Re: [marxmail] The price we pay for having upper-class legislators

[RKOB]

Thanks a lot!

Am 04.05.2024 um 10:12 schrieb Dayne Goodwin:

Opinion

by Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/opinion/working-class-wealthy-legislators.html


  The Price We Pay for Having Upper-Class Legislators

April 30, 2024
A movement to weaken child labor laws has roots in the composition of 
our legislatures.


By Jamelle Bouie 

Opinion Columnist

There is a coordinated, nationwide effort to roll back child labor 
laws, part of a broader campaign to concentrate even more power into 
the hands of employers.


“Since 2021,” the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute notes 
, 
“28 states have introduced bills to weaken child labor laws, and 12 
states have enacted them.” In 2024 alone, eight states have either 
introduced or taken new action on bills that would, for example, allow 
employers to schedule 16- and 17-year-olds for unlimited hours, allow 
nonprofits to hire 12- and 13-year-olds and eliminate work permits for 
young people.


One way to understand this fight to roll back labor laws is as a 
function of conservative ideology and a reflection of the views of the 
social base of Republican politics. It’s almost axiomatic that a party 
dominated by reactionary business owners 
 
is going to support, as much as possible, the interests of reactionary 
business owners.


But this analysis can take us only so far. We also have to explain why 
it is, on a practical level, that this agenda has advanced so far and 
so fast. There is partisan control, of course — Republicans are 
leading the assault on labor laws — but there is also the class 
composition of our state legislatures.


Out of more than 7,300 state legislators in the country, 116 — or 1.6 
percent of the total — currently work or last worked in manual labor, 
the service industry or clerical or union jobs, according to a recent 
study 
 
conducted by Nicholas Carnes and Eric Hansen, political scientists at 
Duke University and Loyola University Chicago. By contrast, about 50 
percent of U.S. workers hold jobs in one of those fields.


This problem afflicts both parties. In the last legislative session, 
the study found, 1 percent of Republican lawmakers and 2 percent of 
Democratic lawmakers had working-class backgrounds. In 10 states — 
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, South 
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia — not a single state 
lawmaker works or has recently worked in an occupation that 
researchers would define as working class. Three of those states, 
incidentally, are ones in which lawmakers recently loosened rules on 
child labor.


What explains the almost total absence of working-class people from 
elected positions in state government? It may have something to do 
with how we structure our legislatures. Let’s look at Congress as a 
base line. The House and Senate are full-time legislatures with 
considerable staffs and resources at their disposal. Members work 
through the year and are paid accordingly: $174,000 per annum, with 
pay increases for those in leadership positions.


Now, there is a case to make that Congress needs more staff and higher 
pay — that to attract the best candidates for federal office, 
compensation should be competitive with salaries in private-sector 
fields of similar power, prestige and responsibility. The main point, 
however, is that Congress is at least structured in a way that would 
make it possible for a working-class person to do the job without 
jeopardizing his or her financial security (although this still leaves 
us with the problem of actually winning a seat).


You cannot say the same for most of our state legislatures. According 
to the 
 
National Conference of State Legislatures, only 10 states have 
full-time legislatures, in which lawmakers spend at least 84 percent 
of their time engaged in the position, including on the legislative 
floor, in hearings and in committee meetings and doing constituent 
service. They are paid full-time salaries as well, with average annual 
compensation of about $82,000. On the other end, there are 14 states 
where the job is essentially part-time and lawmakers are paid 
accordingly, earning an average salary of just over $18,000 a year. 
The remaining states are classified as hybrid legislatures, in which 
lawmakers devote about 74 percent of their time to legislative duties, 
with an average annual salary around $41,000.


Setting aside the 

[marxmail] Article on Survey on Inequality

[John Edmundson]

I found this interesting. People it seems know the system works in the
interests of the elite. The scary thing is that with results similar for
people on the right and on the left, people can be prone to swing right
when faced with declining living standards. We already know this of course,
so we have to have a better alternative project.

