This week’s View from Rattlesnake Ridge Column at InDepthNH
Believe it or not, 1973 was the last year that wages for the Middle Class and the Precariat rose in response to increasing productivity. Since that time wages for both have stagnated while the real income of the top 1% has risen dramatically.
This growing income gap is the greatest threat to our democracy and our most important challenge as a Republic. Furthermore it is a virtual iceberg of sadness, rage and division within our society. Where most of the danger lies beneath the surface of the water. One need only observe that the margin of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 elections can be found in the number of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 – desperately seeking hope – and then having found that still no one seemed to be listening – they voted to burn the system down by switching to Donald Trump.
This collapse and the growing disparity of income in America represents a grave and existential danger to our Republic. The stability of a democracy is built on the strength of its middle class and the belief that even those in the Precariat can aspire to moving up … the belief that if you work hard and play by the rules that every American has the opportunity to succeed. When people begin to lose faith in this the Republic is in peril.
Equally as important, though rarely observed, this disparity represents a nearly complete denial of what has contributed to an American economy that is second to no other in humanity’s history. The Gross Domestic Product of our nation is a complex synthesis of recent success and hard won achievement built over more than 500 years of history.
No comments:
Post a Comment