MB Civic

Reading Jim Webb’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, all I can say is, if this
is “conservative Democratic policy” let’s have some more!!!

Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.

BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The most important–and unfortunately the least debated–issue in
politics today is our society’s steady drift toward a class-based
system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century.
America’s top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the
past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in
a different country. Few among them send their children to public
schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own
most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of
the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an
astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes
protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast
system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for
chief executives and others that are out of logic’s range. As this
newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes
more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts
to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade.
When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20
times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as
much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground
labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is
seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics
didn’t happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market,
wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national
wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six
years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners’ pockets
rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical
insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have
collapsed in the wake of corporate “reorganization.” And workers’
ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin
threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their
jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its
beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering
on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the
recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from
some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A
troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation’s most fortunate.
Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the
inevitable byproducts of the “rough road of capitalism.” Others claim
that it’s the fault of the worker or the public education system, that
the average American is simply not up to the international challenge,
that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become
spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.

Still others have gone so far as to argue that these divisions are the
natural results of a competitive society. Furthermore, an unspoken
insinuation seems to be inundating our national debate: Certain
immigrant groups have the “right genetics” and thus are natural entrants
to the “overclass,” while others, as well as those who come from stock
that has been here for 200 years and have not made it to the top, simply
don’t possess the necessary attributes.

Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for
everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society
are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for
the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to
bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand
this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

America’s elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own
self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that
globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other “First
World” nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the
blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing
and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that “unless a solution
is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a
serious risk of a protectionist backlash” in America that would take us
away from what they view to be the “biggest economic stimulus in world
history.”

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of
opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to
bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers
have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand
that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have
dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more
accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their
interests. The “Wal-Marting” of cheap consumer products brought in from
places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage
refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance
point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our
national interest.

The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide
the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the
deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been
repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the
predictable mantra of “God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag” while
their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this
election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government
leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to
succeed.
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential
election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways
that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important
for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their
concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to
confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.
________________________________