The most sustained human rights violations carried out by the global oligarchs over the past few decades have been against workers, whether in the US rust belt or sweatshops in China.
My grandson had his 14th birthday last week and I gave him a copy of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. I told him how it shaped my life when I read it as a teenager. Clearly he needs it in today’s world of predatory capitalism, as I did decades ago. Little has changed since the brutal days in the Chicago meat works. Courage, as you say Chris, remains the coinage of the day. Your own is exemplary.
As a recovering higher ed worker, I'm partial to "The Goose-steps." Upton Sinclair is underrated unto ghosting by academia, as he was by the media of his day
Great work, and also great to see the work of Mr. Fish. I’m totally out of superlatives for the work you’re all doing, so I’ll go make some more and get back to you soon with a new batch.
Thank you for this homage to workers, Chris. Many newsrooms are celebrating the success of the Staten Island workers who voted for their first union at an Amazon facility, but yours is the first essay to convey all the blood, sweat, and tears that victory required and how very much the fight is not over.
I agree that they will be viciously attacked by Bezo's and Co.......Walmart and the rest may join in too.......As always thank you to Chris and Mr.Fish.....I don't know what I would do without them.
As a trade union member in the teaching sector, I can only praise Mr Smalls for such perseverance and courage. It’s the modern David and Goliath story. A precedent in the gig economy!
A very fascinating piece, Chris. You and I diverge on some points here, but all-in-all there's no arguing with your main premise. Job well done, sir.
Two errata, though: Elon Musk is the world's richest man, currently worth ~$240B. Also, Disney owns ABC and ESPN, not FOX. Rupert Murdoch's entities own FOX News. Disney has a stake in 20th Century Fox, the entertainment side.
The big corporations own the corporate media. It's a club. The media is anti-union anti-peace. A handful of companies gives us an extremely bias, pro-greed view of the world. They can even make most writers non-persons. With 24-hour a day propaganda and the control of what is reported, everyone is brainwashed. There is near zero space left for free speech.
And I’ve got to remember that there’s well meaning people on here that don’t seem to relate to anything I believe in regards to solution for the climate crisis, the power structure. I expected people on here deliberately creating doubt on Chris Hedges’ ideas but not so many people who don’t have any similarity in finding solutions. I was going to mention the name of a prominent talk show host well known for his infamy but he doesn’t need the publicity here. With some recent discussions I’ve had I feel like I dropped into his show. It’s feeling surreal and not at all in a good way.
It’s amazing that so many are “ideologically” opposed to unionizing in the USA. One of the largest, longest, and most costly psyop subversion and propaganda campaigns (read long grifts) in history…
I don't think that unionization is the answer to crush the oligarchs (aka... the Billionaire Boys Club). The problem with unionization in this day of global competition and labor law largess (that mostly protects, and mandates benefits to, employees), is Hostess Corporation.
The problem is that our big government political establishment has connected with the Billionaire Boys Club to form a all powerful corporatist cabal. The founders knew about this risk and expected democracy to combat it. But... excuse me while I rant... the left... the Democrats... liberals... what ever you want to call all political people that own a left of center worldview... they keep voting FOR the very politicians that support the corporatist cabal and then exploit the damage to the human condition as a political wedge against their ideological opponent.
Now I hope that some of these left of center voters are waking up to the fact that the corporatist cabal is just using them... using the media that it owns to inflate their anger and fears to fight their fellow country men instead of the real enemy... the corporatist cabal.
Right of center voters mostly get it. Have gotten it for a while. They are the physicals and they live in the world of real things that they build, grow and fix for a living. They have been seeing the export of economic opportunity for decades. The urban-dwelling virtuals... the people that make money with paper services, words and images... they have not been hit as hard and as early as has the physicals.
The fate of the country rests on the center and center left. Either they really wake up and join with the right to demand politicians break up the corporatist cabal, strengthen anti-trust laws and actions, disallow national politicians and their immediate family from trading stocks while in office. strengthen conflict of interest rules for government employees, and pass a new civil rights bill that strengthens First Amendment rights and issues stiff penalties for institutions that violate those rights.
Economic opportunity for workers will improve when the small business economy grows again. We need to be making, growing and fixing more of the products we buy and use in this country.
