I anticipated the State of the Union Address, more or less, correctly, though I underestimated Obama’s forthrightness. He entered softly, calling for bi-partisanship, but he followed up with a pretty big stick, strongly arguing for his agenda, including, most spectacularly, the matter of class and class conflict, daring the Republicans to dissent, ending the speech on a high emotional note on gun violence and the need to have a vote on legislation addressing the problem. Before the speech, I wondered how President Obama would balance assertion of his program with reaching out to Republicans. This was an assertive speech.

The script was elegantly crafted, as usual, and beautifully performed, as well. He embodied his authority, with focused political purpose aimed at the middle class. This got me thinking. As a sociologist, I find public middle class talk confusing, though over the years I have worked to understand the politics. I think last night it became clear, both the politics and the sociology.

Obama is seeking to sustain his new governing coalition, with the Democratic majority in the Senate, and the bi-partisan coalition in the House, although he is working to form the coalition more aggressively than I had expected. He is addressing the House through “the people,” with their middle class identities, aspirations and fears.

In my last post, I observed and then suggested:

“Obama’s recent legislative victories included Republican votes on the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. I believe he will talk about the economy in such a way that he strengthens his capacity to draw upon this new governing coalition. He will do it in the name of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class. This is the formulation of Obama for ordinary folk, the popular classes, the great bulk of the demos, the people. In this speech and in others, they are the subjects of change, echoing Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: government of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, by the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, for the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class.”

Americans in large numbers think of themselves as being middle class, though this is hardly an identity that distinguishes much. The middle class, in the American imagination, ranges from people who barely sustain themselves to people who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, own multiple homes and all the latest consumer trophies. The imagined middle class includes all the workers who earn a living wage in a factory, and the owners of the factory, and the managers and clerks in between. If Marx were alive, he would roll over in his grave. This American sociological imagination seems to be an illusion, a case of false consciousness if there ever was one. The puzzle: “What is the matter with Kansas?

Yet, I think it was quite clear last night that the way the middle class is imagined opens American politics. Both Obama and Marco Rubio (in his Republican response) delivered their messages in the name of the middle class. While Rubio used it to denounce Obama, big government, taxing of the wealthy and spending for the needy, Obama invoked the great middle class to defend and propose programs that clearly serve “the middle class” directly, especially Social Security and Medicare, but also aid to education, infrastructure investments and the development of jobs. The undeserving poor loomed behind Rubio’s middle class, (and made explicit in Rand Paul’s Tea Party response), while those who need some breaks and supports were the base of Obama’s middle class. Thus, the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class, as I anticipated, was Obama’s touchstone.

I, along with many progressive friends, have been impatient with all the talk about the middle class over the years. I wondered: where are the poor and the oppressed? In this State of the Union, the President made clear that they are central to his concern: an endangered middle class, both those who have been down so long that they haven’t been able to look up, and those who through recent experience know that they and their children are descending. Obama spoke to both groups, the frightened middle class, working people who have experienced rapid downward mobility, and those who have long been excluded from work that pays sufficiently to live decently.

Obama, using straightforward prose, addressed the members of Congress through this middle class. He advocated for “manufacturing innovation institutes,” for universal high quality pre-schools, strengthening the link between high school education and advanced technical training, addressing the costs and benefits of higher education, and raising the minimum wage. In other words, along with his discussion of Medicare, Social Security and Obamacare, he raised the immediate economic concerns of a broad swath of the American public. Noteworthy is that the concerns of the “aspiring middle class” (i.e. poor folk) were central in his presentation.

And then there was the passion focused on immigration, voting rights and gun violence. The closing crescendo, with Obama calling for a vote from Congress on gun violence, dramatically referred back to Obama’s opening, calling for concerted bi-partisan action on the crises of our time. As I heard it, this was about gun violence and its victims, but also the victims of Congressional inaction on jobs and the economy, on the sequester, on the need to invest in our future, i.e. on pressing issues concerning the middle class and those who aspire to be in the middle class. The closing was powerfully delivered, as the response to the delivery was even more powerful. As Obama takes his message to the country in the coming days, and as Democrats and Republicans start negotiations about the budget, I think that there is a real possibility that the coalition that formed in negotiating the resolution to the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling conflicts may very well lead to necessary action, at least to some degree, and they will be debating about the right things, at last.

