The annual celebrations of Independence Day commemorate not only the sacrifices made during the American Revolution, but also a more nebulous concept: the American dream, which for many is bound up with the promise of economic success for any hardworking American. Yet the American dream is beginning to seem like a fantasy for even the most dedicated laborers. As a recent series in The New York Times detailed, growing economic and class disparities are having a disturbing effect on contemporary American society. The paper’s series, entitled Class Matters, focused on such problems as health care for the underclass, the persistent inability of immigrants to raise their economic prospects and the plight of relos, that is, corporate employees relocated by their corporations. By contrast, one article took aim at the spending habits of the super rich, describing such purchases as $12,000 mother-baby tennis bracelet sets. The overarching portrait was of a society where the haves are acquiring more and the have-nots even less than before. Indeed, the share of the nation’s income earned by the very wealthiest Americans has doubled since 1980 (to 7.4 percent in 2002), while the share of income earned by the bottom 90 percent has actually fallen.
How did we reach this point so quickly? As recently as a generation ago, a hardworking family could count on their children’s lives being at least as financially secure as their own. One could point to the tax cuts introduced by President Bush as a method by which the richer are able to become the super rich, and separate themselves even more, in gated communities and in other subtler ways, from hoi polloi.
But a combination of several factors has been at work over the last few decades. Corporations, for example, used to promise implicit lifetime employment in return for often harsh sacrifices made by entire families. Beginning in the 1980’s, however, facing pressures from overseas, corporations opted to lay off employees and outsource jobs to foreign and therefore cheaper locales, forcing many employees into a nomadic work life. Concurrently, many C.E.O.’s. sopped up the savings that attended the layoffs to enrich themselves, all the while touting the need to cut costs.
At the same time, the number of entry-level factory jobs, which had traditionally provided hope to immigrants, has diminished, thanks to low-cost alternatives overseas. This has condemned many recent immigrants to years of low-paying, dead-end jobs as well as longtime American citizens to penury. Barbara Ehrenreich’s plaintive book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America demonstrated how the author was incapable of living on a minimum-wage job no matter how hard she worked.
The worsening economic divide is contrary to the most elemental themes in Catholic social teaching. The notions of solidarity and the common good, for example, recognize that human interdependency is not only necessary but positive. Moreover, there are important goals for society that reach beyond purely individualistic ones. In his encyclical Mater et Magistra, BlessedPope John XXIII wrote that the economic prosperity of a nation is not so much its total assets in terms of wealth and property, as the equitable division and distribution of this wealth (No. 74). And in a society that prizes $12,000 mother-baby tennis bracelets while hardworking Americans cannot afford basic necessities, the achievement of the common good will remain elusive. This is one reason why a decent living wage is another important tenet of church teaching, as pointed out by Pope John Paul II in Laborem Exercens (No. 19).
This kind of world, so unjust, is also antithetical to Gospel values, particularly as described in Matthew 25. And we are responsible for the least of our brothers and sisters not simply in this country, but in the developing world as well.
What can we do? Repealing tax cuts that favor the super rich and raising the minimum wage would be a start. So would policies in corporations that put a cap on executive compensation. (Arguments that this would not provide adequate incentive have been disproven: corporate salaries of top-level executives are rarely based on performance.) So would introducing more courses in undergraduate and graduate business programs that foster an understanding of the common good. Though the United States is sometimes described as a classless society, some basic adjustments must be made if our country is not to degenerate into two classes: the have-everythings and the have-nothings.
We used to be a nation of shopkeepers, but we are rapidly turning into a nation of clerks working for Starbucks and Wal-Mart.
The problem is not the bottom rung of the ladder of success, but with all the people who are stuck there, and those who undermine their confidence to move up, from oppresive government regulations with which only the largest corporations can comply, to demoralizing anti-U.S. propoganda like this article.
John Wren www.JohnWren.com
Thank you.
Harry Hardin
The editorial correctly draws attention to Laboren Exercens and Matthew 25. There is in addition a rich body of Catholic philosophy and Social thought that is badly neglected.
Your "What can we do?" list omits what is very probably the single most important thing to be done in the near term: removal of the formidable legal impediments in the US to union organizing and bargaining.
I was amused by the view of a recent subscriber that the editorial "is nothing more than socialist propaganda." Clearly he's not very familiar with socialist propaganda. I wonder what his reaction was/would be (as the case may be) to the minister's peroration in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
John T. Joyce Swans Island, Maine
is nothing more than socialistic propaganda.
No doubt I could have spent my money more
effectively.
as dylan wrote long ago....
