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Posted June 26, 2017, at 7:41 a.m. Last modified June 26, 2017, at 11:26 a.m.

When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the citys minimum wage up to $15 per hour, they hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.

The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. Theyve cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.

The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed.

On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 per month because of the hike in the minimum.

The papers conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage. Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced employment often by a factor of four or five to one.

This strikes me as a study that is likely to influence people, David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the research, said. He called the work very credible and sufficiently compelling in its design and statistical power that it can change minds.

Yet the study will not put an end to the dispute. Experts cautioned the effects of the minimum wage may vary according to the industries dominant in the cities where they are implemented along with overall economic conditions in the country as a whole.

And critics of the research pointed out what they saw as serious shortcomings. In particular, to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations inside and outside Seattle in their calculations. Skeptics argued that omission could explain the unusual results.

Like, whoa, what? Where did you get this? Ben Zipperer, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, asked.

My view of the research is that it seems to work, he said. The minimum wage in general seems to do exactly what its intended to do, and thats to raise wages for low-wage workers, with little negative consequence in terms of job loss.

Economists might not readily dismiss the new study as an outlier, however. The paper published Monday makes use of more detailed data than have been available in past research, drawing on state records of wages and hours for individual employees.

As a result, the paper is likely to upend a debate that has continued among economists, politicians, businesses and labor organizers for decades. In particular, the results could exacerbate divisions among Democrats, who are seeking an economic agenda to counter President Trumps pitches for protectionism, reduced taxes and restrictions on immigration.

Meanwhile, states and cities around the country are continuing to implement increases in the minimum wage. In November, voters in Washington approved an increase in the statewide minimum to $13.50 per hour by 2020. The idea is popular in conservative states as well. In Arizona, for instance, the minimum wage will be $12 per hour in 2020 after voters there cast ballots in favor of a hike.

If I were a Seattle lawmaker, I would be thinking hard about the $15 an hour phase-in, Autor said.

Economists have long argued that increasing the minimum wage will force some employers to let workers go. In 1994, however, economists David Card and Alan Krueger published research on minimum wages in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that contradicted this theory, motivating dozens of studies into the issue over the coming years.

Card and Krueger conducted a survey of fast-food restaurants in the two states while New Jersey was implementing an increase in the minimum wage. They found that restaurants in New Jersey had, in fact, added more workers to their payrolls more than restaurants in neighboring Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage remained constant.

Since then, economists have brought better data and more sophisticated statistical methods to bear on the question of the minimum wage, but without resolving the debate.

Their studies examined the overall numbers of workers or their annual incomes, but lacked precise information on how much workers were being paid by the hour. As a result, past research might be less reliable because the results might reflect many workers who are not paid low wages, said Jacob Vigdor, an economist at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the new study.

Their research, using detailed records from the state of Washington, addresses that problem.

Thats really a step beyond what essentially any past studies of the minimum wage have been able to use, Jeffrey Clemens, an economist at the University of California, San Diego who was not involved in the research, said.

When the authors of the study took the same approach as Card and Krueger, measuring overall employment in the restaurant industry, they found similar results. The minimum wage did not substantially affect how many people were working in the industry or how many hours they were working.

The data, however, shows that about seven in 10 workers in Seattle restaurants make more than $13 per hour, suggesting that the overall level of employment in the industry might not be a reliable guide to how the minimum wage affects workers with low pay.

Indeed, while employment overall did not change, that was because employers replaced low-paying jobs with high-paying jobs. The number of workers making over $19 per hour increased abruptly, while the number making less than that amount declined, Vigdor and his colleagues found.

Vigdor said restaurateurs in Seattle along with other employers responded to the minimum wage by hiring more skilled and experienced workers, who might be able to produce more revenue for their firms in the same amount of time.

That hypothesis has worrisome implications for less skilled workers. While there those with more ability might be paid more, junior workers might be losing an opportunity to work their way up. Basically, what were doing is were removing the bottom rung of the ladder, Vigdor said.

There could be another explanation for the results, however: the fact that large employers are not included. It could be that even if employers with only a single location cut payrolls, large firms expanded at the same time, giving low-wage workers other opportunities to earn money.

Other researchers have found that large employers are better able to raise wages in response to changes in the minimum. Liberal economists often argue workers have less bargaining power when negotiating their contracts at larger firms, and that as a result, employees at those companies are often underpaid in the absence of a wage floor.

