Why were the 70s such a tacky decade?

[LizzieMaine]

Really? I had no idea. I remember feeling so scared of our local bankers when I was a kid...they were Evil Incarnate to me. My dad was pretty vocal about his distaste of them, though.

Oh yes. Look up the "Farmers' Holiday Association." They weren't fooling around.

"Let's have a Farmer's Holiday!
A Holiday we'll hold!
We'll eat our wheat and corn and eggs
And let them eat their gold!"

 

[Fading Fast]

We identified with this song by John Cougar Mellencamp quite a bit.

[video=youtube;joNzRzZhR2Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNzRzZhR2Y[/video]

Fantastic song where the music and the message came together perfectly.

 

[jamespowers]

So much of it matters where you lived. In NJ, the '80s were like life returned. Prices stabilized (trips to the super market weren't a nerve racking search for older, not-yet-marked-higher food), less people lost their jobs and more people were getting them and interest rates came down so people started to buy homes again. In general, economic life returned.

I am not - not at all, not for a moment - disputing in anyway your experience in Maine, but living in NJ, our experience (or at least my very "Wonder Year" middle-class family, friends and neighbors), in general, saw things get much better.

I had the same experience here. The 70s were REALLY bad. People were losing homes, losing jobs and losing hope. The 80s turned all that around---and no matter how bad the clothing was---it was better than anything in the 70s. lol lol It was a backlash to the hippie dippy era---and that is good enough for me.

 

[jamespowers]

I think things went downhill starting about 1965.

About 1961 as far as I am concerned.

 

[sheeplady]

The biggest difference was that in the thirties there were pockets of ferocious physical resistance to the foreclosures, ranging from fellow farmers invading foreclosure auctions and driving off all bidders so they could buy the property themselves for pennies and deed it back to the original owner to the extreme case of dragging a foreclosure judge off his bench at the end of a rope.

Somewhere between then and the eighties, the American working class lost its fighting spirit. Or had it brainwashed out of them.

I think two things did it:
1. 30% of people in the U.S. lived on farms at the start of the Great Depression. Now that's 2% (it was slightly more in the 1970s, but not above 10% if I remember right). It was not only a larger segment of society being effected, it was also more likely you knew someone who lived/ worked on a farm, if they weren't a family member. You get ****** when they evict a family member, less so a stranger.

2. We've had an overwhelming loss of community, which I think started in the 1950s. Lots of people point to the growing suburbs, where people got spread further apart as part of what caused this. Other people point to the decline of community third spaces- places like church and civic organizations that drew us together beyond work and family- as part of what caused this.

Whatever caused this, by the 1980's "greed is good" mentality, more people were only out for themselves and their family, if that. The writing was on the wall when you saw middle class citizens in the 60s and 70s distance themselves from the plight of working class individuals, despite most of them being a generation removed from those blue collared jobs themselves. And the working class itself was hell-bent on in-fighting with this every person for themselves mentality, such that it was a poor bugger who lost his livelihood, but you had yours, so keep you mouth shut. And, this is my opinion, but we went from a society that believed in collective betterment to a society that worships the individual collection of plastic junk made in China.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Whatever caused this, by the 1980's "greed is good" mentality, more people were only out for themselves and their family, if that. The writing was on the wall when you saw middle class citizens in the 60s and 70s distance themselves from the plight of working class individuals, despite most of them being a generation removed from those blue collared jobs themselves. And the working class itself was hell-bent on in-fighting with this every person for themselves mentality, such that it was a poor bugger who lost his livelihood, but you had yours, so keep you mouth shut. And, this is my opinion, but we went from a society that believed in collective betterment to a society that worships the individual collection of plastic junk made in China.

Absolutely. And I think a fourth factor that fits into that is the fact that most working-class people *deny that they are working class.* The myth of "white collar equals middle class, blue collar equals working class" was never entirely true, and it's even less true now than ever. The idea of a vast all-encompassing "middle class" in America is as much a deliberate piece of fiction as George Washington's cherry tree. If you punch a time clock, if you sell your labor for wages, no matter what that labor is, you're working class, and what affects the lowliest working-class person will, eventually, affect you. The factory hand on the line, the longshoreman on the docks, the farmer in the fields, the teacher in the classroom, and the IT technician in the office are in exactly the same boat, and that boat has a hole in it.

