Richard Florida's Creative Class focus doesn't actually work.

[Detroitnerd]

It also increases the pressure on making workers more productive or replacing them with machines, which is how the US makes so much stuff with so much less labor.

The pressure to automate is always there. You can't blame spreading hours over workers for that.

[Detroitnerd]

Capitalism works. 500,000,000 formerly poor in China and India are proof.

Actually, China is not a capitalist country. It has a state economy.

And China's state economy has lifted millions out of rural poverty.

How many people has the Western capitalism's emissaries, the World Bank/IMF, lifted out of poverty?

[Det_ard]

Actually, I never said China was capitalist country. But the capitalism aspect of their hybrid economy is what worked. Every progressive should be erecting statues to celebrate capitalism, for it's done more, more quickly, than any effort ever before. Yet progs seem to think it's the socialist part that works.

[Detroitnerd]

Actually, I never said China was capitalist country. But the capitalism aspect of their hybrid economy is what worked. Every progressive should be erecting statues to celebrate capitalism, for it's done more, more quickly, than any effort ever before. Yet progs seem to think it's the socialist part that works.

Because it is the socialist part that works. Again, the IMF and World Bank are the great evangelists of Western capitalism. Everywhere they go, they leave poverty and unemployment in their wake. How can it be, then, that capitalism is this great savior of humanity, when it leaves countries in economic shock when its alleged tenets are applied by the pros?

Hey, capitalism looks great on paper, it just doesn't work in practice. It was an ingenious solution to a problem faced by the Dutch people 400 years ago on how to ship all the grain they had. We've come a long way since wooden ships and wind-powered mills. The world is always changing, but capitalism behaves as if it's always 1600. Sorry, most people around the world prefer a more modern economic system with greater economic democracy and greater social purpose.

[JBMcB]

The pressure to automate is always there. You can't blame spreading hours over workers for that.

The threshold at which automation is more cost effective than manual labor is directly related to the cost of manual labor. If reducing hours increases the cost of manual labor, then the price of automation, which usually is constantly coming down in price, becomes more competitive.

It's not directly responsible, but it's a factor.

[iheartthed]

Actually, I never said China was capitalist country. But the capitalism aspect of their hybrid economy is what worked. Every progressive should be erecting statues to celebrate capitalism, for it's done more, more quickly, than any effort ever before. Yet progs seem to think it's the socialist part that works.

Then why do they have to artificially depress their currency to stay competitive? If the pure capitalism model is working then they should be competitive without having to do that.

[JBMcB]

Actually, I never said China was capitalist country. But the capitalism aspect of their hybrid economy is what worked.

It won't work for long. You can't have a functioning capitalist system without allowing failure, or strong property rights. China has neither - they are committed to tinkering with their economy and rigging the business climate to their own advantage. This system is unsustainable. Witness Japan, that had a similar setup in the 80's. Worked great for a decade, then imploded in the 90's. China is on the same path.

Unfortunately, we appear to be on the same path as well.

[Gannon]

I issued my equation-like understanding of the economic system without judgement, although some may carry an opinion from other things I've shared here.

China will let their participation in the World's marketplace until their judo-move succeeds in bringing down the World's police/bully, they will keep it propped up until it has the proper effect destroying the US. Then, they'll turn the same manufacuring might to simply serve their maturing secondary markets...hopefully...or they can turn it to becoming the new police/bully.

The only inevitability of Capitalism is war...so we'll see how long China wants to play the game by those rules. Or simply turn the World to Godless Communism...which is a world away from socialism.

I think it is funny, in this Christian nation, that socialism is given such a bad rap. The entire Book of Acts in the Bible is an experiment in purely social living...everyone sold their holdings, property and otherwise, and gave their money to the whole, so that none would be found lacking in anything. But the programming in this twisted nation has been SO powerful, so thorough, and tickles so many of humankind's base temptations.

So, it was said that socialism is the root of evil. The Bible says the love of money is that root. Others will say reading the Bible most surely is. Surely all of these cannot be true. Perhaps we can compare them using the convenient 'high-temptation' behaviors defined years ago as the seven 'most deadly' offenses against oneself, others, and any power which might've helped fashion it all.

