Mine, All Mine!

There is a huge disparity between the classes that not everyone recognizes, and it is worse than most imagine.  In the discussion of class most people think rich, poor, middle, but it's not quite that simple these days.  Pundits and politicians talk about the "Middle Class" making somewhere between 75 and 125k a year.  They talk about the upper class as starting at 250k and speak little more of it.  No one addresses the poor, that doesn't get ratings, no one likes to talk about the poor.  The reality "on the ground" as it were, is the averages are heavily weighted.  These days the American economy is like an NFL contract.  Totally performance based, no security, and workers can and do get fired constantly with no need for explanation.  More and more states are now becoming "right to work" states, meaning "right to fire" to employers.  Jobs that used to have salaries and benefits have turned themselves in to commission based or freelance positions.  The business community will tell you this is the only way they can hire Americans and still be competitive in the global market place.  There has been no movement in the real wages of 95 percent of Americans for 30 years!  That is not to say the standard of living has not changed, it certainly has.  People are able to buy more things, move more units off the shelves, as prices for technology and goods have come down over time.  This placation has kept the American people silent, because for most of us, as long as we can buy a few things at Walmart every couple weeks, we see ourselves as blessed, well-off, or at least doing better than that sorry family in aisle 26.

The reality is that there has never been greater distance between the people and the ownership class (not that they aren't people too).  The reason we are seeing disagreement in Wisconsin is people look at 50k plus benefits as a job they could never get in the private work force.  Our leaders and our news outlets all tell us our country is broke over and over.  We are thankful for the opportunity to work for the 30k that most jobs pay, just so we don't fall into the ranks of the unemployed, where we would be totally forgotten in the abyss of American poverty (about 15 percent of the country, by the way).  What needs to be focused on is the highest levels of our society and the distance they are creating between themselves and the people.  That distance has become unhealthy and one way or the other will be reduced one way or the other if the polarization continues this way.

It is this author's contention that Communism is a bad system of government, and I don't think I will have much of a problem saying that.  Well, the father of the brand, Karl Marx, argued the need for Communism would come about naturally through unbridled Capitalism.  Marx postulated that as companies swallow each other, keep wages low and profits high, and eventually get so big they are supporting an irreplaceable pillar in the economy, the corporations would gradually become the government.  This transition could be made peacefully or through revolt, but eventually there would be a great even-ing out of wealth.  The United States has, for the past 30 years, been allowing corporations to do whatever they like in the name of greater profitability, justified by the theory that as our companies do better, so does our populous.  But we are out of balance.  We are at a point now where the ownership class has to have some fear of being toppled.  It cannot be too much of a jump for the argument to be switched away from teachers and police and onto the people themselves.  Soon enough someone will say, "maybe it's not that they get too much, but instead that the corporation I work for should pay me more and give me better benefits (especially if I have to work 50 weeks a year, 40 plus hours a week)."  I just don't see arguing against public employees as having legs politically. 

Last week Fox told me something interesting--of course my interpretation was different than theirs, but it was their fact.  Whenever Fox has a fact it's global news.  Of the top 10 political contributors in the country, 3 were unions, and they overwhelmingly supported the Democrats.  The other 7 contributors were individuals.  They are all Republicans.  If there was ever a better display of economic disparity, a better gauge of what interests each party holds, there is nothing better than that.  The Democrats, as problematic as they are, use most of their time supporting working people, unions, the poor, minorities, etc.  Basically 99 percent of the country.  The Republicans represent the other side.  Most all their money comes from super rich people who, through manipulation of social issues and easy labels for their theories (ie. trickle-down) are able to convince half the country to vote against their own interests.  Let's be clear about how far "the people" are from that other side.  The average American household makes about 38k a year.  There are about 11,000 families in the US making over $5.5 million a year.  That translates into over 100k a week.  The top 400 income earners took home an average of $89 million last year.  About $243,000 a day.  Translation, the richest people make in a day what the average American makes in 7 years.  Those top end people alone hold over 40 percent of the entire nation's wealth.  Obviously the ownership class will always have more, as well they should.  There must be reward for accomplishment.  That reward, and greed for it, is what drives innovation, entrepreneurship, and is at the core of personal liberty.  However, in order to avoid uprising and to maintain social order, the people need to share in the accomplishment of the country.  Saudi Arabia decides to spread the wealth of the nation by writing a check.  European countries give away health care, have shortened work weeks, extended vacations, and subsidized higher education, among other things.  These benefits are always paid for by the rich, usually through taxes.  The working class is typically left alone.  The price of owning the world is that you have to keep all the ants happy.

Obama now is faced with a difficult situation in Wisconsin.  He has to show he is standing up for unions without opening the door to allowing federal employees to collectively bargain.  He also cannot be seen as interfering with state affairs or the Republicans will paint him as a dictator--hey, he is from Kenya, remember?  Adjusting the tax code to have levels beyond 250k is a decent first step, but does nothing for labor.  What will help labor is to finally put an end to the disgusting money grab that takes place at the top end of corporations at the expense of giving salaries, bonuses, and benefits to employees.  The health care plan was a good first step, but what will make more of a difference is raising the minimum wage.  Without drastic steps heavily weighted toward the working class, we run the risk of falling into chaos.  Oddly, it is through injection of Socialist principles into our Capitalist structure that will protect the country from eventual Communism.