"April 20, 2024

Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to
advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs
a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These
are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released today
that indicates the high level of discontent and anti-establishment feeling
that exists in the country at the moment.

The IPSOS research company carries out an annual survey about populism and
discontent around the world, and this year they have included New Zealand
for the first time, with the results for this country released this
afternoon in the report: Populism global survey: New Zealand results


This landmark survey report provides valuable insights into just how angry
the country currently is – especially with economic and political elites,
or “the Establishment”. The responses illustrate that New Zealand is far
from immune from the global rising populist mood across the political
spectrum. And it shows that some demographics – particularly lower
socio-economic groups, and Māori – are particularly discontented in New
Zealand."
A concerning, but hardly surprising, finding was the appeal of a "strong
leader" to get us out of this state.

One positive for me here in New Zealand is that people here tended not to
blame immigrants for their difficulties.

Comradely,
John

https://democracyproject.nz/2024/04/20/bryce-edwards-serious-populist-discontent-is-bubbling-up-in-new-zealand/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2As8cwTHzsdBUvB2mpNoNGYNEFOHuPCszcvtcLkWCNTnLIl56uZ_BAwAQ_aem_AYhPX2LU_nM6wAwu2zLIFo1vUO20G6L9Eldb7iNiJAJUQBdfnU8w73_lGWIftABC-8-bNGCi6j_Thf4x5Q9OgOvF


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Re: [marxmail] On Tuesday, Biden demonized the protesters as hate groups.

[John Edmundson]

Marx said we should be where the workers are. The workers aren't in those
parties any more, because as we all know they long since ceased to be mass
workers' parties.

He didn't say we should vote the way they vote. He said we should be
leading them towards a better politics and a better world.

I'm a worker myself and I'm not perpetuating any illusions about these
crappy parties, and I am not going to encourage people to vote for them.
I'd be embarrassed to say I'd voted for Biden. I'd rather workers dropped
out of voting, to be honest, unless and until there's something
significantly better. For years I've argued against "if you didn't vote you
can't complain". I'm certainly not going to encourage people to vote for
something I believe objectively hurts the working class just because
something else might hurt it more. Shattering illusions in bourgeois
democracy seems to me to be more useful, even of we do use it sometimes to
run *our own* candidates. If workers tell me they voted Labour, I'll
respectfully discuss that decision with them and I'll tell them why I
didn't. It still surprises and heartens me how often those people respect
and understand my reasoning. People often have a less deep-running
commitment to that voting choice than we expect.

It's ironic that defences of Biden and his ilk are appearing in a thread
headed "On Tuesday, Biden demonized the protesters as hate groups." Just
how shitty do they have to get before we follow the workers who've decided
their disgust in the warmongers/agents for big capital has cost them their
support? At which point we're tailing behind instead of providing
leadership.

Comradely,
John

On Sun, 5 May 2024, 14:14 Marv Gandall via groups.io,  wrote:

> On Sat, May 4, 2024 at 04:32 PM, Charlie wrote:
>
> Marv asserts, "the working class masses ... identify the Democratic,
> Labour and other left-centre parties with the advent of the welfare state
> and the conservative parties with having resisted it and wanting it
> dismantled." Another fact-free assertion.
>
> Charlie resorts to elippses to characteristically accuse me of
> falsification.  I was referring not to the class as a whole, and certainly
> not to the Trump voters, but to the working masses who continue to support
> the DP.  In reply to John E.'s question as to why they continue to do so,
>  my answer was they "still prefer them to the right-wing parties which
> they view as the greater threat to the social and political gains acquired
> through struggle over generations. They identify the Democratic, Labour and
> other left-centre parties with the advent of the welfare state and the
> conservative parties with having resisted it and wanting it dismantled."
>
> That was clear enough. I wish the poor fellow would get over his
> Compulsive Gandall Disorder and get back to making the revolution.
> 
>


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Re: [marxmail] On Tuesday, Biden demonized the protesters as hate groups.

