Wednesday, September 27, 2006
(10:37 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Glory Days
Yesterday in the Marx seminar, we were discussing Marx's theory of crises and the way that capitalism was saved in the mid-twentieth century by Fordism. Under such a system, workers are paid enough to buy the products they build, so that wages become a kind of investment, not only in guaranteeing future profits, but also in staving off social unrest. It occurred to me that I knew something about Fordism, and more importantly that every member of my family and everyone I grew up with instinctively knew something about Fordism, since I grew up in the outskirts of one of the headquarters of Fordism: Flint, Michigan. We all understand that GM shot itself in the foot by moving jobs to Mexico, prompting the incredulous question, "Who is going to buy their cars, then?"The interesting thing, though, is that there is often a certain amount of shame surrounding Flint's union past. On the one hand, yes, GM's decision to pull out of the US was a dumb move, but on the other hand, the unions are understood as somehow being to blame for the whole Fordist alliance between big labor and big business being called off -- the unions asked for too much, they provided cover for useless workers who deserved to be fired, etc. Or as one hears constantly: "They did a lot of good in their time, but they went too far." Perhaps -- but why is it any less valid for the labor unions to try to maximize their profit just as the corporation does? And in what fantasy world would the unions have made enough concessions to make them an attractive alternative to cheap Mexican labor?
Now whenever I go home and read the Flint Journal, the plan is always to revive Flint by drawing primarily on local resources, since big corporations are no longer to be trusted -- everyone must give up their fantasies of a new employer moving in to give everyone jobs. The model that is most kicked around is to turn it into a college town -- which makes a certain kind of sense, given the presence of the University of Michigan-Flint, Mott Community College, and Kettering University (formerly GMI) in the city. Presumably this would create a more bohemian atmosphere, perhaps even attracting homosexuals and other creative individuals, and Flint could be saved by web development and IPOs and all that. Or else Flint could become like most other college towns outside of Ann Arbor or Berkeley -- with the universities gradually buying up the whole place, meanwhile paying shit wages to the workers from the economically depressed surrounding area.