We also need to build more housing and put a moratorium on non-resident purchases of residential real estate as investments.
Frank Lee, You make an important contribution to Chris' writings. From your excellent analysis, I believe you will agree we have to abandon both right & left artificially fragmented 'exogenous' (Latin 'other-steal-generated') oligarch-colonial empire schizophrenia. Both 'capital' (L 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence') & 'social' (L 'socius') are complementary attributes meant to be united. 'Capitalism' was for 10s of 1000s of years meant to be for all contributors participating, as all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' (L 'self-generating') heritage maintained for 10s of 1000s of years. 'Socialism' was never meant to be concentrated into centralized bureaucracies directed by the hidden few.
HOW DOES CENTRALIZATION OCCUR?
'MONEY' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory')
7000 years ago oligarchs in Babylon perverted the 'indigenous' (L 'self-generating') time-based equivalency accounting, once used on all Continents (N. America 'Wampum', S. America 'Quipu', Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia & all islands 'Cowrie') upon the String-shell integrated Value system. String-shell representing integrated a) Capital, b) Currency, c) Condolence, d) Collegial mentored-apprentice educational Credit, e) time-math Communication, f) professional Costume etc. was issued in a distributed way across society for all contributions to collective Domestic, Industrial & Commercial Relational Economy.
We can understand a destruction of Babylon, then progressively, all humanity's abundant 3-dimensional Polyculture Orchards into the scarcity of 2-D 'agriculture' (L 'ager' = 'field') left the accounting class with massive deficits. In panic these once keepers of contribution memory accountants, then centralized & issued metal-coin-money from above. 'Farms' (French 'ferme' = 'contract-of-servitude') between aristocrat & peasant took over. Polyculture is 100 times or 10,000 % more productive for food, materials, energy & water-cycle than 'agriculture' (Latin 'ager' = 'field'). Conquered people are then forced to 'farm' (French 'ferme' = 'contract of servitude' of the aristocrat over the peasant') in order to have subservient 'title' to the aristocrat land parcel. The reduction of productivity into scarcity includes the desertification of the Middle-east, North-Africa, the Gobi desert in China, Atacama & deserts everywhere. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
Deserts of the middle east, then worldwide were created as oligarchs exported failure in violent colonization abroad always turning the once lush productive Polyculture of 1st neighbours then the whole world into unproductive desert.
As always, an excellent piece of writing, Chris. And you are correct about needing to do MORE than vote. It is as if we all have a barcode on our foreheads. We are a commodity. It is very depressing.
Sadly, today, unionization can only be effective where and when that-which-is-God-capital cannot flee. The capitalist rulers of the empire that own-controls the governments of the United States and the other vassal, Western imperial states, allowed labor unions to thrive in the United States only for as long as 1) capital could not freely and easily de-industrialize a location at will, and 2) the communist alternative to capitalism was considered to be an actual threat. Unions were allowed as proof that, within the capitalist system, methods other than revolution existed to improve workers lives. But those days ended in 1991, and our capitalist rulers no longer have any motivation to do other than attempt to destroy anything that looks like voices singing in chorus. As people come to realize, through their own dystopian life experiences, that the single-purpose of this system is to enrich an elite group of parasites; our capitalist rulers may, once again, find it necessary to feign interest in the lives of the wretched masses, just as they were forced to do when communism emerged with its workers-focused message of hope. If something new comes along to bring us hope, there may be another opportunity for humanity to break free of this tyranny; but we, of the "obedience is a great virtue" mindset, will likely continue to scurry about within the defined confines of the labyrinth our parasite masters have created for us.
Socialism in practice results in human death and suffering. My husband has family in Cuba, I’d be glad to help fund your relocation so you can really experience the outcome of ideologies.
Our free markets aren’t free anymore because of consolidation. Socialism is absolutely consolidation of power. It has never and will never empower workers. Anti-trust and decentralization of power has a good shot, but absolute power always has and will corrupt absolutely.