[Marv Gandall]

On Sat, May 4, 2024 at 04:32 PM, Charlie wrote:

> 
> Marv asserts, "the working class masses ... identify the Democratic,
> Labour and other left-centre parties with the advent of the welfare state
> and the conservative parties with having resisted it and wanting it
> dismantled." Another fact-free assertion.

Charlie resorts to elippses to characteristically accuse me of falsification.  
I was referring not to the class as a whole, and certainly not to the Trump 
voters, but to the working masses who continue to support the DP.  In reply to 
John E.'s question as to why they continue to do so,  my answer was they " 
still prefer them to the right-wing parties which they view as the greater 
threat to the social and political gains acquired through struggle over 
generations. They identify the Democratic, Labour and other left-centre parties 
with the advent of the welfare state and the conservative parties with having 
resisted it and wanting it dismantled."

That was clear enough. I wish the poor fellow would get over his Compulsive 
Gandall Disorder and get back to making the revolution.


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Re: [marxmail] On Tuesday, Biden demonized the protesters as hate groups.

[Charlie]

Marv asserts, "the working class masses ... identify the Democratic, Labour and 
other left-centre parties with the advent of the welfare state and the 
conservative parties with having resisted it and wanting it dismantled." 
Another fact-free assertion.

*Compare 2008:* "Election-night polling by Peter Hart for the AFL-CIO showed 
that 67 percent of union members voted for Obama while only 30 percent chose 
McCain."
https://inthesetimes.com/article/obama-and-the-union-vote

No wonder. The Democratic Party has done nothing big for the working class as a 
whole since the early 1970s. The DP has changed its game from working-class 
unity politics to identity politics, which divides workers rather than uniting 
them.


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[marxmail] Israelis see pro-Palestine protests as latest incarnation of Jew hatred

[Dennis Brasky]

What else can be expected from an oppressor concerning their oppressed
victims?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/03/israelis-voice-sadness-and-defiance-over-gaza-protests-on-us-campuses


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Re: [marxmail] On Tuesday, Biden demonized the protesters as hate groups.

[Chris Slee]

Marv's comment may be true in general, but sometimes the actions of liberal 
capitalist governments antagonise the working class to such an extent that 
workers either don't vote at all or vote for right wing parties.  For example, 
some sections of the working class that voted for Obama in 2008 swung to Trump 
in 2016, due to Obama's failure to protect workers from the effects of the 
economic crisis (mortgage foreclosures etc).

Today Biden has antagonised supporters of Palestine, and many of them will not 
vote for him again.

In situations like this we need to put forward an alternative.  Jill Stein 
seems like the best candidate in the current presidential election.

Chris Slee


From: marxmail@groups.io  on behalf of Marv Gandall 

Sent: Sunday, 5 May 2024 4:09 AM
To: marxmail@groups.io 
Subject: Re: [marxmail] On Tuesday, Biden demonized the protesters as hate 
groups.

On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 09:24 PM, John Edmundson wrote:
We've had 100 years of failure by these parties. Yet people still want us to 
support them. Why?
The short answer is because the working class masses still prefer them to the 
right-wing parties which they view as the greater threat to the social and 
political gains acquired through struggle over generations. They identify the 
Democratic, Labour and other left-centre parties with the advent of the welfare 
state and the conservative parties with having resisted it and wanting it 
dismantled.




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[marxmail] Five Lessons for Palestine Activists From the ’60s Student Left

[Dayne Goodwin]

by Jeremy Gong, Jacobin, May 3
https://jacobin.com/2024/05/five-lessons-for-palestine-activists-from-the-60s-student-left


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Re: [marxmail] On Tuesday, Biden demonized the protesters as hate groups.

[Marv Gandall]

On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 09:24 PM, John Edmundson wrote:

> 
> We've had 100 years of failure by these parties. Yet people still want us
> to support them. Why?

The short answer is because the working class masses still prefer them to the 
right-wing parties which they view as the greater threat to the social and 
political gains acquired through struggle over generations. They identify the 
Democratic, Labour and other left-centre parties with the advent of the welfare 
state and the conservative parties with having resisted it and wanting it 
dismantled.

