Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Monday, October 30, 2017
Cutting corporate taxes will not boost American wages
Cutting corporate taxes will not boost American wages: The claim that corporate tax cuts will trickle down to help American workers by boosting economy-wide productivity and hence wages is clearly wrong. Economic logic and evidence show that American workers should not expect any wage boost from reducing the statutory corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Size of Public Sector
Size of public sector by countries- 2015.
Wikipedia
employees.
For seminar. 10/27/2017
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Resistance Guide
Resistance Guide
An online, free, guide to building a non violent resistance movement with practical ideas.
An online, free, guide to building a non violent resistance movement with practical ideas.
How to Sustain the Resistance to Trump and Win
The Resistance Movement against Trump has been powerful — but how do we keep it going?
We are in the midst of one of the largest social movements of our time, with record numbers engaged after decades of demobilization. The Women’s March was the largest single day of protest in American history, with about four million people participating.
To help the tens of thousands of people who are eager to resist Trump, we’ve developed Resistance Guide, a short handbook with the analysis, skills, and tools to sustain a resistance powerful enough to win.
Erica Chenoweth, a leading scholar in the field of civil resistance, has collected data showing that nearly every month since Trump’s inauguration, there have been thousands of protests involving millions of people across the country.
We have witnessed an emergence of activity around the fight against the Republican assault on healthcare, the repeal of DACA, the Muslim ban, the surge of white supremacy in Charlottesville, and the United States’ departure from the leading global climate change accords.
Moving in Cycles
Over the last three years of working with the Momentum training program to train thousands of activists and organizers in how to build people-powered movements, based on lessons gathered from the field of civil resistance, one thing has become very clear— movements move in cycles.
This means that the majority of movements typically go through periods of a great surge of activity followed by a downturn of low engagement in which individuals within the movement feel a great sense of disillusionment or despair. We call this phenomenon the cycle of momentum and it can teach us a lot about how to sustain movements through both periods of boom and bust.
Almost two years ago, Paul wrote a book called This is an Uprising about what makes or breaks social movements like this. In the wake of the election of Trump, we realized that we needed something more accessible to provide people with an understanding of how movements work and how we can use this knowledge to sustain the current resistance.
For this reason, we’ve developed Resistance Guide, a short handbook that can equip tens of thousands of people who are eager to resist Trump with analysis, skills, and tools to help sustain a resistance powerful enough to win.
The guide will be available as a book for purchase as well as for free online, so that it can be shared widely amongst people already participating in the resistance movement and looking to join.
Sustaining to Win
Here are our top three tips from Resistance Guide for sustaining the movement to win:
Understand the Cycle of Momentum — and Keep Hope Alive
There are times when movements explode — like in Charlottesville, at the Women’s March, or at the airport protests. We call these explosive moments “trigger events.” During these times, the movement is in the media spotlight and hundreds of thousands of people become temporarily interested in the movement. New people become activated and massive amounts of protest activity happens without central command.
Trigger events are critical for social movements – by generating huge public engagement and attention, they quickly shift public dialogue and consciousness around an issue. Throughout history, most social movements have been born from these kinds of moments. But they do not last. And one trigger event rarely leads to sweeping victory. The movement has to sustain itself through multiple cycles of momentum to gain enough support to win.
Without an understanding of these cycles, when the momentum dies down and the activity slows, participants experience a loss of community, a temporary loss of power, a lack of unity about what to do, and a feeling of hopelessness. It is important to know that we can create more trigger events in the future – and how. When we are in the down cycle, we need to keep hope of the movement alive and teach people that it is a natural part of any successful social movement. It’s a key time to focus on building the foundation, organization, and leadership for the long haul and prepare for the next trigger event.
Understand the Basic Theory of Change of Social Movements — and Fight for It
Ivan Marovic, one of the founders and leaders of Otpor, a student movement in Serbia which overthrew the country’s dictator in the 1900’s, has shared with us that the majority of internal conflict in Otpor came from disagreements within the movement about how social change is actually achieved. While Otpor trained its leaders in the the idea that change comes from the active involvement of a critical mass of people in a social movement, some members of the movement pushed against this theory of change.
This sense of ambiguity around the power of people to change the status quo is not uncommon. This doubt in the impact of social movements is not uncommon. The mass media and history books are constantly telling us that real change happens through established politicians or billionaires with power and influence. However, studies in civil resistance say that regime change happens not because of these elite power brokers, but by social movements that involve a critical mass of people.
Erica Chenoweth shows through her immense statistical database of movements that have overthrown dictators, that all those movements have succeeded if they reach sustained, active participation of at least 3.5 percent of the population.
The historian and sociologist Frances Fox Piven, one of the great social movement theorists of our time, was able to trace almost every single major egalitarian reform in American history— the end of slavery, women’s suffrage, and labor rights, to name a few— to social movements who used this same theory of change. Active participation of people to disrupt business as usual, to protest, and to change the political weather can make what once seemed impossible, possible.
Having faith in this theory of social change is what makes movements possible. People will only make sacrifices if they truly believe that their efforts will collectively amount to significant change.
Appreciate Different Types of Resistance — and Support Each Type
When we do trainings with hundreds of different organizers and activists from many different movements, we do a workshop called social movement ecology. We have people identify the type of resistance they and their organization primarily function within.
The three major ones in the resistance movement that we’ve broadly defined are: game change, the outside game, and the inside game. Most people identify with one type of resistance and deeply understand that each type has strengths and weaknesses. But you would never know that if you looked at most coalition meetings. Many of us can fall into the trap of critiquing other types of resistance, instead of appreciating their differences and figuring out a strategy that supports each type.
