But they are a natural component of the domestic programs instituted from the late Carter years, a variant of the neoliberal reforms that have had a devastating effect in much of the third world. Economic rewards are highly concentrated, and much of the population becomes superfluous for profit and power. Marginalization of the superfluous population takes many forms. The experience is familiar, and carries severe costs how great when distributed over a large population, we don t know, because they are not included among the highly ideological measures of economic performance. Incarceration might be regarded as an extreme version, for the least worthy.
Incarceration has other functions.
It is a form of interference in labor markets, removing working-age males, increasingly women as well, from the labor force. In pursuing these policies, the U.S. has separated itself from other industrial countries. The elections themselves illustrate the related conception of the political system of two horses with the same corporate owner. None of this is new. There is no golden age that has been lost, and this is not the first period of concentrated attack on democracy and human rights.