TALKIN' ABOUT A
REVOLUTION
THE GAP
By
Deirdre Griswold
This column, which we hope will appear fairly regularly in
this newspaper, will be about a lot of things. But lurking
behind them all will be one main theme: The only way society is
really changed is through revolution.
Wait. Isn't revolution passé? Sure, we're all used to
"revolutionary" new detergents, but when it comes to politics,
isn't it naïve and impractical to talk about
revolution?
Considering that it's been a generation since the last
revolutions shook things up in the world, this question can
sound reasonable. After all, U.S. capitalism is going great
guns, sucking up profits from the four corners of the earth.
The capitalists have at their service a military machine that
no one wants to challenge. How could they ever succumb to a
revolution?
And then you look at the latest statistics.
The 1 percent of the people on the top in the United States
now take in more wealth after taxes than the 100 million people
on the bottom. And the gap is spreading all the time.
Where's the breaking point? When everything is owned by 100
trillionaires and the rest of us are working 12-hour days for
50 cents an hour?
If that sounds far-fetched, think about the undocumented
workers who already put in 12-hour days for not much more than
that. Think about the millions in countries whose native
economies have been destroyed by decades of "globalization."
They now can be exploited by investors who roam the world
electronically.
What's going to turn this around? Putting some new hack in
the White House?
Revolutions don't happen every day. But they do happen.
There was a time in this country when tens of millions of
people understood that capitalism makes the rich richer and the
poor poorer. In those days, revolution didn't seem very far
off. Anyone who takes the time to look back in history--real
history, not the sugar-coated version--knows that workers then
fought like hell for unions. Many if not most of the union
militants were for some kind of socialism. Capitalism was a
dirty word.
Then came a bunch of socialist revolutions, including in two
of the biggest countries in the world--Russia and China. Didn't
that scare the rich! They suddenly became "enlightened" and
decided they'd better allow some reforms or they'd lose the
whole pie.
It didn't come easy, but workers actually gained a lot.
Because when workers in socialist countries--even poor
ones--were getting long vacations and free schooling and
medical care, it was politically dangerous for the bosses in
the capitalist world to be too stingy.
Skipping through a lot of history here, we now live in a
world where capitalism is once again running rampant in what
used to be the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This has made
it a lot easier for the bosses here to do what comes natural to
them--grab up the wealth created by the many. Bust unions.
Demand longer hours, more work, less pay.
Don't they know that's what makes people rebel? Why would
the rich want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg?
Here we come to the question: Are the rich demented? Maybe
it's a trick question, like are fascist murderers crazy.
Clinically, maybe not. But capitalism itself is irrational.
Take the millionaires who own fancy lodges in Aspen, Colo.
They practically rioted recently because the mayor of that
snobbish ski resort wants to rezone some areas so houses
costing under $200,000 can be built. Yeah, that's low-income
housing in Aspen.
The ones with million-dollar homes and up are furious. What
will happen to their property values?
The thing is, the town is just trying to make it possible
for a few workers to live in the area. So they can cook the
food, take out the garbage, watch the kids, and do all the
other things that let the rich have fun all day. Almost all the
workers are living in distant towns where it's cheaper. They
have to commute so far through the mountains that the jobs
aren't worth it. It's getting harder and harder for the rich in
Aspen to find workers.
Yet they'd rather bite themselves in the heel than let some
workers live in their town.
Are they as out of touch as Marie Antoinette was? Stay
tuned.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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