Yet Another

Another Voice in the Chorus:

Southern Appeal cites a report by the Manhattan Institute that says more or less the same thing as these recent "class" articles, starting with Red State, Blue Collar, which I wrote while visiting at BlackFive's place. That was followed by Class War and The New Class, which were less 'considered essays' than regular old blog posts. Still, the three read together are all on a theme.

The Manhattan Institute sings a variation:

Steven Malanga shows how coalitions of public employee unions, workers at government-funded social service organizations, and recipients of government benefits have seized control of the politics of the big cities that make up the heart of Blue America. In New York City, this coalition has helped roll back some of the reforms of the Giuliani years. In California cities and towns, it is thwarting the expansion of private businesses. In nearly 100 municipalities, it has imposed higher costs on tens of thousands of firms by passing "living-wage" laws. Whereas the New Left of the 1960s believed—idealistically, if somewhat naively—that government could solve the biggest problems of our times, this New New Left is much more narrowly and cynically focused on expanding government programs to increase its own power, pay, and perks. And, as Malanga shows, the New New Left is emerging as the most powerful element of the national Democratic Party coalition.

Genuine progressives -- the old sort of Progressive -- will soon realize that the point of these programs is no longer 'helping the poor,' but controlling the poor along with the rest of society, while arrogating more wealth and power to their own "class."