I think they underestimate hugely the wage gains, and they overestimate hugely the employment loss, said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who was part of a group that published its own study of the minimum wage in Seattle last week.

Reichs study uses more conventional methods in research on the minimum wage, relying on a publicly available federal survey. His groups data did not allow the researchers to distinguish between high- and low-wage workers at a given firm, but they were able to separate large firms locations in Seattle from those outside the city.

Their results from the University of California accorded with past research. The minimum wage increased wages for workers in the restaurant industry, without reducing employment overall in contrast to the findings from the University of Washington.

Their results are so out of the range, Reich said.

One way of explaining the disagreement could be that small businesses in Seattle have been forced to downsize in response to the increased minimum wage, while larger firms have expanded.

Yet when Vigdor and his colleagues examined the overall number of workers at small firms with a single location, they did not find that employment had decreased. That fact could could suggest that small businesses have responded to the increase not by downsizing but instead by hiring more experienced workers.

Theres another explanation for the growth in high-paid jobs and the decrease in lower-paid ones. The authors of the study argue that thats occurring because employers are focusing on high-paid workers and leaving low-paid workers out, but its possible that something far more positive is happening.

Seattles economy is booming, and in a booming economy, more workers are likely to get raises or find jobs that pay better, and it may be that phenomenon of workers getting raises, promotions or better paying jobs that explains the shifts in the labor market the researchers see in Seattle.

Vigdor and his colleagues sought to address this problem, in essence, by constructing an index based on data from other parts of the state of Washington where local economies performed similarly to Seattles before the increases in the hourly minimum.

Low-wage employment declined in Seattle relative to this benchmark. Even compared to parts of the state with similar economies, there was less low-wage work in Seattle, suggesting that the minimum wage might have forced employers to cut some of those positions.

The method Vigdors group used to develop this index is on the cutting edge of economic research, but it is not perfect. It is possible that Seattles economy simply took a different direction at the same time as the minimum wage began to increase even compared to economies in other places that seemed similar to Seattles before the vote.

EPIs Zipperer argued that was the best explanation, given how pronounced the gains were for workers making more than $19 per hour.

Youre just seeing an independent shift in the Seattle labor market toward higher wage employment, he said, calling the figures for better-paid workers a red flag.

The broader national economy could have an effect on the results as well. In the past, noted San Diegos Clemens, increases in the minimum wage have occurred when the economy was expanding rapidly and prices are going up. Employers could expect to ask consumers to pay more and to give their workers wages anyway. Increases in the minimum wage might just have been part of the cost of doing business.

Currently, though, inflation is at historically low levels, and the minimum wage in Seattle will be indexed to inflation after it reaches $15 per hour, forcing firms to plan for the long term.

Vigdor agreed the effects of increasing the minimum wage could differ by time and place.

The effect of the minimum wage depends on a lot of things. It depends on where youre starting from. It depends on what kind of economy youre raising it in, Vigdor said. There is no one the effect of the minimum wage.

That means future research on the question could come to different conclusions. Vigdor said he looks forward to receiving criticisms of his groups paper and suggestions for improving their approach.

Its really important to emphasize its a work in progress, he said.

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'Very credible' study on $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals - Bangor Daily News

The BC Liberal government is poised to introduce legislation this week on campaign finance reform, a step toward shedding British Columbias wild west reputation for no-holds-barred political fundraising that would finally bring it in line with other jurisdictions.

The legislation would ban union and corporate donations, impose donation limits comparable to other Canadian jurisdictions, and ban donations from foreigners or from other political parties outside of British Columbia.

But the legislation is unlikely to pass. Rather, it is a tactical measure introduced as the government prepares to face a vote of confidence it is expected to lose.

Gary Mason: B.C. campaign finance reform will fundamentally change the provinces politics

The Liberals hope to win the support of Green MLAs on a bill to demonstrate that they can offer a stable government, despite having lost their majority in the legislature after the May 9 provincial election.

A final decision on bringing in the bill was still in play over the weekend, but government House leader Mike de Jong said in an interview the plan was triggered by comments from the Greens who have vowed to vote the Liberals down on a confidence motion indicating theyd be willing to vote in favour of such a bill.

