The Real Success of Occupy Wall Street

A recent report by the Pew Research Center found that 2/3s of Americans now believe that there are real conflicts between the rich and poor in this country (click on chart for larger image) and that such economic conflict now represents the greatest source of tension in the United States.

What struck me when I read about this report in the New York Times was that majorities in every demographic group that was polled--young and old, black and white, rich and poor, educated and uneducated--clearly think that the kind of economic inequality that we have in the United States represents a serious problem. Even 55% of conservatives believe this to be the case.

The report, I believe, shows that Occupy Wall Street protests last fall clearly have changed the political discourse in this country in ways that are extremely positive for a progressive agenda. In this sense, even if Occupy Wall Street disappears completely from the political landscape in this country, the movement has already succeeded in focusing public attention on its central issue--income inequality in the United States. And, even more importantly, it has succeeded in getting just about everyone to recognize that this kind of inequality represents a serious problem for the long-term viability of our country.

The real question now is: what comes next? Public opinion on the issue of income inequality had shifted but won't mean anything if this doesn't translate into some kind of concrete legislative agenda that restores the economic balance in this country into something more favorable for working American families.

Fortunately, President Obama, who in the past has proven willing to sell out the interests of the poor and middle class in this country to appease conservatives in Congress, seems to have finally realized that a little old fashioned class warfare of the type employed by Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt might actually prove to be good politics right now. He also appears to understand that Americans want to see their President fight on their behalf rather than constantly working in the interests of multinational corporations and banks.

I don't image that anyone as testicularly challenged as Barack Obama can remain in populist mode very long. It's just not in his temperament, I'm afraid, to rail against the "malefactors of great wealth." But, if he does manage to squeak out a victory this fall, he will owe his success almost completely to the hard work of Occupy Wall Street activists.

The Myth of American Exceptionalism

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The right wing in this country constantly extols the idea of American exceptionalism. If we stand apart from other developed countries, however, recent data seems to indicate that this may have more to do with our own country's social and economic backwardness than any kind of legitimate exceptionalism about which to feel proud.

I've written in the past about my own experiences living in Europe, where the harsh edges of capitalism are smoothed down just a bit by the communitarian ethos of many European countries. In Belgium, where I had the honor to study, just about everyone has a decent paying job with excellent benefits and ample vacation time, high quality education is provided through the graduate level for those that qualify, and health care, of course, is universal. People in a place like Belgium may not be able to earn quite as much as their American counterparts, but a progressive approach to taxation ensures that every one's basic needs are met, while still allowing for adequate social mobility.

When I was teaching political theory at Rangsit University in Bangkok in 2003, I was always surprised to find the students in my class talking about the U.S. as though it was some kind of paradise. The students I taught came from all over Asia, but the one thing they all had in common was their unshakable belief in the sublime perfection of the American way of life. To put things into perspective, I had them look up data on crime, education levels, access to health care, infant mortality, and overall happiness in the U.S. and other nations. And much to their surprise--though not mine own--the U.S. actually ranked fairly poorly in all these categories.

I made the case then--with these students who would one day become part of the elite in their own countries--that if they really needed a model for development, they should probably look to Scandinavian countries, which outranked the U.S. in every category that matters except one--income inequality. In this category, at least, the United States truly was #1. The tremendous disparities of wealth that existed in this country back then, in fact, made places like Saudi Arabia and Mexico look positively egalitarian by comparison.

The recent data that has come out, if anything, shows that the U.S. has fallen even further behind other developed nations than when I had raised this issue eight years ago with my students in Thailand. A new report entitled "Social Justice in the OECD--How Do Nation Member States Compare" puts our continued decline relative to other developed nations into stark perspective, and should make anyone who cares about the future of the United States wake up and take notice.

Fortunately, for those of us who become mind-numb reading socio-economic reports, Charles Blow of the New York Times, has put the information that came out of the German study into a format that even someone as data-challenged as myself can understand.

As you can see from this chart above, the U.S. now ranks towards the bottom of developed nations in terms of its poverty rate, education rates, and health rates. Once again, however, we continue to lead the pack in terms of income inequality.

Whenever I hear right-wing pundits brag about the U.S. being the greatest country on earth, I always want to ask, "yes, but for whom?" If you're in the top 1% economically in this country, then this is probably a perfectly swell place to live (assuming you have no soul or conscience, that is). For the bottom 99%, however, the United States is increasingly becoming something very much like the banana republics of old, where the majority to survive were forced to serve the needs of the ruling elite, catering to their every whim.

That's not the kind of country that I want to live in, and I don't think it's the kind of country most Americans want to live in either.

So the next time some reactionary jackass starts claiming that the U.S. is #1, you can certainly agree with him. We're fatter, dumber, sicker, and poorer than just about any other developed country in the world...and damn proud of it too!

Income Inequality: Why We Should Care

Some of my colleagues on the faculty think that my emphasis on income inequality as one of the biggest problems in the country today is misguided. One of my thoughtful friends from the Business Department, for example, while acknowledging that income inequality is "a problem and an issue," disputes the idea that this inequality is "the key driver of what ails the US economy."

I also heard supporters of Wall Street argue that the fact that the top 10% of the population is doing so well is a sign that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing as good capitalists--generating wealth. And that wealth, they argue, will eventually be put to good use, expanding business and creating jobs once there is a climate of greater economic certainty in the country (i.e., once Obama is driven out of office).

I've argued that the very inability of business people to understand the anxieties that Americans are experiencing is what is fueling the kinds of protests that we are seeing going on all around the country. And since (as the above graph clearly indicates) the richest Americans are getting richer at the expense of the average worker, these protests are only likely to get more extreme in the future as the middle class is forced to suffer with years of potential stagnation.

What we are experiencing, in fact, is a new Gilded Age--one in which the wealthiest Americans control more wealth, power, and political influence than they have almost at any other point in American history. Recent data clearly indicates that the wealthiest Americans now control almost exactly the same percentage of the nation's total income as they did at the beginning of the Great Depression. Income inequality in itself is not necessarily a problem. But the kind of radical inequality that we have now means that those with excessive wealth are able to buy elected officials of their own liking and lobby to weaken financial regulations and environmental protections (as they are currently doing). It means that we no longer have a government "by the people, for the people, and of the people"--a true democracy in other words--but a corporatocracy--rule by corporate interests for their own benefit.

This is not simply a "problem and an issue." It's a catastrophe for our democratic institutions.

During the Great Depression, it took someone like Franklin Roosevelt to save American capitalism from it's own excesses, greed, and shortsightedness. The rich didn't appreciate him for the financial regulations he put in place as part of the New Deal, but, in fact, Roosevelt was probably the greatest friend American capitalism had at the time. By moderating the excesses of capitalism, one could argue, Roosevelt gave us 40 years of economic growth that benefited business owners and workers alike.

Unfortunately, we have no Franklin Roosevelt on the public stage today. Republicans want to roll back all economic regulations and destroy the few government programs that still exist to protect the average American, and Democrats are too timid and corrupt to ever propose truly progressive legislation like we had during the New Deal or Johnson's Great Society.

So until the next FDR comes along, we probably have to resign ourselves to years of economic instability and hardship for the poor and middle class. But we certainly shouldn't expect those who are suffering most simply to disappear. There will be many more protests ahead of us, and these protests may in fact turn violent, as they already have in Europe.

That, unfortunately, is simply the price we will have to pay for our moral, political, and economic blindness. Consider it karma worked out on a societal level. In the end, we will most certainly reap what we have sown economically.

...and I'd hate to be working on Wall Street when that happens!