Extreme Wealth Corrodes Democracy

The United States was, for a short time, a democracy, if only of white male property owners--much like early Athens. Counterrevolution began with the Constitutional Convention.

Democratic forces were predominant in other eras in the US, but they didn't last. There was the Democracy of Andrew Jackson and brash new western men. There was the early radical Republicanism of the Civil War. There was the Progressive era: the overweening power of the trusts was busted, at least temporarily. There was the New Deal, extending through the Great Society, in which government made it its business to extend equality and its benefits.

But each democratic era has been followed by a period of reaction and hardening elite rule. However, up until now, America has always had an upwardly mobile society: the son of the worker, farmer, or clerk becoming the new rich. And always before, the elite made way for them, even if they hated "upstarts" and "new money."

Today, class mobility in America is lower than in class-bound Britain; American society is becoming rigid and stratified--though no one will admit they are anything but "middle class." The difference between the new financial wealthy and everyone else has never been greater; CEO's are paid 100's or 1000+ times more than their workers, a greater margin of difference than other developed nations. Inequality increased even more rapidly after the so-called Great Recession and subsequent "recovery" under Obama's leadership. More than 90% of the gains since 2009 have gone into the pockets of the extremely wealthy, while unemployment hovers around an official 7.8% and is nearly twice that when counting workers who have given up looking for work.

The intransigence of conservative Republicans is not surprising, nor the timidity of Democrats: they both reflect the changing balance of power in the US. Unions have declined to single digits of the private sector workforce, and Republicans have sharpened their knives to eliminate the power of public sector unions, as well.

Meanwhile, state legislatures and Congress promote austerity, and cut programs benefiting the less affluent, while attempting to lower taxes and eliminate regulations that irritate the resurgent wealthy.

Why not? Politicians easily accumulate wealth from their connections. Anyone in government, even idealistic Obama staff, can legally line his/her nest by cooperating with the moneyed, our Roman Senators. None live in ghettos, or working-class neighborhoods. None see or hear the people who are hurt by the wealthy bias in media and politics.

And the media, largely owned by our Roman Senators, naturally reflects their bias; so even the poor tend to accept the agenda of the wealthy, insisting that austerity is necessary and even Social Security benefits must be cut.

This isn't just the swing of the pendulum; this smells like "takeover" by the very wealthy, like the Roman Senators' monopoly of power in Fifth Century Rome--before its fall.

The US a Slum for the World's Wealthy

"…we're where Europe comes to slum--in the low-wage factories of the South and the run-down houses of South Los Angeles." LA Times editorial, 5/15/2011

It wasn't always this way. The United States, after World War II, modeled high wage, highly skilled union workers, producing goods for the world, and living well while doing so.

When the US occupied Germany and Japan after World War II, our government exported the highly unionized American model. Part of our rationale was that unions would foster democracy, thereby combating Japanese fascism and German Nazism. Unions would also improve lives, giving them a stake in postwar governments. Today, Germany runs a trade surplus: Germans earn high wages, work shorter hours, have long vacations and are relatively highly unionized (27% vs 9.6% in the US private sector).

And the US? Wages have at best stayed where they were in the early 1970's, while productivity has doubled. Work hours are longer in the US, and vacations get shorter. Meanwhile, our buying power erodes, and we have the priciest, least effective health care system among developed nations. Further, there are US states where unions are so scarce and so scared (like North Carolina: 3.2%) that workers effectively compete with the Chinese for lowest cost manufacturing sites. High unemployment drives down costs further.

The US competes with China for low cost work, while running huge deficits and cutting benefits. China has the largest surplus, but Germany sells high wage goods, and has the second largest surplus in the world; it even keeps its social democratic benefits largely intact under a "conservative" government!

Whether Germany will continue to do so well as union membership declines, is an open question, but greater union clout still makes a political difference. German firms setting up shop in the US, however, (mostly in the South) keep unions out and enforce work conditions unthinkable in Germany. Also, in the US, Deutsche Bank perpetrated mortgage rip-offs it could never have gotten away with in Germany.

All the American talk of cutting deficits and debts is a diversion. We're a mine of money for predatory capitalists the world over; we're also the center of predatory capital on Wall Street.

In the past 30 years, the US has almost done away with its New Deal legacy; coincidentally, unions have been losing ground since Reagan and regulations were stripped from financial institutions--freeing them to fail so spectacularly in 2007-8.

And who pays? Not the banks, not large corporations: everyone else, but especially our children and anyone dependent on government services: ultimately, anyone who is not wealthy.

America is so like Rome before its fall, when Senators governed in their own interests. They drove the peasants and middle class into serfdom, and monopolized the empire's wealth, laying it open to collapse, and, ironically in retrospect, to piecemeal takeover by Germanic invaders.

It's War on Democrats, Er, Unions

Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey: where next will the anti-union campaigns erupt? They are sponsored by radical, not "Tea Party," pro-corporate Republicans.

Wisconsin demonstrates that they're trampling on dangerous ground. In each state, the basic strategy is the same: we're in fiscal crisis so public employee unions must be defanged. It doesn't matter if the unions cave on the financial demands--they already have in Wisconsin--they still have to become, in effect, not unions: they are to be denied collective bargaining rights.

As a former member of the National Writers Union, I can attest: a union without collective bargaining rights doesn't make headway as a union. A perennial bill to gain those rights for freelancers has never made it out of Congressional Committee. .

Scott Walker exempts police and firemen, saying: they're public safety officers. But the exemption is political: they supported his election. However, even those exempted union members are visibly supporting the protest in Madison. They know what's at stake: their rights in the workplace.

Not long ago Americans were polled about whether they'd join a union at work, if they could: a clear majority said they would. Yet, because of the anti-union subversion and propaganda by business and business associations, private union employment has declined from a post WWII high of nearly one-third of the labor force, to about 8%. Only public employee unions have gained workers, the largest component of union labor, today. Public Employee unions, Rachel Maddow pointed out, are overwhelmingly supportive of Democrats, providing organization, money and numbers.

Is it any wonder that Republicans have painted a great big target on their backs?

In the South, very few private sector workers are unionized, because the states are "right to work," in which union membership is voluntary when you get a job at a union shop. So, why pay dues? Scott Walker's ploy is the first act in bringing "right to work" and no collective bargaining to as many states as possible.

In Indiana, Republicans are proposing to prohibit collective bargaining in construction, as well as taking away rights for public employees. If they can get away with that, pretty soon, unions will have about as much power as the official unions in China! That may be the point: make American labor "competitive" with the Chinese, with corporations in control.

This is why the protests in Wisconsin are so important, and why protests in Indiana, Ohio and New Jersey may soon erupt: Republicans are determined to get their way. They've found a means to please their funders--ranging from billionaires like Koch, to small businesses--while cutting Democrats off at the knees.

Re unions, Scott Walker is as imperious as a Roman Senator towards his slaves, or Qaddafi facing opposition. He will brook no quarter. Workers shouldn't either.