You can look to California to see one kind of response to "ordinary recessions." Arnold is planning to make massive cuts, concentrated on k-14 education, Medi-Cal, and welfare. Almost everything will hit the poor especially hard. And the Dems have protested, but cannot raise taxes without 2/3 support of both houses of the legislature and Arnold's signature. No strong voices yet.
On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 06:35:13PM -0600, Carrol Cox wrote: > > "Ordinary" recessions do not, I think, have any particular significance > for left politics. (For this post I'm defining "left politics" as > building mass extra-parliamentary movements for major change.) Their > initial impact is to drive working people to scurry for individual > safety. It is also usually evident that rallying to a mass movement is > not going to change immediate conditions; any succor that does come is > going to be from politicians & bureaucrats for their own reasons. > Efforts to build such movements must continue, in any case, at all > times, bad or good, to maintain a 'cadre' of activists to react to a > real crisis. Hence left politics just goes trudging on its eay. > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