> 
> 
> If  there's a Marxist I'll vote for them even if I have major differences
> with them.
> 

It depends. I’ve also voted for Marxist and other left-wing activists who stood 
no chance of winning - most recently in the last federal election in Victoria 
Centre which is a safe NDP seat.   When there hasn't been a candidate from the 
left running against the NDP in one of its strongholds, I’ve sometimes not 
bothered to cast a meaningless vote. When the seat was contested, I've voted 
for the NDP against the Liberal or Conservative candidate.

The unhappy choice confronting all of us since there are no longer any mass 
socialist parties is whether to support the liberal pro-capitalist and 
pro-imperialist party against the conservative pro-capitalist and 
pro-imperialist party or to sit out the election.

The answer ultimately depends on whether or not you accept that there is a 
significant difference between the parties. I never thought the case for 
Tweedledum and Tweedledee was as strong as Louis Proyect and others on the list 
made out but it was at least aguably stronger when Clinton ran against Dole or 
Gore ran against Bush or even when Obama ran against McCain. It’s much more 
difficult to defend that position today when US society has become so much more 
polarized and the proto-fascist right led by Trump has taken hold of the 
Republican party.

We participate in electoral politics not from individual self-interest but with 
the interests of the working class and allied movements foremost in mind. From 
that standpoint, there is little doubt that however much we might abhor the 
policies of the Biden administration, especially lately in relation to 
Palestine, a Trump administration will almost certainly have a more dangerously 
aggressive foreign policy in Asia and the MIddle East and more repressive and 
reactionary domestic policies at home.

If I were in the US, that would be reason to join with trade unionists, people 
of colour, feminists, LGBT+ activists, environmentalists, and others who 
believe likewise in calling for a Biden vote to block Trump.  Unless, as some 
have suggested, it were in a secure Democratic district where the issue was 
moot.


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Re: [marxmail] Why Marxism opposes individual terrorism-'Terrorism' as a strategy for liberation

[John A Imani]

'Terrorism' 1 as a strategy for liberation

"The initial Arab public response to Hamas’s acts of terror set a secular and 
moderate tone. Hamas’s October 7 actions conflated the boundaries between 
legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation and siege of the Palestinian 
territories, which categorically does not include targeting civilians, and 
crimes of terrorism. In response, Arab governments ( 
https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/138158 ) , civil society organizations ( 
https://twitter.com/alhaq_org/status/1711308161351631073 ) , several media 
outlets ( 
https://english.alarabiya.net/views/2023/10/13/Two-wrongs-don-t-make-a-right-Israel-must-spare-Palestinian-civilians
 ) , and some influential social media accounts ( 
https://www.memri.org/reports/social-media-arab-intellectuals-condemn-hamas-widescale-attack-israel-saying-it-serves-irans
 ) were quick to condemn the violence and call for the protection of life on 
both sides." Amr Hamzawy. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 
11-1-2023. 
https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/11/01/pay-attention-to-arab-public-response-to-israel-hamas-war-pub-90893
 (Links in the original.)

When Hamas launches an attack that kills @1200 Israelis it's 'terrorism'. When 
Israelis kill @34,000 Gazans, mainly civilians, a large portion women and 
children, it’s ‘collateral damage’.

I worked in the garment industry @ the turn of this century. The company's 
salesman was an outspoken Zionist. He brought in a two-paneled cartoon. On the 
left was an armed IDF soldier crouched in front of a baby in a stroller, 
protecting it; on the other side was a similar stroller with a child in it. 
Crouched, hiding, behind it was a stereotypical caricature of an Arab with an 
AK-47. He said, "Now, what do you think of that." Not a question. I replied, 
"Where are the tanks." Also not a question.

