So gimme money (That's what I want)
The debate over whether to let Wal-Mart go ahead with its Chico expansion plans comes at a time when America seems to be stepping back a little and taking a look at its latest fling with unbridled capitalism, which has gone on for almost 30 years.
Signs of a retrenchment from laissez-faire economics include the growing support for raising the minimum wage, a stronger interest in reforming the health care system and an increasing disenchantment with Wal-Mart.
This is strong stuff coming from a country that reveres the rich and hopes to join their ranks. We’re so pleased to see Sam Walton’s heirs enjoying their God-given right to roll around in their dough that until recently all we’ve expected from Wal-Mart in return is low prices. But that’s changing. Some of us would like the biggest retailer in the world to show that it can become a better corporate citizen.
These modest calls for reform are about as close as this country is going to get to class warfare — or at least the kind that might be directed against the rich. In America, we use the poor as our scapegoat.
That’s how it is when you live in a democratic oligarchy — or is it oligarchic democracy? We consistently cast our ballots for a system that keeps the wealthy elite in power. Any movement to adress the growing gap between the rich and the poor has to contend with this fact of life.
We’re OK supporting a system that has allowed the rich — the top one-half of 1 percent of the population — to control 25 percent of the wealth and has made it possible for the upper middle class — the 20 percent of the country that falls just short of being rich — to control another 55 percent. That leaves the other 79.5 percent of Americans struggling to get by on the remaining 20 percent. What a country.
“What’s the Matter With Kansas?” a fascinating book by Thomas Frank, attempts to explain the perverse tendency of many members of this struggling 79.5 percent to vote against their own economic interests and keep the money flowing into the hands of the wealthy.
The last major referendum on free-wheeling capitalism was prompted by the Great Depression, which knocked this country off its feet. It led the programs of the New Deal and later the Great Society, which made some attempt to redistribute the nation’s wealth.
But I don’t see any economic catastrophes coming up that will shake up our beliefs. The only way we’ll ever get significant reforms is by tempering our greed and acquisitiveness and getting over our infatuation with being rich.
Even as I wrote that last sentence I was overcome by how foolish it sounded. Idealistic as I am, I can’t envision an America that isn’t based on the worship of money.