The New Class Conflict Kindle Edition

Kotkin goes beyond the traditional left-right discussions to present the current reality unfolding in America and elsewhere. The basic economic reality is that income inequality is increasing while the middle class is decreasing.

This new reality is being led by a new class which consists of high tech oligarchs, Wall Street financiers, the media, academia, government officials, and the Democrat Party. Their main objectives are globalization, immigration, and green energy. The political irony here is that this movement is strongest in the states with the most income inequality such as CA and NY. California has the most billionaires and the most welfare recipients.

The high tech oligarchs profiting from this system are centered in Silicon Valley and Seattle. They are all billionaires and the companies they run are oligopolies or near monopolies, such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. The system they and the rest of the new class supports is increasingly one of major profits, a decreasing middle class, massive immigration for cheap labor, and welfare for all the victims. This system is possible because even illegals and welfare recipients can afford the smartphones and video games high tech produces.

This new class has launched a relentless war against older industries such as domestic manufacturing (autos and steel), construction, energy production (mining and drilling), and logistics (trucking and warehousing). The loss of relatively high paying jobs in these areas has led to the increasing impoverishment of the middle class and the growth of the welfare class. The economic tactics employed include outsourcing jobs overseas, bringing in cheap foreign labor, and regulating domestic industries to extinction. Much of this is designed to provide a greener environment for the elites to enjoy while impoverishing the middle class.

The political support for this development comes from what Kotkin calls the Clerisy, which duplicates the role of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and whose job it is to support the current status quo. This part of the new class consists of the media, academia, government bureaucrats, and the politicians who support them. These supporters can then enjoy the high upper middle class salaries available to occupations such as journalists, professors, and bureaucrats.

A vocal element of support for this system is the Millennial Generation. They have largely accepted the system as inevitable and exhibit strong support for the one element which still supports them: welfare or some other type of government support such as financial aid at school. Over half of this generation still lives with its parents and they increasingly eschew the things they cannot afford, such as homes and autos. Instead they support the elements which maintain the current system such as immigration and green energy. They are addicted to their smartphones and video games which are basically electronic toys. They apparently support immigration because immigrants enlarge the welfare state which they are increasingly dependent on.

Kotkin wrote this book in 2014 and was wondering if the beleaguered middle class could ever fight back. We of course now know that the middle class did fight back with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, a billionaire from the real estate business who supports middle class goals. Nevertheless, President Trump is encountering tremendous resistance from the new class, especially the media, as he tries to reverse the course of this country.

How could I not like an author who said mostly things I already agreed with, plus a few new ideas that I also agreed with, and said them all so well that I happily kept on reading? Well, despite Kotkin's skills as a writer, and political views remarkably like my own, I wound up not really liking the book as much as I would have expected. His description of the problems of our democracy seemed right on, and I especially enjoyed his frequent reminders that the earnest liberals who are so concerned about the masses are dedicated to stopping growth--he only real avenue of progress for the disadvantaged. His frequent reminders of this unwitting hypocrisy were to me like red meat in the tiger's cage. But then, all of a sudden, the book grinds to a halt. Not a hint of what can or should be done about the problems he has limned so clearly. Surely he can't think that just mentioning what's wrong will magically cause it to all go away. Particularly when the problem is one of mind set--a view of the world which won't change easily, if at all.

So I look for the sequel that will explain how it all comes out OK/

So if you, like I, frequently despair of the architects of the future whose idea of a better world is one that denies opportunity to those no already rich, this book may be run to read. But it won't do you much good as a road map to a better world.

The assertions in this book are supported by considerable detail, some of which might shock the ordinary person. Examples: Steve Case, the founder of America on Line and a member of the social class termed by Kotkin "the clerisy" or the new governing class, maintains that the USA should accept 30 million immigrants (kindle ref 1488); California, once regarded as the home of opportunity and upward social mobility, now has massive unemployment (kindle ref 1988), accounts for a third of US welfare recipients, and has extremely high fuel costs due to that state's endorsement of fashionable alternative energy (kindle ref 1977), the nett result being that California is becoming a "highly feudalistic rural economy".

The clerisy has now most of the wealth and exercises most influence, usually in a direction that people are unlikely to want. For example, the clerisy considers that suburbs are energy-inefficient and it advocates centralised housing, which, maintains Kotkin, is fine if one has a large income allowing for possession of a roomy apartment; but unlikely to be favoured by those with small incomes who would be obliged by the clerisy to live in the inner-city in small boxes. Instead they prefer living in suburbs where there is room to move and the poverty rate is lower than urban areas. Contrary to the predictions of experts people generally favour single-family homes. (kindle ref 1212).

The clerisy likes big government and more government control, particularly in regard to ecology and energy, but do not appreciate (or perhaps do not care about) the cost to be paid. People living in rural Oregon counties " ... complain that Portland's strict control over such things as energy and land use makes economic development all but impossible, even where these resources are far more plentiful" (kindle ref 2148).

Kotkin notes that such people as Al Gore, Prince Charles, and Richard Branson insist that the ordinary people, whom Kotin calls the "yeomanry", must curb their expensive ways of life and "live small" but themselves engage in extravagent lifestyles and are "blissfully unaware " of the hypocricy (kindle ref 2189) in their preaching.

The author comments about education. Although strongly recommended by the clerisy it is no longer a guarantee of good employment, or indeed of any employment. Only half the college graduates since 2006 had full time jobs and the situation is getting worse. There seems little point in "stuffing more students into a system that, in the end, fails to prepare young people for the future and lands them in debt" (kindle ref 2398-2420).

Kotkin favours a "decentralised bottom up system". He says it worked well in America for many years, but has been displaced or rendered ineffective by all manner of government controls and other influences. He suggests that the best results will be achieved by allowing localities to control their own fate, relatively free of governmemt intervention. His account of the new class order and its origins and effects are depressing, but he considers that correction is possible - although under threat the Amerian Dream is not dead.

One reviewer said that much of the material in Kotkin's book appeared elsewhere. That might be so, but it is refreshing to find such views stated clearly, in detail, backed up by extensive references, and argued passionately.