Mr. Hedges, I doubt you read the comments posted here, but here goes, anyway. As a great journalist whose courage and integrity I admire, I would like to register a small criticism of your reporting in this piece. It has to do with your characterization of the businessman Elon Musk when you lumped him in with Jeff Bezos, implying that he plays with rockets foe egoistic or superficial purposes. Musk’s company SpaceX is NASA’s principal supplier of transport to the ISS. It is also the world’s largest commercial launch service. Musk is not driven by avarice. His well-documented interest has always been, since his youth, the betterment of humankind. He works 70+ hours a week. He’s more engineer than money man. He paid $11 billion in personal taxes this year. Elizabeth Warren often criticizes him for paying zero taxes in 2018, neglecting to mention that that was because he overpaid in 2017. As for Tesla being a non-union shop, Musk has invited the UAW to organize the company, promising that the company would not interfere. He has openly criticized the UAW for its corruption; he’s no friend if organized labor. His invitation rests on his confidence that Tesla’s employees won’t have any interest in joining the union. Why? They receive stock options, and many hundreds of them have become millionaires as the result. Wages are at the top of the scale of industry standards, and they get health benefits. None of the UAW’s shops do better. No, Mr. Hedges, please don’t blur the distinction between Musk and the opprobrious Bezos. That said, Musk is no saint. He’s extremely difficult to work for; he’s demanding and unforgiving when he thinks an employee is not delivering what he wants and expects. But the thing to understand is that he’s a true visionary. He’s a capitalist, yes, but he’s not seeking personal aggrandizement.
My grandson had his 14th birthday last week and I gave him a copy of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. I told him how it shaped my life when I read it as a teenager. Clearly he needs it in today’s world of predatory capitalism, as I did decades ago. Little has changed since the brutal days in the Chicago meat works. Courage, as you say Chris, remains the coinage of the day. Your own is exemplary.
Check out Upton Sinclair's "The Brass Check" for s superb expose of the media.
...and more, all available online at the Gutenberg Project, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59670/59670-h/59670-h.htm
As a recovering higher ed worker, I'm partial to "The Goose-steps." Upton Sinclair is underrated unto ghosting by academia, as he was by the media of his day
thanks for the link - I think Sinclair wrote like 80+ books. I've read many there. It is hard to find his work in bookstores.
I read The Jungle in college and it's still with me to this day!
Great work, and also great to see the work of Mr. Fish. I’m totally out of superlatives for the work you’re all doing, so I’ll go make some more and get back to you soon with a new batch.
Thank you for this homage to workers, Chris. Many newsrooms are celebrating the success of the Staten Island workers who voted for their first union at an Amazon facility, but yours is the first essay to convey all the blood, sweat, and tears that victory required and how very much the fight is not over.
The fight is never over. Those Amazon workers will be attacked and vilified by Bezos' goons. Their struggle is just beginning.
I agree that they will be viciously attacked by Bezo's and Co.......Walmart and the rest may join in too.......As always thank you to Chris and Mr.Fish.....I don't know what I would do without them.
As a trade union member in the teaching sector, I can only praise Mr Smalls for such perseverance and courage. It’s the modern David and Goliath story. A precedent in the gig economy!
Chris's rage, wisdom, and clarity smash through the deafening sound waves of bullshit. Mil gracias.
A very fascinating piece, Chris. You and I diverge on some points here, but all-in-all there's no arguing with your main premise. Job well done, sir.
Two errata, though: Elon Musk is the world's richest man, currently worth ~$240B. Also, Disney owns ABC and ESPN, not FOX. Rupert Murdoch's entities own FOX News. Disney has a stake in 20th Century Fox, the entertainment side.
Also, Comcast bought out GE's share in NBCUniversal. The basic point about concentration of media ownership is still valid.
There’s always enough proles.
That’s why 1984 has an appendix.
And why hope springs eternal.
The big corporations own the corporate media. It's a club. The media is anti-union anti-peace. A handful of companies gives us an extremely bias, pro-greed view of the world. They can even make most writers non-persons. With 24-hour a day propaganda and the control of what is reported, everyone is brainwashed. There is near zero space left for free speech.
Not everyone is brainwashed, otherwise this post wouldn’t exist.
