From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: CHOMSKY: Excerpts from "The 3rd World At Home" (II)
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Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 01:56:11 GMT

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[From Z magazine, Nov. 1992; see bottom]

		       =======================
		       The Third World at Home
		       =======================
			   By Noam Chomsky

[...]

"Paradox of '92: Weak Economy, Strong Profits." The headline of a 
lead article in the _Times_ business section captures the 
consequences of the "one-sided class war" waged with renewed 
intensity since the end of the affluent alliance. "America is not 
doing very well, but its corporations are doing just fine," the 
article opens, with corporate profits "hitting new highs as 
profit margins expand." A paradox, inexplicable and insoluble.  
One that will only deepen as the architects of policy proceed 
without interference from "meddlesome outsiders." 
  
What the "paradox" entails for the general population is 
demonstrated by numerous studies of income distribution, real 
wages, poverty, hunger, infant mortality, and other social 
indices.  A study released by the Economic Policy Institute on 
Labor Day, 1992, fleshed out the details of what people know from 
their experience: after a decade of Reaganism, "most 
Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and 
considerably less security," and "the vast majority" 
are "in many ways worse off" than in the late 1970s.  
From 1987, real wages have declined even for the college 
educated. "Poverty rates were high by historic 
standards," and "those in poverty in 1989 were 
significantly poorer than the poor in 1979."

The poverty rate rose further in 1991, the Census Bureau
reported.  A congressional report released a few days later
estimates that hunger has grown by 50% since the mid-1980s to
some 30 million people.  Other studies show that one of eight
children under 12 suffers from hunger, a problem that reappeared
in 1982 after having been overcome by government programs from
the 1960s.  Two researchers report that in New York, the
proportion of children raised in poverty more than doubled to
40%, while nationwide, "the number of hungry American children
grew by 26%" as aid for the poor shrank during "the booming
1980s"--"one of the great golden moments that humanity has ever
experienced," a spokesman for the culture of cruelty proclaimed
(Tom Wolfe).
  
The impact is brought out forcefully in more narrowly-focused 
studies; for example, at the Boston City Hospital, where 
researchers found that "the number of malnourished, low-weight 
children jumped dramatically following the coldest winter 
months," when parents had to face the agonizing choice between 
heat or food.  At the hospital's clinic for malnourished 
children, more were treated in the first nine months of 1992 than 
in all of 1991; the wait for care reached two months, compelling 
the staff to "resort to triage." Some suffer from Third World 
levels of malnutrition and require hospitalization, victims of 
"the social and financial calamities that have befallen families" 
and the "massive retrenchment in social service programs." By the 
side of a road, men hold signs that read "Will Work for Food," a 
sight that recalls the darkest days of the Great Depression. 
  
But with a significant difference.  Hope seems to have been lost 
to a far greater extent today, though the current recession is 
far less severe.  For the first time in the modern history of 
industrial society, there is a widespread feeling that things 
will not be getting better, that there is no way out. 

[...]
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