If the government introduces a campaign finance reform bill, it could delay a vote of confidence which otherwise could happen as early as Thursday. The election left the governing Liberals with 43 seats in the legislature, while the NDP and Greens have agreed to use their combined 44 seats to force the government to fall.

The Liberals plans to overhaul campaign finance law were outlined last week in the Throne Speech. After rejecting NDP and Green proposals to reform campaign finance in British Columbia prior to the spring election, the Liberals are now advocating wide-reaching amendments designed to entice the three Green MLAs to vote with the government.

The proposed changes would also apply the new rules to local governments.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, said British Columbia could shift from being a laggard on campaign finance to catch up with other Canadian jurisdictions. But, he said, only Quebec has set limits on individual donations that actually prohibit the influence of big money on politics.

British Columbia would move up in the standards and limits in most other provinces, but if the donation limit for individuals is more than a couple of hundred dollars, the new system will obscure, not stop, the influence of big money.

Quebec has capped individual donations to political parties at $100. British Columbia has no limits, while Nova Scotia has the highest limit at $10,000.

He added that campaign finance reform will take place in British Columbia no matter which party forms government, because all three parties have agreed to tighten the rules.

I expect that if the government falls, the NDP and Greens will match all this but the key will still be what the individual limit will be, Mr. Conacher said, noting that none of the parties has stated what the donation limit should be.

Green Lader Andrew Weaver said in an interview he supports the Liberal proposals. They have got some really good ideas that they want to bring forward, ideas I would eventually like to see turned into legislation.

But eventually doesnt mean this week. Mr. Weaver has said repeatedly that his caucus rejected a deal to support the Liberals because it concluded the government needs a time out. Under the accord the Greens signed with the NDP in May, the Green MLAs will help topple the Liberals and then support an NDP minority government on budget measures and other votes of confidence.

Mr. Weaver said he wants to get on with that transition.

The Premier has been clear that she wants to test the confidence of the House, and that should be the first priority when the House reconvenes.

Mr. de Jong said there may be legislation and that would delay debate on the Throne Speech, but it is not his intent to avoid a vote of confidence. The Throne Speech will be debated in the coming days, and Mr. de Jong is expected to provide a fiscal update to demonstrate that the ambitious and costly new agenda can be paid for without deficits or tax hikes.

He said the Liberals were unable to offer these new spending commitments including welfare rate increases and child-care subsidies before the May election because they did not believe they were affordable then.

We became aware after the election the economy was growing at a much stronger rate than we anticipated, he said. Its an ironic position for a government, and maybe one in its last days, to be criticized because the provincial economy is performing way better than you told us.

Follow Justine Hunter on Twitter: @justine_hunter

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BC Liberals prepare fundraising bill ahead of no-confidence vote - The Globe and Mail

Last week, Maryam Monsef, the Minister of Status of Women, announced a strategy to address gender-based violence. Two weeks earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered a speech declaring that womens rights are at the heart of Canadas foreign policy, and a few days later, International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced a feminist foreign-aid policy.

Nothing is more regularly the focus in the Liberal governments announcements, and its politics, than gender-equity and policies and symbols about women. On the day he was sworn in as Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau famously named a gender-balanced cabinet. Since then, almost 60 per cent of the judges appointed by the federal government have been women. In the military, women have been promoted to senior, high-profile positions on the Liberals watch, including the appointment of the new Judge Advocate General, Navy Captain Genevive Bernatchez, last week. The March federal budget came with the gender-based budget statement.

We are changing the world with this work, Ms. Monsef said in an interview. She often seems earnest, but theres no doubting she believes in the impact of these things: that girls such as her eight-year-old niece will be inspired by seeing women in positions of power, or that other countries will feel pressure to follow the example. Frances President, Emmanuel Macron, unveiled a gender-balanced cabinet too, she noted.

For subscribers: Its time for our feminist' Prime Minister to walk the talk

In fact, its not easy for the Liberals to show their gender policies will change the day-to-day lives of women here, let alone around the world. And political opponents dismiss a lot of it as branding.

But theres no doubt that this governments focus on women will have a lasting impact on Canadian politics and government. Even the symbols: Its hard to imagine a future prime minister appointing a cabinet where two-thirds of the ministers are men.