And I’ve got to remember that there’s well meaning people on here that don’t seem to relate to anything I believe in regards to solution for the climate crisis, the power structure. I expected people on here deliberately creating doubt on Chris Hedges’ ideas but not so many people who don’t have any similarity in finding solutions. I was going to mention the name of a prominent talk show host well known for his infamy but he doesn’t need the publicity here. With some recent discussions I’ve had I feel like I dropped into his show. It’s feeling surreal and not at all in a good way.
It’s amazing that so many are “ideologically” opposed to unionizing in the USA. One of the largest, longest, and most costly psyop subversion and propaganda campaigns (read long grifts) in history…
In the US vis-a-vis W. Europe, the former has had less union membership in my lifetime. I am sixty-eight.
We are so indebted to you and other independent, truth-telling journalists
Thank you.
I don't think that unionization is the answer to crush the oligarchs (aka... the Billionaire Boys Club). The problem with unionization in this day of global competition and labor law largess (that mostly protects, and mandates benefits to, employees), is Hostess Corporation.
The problem is that our big government political establishment has connected with the Billionaire Boys Club to form a all powerful corporatist cabal. The founders knew about this risk and expected democracy to combat it. But... excuse me while I rant... the left... the Democrats... liberals... what ever you want to call all political people that own a left of center worldview... they keep voting FOR the very politicians that support the corporatist cabal and then exploit the damage to the human condition as a political wedge against their ideological opponent.
Now I hope that some of these left of center voters are waking up to the fact that the corporatist cabal is just using them... using the media that it owns to inflate their anger and fears to fight their fellow country men instead of the real enemy... the corporatist cabal.
Right of center voters mostly get it. Have gotten it for a while. They are the physicals and they live in the world of real things that they build, grow and fix for a living. They have been seeing the export of economic opportunity for decades. The urban-dwelling virtuals... the people that make money with paper services, words and images... they have not been hit as hard and as early as has the physicals.
The fate of the country rests on the center and center left. Either they really wake up and join with the right to demand politicians break up the corporatist cabal, strengthen anti-trust laws and actions, disallow national politicians and their immediate family from trading stocks while in office. strengthen conflict of interest rules for government employees, and pass a new civil rights bill that strengthens First Amendment rights and issues stiff penalties for institutions that violate those rights.
Economic opportunity for workers will improve when the small business economy grows again. We need to be making, growing and fixing more of the products we buy and use in this country.
We also need to build more housing and put a moratorium on non-resident purchases of residential real estate as investments.
Frank Lee, You make an important contribution to Chris' writings. From your excellent analysis, I believe you will agree we have to abandon both right & left artificially fragmented 'exogenous' (Latin 'other-steal-generated') oligarch-colonial empire schizophrenia. Both 'capital' (L 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence') & 'social' (L 'socius') are complementary attributes meant to be united. 'Capitalism' was for 10s of 1000s of years meant to be for all contributors participating, as all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' (L 'self-generating') heritage maintained for 10s of 1000s of years. 'Socialism' was never meant to be concentrated into centralized bureaucracies directed by the hidden few.
HOW DOES CENTRALIZATION OCCUR?
'MONEY' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory')
7000 years ago oligarchs in Babylon perverted the 'indigenous' (L 'self-generating') time-based equivalency accounting, once used on all Continents (N. America 'Wampum', S. America 'Quipu', Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia & all islands 'Cowrie') upon the String-shell integrated Value system. String-shell representing integrated a) Capital, b) Currency, c) Condolence, d) Collegial mentored-apprentice educational Credit, e) time-math Communication, f) professional Costume etc. was issued in a distributed way across society for all contributions to collective Domestic, Industrial & Commercial Relational Economy.
https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/relational-economy
ALIGNING WITH BIOSPHERE PRODUCTION
We can understand a destruction of Babylon, then progressively, all humanity's abundant 3-dimensional Polyculture Orchards into the scarcity of 2-D 'agriculture' (L 'ager' = 'field') left the accounting class with massive deficits. In panic these once keepers of contribution memory accountants, then centralized & issued metal-coin-money from above. 'Farms' (French 'ferme' = 'contract-of-servitude') between aristocrat & peasant took over. Polyculture is 100 times or 10,000 % more productive for food, materials, energy & water-cycle than 'agriculture' (Latin 'ager' = 'field'). Conquered people are then forced to 'farm' (French 'ferme' = 'contract of servitude' of the aristocrat over the peasant') in order to have subservient 'title' to the aristocrat land parcel. The reduction of productivity into scarcity includes the desertification of the Middle-east, North-Africa, the Gobi desert in China, Atacama & deserts everywhere. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
Deserts of the middle east, then worldwide were created as oligarchs exported failure in violent colonization abroad always turning the once lush productive Polyculture of 1st neighbours then the whole world into unproductive desert.
