Industrialization and Inequality

The world I found myself in, when I went to work, in 1959 - was not to my liking. I kept saying, in effect "Something is wrong here!" But everyone else seemed to feel that nothing was wrong - and, to the contrary, something was wrong with me, for criticizing everyone else.

That was not good place to be in, and it didn't get any better. I needed someone to take me by the hand, and admit that things were bad indeed - but not completely bad. But no such person appeared.

I did have my therapist, that I spent a lot of time with - but he was stuck in the same place himself. All he had to do was admit that the world we inherited from our parents, was fatally flawed. But he could not bring himself to do this.

This would have meant our parents were defective, which they certainly were. And not only that, their parents were defective also. We needed to admit that, sometime in the 19th Century - things had gone terribly wrong. And plenty of persons had been saying so. But not in the Midwest that I came from - or in the church I came from.

We have to back up, in time, to early in the 19th Century.When Industrialization took over. One of the results of this, was to make America rich - just as it had made England rich before it. But it also created a huge income inequality - outside America, and in it. Some people got rich, and some people got poor.

This inequality was not as extreme as it had been in England. America, after years of struggle, had a large middle class. But Americans still felt, that some inequality was natural, and could not be prevented.

They were right - and they were wrong. And what I want to do in this posting, is clarify this. No easy job.

The place I want to start is Ft. Madison, Iowa, in the Fifties. The West End of town was dominated by the Santa Fe Railroad - and the East End by the Sheaffer Pen Company. There were plenty of jobs - and, overall, it was a good place to live, if you could tolerate the air pollution and the nasty smells.

But this would not last. Today, less then fifty years later - it is part of the Rust Belt, and its buildings stand vacant. There were many reasons for this happening - but I want to concentrate on one. The American inability to understand what was going on. Instead of trying to understand, they decided to not understand - and to enforce this decision vigorously. They could not have made a worse decision.

America went from being the most powerful country in the world, to one of many powerful countries. From being a leader, to being a follower.

But something else was happening - the Computer appeared, and built its own economy, based on Software. And the center of this economy, was in America!

Today, everyone has his Phone, a miniature computer, that connects him with everyone (and every thing).. But, once again, he doesn't understand how this works  - and doesn't want to.How it works is complicated, but not impossible to understand - I can understand much of it myself.

But he still wants other forces to be in control - and not him!