This summer, a group of miners in Albania’s richest chrome mine in Bulqiza staged a spectacular strike. Ten miners barricaded themselves 1400 meters, nearly one mile, underground and refused to eat and drink. The workers’ drastic measure followed earlier protests both at their own mine in the north and in the capital Tirana. After 23 days of underground protest, ten miners replaced the first weakened crew, continuing the hunger strike to express opposition to low wages, unsafe working conditions, poor management, and the lack of investment in the mine in general. The hunger strike was part of a three month long work stoppage by some 700 Albanian miners. But Albania is no Tunisia, Egypt or Libya. While being one of Europe’s poorest and most corrupt countries, it has been dealing with slowing economic growth and weak political leadership beyond the attention of the global media. The miners don’t seem to be the vanguards of a civil rebellion, but rather the players in an act overshadowed by an ongoing fight between two political parties and their leaders. DeliberatelyConsidered asked Ermira Danaj, an Albanian participant in the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies’ Democracy and Diversity Institute, for a report. – Esther Kreider-Verhalle

DC: Were any of the miners’ demands met?

Ermira Danaj: This time, the miners have won, but it is one of the very few victories for workers  fighting for their rights. The owners of the mine promised to continue investments in the mine, in a transparent manner. They also agreed to improve working conditions, to pay a 13 month wage, to pay the workers for half the period they were on strike, and a wage increase of 20%. During the first hunger strike, miners from other regions and workers from other sectors, facing the same problems, had started showing their solidarity with the miners. This was very unusual. After a regional court had decided that the protesters had to leave the mine, the miners left voluntarily, but stubbornly started their hunger strike again in another location not far from the mine.

The history of Albanian mining after 1990 is not a happy story. During the communist regime, the export of chrome was very important for the country. But after 1990, along with the rest of the industrial sector, the mining branch collapsed. The new democratic government – democratic in the sense that it was the first government within a pluralistic political system – aimed to privatize state owned enterprises. The socialists who came to power in 1997 continued the free market reforms. Yet, critically, privatization never focused on the workers’ working conditions, their contracts or wages.

Privatization of the mining sector began in earnest in 1994, largely supported by foreign investors. While the mineral resource of chromium continued to be vital for Albania’s economy, the conditions in the mines deteriorated, with numerous serious injuries and yearly deaths. For a number of years, the US Department of State has lamented the poor working conditions in the Bulqiza mines in its annual Human Rights Reports.

In the past three years, many protests have been organized but with little effect. Conditions have not improved and the struggle for fundamental workers’ rights has not been publicly recognized. Neither had the miners received much support from workers in other sectors or from civil society. The only organization that supported the miners’ protest earlier this year was The Political Organization, a newly founded organization aiming at raising critical debate in the country, while supporting workers and vulnerable people. During earlier protests that lasted several days in front of the government’s building in Tirana, the group brought the miners food, clothes and blankets.

DC: The small city of Bulqiza, about 30 miles north of Tirana is dependent on the mining industry. Investment in the mining sector is crucial both to the economic vitality of the region and the country. Chromium is used to produce steel and aluminum alloys, and is exported to the biggest American steel producers and other foreign companies. The Bulqiza mine has been in foreign hands since 2007. It’s owned by the Austrian corporation Decometal DCM, whose Albanian subsidiary ACR runs it until 2013. Has there been any improvement at all?

Ermira Danaj: In several press conferences and other media appearances ACR representatives have reported their investments not only in the Bulqiza mine but also in other industrial sectors. The miners’ main demand has been an improvement of their working conditions, while their calls for wage increases always came second. The miners argue that their lives and their futures are dependent on the mines. The investments are needed to ensure that they and the city as a whole have a future. Because ACR will run the mine until 2013, the workers worry about what will happen after that, if sufficient investments are not made now. Just to give you an idea of the current working conditions: The miners’ third demand was to have showers in the mine and clothes!

DC: There is a history of tension between the new foreign owner, the Albanian government, and the miners’ union. There have been talks in January 2011 between the Union and the Austrian owners with the Ministry of Labor as mediator. Both sides signed an agreement that there would be no further increases in wages until 2013. Their average wages are more than double the Albanian minimum wage of about 140 Euro per month. Also, the Albanian authorities fined ACR in July 2011 because it was not living up to its investment contract. And, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Energy suspended part of ACR’s license after two weeks of strikes at the mine. The same Ministry has been said to be in favor of the demands of the miners but to be against the method of striking, and instead prefers a dialogue.

