were ‘tested’ sending radiation around the world. Humans who tried to stand in the way of any of this were ridiculed, threatened, imprisoned, driven off their ancestral land or killed.

However, within the narrow scope of what constituted economic well-being in the US, more people were admitted into the ‘middle class’ if they were willing to submit themselves.

It was never as nice as it was made out to be, and this period (known colloquially as “the ’50s”) was also marked by the breakdown of the extended family and place-based community, the rapid rise and dominance of television, and the degradation of the typical diet with junk food. That picture-perfect happy housewife was popping pills for her depression (see the Rolling Stones: “Mother’s Little Helper”).

But yeah, this was the era when, if you were a white guy, you could get a job just by walking up to a boss man, looking him right in the eye, giving him a firm handshake and asking him for one. Or so it was claimed by the purveyors of this mythology, right up through the Reagan era.

Then, in the ’70s, hourly wages began to slip in terms of inflation, and in the ’80s, “trickle down economics” was instituted. The ’90s were marked by austerity and diminishing opportunities. In the 2000s, inequality hit obscene levels, debts skyrocketed, and gentrification stole the cities for the rich. So in truth, the US has been in decline for over forty years. Forty years! And we’re still subjected to the same old pablum about “the rewards of hard work.”

So even as the whole game became increasingly unfair and oppressive, we were sold a picture of “America” in which everyone had equal opportunity, anyone could go from rags to riches, and the only people who didn’t succeed were ones who deserved to fail.

We were pressured into choices and lifestyles we were told were unavoidable because “that’s just how things are.” An air not merely of reliability, but inevitability, characterized the pronouncements of this supposedly prudent class, as they dispensed their wisdom on “success.”

Sacrifice played big in their admonitions, as did obedience. “Here are the rules,” they’ve insisted. “Follow them or end up broke, alone and unhappy.”

Their advice – or more often, arm-twisting – led millions into debt peonage, unhappy commitments and delayed gratification. Questioning any of it was unpatriotic and shaking things up was criminal. Throw in a heavy dose of American exceptionalism so nobody looked elsewhere else for alternatives, and you have the general outlines of our collective delusion.

I always resented these people: the know-it-alls with their dreary prescriptions and arrogant demeanors, pompously professing a gospel of so-called “responsibility” which in actuality was nothing more than a stultifying conformity. They turned a blind eye to the historically demonstrated fact that nothing lasts forever, and that cracks were already appearing in their grand facade.

2020 showed that these folks are wrong. Of course, playing by the book never offered all the rewards they claimed anyway, but their bubble has been burst in full view now. The biggest thing they had going for them – an illusory sense of dependability – is no longer believable for a big swath of the population.

There’s no “going back to normal.” The economy will never fully recover from the blows it took this year; for one thing, too many businesses shut down that will never reopen; for another, too many people are deeper in debt; and most of all, because the momentum was already downhill. On the other hand, a lot more people are now aware of the fact that the police are a racist institution that needs to be brought under control. That’s a welcome strike against Establishment power and propaganda. When the weather warms up in 2021, hopefully we will see another flowering of dissent.

So, as this period of stability crumbles in the US, we have prospects of both continuing economic deterioration and livelier forms of resistance.

Excerpted: ‘An End to Stability’

Counterpunch.org