Some of the symbols around gender issues that delight Liberals seem to particularly irritate their opponents, such as Mr. Trudeaus repeated assertions that hes a feminist. Pinkwashing, one New Democrat called it accusing the Liberals of mounting a marketing exercise when they wont back substantive policies to address, for example, the gender gap for low-income women. Some Conservatives argue the Liberals spend money on bureaucracy to signal their good intentions, but their plans wont have concrete effects.

But opponents who dismiss it as political marketing tend to admit it probably works. Oh, theyre kicking our ass, said one Conservative. When in power, Conservatives were often reluctant to talk about the representation of women in positions of power; on the left, touting a feminist foreign-aid policy, for example, can help the Liberals compete with the NDP for progressive voters.

And its clearly not motivated by just electoral politics. There are true believers, cabinet appointees such as Labour Minister Patty Hajdu and influential senior aides such as Mr. Trudeaus chief of staff, Katie Telford. The government, under Ms. Telfords eye, has applied gender-equity tools on matters so boringly inside the machinery of government, such as gender analysis in every department and on all initiatives before cabinet, that it cant possibly be aimed at voters. Its hard to say if that will really have an impact, but in theory, the government will know if infrastructure funds for hockey arenas or daycares are going to create jobs for men or women, or benefit one gender more.

When an investigation by The Globe and Mails Robyn Doolittle found that one in five sexual-assault complaints was dismissed as unfounded, and that the rate of this finding varied dramatically from place to place, it sparked an immediate e-mail chain between Ms. Telford, Ms. Monsef, and Ms. Hajdu. A month later, the budget set aside $100-million for a gender-based violence strategy.

The thing is, gender-based violence is a big, complex problem. Ms. Monsef called it the greatest barrier to gender equity in this country. The centrepiece of the governments new strategy is collecting data, and there have been questions about whether thats really an adequate response.

Ms. Monsef noted that figures havent been collected since 1993 We have cyberviolence. That didnt happen in 1993, she said. Data will help design effective prevention programs. But a key reason she offers is that they will honour the stories of survivors by collecting evidence for policies. Another Liberal government insider suggested that with solid numbers, its harder to argue about the scale of the issue.

Its unclear what impact the strategy will have. But the Liberals have done a key thing to the politics: Theyve raised demand, and expectations.

Follow Campbell Clark on Twitter: @camrclark

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The Liberals are talking about gender, and that will change Ottawa - The Globe and Mail

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British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, left, and NDP leader John Horgan, right, look on as B.C. Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon gives the Speech from Throne in Victoria, Thursday, June 22, 2017.

A UBC economist says its entirely possible the money is there to pay for more than $1.5-billion in new spending pledged in the BC Liberal Throne Speech.

The Liberals raised eyebrows on Thursday by reversing course on a number of policies they had previously campaigned against, borrowing big ticket platform planks like $1-billion for child care or scrapping bridge tolls from the NDP.

In the wake of the speech, Finance Minister Mike de Jong justified the new spending with reference to an improved economic forecast.

READ MORE: Power hangs in the balance following Throne Speech at the B.C. Legislature

LISTEN: Economist Kevin Milligan explains why the government may have more money to spend than the February budget accounted for

2017Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Credible case BC Liberals can pay for Throne Speech promises: UBC economist - Globalnews.ca

We have become obsessed with prescience. Or rather, a kind of reverse-prescience that sees old books (from Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four to Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale to Arendts The Origins of Totalitarianism and Radioheads OK Computer) invested with a new vitality. These works, and their authors, are hailed for their farsightedness and acute judiciousness, for their ability to speak to our troubled times. But more often than not, its a case of too little, way too late.

Reading the Stalinist parable Nineteen Eighty-Four to make sense of Trumpism feels about as useful as scanning the instructions on a bottle of bear spray while your torsos already half-digested by a savage Kodiak. Still, we laud the old works and the old masters for their seeming ability to forecast the present, even if they do so in hazy, generalizing terms. The esteemed quality of prescience thus reveals itself as conservative, keeping us fixed on the past, lost in our fantasies of foregone foresight. Damn, if only we could have seen it coming back then.