Away from the current conflict between the people living in Gaza and the 
murderous invaders of the IDF; away from choosing and defending the ‘talking 
points’ of this or that side; away even from an examination of the historical 
usage of 'terrorism' (e.g. the use of counter-'terror' by the Mau Mau (see 
below) in response to British terror; and the use of counter-'terror' by the 
Algerian freedom fighters of the FLN ( https://groups.io/Documents/_blank ) in 
response to the terror campaigns waged by the OAS ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_arm%C3%A9e_secr%C3%A8te ) ). Away 
from the 'terror'' aided victories of the Viet Minh ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War
 ) (against the terrors inflicted by the Japanese ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes ) and the French ( 
https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/indochina-1st-indochina-war/ 
) as well as that of the Diem regime ( 
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/01/archives/an-earlier-bloodbath.html ) and of 
the US ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre ) ). And way from that 
of the mujahidin, at first against the Soviets and then against the Americans ( 
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/who-responsible-taliban ) ) 
where the invaders were slunk out, sent home from Afghanistan, with their tails 
between their legs, The kamikaze of Taliban suicide bombers helped to drive the 
US out of Afghanistan. ( https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN18198862/ )

Away away from all such, the question of 'terror's usage as a strategy for 
liberation is a phenomenon in and of itself and could be examined out of and 
away from the context of this or that particularity. Here it is to be asserted 
that something of a global political principle can be extracted from the 
particulars of an individual non-political social case. Such a proposal can be 
quickly summed as “When there is no path of resistance save 'terrorism' then 
such is justified." The murdered Panther, Bunchy Carter, said "Do something. Do 
something if you just spit ( 
https://www.facebook.com/wedroptruthbombs/photos/a.1994280894118743/239465772878/?type=3
 )." 'Terrorism' is the oppressed's big Hawk-too-ee.

"(Bethwell) Ogot dismissed (Caroline) Elkins as an uncritical imbiber of Mau 
Mau propaganda...he argued, she had glossed over the litany of Mau Mau 
atrocities: '...decapitation and general mutilation of civilians, torture 
before murder, bodies bound up in sacks and dropped in wells, burning the 
victims alive, gouging out of eyes, splitting open the stomachs of pregnant 
women.'" “Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire.” Marc Parry. 
The Guardian. Being a "Long Read" overview of "Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End 
of Empire in Kenya" by Caroline Elkins ( 
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d=%22Britain's+Gulag%3A+The+Brutal+End+of+Empire+in+Kenya%22+by+Caroline+Elkins
 ) 
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau
 )

How could such things possibly be 

[marxmail] The liberal establishment and the Rosenberg case

[Mark Baugher]

https://monthlyreview.org/2024/01/01/judge-irving-kaufman-the-liberal-establishment-and-the-rosenberg-case/

I just read MM's article and recommend it for the insights it gives on US 
liberalism: "Liberal democracy is fine as long as the basis of the system is 
not threatened. When it is, well, liberals can always fall back on the cliché 
that the Constitution is not a suicide pact and make sure that the truly 
“dangerous” people—Communists and other leftists—are dealt with by any means 
necessary."  That is a point that I made for a much different context in 
https://cryptpad.fr/file/#/2/file/WoRxrTa1qC1iMm5dt3k0uPzx/.

MM's article also illustrates the general process of isolating the left by 
shifting the population to the right, leaving the activists with little popular 
support, and then persecuting them to eliminate the threat they pose to the 
system.  That was the strategy developed by the trial judge, the prosecutors he 
met with secretly, the FBI, politicians, and key members of the US Supreme 
Court that drove the Rosenberg's prosecution. It illustrates that in the 
conflict between power and principle, power wins whenever the stakes are high 
enough.

In reading about Kaufman and the Supreme Court, I'm reminded of another liberal 
who seemingly had a change of heart, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren who led 
the court in unanimous decisions against Jim Crow, racism, and for the rights 
of the poor.  This is the same Earl Warren who used his power as Attorney 
General of California to incarcerate the entire Japanese population of 
California in concentration camps.  I don't know if Warren's political 
trajectory mirrors Kaufman's except that their ambition and opportunism led 
them to do horrible acts.  Years ago, I watched an old interview with Earl 
Warren at the end of his career.  Somewhat late in the interview, Warren was 
asked about the internment.  He teared up and started crying.  It seemed 
genuine, like he truly regretted it.  But as MM's article notes, he was an 
agent of powerful social forces and not a person who made a mistake.  There 
will always be an Earl Warren or an Irving Kaufman when they are needed.