Greed. Gluttony. Pride. Wrath/Anger. Envy. Lust. Sloth.

Looking at the results with a quick glance puts 'em at this rank, Money is pretty obviously the most able to lead people do act completely against others...which is one definition of evil. It seems to be diametrically opposite to sloth, as we experience with the Protestant Work Ethic and other forms of peer pressure.

I do not see where socialism encourages more than Pride easily, although the system would have to be ever-vigilant against Sloth...which gains from being a mere negative distraction to the weak card in the whole house.

I cannot see where simply believing in a Creator and reading the Bible can be the root of anything except a deeper understanding of evil. But it CAN be used deviously as an excuse for all forms of horrible behavior...not making it the root but a tool. Like any, it depends upon the one who wields it.

So one basically uses five to six of 'em as basic, foundational fuels...needs...with one nagging drawback. The other uses maybe one...and the previous nag becomes a need. It seems a pretty simple analysis. We've been sold a bill of goods being a warring Capitalist nation while simultaneously daring to tell ourselves and the World that we're good Christians, too.

I cannot reconcile all that.

[mwilbert]

....because the same amount of work is now being done by 1/3 of the amount of people, the other 2/3s of the work force having been replaced by machines, or computers and forced into other job sectors, or simply left unemployed?

Some of both. A lot more is produced, and there are a lot fewer manufacturing jobs.

One of the biggest problems the US is going to face is coping with the ever-increasing scope of automation. Work and income are going to be increasingly decoupled, but Americans are not ready for that. I expect the transition to be quite wrenching.

[Detroitnerd]

The really important thing is that the people of the U.S. have some way to control economic policy. Through labor unions, consumer unions, etc., we need to wrest policymaking control away from the bosses and the rich.

If they have their way, the boons of automation and production will simply go up to them in the form of profits.

But society made those innovations possible. Society should benefit from them, by lowering profits and using the value produced for social good via taxes and economic power via wages. In fact, why not do away with "owners" and "managers" of all essential services and processes? The free market is good for little stuff, like producing shoes and hats, but for anything that's really important, like oil, banking, energy, transportation, etc., it should likely be nationalized.

That's how a mixed economy works. The government controls a lot of the stuff people MUST have. The free market controls what people want and desire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy

[Det_ard]

Because it is the socialist part that works. Again, the IMF and World Bank are the great evangelists of Western capitalism...

Not. IMF and World Bank are bureaucratic elitist lever-pullers that are far from unfettered capitalism. It's funny that you mention them, because they're not on any real capitalist's radar screen except as an object of scorn.

[canuck]

So you go to a 32-hour or 35-hour workweek, with no reduction in weekly pay, like France and Germany. More people work, fewer people work overtime, everybody has more money to spend, more time to spend with their families, people are happier, have more money to spend and leisure time to spend it, driving a recreational economy, crime falls, the nation is more secure, etc.

There is very high unemployment for young adults in France, upwards of 20%. 30,000 people immigated to Quebec in the past ten years, especially young people because there is also a fair bit of disindustrialization in France.

Quebec likes to copy a lot of social/work related policy from France but fell short of the 35 hour week. I used to think it was a good idea but in a country with a shitload of social perks like 5 or 6 weeks paid vacation in the summertime and other stuff, it gets pretty heavy on the public purse after a while. Also, try to start a small business in France; it can take a couple of years of cutting red tape before you put a sign up, print cards, etc... They are really disincentivizing the middle class with perks, and the tax burden that comes with this is insane. Quebec has that bureaucratic stuff down pat also, there are more people in public service than in Ontario with 5 million fewer people...

[mwilbert]

The really important thing is that the people of the U.S. have some way to control economic policy. Through labor unions, consumer unions, etc., we need to wrest policymaking control away from the bosses and the rich.

If they have their way, the boons of automation and production will simply go up to them in the form of profits.

But society made those innovations possible. Society should benefit from them, by lowering profits and using the value produced for social good via taxes and economic power via wages. In fact, why not do away with "owners" and "managers" of all essential services and processes? The free market is good for little stuff, like producing shoes and hats, but for anything that's really important, like oil, banking, energy, transportation, etc., it should likely be nationalized.

