By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 13th, 2013 
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 . . .
Read more: Class Matters: The Not So Hidden Theme of the State of the Union
By Ermira Danaj, October 7th, 2011 
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 . . .
Read more: A Hunger Strike in Albanian Mines: A Quest for Justice and Sound Public Policy
By Tim Rosenkranz, September 23rd, 2011 
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?”
 . . .
Read more: Problems with Polling
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 23rd, 2011 
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 . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Obama, no Lincoln, and a few other observations
By William Milberg, November 22nd, 2010 
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. . . .
Read more: Will Increased Exports Lift the Economy?
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