Mark
 

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[marxmail] Attack on U.C.L.A. Encampment Stirs Fears of Clashes Elsewhere

[Dayne Goodwin]

The first big pro-Israel counter demonstration was on Sunday in Los
Angeles, home to large Israeli and Jewish populations. More are planned in
the coming days.
by Miriam Jordan, Reporting from Los Angeles
New York Times, May 3, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/us/college-protests-encampments-israel.html

At a rally at the University of California, Los Angeles, last Sunday, Elan
Carr, the leader of an Israeli diaspora group, told more than 1,000
demonstrators that Jewish mobilization at universities was beginning.

“We will take back our streets. We will take back our campuses from
Columbia University to U.C.L.A. and everywhere in between,” Mr. Carr, chief
executive of the group, the Israeli American Council, told the crowd.

The U.S. and Israeli national anthems were sung, and there were prayers,
speeches by Jewish leaders and Israeli pop songs. But close to the rally,
hundreds of pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters faced off, shouting
insults and threats. Fights broke out after a barrier that the university
had erected to separate the two sides was breached.

It was a volatile start to what would become one of the most violent
stretches of campus unrest. Days later, scores of counter demonstrators
stormed the pro-Palestinian encampment at U.C.L.A. and clashed late Tuesday
night into early Wednesday morning.

In an interview, Mr. Carr said the Israeli American Council, which
describes itself as a nonpartisan group representing Israelis and Israeli
Americans, did not condone the violence. But the nonprofit organization’s
plans to stage more counter-protests on or near other college campuses has
raised the prospect of further confrontations between pro-Israel and
pro-Palestinian factions.

“The fear I have is that this is a combustible situation aggravated by
agitators who seem intent on escalating the level of violence against the
other side,” said David Myers, a U.C.L.A. professor of Jewish history who,
with colleagues, tried to act as a buffer between the two sides. “This
could spread like a contagion.”
  .  .  .
Jews have joined the pro-Palestinian protests in many places. But many
Jewish students have reported feeling unsafe amid the protests and facing
harassment. Mr. Carr says his organization, in partnership with other
Jewish groups, is responding to that climate of fear.

The time had come, he said, to shift from “just condemning” the
pro-Palestinian demonstrations to “being proactive and bringing real
support to Jewish students and faculty who are really suffering and feeling
abandoned.”

He said that the Israeli American Council was “leading, or integrally
involved in, multiple events” across cities in coming days, some of them
planned to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorated in Israel
on May 5. A post on the organization’s Facebook page listed rallies in
Austin, Las Vegas and New York, among more than a dozen places.
  .  .  .
The I.A.C. started as a small grass-roots effort in the [San Fernando]
Valley in 2007 and grew rapidly after it received multimillion-dollar gifts
from the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021, and his
Israeli-born wife, Miriam Adelson.

The organization’s income was $18.6 million in 2022, up from $5.5 million
in 2013 and about $500,000 in 2010. It now has chapters in 21 cities, from
Atlanta to Las Vegas.

The I.A.C. supports a range of programs for Israeli Americans in Los
Angeles and elsewhere, including youth leadership training for pro-Israel
advocacy and activities to strengthens participants’ Jewish identity and
connection to Israel.

On Wednesday, individual donations from across the United States poured in.
A small window that popped up in the corner of the I.A.C. website
identified the donors by their first name, the amount they gave and where
they lived.
  .  .  .
A former prosecutor in Los Angeles and a U.S. Army veteran who served in
Iraq, Mr. Carr was the special envoy to combat antisemitism during the
Trump administration. He was born in the United States to Israeli parents,
and he became I.A.C.’s chief executive in October, just days before the
Hamas attack.
  .  .  .


