The Trouble With Obamacare

I’m honestly not really sure what you’re pointing to in this response, but I’ll say thank you for pointing out this column. To see a conservative rag pointing out the pathologies born by our contemporary economy, indeed sounding Marxian while waxing on about labor providing the meaning to life, is remarkable.* To my mind, the only thing that saves American capitalism is an agreement between the left and right that globalization is not a one-way street and if we keep progressing down this path we’ll end up in a future that makes our current dystopia look rather livable. Rebuilding economic borders and relocating economic activities back into the United States is clearly what is called for, the question is whether the elites who are making money from the current scheme will be shoved out of power by a populist articulation demanding a new form of import substitution industrialization.

* Please inform me of other conservative commentators making similar arguments. I’d be grateful.

This is the most moronic thing I’ve seen in my life.
Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Hey, it’s Mark “The Human” Steyn.

There’s nothing you could do to him or his scribblings that would be unfair.
~

As far as I can tell, Steyn is saying:

1. Profit!!!
2. Capital no longer needs labor
3. ????

How does Steyn propose to handle the rise of “[a]utomated supermarket checkout, 3D printing, driverless vehicles . . .”? He doesn’t say.

People still do work on farms. They’re called migrant labor and we conveniently forget their existence.

Pardon, my US-centrism makes me assume everyone lives/is from the US. Which is odd considering I don’t live there anymore!

If only the column had followed-through with the thesis of the Squaresville Commissar! Or with any other organizing principle! The intellectual atomism of the current conservative movement, its ideas poking ungainly through these successive op-ed attempts to wrangle it, or to organize it, by fearful emotions, is brought into clear relief.

In reality, President Obama is probably tickled to death that now he’s a square, in addition to everything else he’s been called. Most of us have guessed at his extreme squareness from the get-go.

Millenials again reveal their extraordinary susceptibility to numbnuts economics, and to simplistic marketing, while conservative propagandists again show a clever bent for their ears.

Obama pivoted to inequality for at least two reasons, 1. the Democrats have wisely decided to go on a battle offensive prior to the midterms, such as: raise the minimum wage, propose a slight increase in Social Security payments, etc. Not only would a large portion of voters be in favor, it would also throw a deeper wedge into the Republicans.

They are the gift that keeps on giving. …And after we have destroyed the Republicans, let’s destroy the Democrats. You will be happy you did!

2. I seem to remember that George W. Bush made similar statements against inequality at around the same point in his presidency. So maybe it is just something that boys at low ebb do, or trot out, in hopes to inflect their historical legacy.

The Repubs are against ACA because it will show that some limited socialism will work just fine for some market-failure items like healthcare. That undercuts their ONLY political message. They must sell the returning economy as the result of austerity, as indeed they have begun to do.

It is going to be a hard narrative to continue, though, because the Republican religious belief is that government action MUST slow growth, because it MUST be inefficient. This is the intellectual core of the gibberish. Well, we just started Obamacare, and yet economic growth finally appears to be ramping up.

How are they going to circle squaresville?

Worse for the GOP, the wedge will go deeper. If the website works and a couple of million are signed-up for cheaper coverage (or coverage for the first time), there is no turning back, and the moderate GOP (or what remains of them) will fold on the issue. That political inflection point appears to be finally arriving, now.

Now it’s “fix”, not “repeal and replace.” Who didn’t see this coming?

Make no mistake about it. Once people are signed up for coverage, the GOP cannot “repeal and replace” ACA without making lots of new people lose that coverage — and that would be another political disaster for Republicans — while at the same time, any replacement system that does the following: keeps everybody covered, disallows recissions, disallows rejections for pre-existing conditions, etc. etc., — any such replacement is going to look and feel A WHOLE LOT like the ACA, which is going to make for a very difficult “repeal and replace” selling job. The Republicans should have just sucked up their pride and embraced ACA from the beginning, and made it into a true bipartisan effort. Their miscalculation is very likely to cost them politically for another few Presidential elections. If I were an advisor to the GOP, I would advise them to discard their opposition to ACA as soon as possible. I don’t think it is even clear right now that it will help them in the coming midterm. Squaresville could end up smelling like roses, and that election is a year away.

Right, I’ve encountered that variant of conservatism. Wendell Berry is a good example of that. But conservatives saying that it’s through (meaningful) labor that life is worth living, that is new to me.

“But conservatives saying that it’s through (meaningful) labor that life is worth living, that is new to me.”

It sounds more like for the rubes labor is the meaning. Smart and sophisticated people like himself find the meaning in arts, photography, writing, and opera.

Interesting to compare it with David Graeber’s recent article on the same subject. OK maybe compare isn’t the right word, given the superiority of the latter.

I’m certainly not going to click the link and see what you’re talking about. I’m just going to ask: Are you thinking Haney Teen Titans style, or Shooter Legion of Super-Heroes style, or Simon Brother Power/ Prez style? As far as I can tell those are the only options.

