How do you know that economic inequality is no where near a significant political issue driving class warfare in the good old USA? When there is rampant positive news coverage of the new Forbes list of the 400 richest American citizens. No one seems angry that for the first time all 400 are billionaires. The obscene wealth and the growth in it do not motivate loud calls for a wealth tax. In the streets of America there are no mobs of unemployed and low-paid workers demanding government action and economic justice.
I wish some group would do a national poll of ordinary – non-wealthy – Americans to determine public opinion about this thin slice of the Upper-Upper Class. What are reactions to this news?
Do Americans feel PRIDE that the economic system has enabled these billionaires to accumulate such massive wealth?
Do they feel JOY because this news gives them HOPE that they too can become super-wealthy?
Do they heap PRAISE on Bush economic policies that have helped make more millionaires billionaires?
Are they PROUD that these billionaires have paid relatively little taxes to support the government that has helped make them super-rich?
Do they AGREE with Forbes that "the creation of wealth" "builds up the human spirit. It strengthens the national fiber."
Do Americans feel SADNESS for the many, many millionaires who did not make the list?
Do they believe that our economic system is FAIR because 261 on the list are self-made billionaires?
Are they ANGRY that the price of a natural Russian sable coat at Bloomingdale's rose 19 percent to $190,000 in 2006 and that a week at the Golden Door spa rose 11 percent to $7,500?
The biggest question of all for me is this: When will all the people who see themselves as politically active, political dissenters and "progressives" conclude that there will be no necessary political reforms until massive numbers of working- and middle-class Americans rise up in economic rebellion, ready to do battle against rising economic inequality?
Or, do even "progressives" agree with the CATO Institute that "class warfare is fundamentally un-American. It is subversive to the honored American ideal that success and reward in this nation are interlinked."
SO, WHAT KINDS OF REACTIONS HAVE YOU HAD UPON HEARING THE NEWEST INFORMATION ABOUT THE FORBES 400? LET'S HEAR FROM YOU.
www.delusionaldemocracy.com
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government (www.delusionaldemocracy.com). His current political writings have been greatly influenced by working as a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress and for the National Governors Association. He advocates a Second American Revolution, beginning with an Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments. He is Chair of the Independent Party of Maryland.
To even talk of economic disparities provokes outrages. Meanwhile, no one seems outraged when John Stossel and others promote greed as good and as the the factor which made America great. Many Americans do not care that the great dream of financial freedom has now become the winning the lottery dream.
by
Richard Mathis (130 articles, 108 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 120 comments)
on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 2:32:49 PM
You can rest assured that those of us in my economic strata are furious that there is such a disparity between the richest and the working classes. Just this week I posted on my blog a simple plea for donations to an elementary school in Idaho. Why is it that the Gates Foundation is willing to funnel millions into Africa and I have to plead for money for a little American school? We don't need MORE people on this planet, when we can't take care of the ones we already have.
by
webduck (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, September 23, 2006 at 7:31:22 PM
"In the streets of America there are no mobs of unemployed and low-paid workers demanding government action and economic justice."
- No, perhaps not, at the moment. But pretty soon there are going to be, and mostly due to the activities of some of those 400 billionaires.
Then you might find more than a little resentment, particularly when the poor realise that they have been impoverished intentionally by the deliberate ruination of the economy in order to make them more controllable by their poverty.
That is why GW amd his cronies are so wilfully spending and getting everyone else to borrow so profligately, so the great dumb public will lose their homes and their freedom to do what they think right rather than do what they are told.
And the deeply indebted country will lose its freedom to do what it knows is right, rather than any other evil that its creditors want. - Which is only what America is already doing nationally today, eh?
Think about it.
Think who is doing it.
Then act.
by
amazin (34 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 400 comments)
on Sunday, September 24, 2006 at 3:48:02 AM
I was thinking when I read this article that I might try to sort of answer some of the proposed 'poll' questions you posited:
Q-Do Americans feel PRIDE that the economic system has enabled these billionaires to accumulate such massive wealth? A-
A- few, yes. None who have any real idea what is involved in the accumulation of this kind of wealth.
Q- Do they heap PRAISE on Bush economic policies that have helped make more millionaires billionaires?
A- I would hazard a guess to say "No" unless perhaps they happen to be one of the 400.
Q- Are they PROUD that these billionaires have paid relatively little taxes to support the government that has helped make them super-rich?
A- I am quite certain this question was rhetorical! Only an idiot with G W Bush's IQ would be proud that the working men and women pay all the taxes for the super-rich!
Q- Do they AGREE with Forbes that "the creation of wealth" "builds up the human spirit. It strengthens the national fiber."
A- Many would agree. I do not! The creation of wealth of the kind Forbes was describing builds up avarice and damages the national fiber by the disparity between those who create the wealth by working and those who receive the wealth by working as a CEO or as a stockholder/investor.
Q- Do Americans feel SADNESS for the many, many millionaires who did not make the list?
A- Surely you jest!
Q- Do they believe that our economic system is FAIR because 261 on the list are self-made billionaires?
A- Once again, some would, especially the CEO's and stockholders/investors who receive the wealth. The working person who actually creates the wealth would most likely not be fooled into saying that our system was fair just because 261 people were cunning enough to quit working and live off wealth created by others.
Q- Are they ANGRY that the price of a natural Russian sable coat at Bloomingdale's rose 19 percent to $190,000 in 2006 and that a week at the Golden Door spa rose 11 percent to $7,500?
A- I, and they, would certainly say why should I care what these items cost the uber-rich who buy them!
You know why you don't you see more people loudly demanding massive numbers of working- and middle-class Americans rising up in economic rebellion, ready to do battle against rising economic inequality?
The answer goes something like this:
In Steinbeck's great novel of the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad is talking to others in the same 'boat' financially with him and his family about the injustice and disparity of pay received for their hard work. Tom Joad says:
"...tonight we had meat, it wasn't much, but we had it, and my Pa isn't giving up his meat..."
The modern American equivalent is just as real. Americans who are getting their "meat" are not too concerned about those who aren't getting any.
Americans are world-famous for being self-centered and competitive. This serves to help prevent unified action to effect change in the enormously unfair system that produces 400 billionaires while others have little food, no home, no work and no health care etc.
In short, the 'I've got mine and I'm not giving any of it up' way of viewing life is the culprit here.
Sincerely yours,
Michael Weaver-Robbins
by
Michael Weaver-Robbins (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 30 comments)
on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at 6:14:02 AM
4 comments
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