Ermira Danaj: The strike is a legitimate action when workers’ rights are not being respected and workers are exploited. And the word “dialogue” has been one of the most harmful words in Albania, at least during the last years, because any form of oppression and exploitation is depicted and covered up by the word “dialogue.” When the dialogue is not working, and the workers’ conditions remain unchanged, then there are other possible instruments such as protests and strikes. In Albania the hunger strike has been quite delegitimized. And usually, the motifs behind protests are party politics. The three month long miners’ protest has been one of the very rare cases of persistent action. And while it is true that miners in Albania earn about 300 Euro (406 US Dollars), mining is dangerous and most miners suffer from health problems.

DC: Where do Albania’s political leaders stand on the problems?

Ermira Danaj: The miners’ issues are not addressed in political debate. Discussions between the members of the two major parties focus on fights between the leaders, and on gossip. Programmatic and ideological differences are all but ignored. In addition, the workers’ unions are weak and of little help, split as they have been for years according to party affiliation.

DC: Opposition leader Edi Rama did write an opinion piece in a local newspaper supporting the miners, while PM Berisha accused Rama of using the miners for his own political gain.

Ermira Danaj: This is the main issue here, the fact that the miners’ strike is used just as another element to feed the political struggle between the main parties. And in this context, instead of an op-ed piece, one would prefer to hear from the opposition leader an alternative position on the problems in the privatized mining sector. What will the opposition do if they come to power? Or, they could organize any political action in support of the miners. Unfortunately, in Albania there are only meetings and protests before elections, or after them, to protest the results.

Interestingly, because they feel they have nowhere else to turn the protesters asked for support from the American Embassy in Albania. The head of one of the Unions that backed the Bulqiza miners made an appeal to the US Ambassador to support the miners and to visit them to personally observe the working conditions. The miners had no expectation whatsoever that any Albanian politicians would support them. They made their appeal to the US ambassador because he is considered a good friend of the Albanian people and he represents a country where democracy and human rights are respected. The past two years,  the U.S. has been very involved  in Albania’s political crisis and the US Ambassador has stepped in before. This appeal for support to the US Embassy indicates not only a fundamental crisis in the Albanian political system, but also in civil society and in society at large. During their underground strike, the workers saw no other hope than to make an appeal to a foreign embassy.

DC: The story of Albania’s desperate miners was not covered in American media. How was local coverage?

Ermira Danaj: In the absence of any sensational political fight and in the middle of the media’s silly season, the hunger strike received quite some media attention. Yet, by focusing on the wage issue, they were inaccurately reporting the story. The investment issue was not part of the story, while, oddly enough, they did bring up the retirement age of the miners. Under the communist regime, the retirement age was 50 and currently it is 60. But the issue of retirement is up to the government. It has been an election issue, but it wasn’t part of the strikers’ demands that were all directed to the private owners of the mine.

Currently, the workers are in a trap between the private mine operator, the state and the media. The company and the state are not engaging in serious discussions about investment. Political debate is only about personalities and not about pressing issues. During the last two decades, our society has been preaching individual success as the ultimate value; fighting for workers’ rights looks so old-fashioned. So, given that the workers were doing the state’s job and were pushing the issue of investment with the private owners, the miners of Bulqiza scored a great victory. They did it all by themselves, they persisted, and weren’t corrupted. With their sacrifice in the form of a hunger strike 1400 meters underground, they showed others that resistance can work.

I was baffled yesterday when I saw on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” a short question: “Is President Obama also to blame for US economy?” This question referred to an ongoing Gallup poll. And MSNBC presented the answer – 53% of asked people now blaming Obama for the state of US economy.  This brief episode of my morning TV routine provides an opportunity for me to revisit the larger problem of  the “Power to the Polls,” which I investigated through an article by Jürgen Habermas.  I continue to wonder what do polls actually mean in public debate and opinion?

“Is President Obama also to blame for US economy?” This is a bad polling question on so many levels. I am not really an expert on polling, but even I learned in Germany in my “Empirie” class, during my political science studies, that there is a scientific method to polls and questionnaires. One of the first rules: Questions have to be unambiguous, meaning they should be clearly understood. What does “also” mean? Is Obama to be blamed also among other actors? Is Obama to be blamed for the economy also among other issues for which he is to blame?

