Imperialism decreases jobs and makes livable wages inaccessible to the masses – turns case

Nero played his fiddle, Obama shot baskets and Trump twittered while their empires burned. What makes empire decay and what makes empires expand has everything to do with the relations between rulers and the ruled. Several factors are decisive. These include: (1) rent, land and housing, (2) the direction of living standards, (3) the rise or fall of mortality rate, (4) decline or rise of families. Throughout history, rising empires bring their population on side for the task of empire by distributing a portion of their plunder to the masses— providing them with land, low rents and housing. Large-scale landlords facing the return of young war veterans reduced excessive land concentration to avoid domestic unrest. Rising empires raised living standards, with salaried employees, workers and artisans, merchants and scribes finding employment as the oligarchies expanded conspicuous consumption and the state bureaucracy running the empire. A prosperous empire is cause and consequence of increases in the population and the growth of healthy and educated plebeians who service and serve the rulers. In contrast, declining empires plunder the domestic economy, without regard to the negative social consequences that include a reduction in life expectancy, which in the US is among the lowest of all advanced industrialized countries—even lower than in Cuba. As a result, deteriorating empires experience a declining rate of mortality; homeownership and land is concentrated in the hands of an elite of renters living off unearned wealth via inheritance, speculation and rents, which degrades productive work based on skill and knowledge. Declining empires are cause and consequence of vulnerable families composed of opioid-addicted workers suffering from rising inequality between rulers and ruled. The US imperial experience over the past century embodies the trajectory of the rise and fall of empires. The past quarter-century describes the relations between rulers and ruled at a time of declining empire. Living standards of Americans have declined precipitously. Employers have ceased paying for pensions; reduced or eliminated health coverage; and reduced corporate taxes, thus lowering the quality of public education. Over the past two decades, the wages and salaries of the majority of households have stagnated or declined; education and health expenses have bankrupted many and reduced university graduates to long-term debt peonage. Access to home ownership for Americans under the age of forty-five has fallen dramatically from 24 percent in 2006 to 14 percent in 2017. At the same time, rents have skyrocketed, especially in large cities across the country, in most cases absorbing between a third and a half of monthly income. Business elites and their housing experts divert attention to ‘intergenerational’ inequalities between pensioners and younger wage and salaried employees and away from rising income inequality between CEOs and both workers and pensioners, which has risen from 100 to 400 to one over the past three decades. Mortality rates between the business elite and workers have widened as the wealthy live longer and healthier lives while workers experience declining life expectancy, the first time in American history! As the business elites’ income from profits, dividends and interest increases they can afford high-cost private medical care that prolongs life, while millions of workers are prescribed opioids to ‘reduce pain’ that precipitate premature deaths. Births are declining as a result of the high cost of medical care and the absence of day care and paid maternal/paternal leave. The most recent studies reveal that 2017 experienced the fewest babies in thirty years. The socalled ‘economic recovery’ following the financial collapse of 2008/9 was class based: real estate and financial elites received over two trillion dollars in bailouts while over three million working-class households were evicted by financial mortgage holders. The result was a rapid rise in homeless people, especially in cities with the highest rate of recovery from the crisis. Homelessness and crowded, overpriced rentals and minimum wages are likely causes of declining birth rates and increasing mortality rates. Imperialism Expands, Living Standards Fall[:] Unlike the earlier, post-World War II decades when overseas expansion was accompanied by low-cost higher education, accessible low-cost mortgages and increasing home ownership and employer-paid pensions and health coverage, over the past two decades. The imperial expansion has been based on forced reductions in living standards empire grew and living standards declined because the capitalist class evaded trillions of taxable income via overseas tax havens, transfer pricing and tax exemptions. Moreover, capitalists received massive state subsidies for infrastructure, and cost-free transfers of publically funded technological innovations. Imperial expansion is now based on the relocation overseas of multinational manufacturing corporations to lower costs, increasing the percentage of low-wage service workers in the US. The decline of living standards for the majority is a result of the restructuring of the empire, the advent of the regressive tax system, the redistribution of state welfare transfers from public social spending to private finance and real estate subsidies and bailouts. Conclusion In the beginning, imperialism involved an explicit social contract with overseas expansion, shared profits, taxes and income exchanged for workers’ political support for imperial overseas economic exploitation and resource plundering as well as service in the imperial armed forces. The social contract was conditioned by a relative balance of power: unionized workers represented the majority of manufacturing, public sector and skilled workers. But this balance of power in class relations was based on the capacity of workers to engage in class struggle and influence the state. In other words, the entire imperialism and welfare configuration was based on a particular set of conditional relations intrinsic to the social pact. Over time, imperial expansion faced overseas constraints from rising national and socialist opposition that forced or encouraged corporations to relocate capital abroad. Imperial rivals in Europe and Asia competed for overseas markets, forcing the US to increase productivity, lower costs, relocate abroad. Unions divorced from the broader community movements and lacking an independent political movement, corrupted from within and committed to a disappearing social compact, declined in number and capacity to formulate a new combative post-social pact strategy. The capital class gained total control over class relations and, therefore, unilaterally set the terms of taxation, employment, living standards and, most importantly, state expenditure. Imperial military and economic expenditures grew in direct proportions to the decline of social welfare payments. Rival power groups fought over the share of capitalist budgets and political-military priorities. Economic imperialists competed with or converged with military imperialists; free market neoliberals competed for overseas markets with national militarists pursuing territorial occupations, conquests, closed markets and submissive clients. Rival political power configurations competed over imperial priorities—powerful Zionist configurations sought regional wars for Israel, while multinationals looked to advance their political-economic expansion in Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian markets. Competing elite factions monopolized budgets, taxes and expenditures, driving living standards downward. Imperialist classes formed pacts—though only amongst themselves—but the quality and quantity of workers decreased through impoverished healthcare and educational systems. In contrast, elite offspring attended the best schools and secured the highest posts in government and the economy. Privilege and power did not produce imperial triumphs. China harnessed educational programs and skilled workers to productive work. In contrast, privileged US university graduates sought employment in lucrative but parasitical financial services rather than in science, engineering or social welfare. Military academy graduates joined networks of ‘commanders’ who condoned sexual abusers, trained and promoted officers who sent missiles which targeted military bases and bombed population centers and trained naval captains specializing in own-ship collisions. Ivy League graduates secured high government positions, leading the US into endless Middle East wars, multiplying adversaries, antagonizing allies and spending trillions on wars for Israel, not social welfare and higher wages for American workers. Oh yes, the economy is recovering … only the people are doing worse.