Increased inequality in America is a hot topic these
days. I wrote some about it in two
previous blogs.
The dialog inevitably includes a discussion about
class, a subject Americans love to avoid.
The word “class” does not align well with equality. After all, Americans rejected a stratified
society when they rebelled from Britain centuries ago. The country was built on
the cornerstone principle of equality.
But, how can you be equal, when someone else has more
or less money, education, power or status than you? That
is the question.
Some Useful
Definitions
The web defines class as “a set, collection, grouping,
or configuration containing members regarded as having certain attributes or
traits in common; a kind of category”.
In other words, a division based on quality, income, rank, or
grade. Whether we like it or not,
America can be sliced and diced in several ways:
· Upper class
– the wealthiest members of our society, who also yield the greatest political
power. Another label for this grouping
is the familiar 1%.
· Middle class – on the upper side, professionals distinguished by high educational
attainment as well as high economic security; and, on the lower side,
semi-professionals with less education, and lower economic means.
· Lower class
– people having the lowest social rank due to low income, lack of education or
skill. In other words, people, who work
for wages, especially low wages, unskilled or semiskilled laborers and their
families.
Low class is also a term used to mean vulgar or crude.
As a result, people avoid using the term as to not offend people. Politicians, in their deft use of politically
correct language, prefer to juxtapose the term working class when referring to the lower class. Socialists and
communists preferred to use laboring
class or proletariat. Karl Marx used
the terms synonymously to include all those who expand either mental or
physical effort to produce economic value for those who own the means of
production.
I have always believed that working class, as used by
politicians, is misleading. I know many
folks in all three main classes who work.
Those who inherit wealth or the aristocracy, in my view, do not fit the working class definition.
Increased
Inequality
It is no secret that the middle and lower classes have
not grown economically as well as the upper class. The rich have gotten richer, and the poor
poorer, some say. There are many reasons
for this problem:
· The loss of high paying jobs to outsourcing.
· The decline of the manufacturing sector.
· The erosion of our advantage in several sectors.
· Inadequate education and skill building.
· Ill-devised governmental policies and practices.
· Rising unemployment and falling employability rates.
· The breakdown of the traditional family unit.
The Medicine?
While it is deplorable to see this inequality persist
or grow, it is foolhardy to blame the upper class for the misery of the lower
classes. Politicians would have us
believe that increasing taxes on the upper class somehow would solve the
problem.
Instead, it might be a better approach to help the
middle and lower classes do better in the years to come by fostering policies that
educate more and better, by helping small and middle level employers grow and
prosper, and by promoting more freedom and self-reliance.
Nobody likes pigeonholing, especially, as it relates
to social and economic mobility. We need
more social and economic fluidity, not less.
Your thoughts?
