The first one is that, during Senior year at Thomas Aquinas College, we studied evolutionary biology in second semester natural science. We only had one semester devoted to the topic, so it served mostly as a means of becoming familiar with the terms and the big-picture understandings of evolution that... well, evolved... over the years. I loved it, because I do not have the mental landscape to support the edifice of mixed mathematics and chemistry needed to really dive into biology; the broad view, mostly theoretical, appealed to me. Anyway, one of the central works we read was "Chance and Necessity," by Jacques Monod. In it, he outlined the mechanism by which proteins are fashioned by DNA strands, using this in turn to argue that chance is the fundamental principle responsible for life. While I don't agree wholly with his assessment - if anything, I think his take represents a flirtation with dualism - I found his work fascinating. He focused on the fact that DNA is a replicative automaton; it reproduces itself exactly as it finds itself, without variation and without fail. However, random events can alter the state of DNA strands, so that from one moment to the next the strands may not be the same. Therefore, combining the effects of chance on DNA with the acid's own rigid reproduction, mutations are worked into living beings with something approaching regularity. If they are beneficial, they are preserved, because the beings to which the DNA belongs will thrive. The excellence of bios depends on a give-and-take waltz between chance and necessity. Only if one thing never alters will the effects of a good change be preserved.
That was backstory number one. Backstory number two has to do with something interesting that was brought up about the latest election cycle.
Donald Trump won Michigan by a pretty hefty margin. He is likewise predicted to thrive elsewhere in the Rust Belt. A good piece I read examined his success- specifically, the claims that Trump is winning because his electorate is fundamentally racist. The author, who was born and raised in Detroit, doesn't think that The Donald's appeal to working-class Reagan Democrats is based on racism. Instead, he points to the issue that The Donald talks about even more than his own polls: trade. If there is one enemy in The Donald's mind, it is the People's Republic of China. At first, when he kept going on and on about the evil antics of Beijing in debates, I edited them out; they didn't seem substantive, or linked to anything else that was being said. (They weren't linked, but The Donald is eminently post-modern in his speeches; they are exercises in verbal pastiche that would make David Foster Wallace proud.) After reading this piece, however, it dawned on me: Trump wasn't triumphing because of his racist/immigration views, appealing as they are to some swathes of his base, but because of his opposition to America's support for free trade.
I am not an economist. Just like in the case of biology, I lack the requisite intellectual gifts for the discipline. As such, I am not creditable enough to judge the pros and cons of free trade. However, based solely on theoretical considerations and big-picture thinking (a la senior natural science, circa 2015,) I can see why people would support it, and why they would oppose it. Free trade essentially expands the market - or rather, The Market - beyond the limits of a single polity, without tariffs or other penalties. It allows America to trade with Taiwan, Brazil, Chile, etc., without sanitizing imports through regulatory penalties. The Market, therefore, can encompass both developing and developed nations, mass consumers and those primed to be mass producers.
This, naturally, has the effect of internationalizing business, and business concerns. Where before, if the taxes in New York are prohibitive, businesses could move to fairer climes- in Texas, perhaps, or Arizona. If one member of The Market is unfriendly, there are always others willing to flash a little leg at business interests. Jobs move around The Market, and often, workers go with them. If The Market exists only within one nation, there isn't much to complain about; people can usually stomach a move in-country, if they have to. It's not beyond the pale to move to the Southwest for a job, if the Northeastern Corridor is not fruitful. One might lament the fall of Auto Country, or the fading dynamos of the Rust Belt, but it will remain an aesthetic complaint.
A crucial difference surfaces when The Market extends beyond a single nation, however: what do the workers do when taxes are so heavy in America, and the wild west atmosphere of Chinese business so unregulated, that businesses up and move out of the country? The people whose jobs are most often compromised by this situation are the least able to move in the first place; they certainly can't move to a new country. Moreover, China has its own work force, independent of America. There's no chance for erstwhile factory workers to move to fairer climes. The result is a loss for that particular class of American, even while an overall benefit accrues to The Market as a whole.
Because of his opposition to expanding The Market beyond the limits of America, Trump is winning over the class of people who depend the most on working-class jobs. They are left behind by the mechanisms of free trade, and as such, they are a bereaved population... on both sides of the political spectrum. Because of this, The Donald can boast of his appeal across party lines; he turns out voters in record numbers, because working-class people who previously had little interest in politics (or little faith in its results) finally see someone who is concerned with their deepest fears. Money talks, and The Donald's promises to address the legitimate anxiety of the white working-class is verbose cash indeed. Opposition to free trade, window-dressed with swatches of racism and pissed-off-itude, is the vital heart of Trump's message.
