Capitalism as a Regressive Descent Society. Review of Oliver Nachtwey’s “The Descent Society” by Julian Bierwirth
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/06/01/18799849.php
The escalator is going down and no longer up as in the “social modern age.” The social trend drives toward precariousness and the accompanying social descent. Social institutions and securities are being cleared away. Citizenship as political sovereign is being replaced by the isolating structures of market citizenship.
Trump’s 2018 budget is more sadism, greed, hypocrisy and selective perception than public policy. Demonizing regulation and disparaging sharing are irrational and portend national and global economic collapse and the security state. HUD, the National Institute for Health, WIC food assistance, Pell-grants, Medicaid, food stamps, teacher training, EPA, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Legal Corporation and social security should be strengthened not dismantled as frivolous excesses. Countermeasures are necessary to counter exploding inequality, precarious work, and profit worship. The financial sector should be shriveled and the public sector expanded.