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Re: [marxmail] The price we pay for having upper-class legislators

[Dayne Goodwin]

Opinion

by Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/opinion/working-class-wealthy-legislators.html

The Price We Pay for Having Upper-Class Legislators
April 30, 2024
A movement to weaken child labor laws has roots in the composition of our
legislatures.

By Jamelle Bouie 

Opinion Columnist

There is a coordinated, nationwide effort to roll back child labor laws,
part of a broader campaign to concentrate even more power into the hands of
employers.

“Since 2021,” the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute notes
,
“28 states have introduced bills to weaken child labor laws, and 12 states
have enacted them.” In 2024 alone, eight states have either introduced or
taken new action on bills that would, for example, allow employers to
schedule 16- and 17-year-olds for unlimited hours, allow nonprofits to hire
12- and 13-year-olds and eliminate work permits for young people.

One way to understand this fight to roll back labor laws is as a function
of conservative ideology and a reflection of the views of the social base
of Republican politics. It’s almost axiomatic that a party dominated by
reactionary business owners

is going to support, as much as possible, the interests of reactionary
business owners.

But this analysis can take us only so far. We also have to explain why it
is, on a practical level, that this agenda has advanced so far and so fast.
There is partisan control, of course — Republicans are leading the assault
on labor laws — but there is also the class composition of our state
legislatures.

Out of more than 7,300 state legislators in the country, 116 — or 1.6
percent of the total — currently work or last worked in manual labor, the
service industry or clerical or union jobs, according to a recent study

conducted by Nicholas Carnes and Eric Hansen, political scientists at Duke
University and Loyola University Chicago. By contrast, about 50 percent of
U.S. workers hold jobs in one of those fields.

This problem afflicts both parties. In the last legislative session, the
study found, 1 percent of Republican lawmakers and 2 percent of Democratic
lawmakers had working-class backgrounds. In 10 states — Arkansas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Texas, Utah and Virginia — not a single state lawmaker works or has
recently worked in an occupation that researchers would define as working
class. Three of those states, incidentally, are ones in which lawmakers
recently loosened rules on child labor.

What explains the almost total absence of working-class people from elected
positions in state government? It may have something to do with how we
structure our legislatures. Let’s look at Congress as a base line. The
House and Senate are full-time legislatures with considerable staffs and
resources at their disposal. Members work through the year and are paid
accordingly: $174,000 per annum, with pay increases for those in leadership
positions.

Now, there is a case to make that Congress needs more staff and higher pay
— that to attract the best candidates for federal office, compensation
should be competitive with salaries in private-sector fields of similar
power, prestige and responsibility. The main point, however, is that
Congress is at least structured in a way that would make it possible for a
working-class person to do the job without jeopardizing his or her
financial security (although this still leaves us with the problem of
actually winning a seat).

You cannot say the same for most of our state legislatures. According to the

National Conference of State Legislatures, only 10 states have full-time
legislatures, in which lawmakers spend at least 84 percent of their time
engaged in the position, including on the legislative floor, in hearings
and in committee meetings and doing constituent service. They are paid
full-time salaries as well, with average annual compensation of about
$82,000. On the other end, there are 14 states where the job is essentially
part-time and lawmakers are paid accordingly, earning an average salary of
just over $18,000 a year. The remaining states are classified as hybrid
legislatures, in which lawmakers devote about 74 percent of their time to
legislative duties, with an average annual salary around $41,000.

Setting aside the difficulty of getting elected — the necessity of raising
money from wealthy friends, family and acquaintances that most Americans
simply do 

Re: [marxmail] The price we pay for having upper-class legislators

[RKOB]

Very interesting! Would it be possible to send the NYT article as a text?

Am 04.05.2024 um 00:25 schrieb Dayne Goodwin:
Utah is one of 10 states in which not a single state lawmaker works or 
has recently worked in an occupation that researchers would define as 
working class.

by Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/opinion/working-class-wealthy-legislators.html
Salt Lake Tribune, May 2, 2024
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2024/05/02/opinion-price-we-pay-having-upper/




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