I think Steyn is doing an excellent job of vilification of that whole class of people who have made themselves so comfortable in a post-work economy. That economy must be destroyed!

Of course Steyn and I are talking about polar opposite classes of people. He and his political tendency have hallucinated a class of welfare queens, whereas the real economy and our real polity actually is beset with a class of coupon-clipping, parasite, moocher, rentiers. They’ve gotten control of govts back after a brief period of social democracy, and they’ve already turned economic expansion into secular contraction.

Of course, our side can’t, usefully, in ways that effectively persuade electorates, do the necessary vilification of the real villains, or propose the changes needed to get us back on course. Homo politicus is hard-wired to respect hierarchy. As long as most people are doing tolerably well, they take it for granted that the powers that be must be competent, and the system basically sound and fair. It’s easy to vilify the losers in the present system, and impossible to gain any traction vilifying the winners.

So idiots like Steyn are welcome to vilify the poor. Let him build up a detailed and emotive critique in people’s minds of the evils, both personal and social, of our system tolerating a class of parasites and wreckers. Let him get people used to thinking in terms of class and class interest. Let him make Marxist thinking respectable again.

A combination of the contracting economy that will result from tilting the rules ever more in favor of rent-seeking, plus the increasing shrillness of the rentier propagandists, will eventually push enough people to transfer the critique that Steyn is building onto its proper objects. In a failing system, the ruling elites become a God that Failed, and people will need a way of understanding that failure to guide them out of the wreckage. Thank you, Mark Steyn, for your work building the edifice of that understanding.

kinda bouncing off of 27 above –

one of the major tropes of Obama-era conservativism has been, as far as i can tell, this weird discomfort with not being the ‘cool’ party anymore, so they are constantly trying to criticize those in support of Obama for being robots, dupes, etc.
it like, the real battle for them is over this cool-ness, or hip-ness, which Obama has a lot of on the surface, but deep down cannot deliver on, and somehow revealing that inner ‘commissar squares-ville’ will blow apart his carefully constructed Cool and let all them youngnin’s see who is truly the coolest kid in town.

this is definitely a part of the conservative mind (superego) these days – i can recall countless examples. does anyone understand why this is tho? because it is laughably juvenile

Janie:
At your high school, weren’t the “cool” kids the rich ones? Weren’t the rich ones the most likely to be Republicans? If this doesn’t describe your childhood, go ahead and ignore what I say.

I have a hard time making sense of Steyn’s column.

“One consequence of the botched launch of Obamacare is that it has, judging from his plummeting numbers with “Millennials,” diminished Barack Obama’s cool. ”

So if the website had worked, Obama would still be a hipster? Competence equals cool? So the Republicans who shut down the government – because supposedly cool Obamacare would ruin the country – and threatened to default on the debt are squares?

“As Steyn wisely observe at the end of this column – which is about the dignity of work ”

The title and subtitle are ” The Post-Work Economy: A permanent dependency class means a citizenry deprived of dignity.”

“One of the advantages of Obamacare, according to Nancy Pelosi, is that it will liberate the citizenry: “Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance.” It’s certainly true that employer-based health coverage distorts the job market, but what’s more likely in a world without work?”

Conservative public policies like austerity and bubble economics (bubblenomics) creates unemployment. Of course they deny it. Pelosi’s point which Steyn ignores/misrepresents is that Obama care will increase workers’ bargaining power in that they won’t be as afraid to lose their job for fear of losing their healthcare. Is increasing bargaining power hip? Is being dishonest as Steyn is, square?

@ 14

Yes I think we are at an inflection point, more so if the Republicans lose in either 2014 or 2016. Here’s Ross Douchehat on Obamacare turning the corner:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/obamacare-turns-a-corner.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

“But this example does not necessarily bode well for Obamacare’s unfolding. The Massachusetts law was a bipartisan bill passed in a wealthy, homogeneous state with a pervasive left-liberal ethos. The national health care law aspires to create the same sense of “positive responsibility” in a much more polarized, fragmented, socioeconomically diverse and libertarian-minded society, roughly half of which opposes the law outright. ”

Yes the elderly, male white squares in the Republican party hate their Medicare and Social Security. Death panels!

Possibly this code is unfamiliar though maybe it isn’t.

QS – you may wish to revisit the recent thread on Francis vs. Marx. One of quotes from the Pope under discussion there: “It is through free, creative, participatory and mutually supportive labour that human beings express and enhance the dignity of their lives.”

Steyn is merely doing what the right has always done, blamed the failures of Capitalism on their ameliorators. Told those who have been let go from their jobs due to the failures of Capitalism, that those who are making life easier for them are to blame for their condition.

The left needs to answer back that markets are inefficient. If markets were truly efficient there would be no surplus, and we have surpluses of capital, capacity, and labor. Why? Because labor is paid too little to consume the excess production. When labor productivity doubles and wages don’t come close to double, who is going to consume all that excess product?