Working-class solidarity was a very, very big thing in the Era, but there's been a concerted effort over the past sixty years or so to convince Americans there's something "un-American" about it, to the point where no group of people acts more consistently in a way directly opposed to its best collective interests than the American working class. That's been the ultimate goal and purpose, all along, of the Boys From Marketing -- as long as you can keep the working class fragmented and distracted by shiny trinkets, phony issues and trumped-up nonsense, you can rob and loot and pillage them at will. And you can even convince them to *thank you for it.*

 

[Stearmen]

About 1961 as far as I am concerned.

So, if things started going down hill in 1961, it must have hit full steam in the 80s! I rest my case.

 

[Stearmen]

Yes, gas lines, Vietnam, 20% interest rates, high unemployment, ugly clothes, interior decorating and accessories was waaaaaaaaayyyy better. lol lol lol

Gas lines only happened for a short time in 73 and 79. Vietnam ended in 1975, though too late for my Cousin in Nixon's secret war in Cambodia, and two of my friends in Vietnam. That was pre 73, so not the whole decade. Unemployment was below 6% all but four years, with 78 at 6.1%, the high was 8.5%. in the 80s, it was above 6% all but two years, 88-89 and the high was 9.7%! Interest rates hit 20% in 1980! 80s had the worse cloths and interiors.

 

[sheeplady]

Absolutely. And I think a fourth factor that fits into that is the fact that most working-class people *deny that they are working class.* The myth of "white collar equals middle class, blue collar equals working class" was never entirely true, and it's even less true now than ever. The idea of a vast all-encompassing "middle class" in America is as much a deliberate piece of fiction as George Washington's cherry tree. If you punch a time clock, if you sell your labor for wages, no matter what that labor is, you're working class, and what affects the lowliest working-class person will, eventually, affect you. The factory hand on the line, the longshoreman on the docks, the farmer in the fields, the teacher in the classroom, and the IT technician in the office are in exactly the same boat, and that boat has a hole in it.

This is a huge issue. I think the term "working class" has taken on a certain taste in the mouths of most Americans that didn't exist in the Golden Era. My grandparents, all solidly working class, were not embarrassed by the term. (My one grandmother desperately wanted to be both an American and middle class, BUT she was not embarrassed by my grandfather's factory job or the small business he ran as a mechanic.) Today the term "working class" is considered to be almost "dirty" by a lot of people, and only applies to those on the lowest socio-economic rungs of our society. The part-time Walmart workers, the bare minimum wage earners, etc. Everyone wants to push into the middle class, from both ends.

I think the most salient example I have ever seen of this was when a local group of nurses fought against unionization. One of the most frequent arguments against unionization was that they would be no longer seen as "professionals" but instead be unionized like "janitors." It seemed like there was a strong opinion that unionization equaled a lowering of social status, even if it provided benefits to the nurses.

We also have increasing numbers of what in the past would have been strictly upper-middle class segments of society sinking into the working class segment. One example of this is universities increasing reliance on adjunct teaching. Adjunct teaching pays extremely little, despite often requiring teachers to hold terminal degrees. Most individuals who teach at the adjunct level depend on a second salary and/or rely on various forms of public assistance. This is predominately because of a shift in academia away from hiring full time faculty to utilizing part time faculty. In some cases, full time faculty is hired to be fired within a few years and then offered adjunct work at the same level but with a quarter of the pay. (Obviously, universities have found that paying a faculty member less than $3,000 to teach a course is more financially beneficial than paying them $10,000.) One of the bellweathers of trending towards working classdom is willingness to unionize- and more and more adjuncts are doing so.

I think there is a good question as to if someone who holds a Ph.D. is ever working class given their level of education, even if they are managing a full time load of part time work and relying on food stamps to feed themselves. But that is another discussion.

What disturbs me about this perspective that denigrates the working class is that in the U.S. we supposedly have the "protestant work ethic." We supposedly value work. But we only value certain work.

 

[dh66]

Absolutely. And I think a fourth factor that fits into that is the fact that most working-class people *deny that they are working class.* The myth of "white collar equals middle class, blue collar equals working class" was never entirely true, and it's even less true now than ever. The idea of a vast all-encompassing "middle class" in America is as much a deliberate piece of fiction as George Washington's cherry tree. If you punch a time clock, if you sell your labor for wages, no matter what that labor is, you're working class, and what affects the lowliest working-class person will, eventually, affect you. The factory hand on the line, the longshoreman on the docks, the farmer in the fields, the teacher in the classroom, and the IT technician in the office are in exactly the same boat, and that boat has a hole in it.

