Brother, Can You Spare a Place in the Unemployment Line?
Those Four Terrible Words
- Un
- Em
- Ploy
- Ment
Three months ago, I and thirty-four of my colleagues were let go permanently by the company we loved. I had been there for over eighteen years and considered it more than my job. It was my second home.
But the wealthy owners decided they needed to cut back by letting go of thirty-five long-time employees who had risen in salary and had heavy medical bills to cover.
Being done dirty is the phrase, I think.
So, in came HR personnel, out went me and thirty-four others who had devoted themselves for decades to ‘the company.’ COVID-19 was to blame. That’s the story we were told, but we knew how the game was played. It was about money. As it always is.
And always has been.
I think a little stroll down History Lane is appropriate.
The Great Depression
1929… That seems so long ago, doesn’t it? It is, of course. Ninety-one years ago. And yet it stands as a testament to suffering. It led, indirectly, to the Second World War.
The stock market collapsed on October 24th of that year. People, whose entire life savings were wiped out in a single day, committed suicide [1]. Fear was palpable. Panic and despair filled the lungs like oxygen.
The banks failed and more people lost it all. Then the industrial companies of the world began shutting down. Employees were fired and the wages of those lucky enough to still have a job were decreased. Mortgages couldn’t be paid, and the banks pounced. Tent cities went up and soup kitchens fed those who had been prosperous just a short time before.
The government tried and failed to wrestle with the weight of the crisis creeping across the world. Work programs were created and Uncle Sam tried to get the people what they needed [2]. Something HAD to be done! But only a cataclysmic event would suffice…
Enter WWII
Despite the treaty they were forced to sign, which ended the First World War, Germany rearmed and opened fire on Poland on September 3, 1939, thus starting WWII [3]. Countries such as Britain and France honored their commitments and declared war on Germany. The chessboard began to fill with pawns and royals. Japan, in league with Germany and Italy, would attack America at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 [4]. America officially joined, and the entire world would never be the same again.
But America wasn’t quite ready to fight. Its army and navy were small and lacking in equipment and men. It was ten long years into the Great Depression. What could be done?
What was already being done in President Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” And it was this greater involvement in the everyday affairs of Americans by the federal government which would provide the answer to the war…and unemployment.
America was given the challenge of building enough war machines and weapons to supply not just its allies, but its own soldiers [5]. The first plants were already up and running, they just needed to grow and grow and grow. Did I mention grow? America was united on the greatest industrial buildup this country’s ever seen. Tanks, ships, guns, uniforms, foodstuffs, airplanes, bombs…and workers to fill those factories to the brim [6].
In fact, it was this ability to rearm and build so quickly that is often credited as the reason we won WWII [7]. We out-machined, out-manufactured, out-tooled, and out-built our enemies. In short, we outworked them.
And as we did this, the economy began reaping the benefits. Women entered the workforce and showed just what they were capable of — if given a chance. And even though many went back into the home when the soldiers returned, many stayed. And they helped increase the economic output of this country [8]. America saw a great depression become a great opportunity to grow. And it did.
To the Fifties and Beyond
The post-war economy in America was one of stupendous growth and opportunity. Large conglomerates formed in multiple industries including the old family farms [9]. The American worker benefited in several ways:
- More jobs meant more choice
- Higher wages meant higher disposable incomes
- Innovations became household items
- A sense of well-being, national pride, and community were common
- The middle class was booming
And an unemployment rate which hit 25% in 1929, fell to a still-record low of 1.2% in 1944 [10]. The cataclysm needed to bring us out of the Great Depression had come and gone, scarring the world forever, but bringing a new powerful economic boom.
Where Are We Headed?
That middle-class boom of the fifties is crashing down around us today. We are getting closer and closer to an economic pyramid. With the super-wealthy at the top, the poor filling the rest, and the middle-class a thing of the past. We need to step carefully as a nation. This is how a revolution begins, with a small number of people controlling all of the wealth and everyone else suffering.
Yoda never finished his thought on what fear leads to after… “suffering.” (See Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91_G8iaokk8
“Suffering leads to…” Leads to what? Revolution. That’s what.
We were spared the roots of communism by FDR’s New Deal and the Second World War. If these cataclysmic events hadn’t taken place, would revolution have swept this country as it had in Europe and Asia? Would Socialism, Facism, Communism, or some other ‘ism’ be what we grew up with here [11]?
Our children and their children hold the keys to our nation’s future. To forget history is a grave mistake. Now is the time to start asking the tough questions and standing up for what we believe in. Now is the time to teach them.
If we don’t…who will?
[1] https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history
[2] https://livingnewdeal.org/glossary/works-progress-administration-wpa-1935/
[3] https://www.history.com/news/world-war-ii-begins-75-years-ago
[4] https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor
[5] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/lend-lease
[6] https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/eggli.htm
[7] https://prospect.org/health/way-won-america-s-economic-breakthrough-world-war-ii/
[8] https://www.thoughtco.com/world-war-ii-women-at-work-3530690
[9] https://www.history.com/news/post-world-war-ii-boom-economy
[10] https://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506
[11] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2017/09-10/russian-revolution-history-lenin/