I could not believe that a professional researcher from Gallup would come up with such a flawed question. So I actually looked at the Gallup poll to which MSNBC’s interpretation refers.  The Gallup question is: “How much are George W. Bush and Barack Obama to be blamed for US Economy?” The answer choices are split between Bush and Obama and give the options: a great deal, moderate amount, not much, not at all. This poll is ongoing since 2009. The results published on September 21, 2011 show that 53% of the asked people say for Obama either “a great deal” or “moderate amount” (Bush 69 %). This is what MSNBC translates into 53% say “yes” to the question “Is president Obama also to blame for US economy?”

Not only was the MSNBC presentation of the results stilted. There is also something deeply flawed with the Gallup framing of the question. What does “blame” mean? Did Obama do something? Did he not do something? Is he to blame, because he is the president? What does “for US economy” mean? For there being a US economy? For the state of it? For the structure of it? There are so many underlying assumptions packed into one question that the results do not mean anything. That is why MSNBC can use the poll to translate it into whatever works. I bet Fox News has another translation.

As much fun as it is to nitpick polling questions, there is a serious problem for the public sphere, deliberation and the way media understand their role. Polls have power in today’s public debate. They have been elevated from tools to the actual content of opinion. But how can we debate through polls? They are a bad imitation and surrogate for real, informed opinion and debate that should stand at the core of how we critically deliberate about politics and society. Even worse, they stifle debate, because they present results, not opinions that could generate an informed discussion, even an argument.

I’ve been on the road this week, giving a public talk in Santa Barbara at Fielding Graduate University, and taking a break from a very hectic writing and teaching schedule.  Returning to frigid New York, I feel cut off from my usual news sources and news gathering customs.  As it happens I couldn’t read the paper version of The New York Times first thing, as is my morning custom, didn’t listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR, and didn’t go from there to search the web for interesting under reported news and commentary.  Instead I took a look at cable news, and found, to my dismay, that I really didn’t understand what had happened this week. This underscored Laura Pacifici’s point.  Audiences consume “news products” that confirm their beliefs; news reporting and commentary are not informing.   It struck me that this is the way that many people keep up with public affairs.  I felt like I was in a fog.  No wonder fictoids work!  I was warmed by the Santa Barbara sun, chilled by “the lame stream media.”

Although I was on vacation, I managed to keep DC going, thanks to interesting posts by DC contributors.  Will Milberg presented a very different account of the China – America relationship.  I am convinced.  The issue is less about currency valuations, more about economic practices of them and us.  As Milberg succinctly put it:

“The key to the problem of global imbalances is to resolve them in an expansionary way rather than a contractionary way.  In the wake of the crisis and a deep and widespread recession, we should be thinking about a reform of the international payments system that shifts the burden of adjustment from deficit countries (who are forced to contract their economies in order to reduce imports) to surplus countries (whose extra spending raises their imports).”

Gary Alan Fine, following up on his brilliant Jared Lee Loughner post, considered a fundamental problem in representative democracy, should we vote for representatives because of their personal qualities or principled positions.  He makes a strong and convincing case for the latter, but I wonder how far he would wish to go.  At some points character, specifically as it is related to judgment, is crucial.  I am an opponent of ideology, magical thinking that provides easy answers to complex problems.  The magic of the market and market demonization, both, it seems to me, should be adamantly opposed.  The way a candidate thinks through problems sometimes is more important to me than his or her starting positions. I concede, given the present circumstances, I cannot imagine voting for a Republican, but this is as much because the Republicans are the party of true belief, of absolute certainty and dogma.  A non dogmatic Republican would interest me.  I might even vote for such a candidate, given a mediocre opponent.

And then there was the provocative Robin Pacifici.  Just about everyone is celebrating Obama’s Tucson Speech.  Even the authority Pacifici cites, Garry Wills, went so far as to favorably compare the Tucson Speech to the Gettysburg Address in the New York Review of Books, but Robin finds good reasons to be critical.  Her key critical point:

“The main issues involve choices of genre and structure. For me, Obama’s speech oscillated without adequate accounting or warning between the genres of private lamentation, religious homily, and political oration. Without an overarching structure that linked these genres together, their coming and going unsettled me as a listener. Was so much reference to scripture appropriate in a civil ceremony? Was so much detail about individual personalities befitting a national oration by a head of state?”