Working-class solidarity was a very, very big thing in the Era, but there's been a concerted effort over the past sixty years or so to convince Americans there's something "un-American" about it, to the point where no group of people acts more consistently in a way directly opposed to its best collective interests than the American working class. That's been the ultimate goal and purpose, all along, of the Boys From Marketing -- as long as you can keep the working class fragmented and distracted by shiny trinkets, phony issues and trumped-up nonsense, you can rob and loot and pillage them at will. And you can even convince them to *thank you for it.*

Look what working-class solidarity did for Nicholas II.
"The Boys" may be a lot of things, but fools they ain't.

I think the irony of it all is that people have been conditioned to want something because everybody else has it, but then, if there's a chance that too many other people can get it as well, it's no good. The exclusivity of keeping up with the Joneses.

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is a huge issue. I think the term "working class" has taken on a certain taste in the mouths of most Americans that didn't exist in the Golden Era. My grandparents, all solidly working class, were not embarrassed by the term. (My one grandmother desperately wanted to be both an American and middle class, BUT she was not embarrassed by my grandfather's factory job or the small business he ran as a mechanic.) Today the term "working class" is considered to be almost "dirty" by a lot of people, and only applies to those on the lowest socio-economic rungs of our society. The part-time Walmart workers, the bare minimum wage earners, etc. Everyone wants to push into the middle class, from both ends.

I think this is what happens when people confuse economic class with "social" class. The people who earn the higher wages can call themselves "upper middle class" and sneer down their noses at the People From Wal-Mart and such, and when they do that you can be sure they'll never have any interest in uniting with "those people" in any kind of a program of concerted action. The Boys actively promote the concept of "social class" as a way of keeping the working class fragmented and submissive. But that kind of "class climbing" is both an illusion and a delusion -- as an awful lot of "nice upper middle class people" found out in 2008.

I think the most salient example I have ever seen of this was when a local group of nurses fought against unionization. One of the most frequent arguments against unionization was that they would be no longer seen as "professionals" but instead be unionized like "janitors." It seemed like there was a strong opinion that unionization equaled a lowering of social status, even if it provided benefits to the nurses.

Indeed. The fraud of "social status" will trump the reality of class exploitation every time. A friend of mine, a nurse who was an organizer in her younger years, talks about running into exactly this same problem time and again.

We also have increasing numbers of what in the past would have been strictly upper-middle class segments of society sinking into the working class segment. One example of this is universities increasing reliance on adjunct teaching. Adjunct teaching pays extremely little, despite often requiring teachers to hold terminal degrees. Most individuals who teach at the adjunct level depend on a second salary and/or rely on various forms of public assistance. This is predominately because of a shift in academia away from hiring full time faculty to utilizing part time faculty. In some cases, full time faculty is hired to be fired within a few years and then offered adjunct work at the same level but with a quarter of the pay. (Obviously, universities have found that paying a faculty member less than $3,000 to teach a course is more financially beneficial than paying them $10,000.) One of the bellweathers of trending towards working classdom is willingness to unionize- and more and more adjuncts are doing so.

I think there is a good question as to if someone who holds a Ph.D. is ever working class given their level of education, even if they are managing a full time load of part time work and relying on food stamps to feed themselves. But that is another discussion.

There again is the "social class" issue coming to play. Again, to use the example of someone I know -- she's an PhD who teaches at the University of Maine, comes from a socially upper-middle-class background, and works a second full-time job away from academia to make ends meet. In terms of social class, she and I couldn't be more different -- but in terms of economic class, we're in very much the same boat.

What disturbs me about this perspective that denigrates the working class is that in the U.S. we supposedly have the "protestant work ethic." We supposedly value work. But we only value certain work.

As I've often said, when the day comes that nobody wants to be a plumber, we'll be a nation of PhD's up to their shinbones in sh**. And it'll serve us right.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Look what working-class solidarity did for Nicholas II.
"The Boys" may be a lot of things, but fools they ain't.

I think the irony of it all is that people have been conditioned to want something because everybody else has it, but then, if there's a chance that too many other people can get it as well, it's no good. The exclusivity of keeping up with the Joneses.