That's how a mixed economy works. The government controls a lot of the stuff people MUST have. The free market controls what people want and desire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_democracy

I don't agree with the approach you outline or the philosophy behind it, but the only real possibilities I see are either significant reform including a much more redistributive system than anyone with any influence in the US is willing to discuss, or a society with a small upper class, an enormous lower class, and only a veneer of a middle class. When Americans realize those are the alternatives, they are going to prefer the former. But they aren't anywhere near there yet.

[JBMcB]

That's how a mixed economy works. The government controls a lot of the stuff people MUST have.

Then, instead of being a slave to the enormous, bloated bureaucratic corporation, you're a slave to the enormous, bloated and bureaucratic government.

I don't see the difference.

[bopcity]

Analysis [[even by Florida himself) shows what I think many here already knew.

I'm also no apologist for Richard Florida but this Kotkin guy seems to have his own agenda which doesn't exactly qualify him as the most authoritative voice on the subject, does it?

Btw, the difference between an "enormous, bloated bureaucratic corporation" and an "enormous, bloated and bureaucratic government" can be found in a ballot box.

Joel Kotkin says I’ve turned my back on the idea that the creative class spurs economic growth and reinvigorates cities. My response? Bollocks.

By Richard Florida

America’s leading cheerleader for suburban sprawl likes to tell a story about how cities are dying and the suburbs are our future; about how ideas and knowledge don’t matter because America’s economic future revolves around “the Material Boys” [[a telling phrase) of extraction, energy, and manufacturing; and how the sprawling cities and suburbs of the Sunbelt and the mountain states—not “hip” cities like New York and San Francisco—are the nation’s present and future economic centers. It’s just the story that his readers at Forbes and his consulting clients like the US Chamber of Commerce want to hear.

Kotkin needs a foil for his vitriol and his backward-looking sensibilities, so once again, on Wednesday on The Daily Beast, he’s enlisted me, arguing that I’ve “conceded” that the urban creative classes have only a limited ability to spur growth. There’s nothing new here: he’s been doing this for a long time...

Kotkin likes to distract people and play to class and other prejudices with inflammatory language about “hip and cool” places versus suburbs and young sophistos, trendoids, and gays versus real families. It’s interesting, in that context, to note that his recent report on “post-familialism” was supported by the right-wing philanthropist Howard Ahmanson. Kotkin’s report credits Ahmanson as a “philanthropist,” but Salon dubs him “the avenging angel of the religious right,” a large funder of antigay and anti-evolution groups and causes.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...el-kotkin.html

[Detroitnerd]

Then, instead of being a slave to the enormous, bloated bureaucratic corporation, you're a slave to the enormous, bloated and bureaucratic government.

I don't see the difference.

Government doesn't have to be bloated. It can be very efficient. National health care, nationalized schools, national power utilities and all sorts of national welfare agencies are very efficient in countries around the world.

Of course, our government didn't get inefficient by itself. It took an array of lobbyists and think tanks to come up with ingenious ways to make government inefficient and byzantine. I give you Obamacare, for instance.

There is one way in which our government is very efficient. Just look at the way national policy has redirected income in this country toward the upper echelon, privatizing what can be profited from while socializing anything that costs money. That's the real problem.

[Detroitnerd]

I don't agree with the approach you outline or the philosophy behind it, but the only real possibilities I see are either significant reform including a much more redistributive system than anyone with any influence in the US is willing to discuss, or a society with a small upper class, an enormous lower class, and only a veneer of a middle class. When Americans realize those are the alternatives, they are going to prefer the former. But they aren't anywhere near there yet.

Well, that's why I say right up front we need mechanisms to democratize the economy. Labor unions and consumer unions have been pretty good instruments so far. I think we can do better.

[bopcity]

Government doesn't have to be bloated. It can be very efficient. National health care, nationalized schools, national power utilities and all sorts of national welfare agencies are very efficient in countries around the world... There is one way in which our government is very efficient. Just look at the way national policy has redirected income in this country toward the upper echelon, privatizing what can be profited from while socializing anything that costs money. That's the real problem.

