The Real Cause of the collapse in the US is the dominance of the suburbs. Why? Because the suburbs do not create goods that have high economic value, and generally have no skills other than social/service workers. The Suburbs are the true service economy.

As the manufacturing sector continues to fade, or move to more favorable environments (overseas), Suburbia’s continued existence becomes very questionable.

We need to understand just what Suburbia was created for to understand just how vulnerable it really is to the coming economic adjustments.

The primary economic activities needed by the Suburbs are teaching at the local schools, selling insurance, real estate, beauty salons, and operating local child care centers. These are legitimate activities, but these functions are only sustainable as viable businesses as long as they are providing services for the wealth producing sectors.

There must be goods created to generate wealth. Whether it be steel, glass, computer chips, or diesel engines is of no consequence. Even if one catches fish, or harvests tomatoes, real wealth is created in the form of food that you must have. These create valuable, exportable products. The classical trades are things such as steam fitters, stone masons, butchers, bakers, machinists, tool and die makers, etc. All of the real trades create something that is required for production, or the creation of something used for production.

The simple fact is that without these functions, nothing has happened other that money is being passed back and forth. The only winner from this cash flow game is the government, as they are taxing every transaction.

"But since the United States has been in general retreat from advanced manufacturing for three decades, why should we care what happens to what remains of America's manufacturing heritage?

Manufacturing matters for three key reasons:

1. Manufacturing jobs generally provide better wages than equivalent service jobs because worker productivity is generally leveraged by more capital and more proprietary know-how.

2. Manufacturing provides an abundance of jobs for people of ordinary ability as opposed to the Ph.D. types who get many of the jobs at, say, Microsoft. It thus closely matches the job-creation needs of society.

3. Manufacturing companies are big exporters.

But the question that arises is this. If Suburbia does not create wealth for the society it exists in, why has Suburbia been so praised, and subsidized?

Why did our Rulers wait until 1950’s to begin the next level of socialization? Alexis de Tocqueville revealed that the English Crown knew American’s had this trait in 1864.

We need look no further than William Whyte for the answer.

"This is the new suburbia, the packaged villages that have become the dormitory of the new generation of organization men. They are not typical American communities, but because they provide such a cross section of young organization people we can see in bolder relief than elsewhere the kind of world organization man wants and may in time bring about. Here I will go into the tremendous effect transiency has had on the organization people and how their religious life, their politics and the way they take to their neighbors reveal the new kind of rootedness they are looking for. And, finally, the moral of it all as they explain it to their children--the next generation of organization people. "

"William Whyte's 1956 classic, The Organization Man, argued that American business life had abandoned the old virtues of self-reliance and entrepreneurship in favor of a bureaucratic "social ethic" of loyalty, security and "belongingness." With the rise of the postwar corporation, American individualism had disappeared from the mainstream of middle-class life.

The Organization Man, wrote Whyte, "must not only accept control, he must accept it as if he liked it."

"He must smile when he is transferred to a place or a job that isn't the job or place he happens to want," Whyte wrote. "He must be less 'goal-centered,' more 'employee-centered.' It is not enough now that he work hard; he must be a damn good fellow to boot."

This new ethic was in conflict with the values of the earlier America, that needed the creator/builder values. The only question was how to create this new "American" vision in a large enough group to provide workers that would readily accept their place."

Disneyland, combined with magnifying power of television, created the means of molding the young into a cohesive mass having a common value system. The immediate acceptance by the mothers validated television as a good diversion/ baby sitter for their children.

This solidified the structure that was to generate the "AMERICAN DREAM". After all, it was Mom-approved!

The other facet of this plan was to encourage the creation of a large group of people with a "high" Need For Acceptance.

The Suburbs had no history, or culture that might have given the youth some perspective about how the world really works. This new Petrii dish was perfect for the creation of a large group whom would be subjected to the greatest propaganda device ever created (television).

Both the politicians, and the advertisers, immediately recognized the potential for influence/control that this mechanism offered.

The Government, and most major corporations were utilizing Bernays service for many tears prior to the cessation of hostilities for WW2. All that was required for the completion of the complete control of the US was the creation of a large group that would have political dominance. The insertion of a new belief system/meme was easy once the necessary conditions were met. Edward Bernays had already perfected the techniques of reprogramming.

The truth is that the Suburban model has now become an anachronism. Its usefulness was a function of the large and growing army of administrators and bureaucrats necessary for the US Economic model that arose after W.W.II.

Due to the incredible destruction in Europe, The US was able to position itself to provide the goods that a recovering Europe needed. The USA entered the post-WWII era with 6 percent of the world’s population, and 80 percent of the wealth.

The Suburbs and their attendant services can’t possibly make a large enough economic contribution to the extremely expensive social services that the US has become accustomed to.

The inexorable laws of economics demand the creation a model which contributes to the expenses of the demanded social services, or drastically reduces it’s use of these social services, or some combination of both options.

Exactly what happens next will be decided "slowly" by the changing political concessus, as the Boomers lose their power.

Obama was the first winner in the history of skirmishes between the Boomers, and the new generation. The so-called GenXers handed the Boomers their heads in the recent election! The significance of this event is still being downplayed by the Boomers, but the Fault Line has cracked open.

Now it’s just a question of time before the economy redirects its attention to the ports, farms, and the manufacturing sectors that support the cities.

They must now receive the highest priority, for they contribute the bulk of the resource production, and supplies.

This is a normal part of the capital cycle. The Age of Affluence came at the expense of ignoring the needs of the capital sectors. The Partygoers (Boomers) ignored everything from roads and bridges, to the training of a new generation of skilled workers.

A Time For All Things

wkrautkram@gmail.com