athenaadvertising

When I was working on the assembly line at General Electric in 1979, a boss came down one day and gave each worker a share of stock worth $3.00. I tore mine up and threw it in the trash. Even so, the company kept it on record, and from time to time in the 1980s and ‘90s contacted me to say that the stock had split and increased in value. To make a long story short, by August 2001, that lonely share of GE stock had multiplied like capitalist loaves and fishes into 90 shares—now worth $4,500. Not being much of a capitalist, I gave away my totally unearned loot to my family or the Catholic Worker community. Even so, when I imagined from this one example just how much the rich, the near-rich and the obscenely rich must have increased their wealth during this time, I understand just what Michael McHugh meant when he called it a Second Gilded Age. McHugh compares these Gilded Ages with what he calls the Historical Exception Period of 1945-73. He shows us how prosperity after World War II, when the American Empire was at its strongest, also gave working people social democratic and modern liberal capitalist welfare state. Building on the New Deal and Fair Deal of the 1930s and 1940s, the New Frontier of John Kennedy and the Great Society Lyndon Johnson created programs that uplifted the city’s and fed the hungry plus Medicare, which enriched the elderly with help on their medical expenses. As a result of the Second Reconstruction of 1954-65, new laws were passed to protect minorities in voting rights, affirmative action and desegregation of schools and work places. In the 1968 election, the Vietnam War was tearing the fabric of the nation apart. Nixon beat out Humphrey for the presidency. Nixon was the last president of the Historical Exception Period and the initiator of the Second Gilded Age. He promised to dismantle the Great Society programs that benefited poor women with children the so called ‘welfare queens’. He was effective in manipulating the backlash of white voters, which Republicans called the Southern Strategy. Nixon also used the issue of ‘law and order’ to erode the gains which minorities and working people had gained during the Historical Exception Period. Reelected in a landslide against George McGovern in 1972, only the Watergate break-in and his disgrace and his ouster from office prevented him from establishing a new Republican majority. Nixon self-destructed in 1974, but the conservative backlash endured and prospered despite this. I cannot do this book a great enough service. In The Second Gilded Age, Dr. Michael McHugh has given a concise critique of the history of the workings of our society and political system in an amazing way. This book should be read by scholars or anyone who is concerned about the future this country and our world. It at least offers the hope that the Gilded Ages are cyclical and that although they might have seemed endless at the time, they have never been the last word in history.

2022-11-14 16:08