Good point. Interesting that so many anti-government blow-hards have no objection to overfeeding the already bloated, gluttonous and bureaucratic U.S. military and its attendant military/industrial complex.

Or with the wealth of the top 1% of Americans growing by almost 300% in the 30 plus years since Reagan's election at the expense of the rapidly vanishing middle class and the average American worker.

Or with giving massive subsidies to a 500 billion dollar muti-national corporation like Exxon/Mobil whose former chairman famously said, “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S."

But suggest a poor kid deserves an education or a free breakfast or that blue-collar workers have a right to collective bargaining and all hell breaks loose.

As they say, "In the age of information, ignorance is a choice."

[northendmatt]

Joel Kotkin is your prototypical anti-urban advocate, hilariously sending you missives about how density is bad from his perch in America's densest metro. But in this case, he's absolutely right. Richard Florida observed some patterns in successful cities and mistook an outcome for an input. Florida's advice is useless for many cities, Detroit probably included. Could Detroit eventually become a Portland/Boston/Seattle-type city? Sure. But that doesn't solve the problem that Detroit used to be 1.8 mil and is now 700 k - a problem not faced by any of those other metros.

At the same time, Kotkin doesn't have anything useful to say to Detroit either. The things he promotes - unlimited suburban development - don't solve Detroit's problems either. They're only applicable to places like Los Angeles, that have the luxury of deciding where they want to channel growth. If your city is shrinking, Kotkin can't help you any more than Florida.

[Hermod]

Good point. Interesting that so many anti-government blow-hards have no objection to overfeeding the already bloated, gluttonous and bureaucratic U.S. military and its attendant military/industrial complex.

Or with the wealth of the top 1% of Americans growing by almost 300% in the 30 plus years since Reagan's election at the expense of the rapidly vanishing middle class and the average American worker.

Or with giving massive subsidies to a 500 billion dollar muti-national corporation like Exxon/Mobil whose former chairman famously said, “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S."

But suggest a poor kid deserves an education or a free breakfast or that blue-collar workers have a right to collective bargaining and all hell breaks loose.

As they say, "In the age of information, ignorance is a choice."

Take a look at the graph you just put up. Do you note the extreme swings in the 1% graph line? If you extended that line beyond 2007, you would notice another extreme dip downward. That line is driven by capital gains. You can see the 87 Black September dip. You can see the Bush I recession dip. You can see the hiccup in the early Clinton years. You can see the long growth in the Clinton years which came close to balancing the budget with increased tax revenue.

Then there is the rapid decline in the early Bush II years caused by the triple shock of the dot-bomb meltdown, Enron, and 9-11. This is followed by the massive Bush II recovery just before the real estate bubble burst. Even 2ith the Bush tax cuts, gummint revenue surged during this period.

As i noted, there will be another sharp dip 2007-2008 followed by the tepid recovery since.

You can also note that the middle fifth has seen a slow but steady climb with little perturbation while the bottom fifth mirrors the rises and dips of the top 1%.

[canuck]

Beyond the graphs and data charts, we need to reflect on what makes cities tick, what are the competitive advantages sought to bring about change for the better.

Florida pointed out the "Creative Class" that if present in greater numbers would effect change on a metropolis. These are self-evident truisms that cannot be denied, and historically, cities have attracted creatives as wealth accrued by other means. Detroit's great churches, mansions and skyscrapers of yore brought together many skills in design and construction. This potency made possible the important addition of university faculties. Same could be said of Automotive design and engineering, that community extended to college and acts as a beacon of design skills worldwide.

If Detroit can change the lightbulb on that there beacon, it could impress on people that it is a place for design and engineering excellence, and restore its position in the industrial world. Important decisions are still made in Detroit every day in the automotive business, some of these decisions should be about strengthening the core of operations in the city, etc...

[Gannon]

You can also note that the middle fifth has seen a slow but steady climb with little perturbation while the bottom fifth mirrors the rises and dips of the top 1%.

That is some mirror...it might be its own funhouse.

I sure hope these figures are already adjusted for inflation...if not...you cannot call what happened with the lower and middle 'fifths' actual growth.

And what, precisely, are they hiding by not showing those other two-fifths?! How does this graph change by including all the data?!