Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Class War and Structural Adjustment

Don't believe America is a very unequal class society? check out this link
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/swa_preview_income_inequality_in_dollars_and_cents/#When:16:12:16Z

Why don't Americans recognize that what is going on is class war? James Kwak gives his account:

Kwak: "Most people think that society is too unequal. Yet at the same time, we have an instinctive dislike for class warfare. If you’re engaged in class warfare against the rich, that must mean you’re poor, and people don’t want to think they’re poor. We like to think we’re not a class society; everyone likes to think they’re middle class; even large proportions of the rich identify themselves as middle class. And we have this belief in social mobility, though in fact we’re less mobile than most European societies. And as a result, we think you should become rich; you shouldn’t attack the rich..."
http://www.thestraddler.com/20106/piece2.php

I think Kwak is correct but this blanket admiration of the wealthy hides the crimes against the rest of the population. Much wealth is generated by exploiting labor, by pillaging government (e.g. corrupted outsourcing) and the poor (e.g., sub-prime), by corrupted securities and bond transactions (e.g., high frequency trading), and by unfairly exploiting other nations' resources (e.g., land grabs in Africa). Not all wealth is generated in these ways but an awful lot of it is!

Unfortunately, our slate of candidates offers little opportunity for legitimate change to our corrupted system. David DeGraw explains what he sees coming and I have to agree with his analysis:

DeGraw: "Most Americans have only a vague understanding of the collapse that we have been set up for. If you think the past two years were bad, they were just a warm up to what is coming our way. After analyzing the policies in place and the current political environment, I can assure you that the next two years will be worse that the previous two. 52 million Americans have already been driven into poverty, 30 million are in need of work, millions of American families have been foreclosed upon and the inequality of wealth is the most severe it has ever been in the history of the United States. And this is just the beginning phase of the decline. Millions more will be added to these totals and the social safety-nets that have held our society together are breaking down. Cuts to vital social programs are going to be severe across the board.

"Our paid-off government is not going to fix our problems, they are making them worse. Don’t you think it’s time for you to start representing yourself? Don’t you think it’s time for you to start defending your family’s interests?"

http://ampedstatus.com/midterm-election-further-demonstrates-need-for-revolution

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