As always, an excellent piece of writing, Chris. And you are correct about needing to do MORE than vote. It is as if we all have a barcode on our foreheads. We are a commodity. It is very depressing.
Always showing us the wary forward to justice. Both journalist and prophet.
Sadly, today, unionization can only be effective where and when that-which-is-God-capital cannot flee. The capitalist rulers of the empire that own-controls the governments of the United States and the other vassal, Western imperial states, allowed labor unions to thrive in the United States only for as long as 1) capital could not freely and easily de-industrialize a location at will, and 2) the communist alternative to capitalism was considered to be an actual threat. Unions were allowed as proof that, within the capitalist system, methods other than revolution existed to improve workers lives. But those days ended in 1991, and our capitalist rulers no longer have any motivation to do other than attempt to destroy anything that looks like voices singing in chorus. As people come to realize, through their own dystopian life experiences, that the single-purpose of this system is to enrich an elite group of parasites; our capitalist rulers may, once again, find it necessary to feign interest in the lives of the wretched masses, just as they were forced to do when communism emerged with its workers-focused message of hope. If something new comes along to bring us hope, there may be another opportunity for humanity to break free of this tyranny; but we, of the "obedience is a great virtue" mindset, will likely continue to scurry about within the defined confines of the labyrinth our parasite masters have created for us.
The struggle for socialism must continue and rid the world of the cancer of capitalism. That is a fight worth living for.
Socialism in practice results in human death and suffering. My husband has family in Cuba, I’d be glad to help fund your relocation so you can really experience the outcome of ideologies.
Our free markets aren’t free anymore because of consolidation. Socialism is absolutely consolidation of power. It has never and will never empower workers. Anti-trust and decentralization of power has a good shot, but absolute power always has and will corrupt absolutely.
There’s cancer of socialism too. All Ism’s are cancerous. There is a 1% in all systems. Decentralization is the key.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy applies to all systems, as far as I can determine.
Which is why decentralization is the best way to combat it. Competition drives better, consolidation drives power.
There’s always a potential for corruption.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! DC is completely corrupt as well as Havana. Any time there is a 1% we will see corruption.
There is always a 1%
That’s a really important point.
100%.
Mr. Hedges, I doubt you read the comments posted here, but here goes, anyway. As a great journalist whose courage and integrity I admire, I would like to register a small criticism of your reporting in this piece. It has to do with your characterization of the businessman Elon Musk when you lumped him in with Jeff Bezos, implying that he plays with rockets foe egoistic or superficial purposes. Musk’s company SpaceX is NASA’s principal supplier of transport to the ISS. It is also the world’s largest commercial launch service. Musk is not driven by avarice. His well-documented interest has always been, since his youth, the betterment of humankind. He works 70+ hours a week. He’s more engineer than money man. He paid $11 billion in personal taxes this year. Elizabeth Warren often criticizes him for paying zero taxes in 2018, neglecting to mention that that was because he overpaid in 2017. As for Tesla being a non-union shop, Musk has invited the UAW to organize the company, promising that the company would not interfere. He has openly criticized the UAW for its corruption; he’s no friend if organized labor. His invitation rests on his confidence that Tesla’s employees won’t have any interest in joining the union. Why? They receive stock options, and many hundreds of them have become millionaires as the result. Wages are at the top of the scale of industry standards, and they get health benefits. None of the UAW’s shops do better. No, Mr. Hedges, please don’t blur the distinction between Musk and the opprobrious Bezos. That said, Musk is no saint. He’s extremely difficult to work for; he’s demanding and unforgiving when he thinks an employee is not delivering what he wants and expects. But the thing to understand is that he’s a true visionary. He’s a capitalist, yes, but he’s not seeking personal aggrandizement.