I think that this is an interesting observation, and though I disagree with her judgment, standing by my original appraisal, I think I see something very insightful and significant in this.  Perhaps the reason why Obama can move so quickly between genres is that we in fact live in a world where there is little, if not , No Sense of Place, as  Joshua Meyrowitz explored this condition in his classic book by that name.

I have been thinking in recent years that one of the distinctions of Obama as a public figure and speaker is that he is reviving the power of classical rhetoric in the age of virtual communications, that he is a post sound bite political leader, classically eloquent.  But Pacifici demonstrates that only half of this is true.  While he clearly is a post sound bite speaker, a speaker of the long form, an orator, his eloquence is not really classical, as Lincoln’s was.  Obama depended on a blurring of public and private, so that we came to identify the victims as family and then their tragedy as ours.  We identify with “Gabby” and with 9 year old Christina Taylor Green, and when the President calls upon Americans to do what would honor them, we are not only honoring our fellow citizens but people with whom we now have a personal relationship.   Obama connected with the public in a way that he hasn’t previously during his Presidency, because as a nation he was very much part of our family, as he led our nation.  His eloquent response to a national tragedy may very well change the course of the nation.  Pacifici’s critique suggests to me how such eloquence is now achieved, because it is not classical in its form, because we live in a different media environment.

President Obama’s goal of “doubling exports over the next ten years” seems like a win-win in that it will boost employment and reduce the troubling U.S. trade deficit.  At first glance, his position makes sense politically and economically.  But there is a problem.  Because of the globalization of production that U.S. companies have championed over the past 20 years, exports from sectors other than agriculture require a much higher level of imports than ever before.  As a result, the job creation from expanding exports is much lower than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

In economic terms, the President’s goal of doubling exports makes sense.  Foreign demand is expected to be the fastest growing component of U.S. demand in the coming years.   And other, domestic, sources of economic growth are less promising than they have been in the past.

We can’t consume our way out of our problems. Consumption demand is going through a long-term adjustment from the build up of consumer debt over the past ten years.  Private investment also is not a likely singular basis for recovery.  It stopped being the most dynamic source of U.S. economic growth years ago.  With fear of a double-dip recession, lots of built-up excess capacity and still inexplicably tight credit, private investment spending is unlikely to be a driver of US economic growth.  Government spending has been politically excluded by the bi-elections.  Federal spending has grown rapidly over the period of economic crisis, but calls for deficit reduction mean that the kinds of increases we have seen in government spending over the last few years may not be politically feasible in the future.

That leaves the export sector.  With the dramatic growth rates of the emerging markets — most prominently Brazil, India and China, — the potential for growth in U.S. exports is considerable.

A rapid doubling of exports also makes sense politically, since it relies on the spending power of foreigners not the U.S. government, and in this sense is a “free lunch.”  Moreover, if export growth is blocked by tariffs or exchange rate manipulation, the source of the failure lies outside U.S. borders not within.

There are two problems, though, with the policy goal of doubling exports.  One is that it may require beggar-thy-neighbor devaluation on the part of the U.S.  This is the accusation the U.S. faces from Brazil, Korea, Germany, Japan and others as a result of the Fed’s second round of monetary easing, as we saw dramatically revealed during the President’s trip to Korea.  These countries are concerned that  U.S. export growth will be at the expense of their own exports.

The second problem is more serious for the President, since it relates to the employment effect in the U.S. of an export expansion.  U.S. exports increasingly rely on U.S. imports, as manufacturers in the U.S. import many components of their products.  This is true of Boeing’s 777, Apple’s iPod, Cisco’s servers and IBM’s consultancies.  More than ever in U.S. history, U.S. exports depend on U.S. imports and (outside of the farm sector) the most profitable U.S. companies are also those most reliant on the importation of inputs.

So while a doubling of exports may be attainable, its employment effect is much less than it was 20 years ago.   It would be misguided for many reasons to try to return to the nationally-integrated production structures of the 1980s.  So a substantial and sustainable program of job creation will necessarily have to confront the slow pace of growth of domestic demand.  This, in turn, will require a reform of firm innovation policy and perhaps even a new set of social protections that redistribute the high profits earned by many exporters (and simultaneously importers) today for social protection or decent wages to other, domestic, areas of work, along the lines described in my previous post.