Now see, this is the reason I blog, so that someone else will take the ball and run with it.
Yesterday I posted a rather flip comparison using the latest global wealth inequality figures and a letter to the WSJ. but Belledame took those figures, broke them down, and extended her research to show how those global inequities are actually mirrored in the US and how, despite the continued mass delusion of belief in the Americam Dream, it’s no accident that the American rich keep getting richer and the poor, poorer.
And that ‘poor’ means you. What? You didn’t really think you were middle-class did you? Do you own your own means of production? No? Could you survive independently beyond maybe one or two last paychecks? No? That fat pension fund you’re were relying on, is it invested in the markets? Then it could disappear tomorrow: you’re working class just like the rest of us. Deal with it.
So many are in denial of this reality though. As Belledame says:
I’ll be honest. I had a bunch of reasons for not tackling this shit before; dunno if they’re the same as y’all’s or not. Well, one, I suppose relatively speaking I am comfortable enough to sort-of pretend this isn’t actually happening (although denial works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it); certainly more so if you factor in my family background, who by now i expect is in, oh, i don’t know what percentile, but i suspect it’s up there. Not in the supra-wealthy micro-fraction percentile, no, but…and especially globally…so.
And, gender stereotypes or not, I’ve always had issues with numbers, personally. I wasn’t kidding: math and anything related literally gives me nightmares. (I dread my upcoming statistics class).
And let’s face it: this shit’s boring compared to, oh I don’t know, blowjobs.
And yet.
Somehow, you know, call it a hunch; i have the feeling that even if I, we, most, all? of us? don’t start concerning ourselves with this shit pretty soon?
It’s gonna concern itself with us.
Well yes, it is going to. It’s inescapable. Create an unsustainable global economic system and everyone suffers whenit all goes pear-shaped.
As a long time Euroweenie socialist these sorts of glaring inequalities are not news: they are the reason for our huge protests at every G8 summit. So I posted the link rather glibly assuming it was recieved wisdom.
From a European perspective it does sometimes seem as though America is living in its own self-created bubble and doesn’t see or even want to see the self-created potential wave of global misery headed its way and which according to your figures, is already lapping at American feet.
Schadenfreude, though tempting, is pointless at this late stage because we’re all affected by this new reality of resource wars, declining quality of life and a fucked-up planet. On the streets of Amsterdam you can see people from all over the world who’ve had to flee to safety for whatever reason, economic, climatic or political, from their home countries, largely as a result of the rampages of international capitalism and the arms trade.
And every day drowned young Africans wash up on the shores of Italy and Spain, or Eastern Europeans and Asians asphyxiated in containers at Dover or Calais, desperate to get away from grinding poverty and warfare. So far the US has been insulated from many of the worst effects of global capitalism like these, but not for much longer.
If not for posts like Belledame’s about the way the current economic model affects Americans personally they’d never know it’s happening till it’s too late. Is there any reporting of this on US TV? I certainly haven’t seen it on Fox or CNN.
Americans’d be surprised at the goodwill that’s still out there though: we still don’t hate Americans per se, despite Iraq, despite everything – we know you’re just like us. Mostly. We just loathe what the guzzling juggernaut that your nation has become is doing and the way it’s driving the rest of the world into poverty to fuel its own temporary comfort and prosperity and its insane competition with China and India.
BTW, I’m British, and Britain is as prime an offender as the US. Our government talks about tackling global poverty, but Brown & Blair’s Britain’s right in there hoovering up capitalism’s crumbs, making money from moving all the money around, all the while applying free-market US business models to public services like the NHS and water supplies and being one of the biggest arms traders on the planet. Oh, and don’t get me started on the GATT agreements…
We’re also completely exasperated by US media and governments’ refusal to see the looming danger – even when the facts and figures are staring them in the face – because it doesn’t fit the mythical national narrative they’ve constructed, of ever expanding profits, military glory and boundless influence.
Unfortunately for that narrative and those who still beleive in it, so far history is heading exactly in the way Marx predicted.
How angry are the American people going to be when they realise this and that they’ve been had? Will they even realise it? And if they do how will that angry realisation manifest itself, if at all? I think all bets are off on what happens in US and consequently global, politics in the next 5 years. Events are moving so fast now any prediction is contingent and the rollercoaster is accelerating.
Is socialism the answer to such gross inequalities? Revolution? What? Is it too late already? I don’t bloody know, I’m just a blogger. At least some of us are attempting to create some equity even if it’s only by making the current obscene situation better known.
But whatever your politics, surely our common humanity says that such massive inequalities as these are totally unjust, unsustainable and something has to give globally, and soon.
Read more: Global inequality, Capitalism, Anticapitalism, Marxism, US