The Boys are the farmer holding out a long stick with a carrot dangling from it in front of the donkey hitched to the wagon. The carrot is the fraud of "social status." And the working class is that donkey, brainwashed into chasing something it will never actually get.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I think the irony of it all is that people have been conditioned to want something because everybody else has it, but then, if there's a chance that too many other people can get it as well, it's no good. The exclusivity of keeping up with the Joneses.

And it's gone the other direction, with people wanting something because no one else has it. They see a product and immediately need to buy it to satisfy an urge they didn't even have until they saw the product. Thanks, Steve Jobs.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And it's gone the other direction, with people wanting something because no one else has it. They see a product and immediately need to buy it to satisfy an urge they didn't even have until they saw the product. Thanks, Steve Jobs.

Mr. Jobs was the King of the Boys.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

And it's gone the other direction, with people wanting something because no one else has it. They see a product and immediately need to buy it to satisfy an urge they didn't even have until they saw the product. Thanks, Steve Jobs.

I'm reminded of the gag used in numerous sitcoms and cartoons about the girl who wants that special fancy dress for the prom only to discover that all the other girls are dressed exactly alike on Prom Night.

As I've often said, when the day comes that nobody wants to be a plumber, we'll be a nation of PhD's up to their shinbones in sh**. And it'll serve us right.

Actually most of those jobs are now done by immigrants, especially here in California. It's not that difficult to find a good doctor or lawyer but try to find an American-born plumber under the age of fifty.

 

[dh66]

The Boys are the farmer holding out a long stick with a carrot dangling from it in front of the donkey hitched to the wagon. The carrot is the fraud of "social status." And the working class is that donkey, brainwashed into chasing something it will never actually get.

And it's gone the other direction, with people wanting something because no one else has it. They see a product and immediately need to buy it to satisfy an urge they didn't even have until they saw the product. Thanks, Steve Jobs.

I don't necessarily think it's gone the other direction, rather, Jobs has just turbocharged it. The carrot has gotten shinier (and more expensive) and now the goal is to be one of the first to get it and hopefully have it for at least a little while before all the hoi polloi get their hands on it. One day you'll notice that the girl making your latte has the same phone as you, and then the guy who just made your burger has the same bluetooth device poking out his ear. Now, for some reason, the quality of yours has diminished and you have to rush down and upgrade.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Actually most of those jobs are now done by immigrants, especially here in California. It's not that difficult to find a good doctor or lawyer but try to find an American-born plumber under the age of fifty.

We don't have immigrants here, other than migrant fruit pickers and blueberry rakers, unless you count the ones from Connecticut and New Jersey. But yes, most of our skilled labor skews older -- I once had an electrician who was *90.*

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't necessarily think it's gone the other direction, rather, Jobs has just turbocharged it. The carrot has gotten shinier (and more expensive) and now the goal is to be one of the first to get it and hopefully have it for at least a little while before all the hoi polloi get their hands on it. One day you'll notice that the girl making your latte has the same phone as you, and then the guy who just made your burger has the same bluetooth device poking out his ear. Now, for some reason, the quality of yours has diminished and you have to rush down and upgrade.

The working class isn't even the donkey anymore. Now it's a gerbil on a wheel -- chasing a tiny little shiny carrot. And that wheel, supposedly, drives the engine of the economy.

That's all we are now to them. Think about it.

You can stay on that wheel for the rest of your life -- or you can forget about the carrot and get off the wheel. But you can't get off the wheel *and* have the carrot too. The only real path to freedom lies in not wanting the carrot at all.

 

[dh66]

I think this is what happens when people confuse economic class with "social" class. The people who earn the higher wages can call themselves "upper middle class" and sneer down their noses at the People From Wal-Mart and such, and when they do that you can be sure they'll never have any interest in uniting with "those people" in any kind of a program of concerted action. The Boys actively promote the concept of "social class" as a way of keeping the working class fragmented and submissive. But that kind of "class climbing" is both an illusion and a delusion -- as an awful lot of "nice upper middle class people" found out in 2008.

They have a much easier job of it down here, where the old race card is still up their sleeve. When the bottom dropped out in '08 down here, and some folks started to realize just how small a boat we really were all in, out it came and *snap*, business as usual.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yup. The race card is the oldest one in the deck, and it's worked in America for over 400 years. "Weeeeeeeee aren't your enemy -- Thooooooose Peeeeeeeople are your enemy." And it still works every bit as well as it ever did.