For a while, that was labor with credit extended from surplus capital, until the system got over-extended and everything when bust.

Would it not be far better to pay people what their labor is worth, and tighten credit standards, thereby making people live within their greater means?

As it happens, in my high school, I was the cool kid, but only starting in 11th grade. Before that I was a…weirdo? They didn’t know what was cool yet, was the problem. I distinctly remember the first day of 11th grade all these girls coming up to me who were cheerleaders and shit being all “Belle! OhMyGod it’s so great to see you!” and I was like “you talk to me now? NnnhhMhh. No you do not, missy.” However, I’m a friendly person, so in truth I did talk to them. Until this happened.

Trader Joe @ 39

…and can’t program a VCR.

Do millennials even know what a VCR is? Don’t they let TiVo do their programming for them, or beam stuff to their Apple TV with their iPhone? This bit of what-it-means-to-be-uncool seems to me to be sadly in need of updating.

OK, I have a new favorite wingnut commenter, from Mark “The Human” Steyn’s comments. He’s not trolling; I read his further engagement with the thumbs-uppers (79 FB upvotes!). Or, if he’s pretending to be conservative to make people agree with him and look like idiots–it works!
rainesson
• 3 days ago

The death of useful work and the Gotterdammerung of Liberty and Individuality.

Nameless, faceless millions with minimal purpose posting selfies. Huxley’s
Gamma, Delta & Epsilon castes — high on Kardashian Soma — keeping the
Alpha’s and Betas properly fed, and changed and sated. So Movie Star Alpha Paul Walker — can wrap his brand new car around a tree in a pointless pursuit of sensation. For in the future only Alphas and Betas will be allowed vehicles they can actually steer, accelerate and brake . . . while the rest of us ride mass transit to and from our jobs at the Amazon Recycling Complex.

Or are we looking at HG Wells’ Morlocks feeding on innocent childlike Eloi? The Knockout Game turned cannibal in the streets of our cities? Human remains processed by the Multinational Engulf & Devour. Honey BooBoo is SOYLENT GREEN!

One thing is for certain, the lives of our benevolent rulers, the Alphas and Betas, the Members of the Inner Party, the Celestials will hide behind guards and walls and private guns, while the rest of us bang pots and pans and rattle magic bones at the barred castle gate. While the Brutals of Zardoz worship the stone head of a hollow god, exterminating the lower classes.

Until the Red Death sneaks through the cracks in the fortress stones to settle all scores. And within the faraway, abandoned Museum of Green Porcelain an ancient box of matches waits in a glass case to rekindle Mankind.

Trader Joe – as a “millenial” myself I have to say that your first explanation for millenial discontent with Obama is probably bunk. Many of us are perfectly familiar with timed-out dial-up connections and VHS tapes. I can’t say I appreciate the stereotyping about instant gratification.

The more likely answer is a) we’re still suffering from hard times; b) we can’t afford school; c) little has been done about corporatism and corruption, especially in the banking sector; d) we’re still in Afghanistan and the NSA is still spying on us. The millenial impression of politics is largely shaped by the paranoia of the Bush years, and discontent with the President is linked to the perception that nothing has changed. Obama is popular among the young to the extent that he has broken with the GWB legacy. (Esp. LGBT rights, the idea of HCR if not the execution, etc.)

@46
No offense intended dn. There’s lots of definitions of millenials and I think you’d agree that a “millenial” born in the 1980s has a much different view than one born in 1995. If you were born in 1995 and remember dial-up timeouts you were quite a prodigy. If you were born in 1985 and remember dial-up timeouts you were probably using Prodigy.

I think my alternate suggested reading as @39 corresponds reasonably well with your comment, although you probably said it better and more thoroughly.

Obamacare’s troubles are being blown out of proportion, but Obama’s numbers started falling for other reasons: drones; the NSA snooping on everybody.

squaresville and hipster are old man journanimalese. Square in particular seemed to leap into the rightwing vocabulary in the beatnik era and stay there long after other words took its place on the street. There are, admittedly, a few problems with the film, American Psycho, but one of the perfect moments in that film was when the Christian Bale character plays the Huey Lewis and the News “Hip to be Square”, which was really, really an appropriate choice for a Reaganite soundtrack.

I think Steyn is arguing that we need to take away people’s healthcare and food stamps and give them real dignity and purpose by offering them jobs as servants for the elites. And also get rid of those illegal immigrants. At least that’s what I read.

[My fat fingers found it too easy to submit. If the above comment is moderated, I will understand, but here is the rest] healthcare policy, and there never will be. It is almost definitionally wonkish, as is Fed monetary policy. I bring this up because my sneaking suspicion is the fact that hacks like Steyn haven’t met an aesthetic idea they could explain says something more largely about his politics. His idea is not really outre in R circles — Ryan and others claim universalizing health care will create a dependent society– but his attempt at juicing the argument betrays an ear so tinny he should be ashamed.