Public Works on a Vast Scale?
I spent the last hours of last night watching the PBS “Human Experience” episode on the Civilian Conservation Corps. A few million people put to work: for long hours, living in Army barracks, with all but $5 of their pay having to be sent home every week. Gosh, sounds just right as part of FDR’s Conservative First 100 Days.
The documentary makes a couple of things clear: (1) it kept about 3,000,000 people busier than they would have been otherwise* and (2) when the time finally came to enter WW II, those three million were in better shape than they would have been, and were prime volunteers without whom results might have been very different.
Even independent of what it produced, what’s not to like? No wonder it was the most popular Depression-Era program.
Doesn’t it seem like something the new Administration might have wanted to emulate? Well, it did…
In late March of 2008, Neil Maher, guest-blogging at The Edge of the American West, was clear: even as the crisis was growing, a New and Improved CCC would prepare the U.S. for the next fifty years, even as the old one prepared it for the fifty that followed it.
Brazil has recently begun looking back to Franklin Roosevelt’s CCC to help solve that country’s economic and environmental problems…The goal of Brazil’s CCC-like program, which the Nature Conservancy helped initiate, is to plant one billion trees over the next ten years across the country’s Atlantic Forest. Rather than funding the program by increasing taxes, Brazil will rely on novel market mechanisms including the sale of sequestration vouchers on the international carbon market, obtained through the program’s reforestation efforts, as well as the collection of water use fees in the reforested regions. Similar tree-planting programs reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt’s CCC are also now operating in China along the Yangtze River and through Wangari Maathai’s Greenbelt Movement in Kenya. Even war-torn Afghanistan has created its own “Afghan Conservation Corps.”
The United States needs to follow suit, and the upcoming election is a good place to start. Hillary Clinton openly calls for the creation of a “green economy” centered on a cap and trade system for carbon emissions that will help create five million new jobs. Barack Obama wants to develop a program that rewards those who plant trees, restore grassland, or undertake farming practices that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Even John McCain, who claims fellow Republican and early conservationist Teddy Roosevelt as his hero, proposes to limit carbon emissions as president. A new and improved Civilian Conservation Corps, one which enrolls women as well as men and focuses its efforts on fighting global warming, would allow all of these candidates to turn campaign rhetoric into post-election reality.
Catching up on my blog reading today, I came across a recent Andrew Samwick post in which he reposted a link from December of 2008—just after the election—to this NYT article:
President-elect Barack Obama promised Saturday to create the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system a half century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy….
Mr. Obama’s remarks showcased his ambition to expand the definition of traditional work programs for the middle class, like infrastructure projects to repair roads and bridges, to include new-era jobs in technology and so-called green jobs that reduce energy use and global warming emissions. “We need action — and action now,” Mr. Obama said in an address broadcast Saturday morning on radio and YouTube….
It would cover a range of programs to expand broadband Internet access, to make government buildings more energy efficient, to improve information technology at hospitals and doctors’ offices, and to upgrade computers in schools.
“It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption,” Mr. Obama said. “Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online.”
Twenty months later, I can’t even find an outline of this in the policies proposed or passed.
Whither the New CCC? Whither preparation for competing with the Chinese in the mid- and late 21st century? Whither developing job skills to ensure that broadband isn’t just something Google sells to Verison? Who will be the people ready to maintain and repair solar cells?
*Let’s face it: it’s a difficult job, spent away from home and family, for basically room and board and a (very) little l’argent de poche. Not the type of job you keep if you get a letter from your spouse saying that the local Woolworth’s is paying $1.00/hour.
(cross-posted from Skippy the Bush Kangfaroo)
China should not be the example of nation that we are to compete with. Germany should be it. They are most like us as to where it was we were going.
Now we focus on China? No wonder the middle class is dying. God for bid we should be more like western Europe. Don’t want non of that there socialistic 6 weeks vacation guaranteed. No sir, I’m a hard workin’ American.
Idiots!
I heard from the wingnut right thru a friend before the election Obama was going to set up a new verision of the CCC to indoctrinate folks in his ideology ala the Hitler youth as a part of the vast conspiracy he was hatching.
On a more serious question, what level of tech do you use if you set up a modern CCC the one that is currently used on construction or that level that maximimizes employement? Yes we could employ some on trail building and the like where low tech is the way (but we could move back to hand saws and axes for cutting lumber from chain saws (would also get folks in shape)).
A lot of the other things talked about run right into the skill shortage issue, how many of the candidates could do things like medical records digitizing? Now if you want to put together a CCC that includes a large chunk of remedial ed, such that 1 year = a GED thats a different story, they could be used to pick up trash, paint over graffiti mow lawns and tend landscapes on abandoned buildings, shovel snow in the winter etc. I suggest hand tools because its a lot harder to hurt oneself with hand tools than power tools.
Put another way looking at the skill set that potential candidates might have being as you are looking likley at hs drop outs and the like, many of the suggested items are beyond the skill level unless you run them as apprentice programs.
Germany’s population is going to decline over the next 10 years. Get real.