These two threads, twined together, have made me wonder what the right way forward might be.
One thing seems certain to me: an expanded Market has smudged the lines between nations in ways both deep and lasting. When America was younger, and the States were more economically distinct, there existed a fear that the economic powerhouses would swallow up the smaller, less populated, less productive members of the union. The equality of the States that found expression in the Senate was a political solution to a problem that was largely rooted in economics. The prospective members of the union wanted to ensure that there was a political mechanism to address the possibility of their domination by the more muscular economies of the large states. Economic union was finally possible through political union. There was something "one" that oversaw what went on between the States, and could step in with some sort of redress if it detected economic malfeasance.
When The Market is spread between two nations, however, who do not share any political union to speak of, the situation is different. There are no agreed upon means of preserving the rights of American workers in the face of Chinese availability. As a result, the American working class is now largely resident in the People's Republic. We are becoming a de facto economic union with our free trade partners, and that has political ramifications for our way of being. Citizens of America are becoming the world's upper-middle-class, and if you don't (or can't) fit that description, you will be edited out of America's citizenry. This is one reason that college education is becoming ubiquitous: everyone must have a diploma, because increasingly, the only jobs that allow you to match the accepted standard of American living require degrees.
Finally, then, this post is about the tension between chance and necessity, stability and flexibility. As the economy continues to refocus itself, those who can't change will cease. Those who can change, who can move between jobs with relative ease or who can adapt to altered circumstances, will thrive. It may eventually be a fact that Americans will all, or almost all, work in what were once considered white-collar environments, with an upper-middle-class standard of living throughout. In the span of time between now and that moment, however, flexibility will be required for survival.
The American working class is the least able to change of all classes in America. Due to its low income, the class does not enjoy much fluidity; it's based around centers of manufacturing. It is geographically limited in ways that most other classes are not. As a result, the working class has the most to lose in the Great Flux that the economy is undergoing. They are the fundamental proponents of stability, because their lives depend on it. The modern-day twenty-something-professional-hipster, who was raised in a "fluctuated" family and who seeks a job that is geographically unlimited, is the antithesis of working-class America. He is the archon of the flexible and the unrestrained.
America, therefore, is now embroiled in an economic struggle between the forces of stability and the forces of change. Trump is the expression of those who do not want an expanded Market, who do not want America to become a member of a meta-nation that entails the transformation of the U.S. into the world's upper class. Stability resists fluctuation.
I don't know what the answer to all this is. However, like any living being, we exist as a harmony of chance and necessity, of stability and fluidity. It may be that Trump will enact his regime of protectionism, and keep America back from taking its place in the world order that is mandated by an expanded Market. It may also be that we are evolving, and that America will become something new in spite of Trump's blandishments to the working class.
Either way, I now feel a lot more in the know as regards the motivations behind America's support of The Donald. That is something to prize, as far as I am concerned.
The American working class is the least able to change of all classes in America. Due to its low income, the class does not enjoy much fluidity; it's based around centers of manufacturing. It is geographically limited in ways that most other classes are not. As a result, the working class has the most to lose in the Great Flux that the economy is undergoing. They are the fundamental proponents of stability, because their lives depend on it. The modern-day twenty-something-professional-hipster, who was raised in a "fluctuated" family and who seeks a job that is geographically unlimited, is the antithesis of working-class America. He is the archon of the flexible and the unrestrained.
America, therefore, is now embroiled in an economic struggle between the forces of stability and the forces of change. Trump is the expression of those who do not want an expanded Market, who do not want America to become a member of a meta-nation that entails the transformation of the U.S. into the world's upper class. Stability resists fluctuation.
I don't know what the answer to all this is. However, like any living being, we exist as a harmony of chance and necessity, of stability and fluidity. It may be that Trump will enact his regime of protectionism, and keep America back from taking its place in the world order that is mandated by an expanded Market. It may also be that we are evolving, and that America will become something new in spite of Trump's blandishments to the working class.
Either way, I now feel a lot more in the know as regards the motivations behind America's support of The Donald. That is something to prize, as far as I am concerned.