Unfortunately, the conservative Tea Party, had an incredibly effective collaboration between these three types of resistance, making them very effective at blocking progressive social change. We can learn a lot from them. Already, resistance groups are playing essential roles in each type of resistance. Like the Tea Party, we need a strategy that includes and appreciates them all.
Appreciating and supporting each type of resistance and understanding its role in a larger social movement ecology allows the movement to not only build pressure from multiple angles but also to sustain itself through multiple cycles of momentum. It’s critical to use and advocate for a theory of social change that supports each type of resistance and defend each other against criticism and attack from people who don’t believe in social movements. This allows us to have better collaboration and appreciation for the role each organization and each person can play in the movement.
To learn more about these tips, you can purchase or download the Resistance Guide. Explore it online for free, buy a printed copy at Amazon or on our Facebook page.
For a deeper understanding of the theory of civil resistance behind the guide, read the new paperback edition of This is an Uprising.
In its simplest form,
tIn its simplest form,
the theory is this:
Stopping the assault on
our democracy, protecting
social programs, and building
progressive power will require
steadily growing numbers of
people to consistently support
a social movementhe theory is this:
Stopping the assault on
our democracy, protecting
social programs, and building
progressive power will require
steadily growing numbers of
people to consistently support
a social movementIn its simplest form,
the theory is this:
Stopping the assault on
our democracy, protecting
social programs, and building
progressive power will require
steadily growing numbers of
people to consistently support
a social movement
Janus: A New Attack Presents Old Challenges for Unions
Janus: A New Attack Presents Old Challenges for Unions: There’s a new case against public-sector unions headed to the Supreme Court. But the challenges it presents are anything but new.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Friday, October 20, 2017
Budget Reconciliation - What Is It
BREAKING: Republicans in the Senate (and only Republicans) just approved a budget that envisions a grotesque future—trillions of dollars in tax giveaways to the ultra wealthy, funded by cutting trillions from Medicaid, Medicare, and other vital programs for the poor and middle class.1,2
This vote is the starting gun for what might be the most consequential legislative fight of the Trump era: the looting of the U.S. treasury to reward billionaire GOP donors and mega-corporations, at the expense of the rest of us.
If Republicans succeed, their backers will reward them with boatloads of campaign cash—fueling their efforts to hold power in 2018 and 2020. If they fail, they'll turn on each other—opening the door toward a potential Democratic landslide. And beyond the political stakes, the human impact is vast: the acceleration of plutocracy in America and the shredding of the basic protections that tens of millions of American families depend on.
Here's how this fight will go down:
Tonight's vote was on a budget resolution. Budget resolutions are nonbinding—they don't become law. Instead, they are moral documents—statements of priorities that shape future legislation. They have one critical function: You need to pass a budget resolution to open the door to a budget reconciliation bill, which is the only kind of tax cut bill that can't be filibustered, so it would need only 51 votes. And one of those 51 votes could be Vice President Mike Pence.
In other words, with this budget resolution in place, the GOP can shoot for a tax bill without a single Democratic vote. To defeat it, we'll need unified Democratic opposition, plus three Republicans in the Senate or 24 in the House. It's the same math that we faced with health care repeal. But winning this one will be even harder.
Closing the Exits for Capital
Closing the Exit for Capital
by Devaka Gunawardena
Since the financial crisis of 2008, capitalism has faced greater scrutiny. There’s growing consensus, even among mainstream economists, that neoclassical models that ignore the inherent irrationality of the financial system are flawed. In addition, austerity has directly undermined most people’s livelihoods, while making the rich even richer. There is much more space after the financial crisis of 2008 to critique financial speculation and the drastic reduction in public spending. Still, it remains unclear how to work toward socialism. Rhetoric opposing austerity doesn’t necessarily imply overcoming capitalism.
Read the entire piece here. http://www.dsausa.org/closing_the_exit_for_capital
Read the entire piece here. http://www.dsausa.org/closing_the_exit_for_capital
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Can Labor Still Use the Wagner Act? | Dissent Magazine
Can Labor Still Use the Wagner Act? | Dissent Magazine
A history of organized labor and labor law, leading up to the Janus v AFSCME law suite.
A history of organized labor and labor law, leading up to the Janus v AFSCME law suite.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Yanis Varoufakis: Confessions of a Troika Dropout - In These Times
Yanis Varoufakis: Confessions of a Troika Dropout - In These Times
The collapse of Greece and the challenge of Neoliberalism.
The collapse of Greece and the challenge of Neoliberalism.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Attack on Workers
This is the labor case we discussed in class last week.
http://www.epi.org/blog/janus-is-the-latest-attack-on-workers-rights-to-organize-and-bargain-collectively/?
http://www.epi.org/blog/janus-is-the-latest-attack-on-workers-rights-to-organize-and-bargain-collectively/?
Republicans’ tax plan gives the top 1 percent of households a $207,000 tax cut; Bottom 20 percent get $50
Republicans’ tax plan gives the top 1 percent of households a $207,000 tax cut; Bottom 20 percent get $50: Last week, Republicans unveiled a framework for their plan to cut taxes. And despite repeatedly claiming they would provide a “middle-class tax cut,” it was clear from the meager details provided that this plan offered nothing of the sort. Instead, as we long suspected would be the case, an analysis by the Tax Policy Center …
Monday, October 9, 2017
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
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