Yup, we need to put 3 million people into basic training so Obama can extend his war on Islam. Or the Chinese. Who cares who we bomb. Based on history, I’m betting they we bomb brown people.
“If You’re Brown, You’re Goin Down
Especially if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that, don’t we? That’s our hobby now. But it’s also our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya. You got some brown people in your country? Tell ’em to watch the fuck out, or we’ll goddamn bomb them!
Well, who were the last white people you can remember that we bombed? In fact, can you remember any white people we ever bombed? The Germans! That’s it! Those are the only ones. And that was only because they were tryin’ to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world.”
Cut me off. Quote is from George Carlin (RIP).
Speaking of Germans. If you think Americans are racists, go to a pub with a bunch of Germans and after an hour or two ask them their opinions on Turkish people.
Thanks for the link to the PBS Amex doc. I enjoyed it immensely.
As much as I wish a new CCC would happen—my great uncle participated in it in the L.A. area before heading off to WWII and he made it through fit and healthy—I think the concept was one giant sound bite for Obama and nothing else. While there is political will in this country to bail out the banks and others at the top, there is absolutely no will among Congress to bail out the U.S. itself.
Things would have to get a lot worse than they are now (i.e. jobless riots) before it would be considered. Even then, I’m sure that our broken political system would find a way to morph such a measure into a way to funnel taxpayers’ dollars to Halliburton, or similar ilk. I can see such a corp given special priviledges to hire illegal labor (under the guise of providing a pathway to citizenship) rather than American labor, and passing legislation where they had to pay no more than a fraction of the minimum wage, no benefits. Sadly, we’re still participating as a country in a race to the bottom with cheap labor pools from other nations, something I’m confident makes American corporations absolutely giddy.
Lyle–You seem to think that most or many of the unemployed people in this country have few or no skills. It’s a mistake to assume anything of that kind. While it’s true that the infrastructure work requires more construction people than engineers, there are just as many highly skilled people in all fields who are unemployed as a result of corporate profit strategies.
On the other hand, how good are you at running a table saw? My husband had a client years ago in Palo Alto who was a general surgeon. My husband did a small job for him and he asked for a bid on his kitchen cabinets. He thought the bid was too high, so he bought a table saw at Sears and proceeded to cut four fingers off his right hand. Depends on what you mean by skilled. Nancy Ortiz
Thank you Jay. I think you will like reading this note at Tomdispatch on collateral damage: http://www.tomdispatch.com/
Jay,
Speaking of racists….
In addition to racists the US has fear of immigrants, homophobia, muslim phobias and concerns for sizes………………….
The Hun has it made, they let in the brown skins and use them. They have learned their bankers can take over central and southern Europe and their cities don’t get bombed.
They found other ways for the Kruppes to make money aside from destroying themsleves with a war machine.
And they live well.
They enjoy watching the US go the way they did in the 1930’s.
They also work and a few other things like pay as they go.
Wow!!
I feel badly for the Hun.
Beat the spears into ploughshares.
The US cannot afford a CCC.
It already has 40% of US G outlays (13% GDP) going to the war machine and corporate welfare. None of which produces anything but takes resources away from things that the CCC might do for infrastructure and living standards.
The USG has an expensive, high margin command economy providing for the ownership class, with cash “borrowed” from the working classes never to be returned.
The security of the empire and war proifts trump a CCC. And SS and health.
ilsm will not change.
The right wing spouts about reeducation camps run by commies in N Korea, Vietnam and our new banker China.
While anyone who disagrees with ridiculous, dishonest sound bites from Glenn Beck Rove, or Rep Ryan is a commie.
The pot…………………………..
Note that the CCC was for young people, which would mean 18-24 year olds for the older you had WPA. I doubt that folks much beyond 24 would go for the semi-military role of a CCC type camp. In the 18-24 range you do have a lot of folks who have little skill, the vast number of high school dropouts being among them.
Lyle,
Your friend was probably talking about this:
“Obama and Biden will call on citizens of all ages to serve. They’ll set a goal that all middle school and high school students engage in 50 hours of community service a year, and develop a plan for all college students who engage in 100 hours of community service to receive a fully-refundable tax credit of $4,000 for their education. Obama and Biden will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.”
http://change.gov/americaserves/
Jay,
Germany has a population of 82 Million with 9% (7.3 Million) or so originating from imported workers. A structural un-employment of around 10%.
The United States has a population of 330 Million with an Illegal Alien population larger than Germany’s entire established and well regulated guest worker program, and still larger than their entire structural un-employment problem together.
There is no way in hell you can look at the German situation and compare it with what a Western European Style Socialist system would look like here.
jimi,
We agree!
Good points, so the US should also disavow the war machine thing too.
It don’t work here now any better than there in 1945.
Being that the source was a right wingnut, it was Obama was going to re-create the Hitler Youth in the US. There was no credible source for it, but then the right wing has an ability to make things out of whole cloth when need be. (If you ever watched Trimumph of the Will, you will see that the Hitler Youth at that time was doing civil improvements). Your souce might well be the source that was used to build up the consipiracy theory model. (The source I have believes that there is a vast left wing conspiriacy to take over the world).