The problems of poverty and inequality have always bothered me. This is so even though I’ve not been poor nor have I ever lived among the poor.
Why then, I ask myself, do I have this strong sense that it is morally wrong to allow the sad side of civilization to exist?
Others are free of this burden, why not me?
The great religions speak against poverty and urge attention and compassion. Yet legislators who profess these faiths will happily cut $40 billion from the food stamp program.
While my empathy for the poor and the marginal working class is hard to shake, so, too, is my view that the rich and everyone else would benefit financially, spiritually and culturally from a more egalitarian society. They key to this society is the easy ability to get and hold a job that ensures freedom from want.
In such a society, billion-dollar food stamp programs are unnecessary.
You don’t need public housing or a bloated Medicaid system.
And because people would have more pride and self-respect, society would need fewer courts, cops, prisons and mental health facilities.
There would be great savings.
People would have money in their pockets and the business community would thrive.
There is little downside, except perhaps that the very rich would have slightly less money and corporations would not be able to amass huge cash surpluses.
By contrast to this semi-utopia, I find the present oligarchical society unpleasant and dangerous. And let’s face it, Thomas Jefferson aside, that’s what it is – an oligarchy.
The decline of the Great American Cities is but one example of the damage caused by too few people holding too much money, which is unfairly channeled to them through favorable tax policy and special interest legislation. Let them keep what they earn, what they deserve, what they spent a lifetime building, just check their greed when it denies others.
Prior to the great transfer of wealth upward, average people helped keep the cities vibrant by living and working in them. It doesn’t take an archeologist to figure out what went wrong. Go there and see the shells of empty factories right next to abandoned neighborhoods.
There are complex reasons for this, but most damaging has been the systematic dismantling of the middle class.
No nation can be strong without a fully functioning, accessible middle class.
With globalization and the extreme growth of markets in developing countries, this reality has been ignored. It is ignored because the American middle class is needed less and less as consumers of goods and services. Jobs can be eliminated and wages kept low because support can be found abroad.
A Sept. 17 report by the U.S. Census Bureau says American men who worked full-time in 2012 earned less in real dollars than men in 1973. Yet the GDP in the U.S. has tripled. Where did all that wealth go?
To the top.
Americans speak well of their one revolution but don’t expect another. Even so, revolution is more common today than ever, and the oligarchy should be cautious not to push too far. For the first time in a very long time, average people are noticing that class warfare is being waged against them. Those who work in the exploitive fast food industry are slowly standing up. They are not asking for $1 more, or $2 more; they basically want their salary doubled to $15 an hour.
That’s bold.
Those fighting for a more equal society have adopted a new name for what they seek: social justice.
That’s convincing and unthreatening. Who could be against that? As a result, their influence is growing.
More than people, however, it is raw statistics – overwhelming and indisputable — that are leading the charge. These figures are so dramatic that a director named Jacob Kornbluth, working with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, has made a movie out of them.
It’s called “Inequality for All” and is getting wide notice in the media. It won at Sundance. The people seem ready for it.
In such times, even Forbes magazine feels comfortable pointing out that in 35 states welfare payments are higher than minimum wage.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO
that the $378 million compensation for Apple CEO Tim Cook is equal to the combined salaries of 6,258 Apple employees.
And for the quaint people who still read books, Sasha Abramsky has written, “The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives.” It suggests that inequality is designed for social control and that poverty is a key component of the American system that, ultimately, will destroy democracy.
Meanwhile, in higher education – once a critical component of upward mobility — there is a great deal of hand wringing over declining enrollment. The concern is that colleges and universities are doing something wrong, and that the traditional model no longer works. In truth, there is nothing wrong with the model. What’s wrong is that without a middle class there isn’t much need for colleges.
Many will close.
Unless … the middle class fights back.
Amazingly, the democratic system allows it to do that. Even though the system is rigged with sophisticated gerrymandering and unrealistic requirements for campaign funding, there is still a way to change government.
The normally passive middle class could rise up. They would do so after watching, reading, fuming, sharing horror stories and trying to support children who can’t find jobs.
If they can begin to organize and act with conviction, they won’t even have to work up a sweat. Real revolution is unnecessary. The attentive members of Congress don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. They sway easily. They took care of the middle class and built up the economy after World War II.
They can do it again.
The golden years in America – for the middle class and nearly everyone else – were from about 1945 to 1980. Let’s bring them back. All it takes is for several hundred thousand Twitter fanatics to take to the streets, maybe even with assistance from the very poor (the saddest of all). It will be a movement the media will surely glorify as “The American Spring.”
It need not be messy.
We can call it a revolution without it really being one.
We can get people working again and get the economy moving again. Optimism will flourish again. We can reach out and reach up. We can do it all together.
The wonderful thing is the uncompassionate can do this for purely selfish reasons.
As the king said, what you do to the least of my brothers …
By Lanny Morgnanesi
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