Few pop-cultural objects carry this burden of prescience like RoboCop, Paul Verhoevens sci-fi satire/Detroit dystopia/Christian allegory, which turns 30 this summer. Set in a near-future Motor City beset by corporate greed, with slums being rebuilt as privatized skyscraper communities and public services seized by profiteering private contractors, much of RoboCops critical legacy hinges on its seemingly spooky ability to predict the future: from the militarization of American police forces, to the collapse (and rebirth) of Detroit, to the way in which politics has become increasingly beholden to private money.

Never mind that all these things were already happening when RoboCop was released theatrically at the ass-end of the Reagan administration. What matters is how the film is regarded as effectively anticipating whats happening now. Problem is: claims of the films prescience arent just overstated. Theyre fundamentally incorrect. And if were to believe as many seem to that RoboCops near future is meant to be our present, then we must reckon with one of its greatest oversights: its depiction of business-suited capitalists as crass, corporatist, unfeeling heels. What RoboCop got wrong was its depiction of the bad guys of those greedy corporate profiteers looking to razz Detroits crumbling ghettos, quarterback private police militias and trap the hearts and minds of good, honest, working men inside hulking robotic exoskeletons.

***

On the commentary track bundled with Criterions now out-of-print 1998 home video release of RoboCop, producer Jon Davison summed up the movies message. He called it fascism for liberals. As Davison puts it: The picture is extremely violent, but it has a nice, tongue-in-cheek, were-just-kiddin quality. Indeed, RoboCop, like many of Dutch expat Paul Verhoevens other films (The Fourth Man, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, even the recent Elle) function through this sort of deeply embedded irony; this were-just-kiddin quality. The sex, the violence, the way they flirt with ideological reprehensibility Verhoevens films are calibrated to invite reaction, even disgust. And yet thats never the end in itself.

When a heavy artillery urban pacification tank shoots up a boardroom meeting early in RoboCop, in one of the films most legendarily over-the-top sequences, the joke isnt the display of gore itself, but rather the reaction. When the scowling CEO of Omni Consumer Products (referred to with mock-affection as The Old Man, and played by Dan OHerlihy) witnesses the wanton display of machine-on-man violence and mutters to sniveling underling Dick Jones (Ronny Cox), Im very disappointed in you, thats the joke a critique of the corporate worlds utter disdain for human life, packaged in a parody of Reagan-era paternalist condescension. This, presumably, is what Davison is talking about. RoboCop offers visions of violence, of top-down, totalitarian corporate control, and the crumbling of the American Dream itself that proves fundamentally comforting in its cheekiness and ironic distance. Yes, the world it depicts is bad. But we know its bad. And thats good.

Yet this idea fascism for liberals runs even deeper into the movies DNA. What its capitalist parody doesnt anticipate is the current entanglements of corporatism and politics. While the ascent of celebrity capitalist Donald Trump may play like something out of a direct-to-video RoboCop sequel, the film fails to address the more pressing threat of smiling, do-gooder philanthrocapitalists: guys like Michael Bloomberg or Mark Zuckerberg who increasingly set the agendas of American (and global) politics, while retaining the image of selfless saviors. These are the people who, increasingly, represent the corporatization of everyday life, albeit in a way that RoboCop-style corporate villainy cant account for.

When Donald Trump announced that America would be backing out of the Paris Climate Agreement, ex-NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg promised to pick up the tab with his private money. Likewise, before Amazons Jeff Bezos announced he was buying the Whole Foods supermarket chain last week a move that boosted Bezoss stock while sapping that of competitors like Wal-Mart and Target he canvassed Twitter for ideas on charities to which he could donate money. This is the face of modern consumerist capitalism: lead with a benign-seeming charitable gesture, follow through with a massive, bottom line-boosting buyout.

The fundamental weakness of 80s-era, RoboCop-ian businessman bad guys is their conspicuousness. They are vulgar and cruel, they divulge their scheming master plans in Bond villain-style monologues, and mainline cocaine and throw their henchmen out of moving vehicles. They are obviously (too obviously, maybe) villainous. They are unabashedly wolfish and competitive. This is not meant as a dig at RoboCop itself, which is a perfect film. Rather, its a critique of the automated reaction to praising the film for its farsightedness in a way that seems blinkered and myopic, even from the perspective of today.

