Josh Marshall has an interesting piece up wherein he points out that while, yes, Comey and the Russian hacking likely swung the election because the margin was so narrow in PA, WI, and MI, the reasons it was close enough to be swung are a problem for Dems. Specifically, we don’t have a satisfactory policy answer to growing wage inequality and the disappearance of well-paid jobs for blue collar workers, especially in the Rust Belt.

To be fair, neither did Trump. His “policies” boil down to unicorn farts and promises to turn back the hands of time, which he can’t do, and was never really going to try to do. But he offered a scapegoat - ChYna and Mexico - and promised a trade war and a wall as the prescription. Simple solutions aimed at the wrong target in a complex situation.

The problem as I see it is that NOBODY has a good answer that doesn’t require rethinking the economy. I was listening to a show on NPR yesterday, where they were talking about this issue. And as bad as it has been for blue collar workers, largely losing their jobs to automation, it’s soon going to be that bad for white collar workers who will lose their jobs to Artificial Intelligence.

So, basically we’ll have an economy with mostly low wage workers, fighting over the scraps of available jobs - and thus unable to demand higher wages - and the folks at the top who will reap the rewards. A two-tiered society.

I’ve brought this up before, the Gene Roddenberry/Star Trek dream of a future where things like automation, AI, and replicator technology create an egalitarian society where there is no want, and wealth is relatively unimportant, because EVERYONE reaps the benefits of the work-saving technologies.

That’s not where we’re headed. Right now, we’re headed towards a world with mostly poor people and a very few very rich people, and an increasing scramble for the decreasing number of well-paid jobs. That’s not only not good for the poor people, it’s not even all that great for the rich people. We’ve already discovered the limits loosening credit in lieu of increasing wages.

It seems to me that the answer starts with socializing all the fixed costs of employment, followed by redefining the work week and work day to increase the number of employees, while rethinking the whole ‘maximizing profits’ drive. We USED TO share the benefits of increased productivity all the way down the economic scale. The rich got richer and the poor got richer. The rich didn’t get AS MUCH richer, but above a certain point, who cares? It’s just running up the score!

No idea how to get there, because everyone will see this as too radical, too Socialist. Hell, we can’t even half-ass socialize the INDIVIDUAL health insurance market without half the country screaming “Communism!”, so maybe we’re fucked. But this is what we’d have to do, IMO.