Inequality

In America today, the richest 1% hold about 38% of all privately held wealth, while the bottom 90% hold 73% of all debt.   And over the last thirty years, this same richest 1% increased their personal income by 176%, compared to 6% for the poorest people in America.

Alan Greenspan, perhaps the greatest friend of the banking class since Alexander Hamilton, once remarked that the growing inequality between America’s rich and poor was a “very disturbing trend” that a democratic society could not “really accept without addressing.”  Yet it is this very trend — the hoarding of wealth by a small elite at the expense of the many — that remains the most unaddressed problem in contemporary American society.

Indeed, it is this problem that is the very root of so many other problems facing Americans today.  For example, the problem of health care is a problem of wealth and resource inequality.  A small group of insurance companies and insurance executives make tremendous amounts of money based on the current system; and they have used those resources to prevent meaningful reform.  This, at heart, is a problem of inequality.

The problem of America’s perpetual wars is a problem of wealth and resource inequality.  A small group of military companies and military executives make tremendous amounts of money based on America’s need for enemies and its propensity to bomb and occupy small countries around the world.  These companies and executives, in turn, use their resources to prevent peaceful solutions to conflict and stoke the flames of militarism.  This, at heart, is a problem of inequality.

The problem of America’s flailing economy is a problem of wealth and resource inequality.  A small group of banks and banking executives make tremendous amounts of money based on an economic system that inflates the value of stocks and perpetuates dangerous economic bubbles that become nothing more than sordid pits of speculating.  And as every American has witnessed over the last year, these banks and the bankers who run them use their resources and power to ensure that hundreds of billions of dollars are used to prop up this corrupt system, even when it appeared ready and eager to fall apart.  This, at heart, is a problem of inequality.

America is so rich and so wealthy that it is able to create a society whereby the richest 1% of society live a lifestyle that would have been the envy of any Caesar or any Khan, and still leave enough wealth for everyone else to live a life of relative affluence.  Even a relatively poor family may have a car and a television and a refrigerator — all items that are luxuries for the vast majority of other people on this planet.

But now that the rich have become so rich, they have been able to change laws so maintain that wealth at the expense of society.  And they have also waged a stunningly successful campaign to convince the other 99% of Americans that it is in everyone’s best interest to protect this super-class of wealthy individuals.  Americans today are blinded by the fantasy that perhaps they, too, will have a chance of becoming a multi-millionaire, and thus support policies that let the rich become richer and the poor become poorer.  Anyone who disagrees with this fantasy is labeled a “socialist” or a “communist”, labels which the ignorant latch onto in defense of a system which oppresses them.  There is nothing more pathetic then a slave defending his slavery — yet there are many Americans today who do just that.

At some point, fantasy will hit reality.  And the reality is that everyone today in America works much harder for the little they already have; and, as has been the trend for the last 30 years, they will continue to work harder for less over the coming decades.  The reality is that the triumph of corporate capitalism has created a new feudal system whereby the rich elites — the lords — use their corporate estates to create a society where wage slaves are forced to work long hours for access to money and health care.

Hard work is a wonderful thing, but hard work for the benefit of another is the very definition of slavery.   It is shameful that far from attacking this slavery, Americans celebrate it by agreeing with their corporate masters that greed is good, that bankers know best, and that the rich should be free from taxes. How long until such inequality is addressed?  How long until people decide that a more just distribution of economic resources is necessary, appropriate, and healthy for a democratic society?

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 9:33 am and is filed under Content, Imperial Decline, Structure and System and tagged with america, consumerism, decline, equality, peasant mentality, rich versus poor, slavery, struggle, the economy, wave slavery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.