From Economic Apartheid to Political Revolution

by Joel S. Hirschhorn

Americans have always accepted a certain level of economic inequality as the inevitable consequence of an open capitalist society where some people through their own efforts do better than others. The presumption is that there is fairness in the marketplace and economic system. What a quaint, outdated belief. Do most Americans really believe that the game is not rigged by rich powerful elites to preferentially benefit them? As certain as the law of gravity, the game IS rigged, and more than ever.

We have a plutocratic corporate state that now has taken economic inequality to new levels – in fact to what now is a sick and shameful condition of economic apartheid. To a society that increasingly separates Americans into two classes: the wealthy Upper Class and the Lower Class. The Upper Class has protected and gated mansions, private vacation spots and spas, special access shopping venues, private schools, lavish entertainment options, luxurious hospital accommodations, and private jets and stretch limos. The Upper Class does everything possible to PHYSICALLY separate itself from the poor, repugnant and uncouth members of the Lower Class. This physical separation is the hallmark of economic apartheid. The only contact the wealthy have and want with Lower Class people is when the latter serve, protect and pamper them. And of course they expect the hugely larger Lower Class to keep spending and borrowing their way into economic despair and to keep sustaining the two-party mafia. Voting for Democrats and Republicans is as meaningful as voting for American Idol contestants. Nothing more than a self-destructive distraction.

In Las Vegas the truly rich have their private gambling rooms and clubs, and occupy special access suites. In sports stadiums they luxuriate in their glass boxes high above the masses. In the Pacific and Caribbean they have their private island hideaways. On the oceans they travel in self-indulgent yachts. They eat in private rooms in the most expensive restaurants. The biggest entertainment stars come to them in their private social functions. And, yes, they have all the access they want to high government officials in both major parties because they provide them with all the campaign money they need. And hidden from public view they – and only they – have incredible opportunities to invest their riches to easily receive 30 percent annual gains with little taxation. As they get ever richer they find it increasingly difficult to spend all their wealth – but they handle the chore with alacrity. LINK