Because today, things are altogether different. The billionaire super-capitalists seeking to monopolize the experience of daily life tend to appear not as smirking super-villains with spindly fingers steepled together as if it say Im scheming. Rather, theyre the good guys. They donate money to charity (while exploiting tax loopholes), they care about the environment and schools and LGBTQ rights and the health and wellbeing of the Democratic Party. Some even want to go to Mars. They orbit around politics without seeming overtly political. (The obvious exception in this glad-handing rogues gallery is Bloomberg, though his move from mayor of Americas largest city back to private citizen and super-rich guy tends to be regarded as just that, a return or a retirement from political life.) And this seeming isolation from the sphere of politics is their greatest strength.

***

In 1831, French bureaucrats dispatched Alexis de Tocqueville to America to study the national prison system. He skipped the prisons, surveying instead the whole broad expanse of American society. The resulting study, Democracy in America, is an exhaustive account of life and liberty and the then-fledgling republic.

One thing that struck de Tocqueville was the cleaving of church and state. Unlike France, where the Bourbon Restoration had reinstated privileges of nobility granted to the clergy that had been largely stripped during the Revolution, and where the Catholic Church was state religion, Americas deep religiosity existed outside (or alongside) the political realm. In America, de Tocqueville observed, the clergy never hold public office and are not politically active. While the power of religion seems diminished without an alliance with political power, it is actually stronger. Where the political sphere is constantly in a state of flux and is always changing according to public opinion, religion provides a stabler common morality.

De Tocquevilles observations on the American clergys power were explicitly translated to the political-social realm by economist Friedrich Hayek and other so-called Austrian School economists. As Linsey McGoey writes in her 2015 critique of philanthropy No Such Thing as a Free Gift, these economists grasped the that in order to wield lasting power it was important to make sure their efforts appeared as non-political as possible. Unfailingly, whenever confronted with a choice between overt political engagement and more surreptitious political lobbying, Hayek would recommend the second strategy. This sense of standing outside the muck and mire of politics itself, of living above the fray, grants billionaire corporatists inordinate power in the public imagination (to wit: during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump successfully spun his lack of experience in politics into a virtue, and similarly framed his inordinate wealth as a mark of his incorruptibility).

Capitalism, or even just gauzier ideas of business and the market, provide their own contemporary common morality (or they appear to, anyway). This is the ultimate liberal fantasy: that all we need to solve massive social problems is more money, that the way to fight against billionaires is with different kind of billionaires. And this is not even to say that Bloomberg, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim et al. are necessarily bad or evil. But this altruism and aloofness is the essence of their menace. They use wealth, power and influence that results in a net negative of the democratic experiment. While appearing benevolent, they set the agenda, all without the consultation of the broader public (save for the occasional Twitter poll). They consolidate their power and restrict possibilities, delimiting democracy and wrangling into a plutocracy of smirking good Samaritans. This is the sort of stuff that never frighten liberals, who are happy to see their vested interests fortified in the hands of those who think just like them.

And this, perhaps, is why I reserve a certain fondness for director Fred Dekkers often-mocked 1993 sequel RoboCop 3. There, the films namesake robotic constable functions not as a metalloid Christ cleansing the temple of American industry from conspicuously chicanerous capitalists, but as a hero of the disenfranchised. Hes an android golem, fighting on behalf of a ragtag revolutionary army of down-and-out Detroiters and pensionless public servants against the encroachment of corporate control (both domestic and foreign) and the steamrolling of Old Detroit.

Despite the films arch-cartoonishness and family-friendly feel (it pares back the blood and gore for scenes of Robo battling Japanese ninja androids and whooshing around in a jetpack), RoboCop 3 has little in the way of the originals beloved tongue-in-cheek, were-just-kiddin quality. Its fueled by a more intersectional, revolutionary energy, in which everyday people band together to defend their retirement funds and stand up for their communities. Its the sort of story that might actually trouble institutional liberals and do-gooder philanthrocapitalists, one in which a legitimate #Resistance rises up and asserts itself, with or without the help of a reprogrammed robotic police officer. Its a message that, one might hope, will one day too be trumped up and over-hyped as acute and totally visionary.

Or maybe the better hope is to forgo the backward-looking fetish for prescience altogether, to turn away from Oceania and Gilead and Delta City and cast a caustic eye on the present, to ferret out the culture that will seem ahead of its time well down the line, and to see whats coming right now.

Read more:
Fascism for liberals: RoboCop at 30 and the problem with prescience - Salon