On September 20, 2013, Edward McClelland writes on AlterNet.org:
When I was growing up, it was assumed that America’s shared prosperity was the natural endpoint of our economy’s development, that capitalism had produced the workers paradise to which Communism unsuccessfully aspired. Now, with the perspective of 40 years, it’s obvious that the nonstop economic expansion that lasted from the end of World War II to the Arab oil embargo of 1973 was a historical fluke, made possible by the fact that the United States was the only country to emerge from that war with its industrial capacity intact. Unfortunately, the middle class – especially the blue-collar middle class – is also starting to look like a fluke, an interlude between Gilded Ages that more closely reflects the way most societies structure themselves economically. For the majority of human history – and in the majority of countries today – there have been only two classes: aristocracy and peasantry. It’s an order in which the many toil for subsistence wages to provide luxuries for the few. Twentieth century America temporarily escaped this stratification, but now, as statistics on economic inequality demonstrate, we’re slipping back in that direction. Between 1970 and today, the share of the nation’s income that went to the middle class – households earning two-thirds to double the national median – fell from 62 percent to 45 percent. Last year, the wealthiest 1 percent took in 19 percent of America’s income – their highest share since 1928. It’s as though the New Deal and the modern labor movement never happened.
The natural economic order DOES NOT HAVE TO BE INEQUALITY, but our government must provide EQUALITY of opportunity so that EVERY American can be productive through his or her contribution of OWNED wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital assets, which is exponentially replacing the need for labor workers. The system needs to be reformed by policies that provide opportunities for ordinary Americans, without savings or high incomes, to acquire shares of ownership in FUTURE productive capital assets and pay for their acquisition with the earnings of the investments. Broadening ownership is the ONLY way to ensure prosperity for EVERY American while protecting the private property rights of those who own. It is the ONLY way to counter the job destroying and worth devaluation of labor due to tectonic shifts in the technologies of production.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm. See the full Act at http://cesj.org/homestead/strategies/national/cha-full.pdf
