They say there's been a recovery, but most of us haven't
seen it. Our economy is creating more jobs, but they don't match the wages,
benefits and working conditions of the ones we've lost. The stock market is at
a historic high, but its gains seem eerily divorced from how the economy is
actually performing. Unfortunately, it looks like just another speculative
bubble.
More than six years have passed since the financial crisis,
but its effects are still being felt. For most Americans, the economy remains a
grim and frightening place- a source of anxiety, instead of hope.
Working people built America. Now look what has become of
it. We were born into a land of opportunity and broadly shared prosperity. We
will grow old in a very different place.
Beginning in the 1970s, our nation transitioned from an
economy driven by production to one based on consumption. Manufacturing
declined, while the service and financial sectors rose to prominence. This
process has been a disaster for America's working families. We've traded jobs
with living wages that facilitated upward mobility for minimum wage positions
at Walmart or temp work at Amazon. Today, we live paycheck to paycheck, often
only one unforeseen expense or period of unemployment away from financial ruin.
American workers are stuck on an economic treadmill. We're
better educated, work longer hours, and are by some measurers more productive
than past generations, but we can never get ahead. Instead, we have to work
harder every year just to maintain our standards of living. So we run until we
drop, knowing that even if we make it to the end of the race, we won't enjoy
the same retirement security as senior citizens today.
Of course, everyone isn't a loser in our economy. Those at
the very top are doing quite well. Obscene fortunes are being made even as most
Americans are struggling. Our so-called recovery illustrates this point-
corporate profits have surged, but they haven't trickled down. Instead, about
85 percent of America's anemic post-recession income growth has gone to the top
20 percent of wage earners, and the gap between executive and employee
compensation has continued to widen.
We've become a nation where the rich get richer, the indigent
receive a few services, and working people are lashed and ordered to row harder
to keep the country going.
In truth, our economy has become a maw. Broken families,
foreclosed homes, shuttered factories, blighted neighborhoods, and even a
damaged environment, are the detritus left in its wake. Our lives bear its
scars.
Sadly, none of this was inevitable.
Historically, public policy has driven growing inequality
and erected barriers to access and opportunity. This shouldn't surprise us.
Concentrated wealth is synonymous with concentrated power. It is economically
inefficient and, in a democracy, politically dangerous. Today, our government
has been captured by the wealthy and their hordes of hirelings- the apologists
and sycophants that populate the think tanks, media, lobbying firms and public
relations industry. And in a society where money is equated with speech, our
voices are never heard.
Both political parties are implicated in this calamity. With
few exceptions, they serve the same corporate masters and cater to their
interests. They have become nothing more than empty political brands marketed
to credulous consumers. They offer only the illusion of choice.
Politically, we have been defeated and marginalized because
we are divided. In particular, the latent racial prejudices of the white middle
and working classes have been exploited to prevent unified opposition from
cohering. Code words and dog whistles play to their worst instincts, stoking
and amplifying their fears and resentments. They are baited and set against
marginalized minorities and the powerless poor, their anger diverted downward
where it poses no threat to the system.
Division is sown and inequality is reaped.
And in the background, you can hear the one percent
laughing.
Six years ago we hoped, but little has changed. Our decline
continues to follow a clear trajectory. We are the first generation in American
history that will not be as successful as the one before. Our children will
fare even worse. To paraphrase George Orwell, the future is a well-shined
expensive men's dress shoe "stamping on a human face — forever."
However, all is not yet lost. The rich are weaker than we
fear; we are more powerful than we imagine.
We can still take our country back, but only if we stand together.
—Michael Stafford
Michael Stafford is a
recovering Republican turned political independent and the author of “An Upward
Calling.” Michael can be reached at anupwardcalling@yahoo.com.
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