The Total State’s Assault On The Middle Class
The middle class was traditionally defined by their ownership of hard property which provided a degree of economic independence. Owning your own home, car, and business were essential elements of the American dream offering the promise that your children and grandchildren would not be reliant on the whims of others for their financial security. This independence became a vital part of the American identity, but it also posed an obstacle to those that would prefer to see the country brought under more centralized control. This is why we have seen the middle class redefined and diminished to the point where home ownership is now out of the reach of most Americans, and entrepreneurship seems like a pipedream. The war on the middle class was essential to facilitating the rise of the total state, and the regime is now making the final push to eliminate the independence that was once the cornerstone of American life.
We live in an era defined by large bureaucratic institutions that seek the centralization of power. Conservatives often praise large corporations while lionizing the free market, but those very corporations have learned that consolidation and partnership with the state are winning strategies that strangle all opposition. In many ways the market forces the right has lauded as a blanket solution to all social ills have been the very thing working to destroy the middle-class existence conservatives identify with. Small businesses and independent firms are barriers to the centralization of power. They represent market inefficiency with their lack of access to large supply chains, cheap overseas labor, and the stability of managerial experts on hand at every major corporation. Entrepreneurs are a problem for the total state because they cannot be compelled to comply with the newest cultural mandates through institutions like human resource departments. The total state relies on the homogenization of morals, tastes, and preferences to manage large groups of people efficiently. Small businesses, and the middle-class independence they enable, reduce the power of the total state by allowing communities to protect and transmit their own moral and cultural preferences.
The fact that small businesses represent both market inefficiency and a roadblock to the power of the state means they have been targeted for liquidation by both corporations and the government. Mom and pop businesses have been famously decimated by big box retailers and the massive internet conglomerates with which they cannot possibly hope to compete. Many conservatives justify this by pointing to the fact that these corporations are able to provide lower prices and therefore a better standard of living for everyone. For a short time, this might have been true, but as these large corporations push more and more competitors out of the market the closely held group of institutions can safely reduce choice and raise prices without fear of a real challenger entering the industry. In addition, these large corporations are not simply undercutting prices to push smaller firms out of the market. Multinational conglomerates not only fully embrace state regulation, they often play a central role in crafting it. By ensuring the operation of a business requires a level of compliance costs and complicated bureaucracy that only massive corporations can afford or manage, all chances of real competition to those corporations are eliminated. Small firms are forced to close or merge with larger entities that consolidate all power into just a few mass corporations who are more than happy to work with the government to make future competition impossible.
The pandemic lockdown provides the most obvious example of how large corporations and the government collude to destroy entrepreneurs. During the covid shutdown, big box retailers were allowed to continue to operate while small businesses that provided the same service were required to shutter their doors. The government justified this preferential treatment by labeling large retailers as “essential” because so many people required access to them for basic needs. The very dependence that the government had ensured by making competition impossible became the justification for special treatment. It was also asserted that only massive corporations could comply with the safety regulations the government was imposing at the time. Again, the ability of big box retailers to meet the high cost of compliance while small firms could not meant that the state could justify literally shuttering the doors of the competition.
As small businesses are forced to shut down or sell out, their once independent owners must again become wage laborers dependent on corporations that are more than willing to push the dictates of the total state down onto their employees. This is why, as the acquisition and consolidation of small firms took place, we saw a shift in the definition of the middle class. Where the middle class was once defined by the ownership of hard property, they were increasingly defined by an income range achieved by wages earned by working for a corporation. Those wages might have provided a comfortable lifestyle, but the independence that property ownership offered started to evaporate. Eliminating entrepreneurship was only the first step of this attack on hard property. Massive private equity firms like BlackRock are making large cash offers on residential real estate, pricing families out of the market with the intention of renting it back to the same middle-class buyers they disenfranchised. The financial giant Blackstone has amassed a record $50 billion war chest in preparation for an expected real estate crash so they can acquire homes before families can take advantage of the more affordable prices. Even the cheap used car, once the middle-class rite of passage for every teenager, has skyrocketed in price making it difficult for many adults with respectable incomes to afford reliable transportation. Government officials have praised inflated gas prices that force drivers to either buy expensive electric automobiles or abandon car ownership altogether.
Large corporations and private equity are colluding with the government to make hard property prohibitively expensive because it increases their power. Global policy influencers like the World Economic Forum have literally made the phrase “You will own nothing and you will be happy” their slogan. Increasingly, the middle class are those paid enough by corporations to rent luxuries and afford subscriptions. No one owns movies, music, or software. Everything exists as a streaming service that can be altered if the content is deemed offensive or shut off if you lose your corporate position for wrong think. Obtaining middle-class status now means fighting for the privilege to become more reliant on the centralized corporate and government structures that are tightening their grip on our society.
If the right is to oppose the disintegration of the middle class we must look beyond the lazy rhetoric and corporate cheerleading that has become the mainstay of the GOP and conservative media. It is important to understand that government, private equity firms, and large corporations are not separate entities but a unified power block with shared goals and interests. All of these entities benefit from the eradication of economic independence and seek to liquidate the American identity that the GOP pays lip service to defending. Kulaks are always a problem for the total state, and the government will happily work with multinational corporations to see them brought back under the control of the system.