Marxist approach to Budget Address

http://badgerherald.com/news/2011/03/01/text_of_gov_scott_wa.php

As you may know, Wisconsin has been in the spotlight lately thanks to their Governor pushing legislation that will eliminate collective bargaining rights for workers, effectively shutting down trade and labor unions. One of the supposed reasons for his pushing of this legislation is that it will help reduce Wisconsin's deficit by helping out businesses. While there are many ways I could go with this post, talking about the language he uses to promote his cause, let us instead focus on viewing this budget address using Marxist literary criticism*.

First off, before even getting into the text of his speech, I will note that the legislation that he is trying to pass, eliminating collective bargaining rights for workers, can be seen as oppression of workers and thus can be viewed in the light of the upper class oppressing the lower class.

That said, in the text of his speech, he never explicitly states this, of course, because that would look bad. Instead, he frames it as "helping business." Viewing this under a Marxist lens, he's still helping out the upper class (business owners) at the expense of the lower class.

This speech is directed at all classes, so he tries to tailor it in a way that masks class differences less noticeable by using inclusive vocabulary, referencing "young and old, urban and rural, Democrat and Republican," implying total inclusiveness, erasing the distinction between classes. The reason he has to specifically do this is because the policies he supports are oppressive of the working class.

The anecdote included in his speech framed the brothers as working class people, and the story was about public employees helping the brothers, which would imply that the government was helping the working class. Whether or not the anecdote is portrayed accurately, or is given a huge spin, is unclear due to a lack of details.

The speech indicates that economic recovery and budget repair will benefit the working class, another bid for the favor of the working class. While this is a true statement in the long run, harming the working class by taking away their rights in order to help the working class seems a bit odd.

Throughout his speech, he distances himself from other politicians by using the pronoun "they" when referring to them. Presumably this is to distance himself from the Bourgeoisie so he can connect with the Proletariat.

And of course, he mentions creating jobs, which is always something the working class wants to hear.

*If this seems somewhat contrived, that's because it is.