First, an assertion of control via international organizations (i.e., the U.N., the WTO, the EU, etc.) of governments, preferably democratic governments, over control multi-national/trans-national corporations. The recent rejection of the EU constitution by the French and the Dutch are a sign of hope in this regard. The second necessity is for a renewed and recharged world-wide labor movement.
Thank you for continuing to bring attention to crucial issues like the disturbing trends this editorial dicusses which effect every person on the planet.
Sincerely, Deacon Scott S. Dodge Salt Lake City, Utah
Economis disparity has occurred. When did this happen? The reverse was true in the period from 1950 to 1975. The gap started and accelerated sharply in the 1990's. Both the Kennedy and Reagan tax rate cut resulted in increased Federal tax revenues without affecting the income distribution. What evidence do you have that the Bush rate cuts were different?
CEO compensation has been divorced from performance and boards must take responsibility.The SEC has forced mutual funds to use independent chairpeople and independent boards.Corruption is being prosecuted and stock options steals being contained. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations have proposed possible fixes which probably should be tried.Nontheless the US continues to be the immigrants dream as shown by visa applications.
It appears the new editor will continue in the leftist shoes of his predecessor.
Much of the poor in this country live better than the wealthy did four hundred years ago.
That's splendid progress, and that progress is thanks to capitalism in which some get super-rich, but everyone with a work ethic eventually improves his standard of living.
There's no systematic, structural or societal imediment to anyone improving his financial situation in the United States. If the rich get richer, it's because they continue to do the things that made them rich in the first place.
That's not sinful; that's intelligent. It's also good, because when the rich have more wealth, they spend more, and more jobs are created which improves the financial situation of the not-so-wealthy and the poor.
I mean no disrespect, but the world is full of rich people and corporations who will give funds and encourage volunteers to help in the soup kitchens. What they won’t do is change their policies to make soup kitchens unnecessary. They remind me of how the produce growers in Florida are amazed when anyone accuses them of exploiting the migrant workers. After all, they give Christmas baskets every year to the workers.
Giving donations makes the rich and powerful feel good—and allows them to do write-offs on their taxes—and it is so much easier than paying workers better wages, refusing to outsource jobs and supporting increases in minimum wages, as well as providing health benefits and pensions.
Soup kitchens are fine, but there is something definitely wrong with a country, with the incredible resources that this country has, if such soup kitchens are necessary for decades without an end in sight.
When are Catholic parishes around the country going to hear about and implement Catholic social teachings?
We are a great and generous nation because we are a wealthy nation, and we are a wealthy nation because of the ability of entrepreneurs to follow their dreams, build corporations and pay far more in taxes than many of us ever will.
While economic disparity does exist in our and every nation, I’ll take our system every time. I would like to see greater depth of thought put into your editorials on this issue.
is nothing more than socialistic propaganda.
No doubt I could have spent my money more
effectively.
as dylan wrote long ago....
First, an assertion of control via international organizations (i.e., the U.N., the WTO, the EU, etc.) of governments, preferably democratic governments, over control multi-national/trans-national corporations. The recent rejection of the EU constitution by the French and the Dutch are a sign of hope in this regard. The second necessity is for a renewed and recharged world-wide labor movement.
Thank you for continuing to bring attention to crucial issues like the disturbing trends this editorial dicusses which effect every person on the planet.
Sincerely, Deacon Scott S. Dodge Salt Lake City, Utah
Economis disparity has occurred. When did this happen? The reverse was true in the period from 1950 to 1975. The gap started and accelerated sharply in the 1990's. Both the Kennedy and Reagan tax rate cut resulted in increased Federal tax revenues without affecting the income distribution. What evidence do you have that the Bush rate cuts were different?
CEO compensation has been divorced from performance and boards must take responsibility.The SEC has forced mutual funds to use independent chairpeople and independent boards.Corruption is being prosecuted and stock options steals being contained. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations have proposed possible fixes which probably should be tried.Nontheless the US continues to be the immigrants dream as shown by visa applications.
It appears the new editor will continue in the leftist shoes of his predecessor.
Much of the poor in this country live better than the wealthy did four hundred years ago.
That's splendid progress, and that progress is thanks to capitalism in which some get super-rich, but everyone with a work ethic eventually improves his standard of living.
There's no systematic, structural or societal imediment to anyone improving his financial situation in the United States. If the rich get richer, it's because they continue to do the things that made them rich in the first place.
That's not sinful; that's intelligent. It's also good, because when the rich have more wealth, they spend more, and more jobs are created which improves the financial situation of the not-so-wealthy and the poor.
We used to be a nation of shopkeepers, but we are rapidly turning into a nation of clerks working for Starbucks and Wal-Mart.
The problem is not the bottom rung of the ladder of success, but with all the people who are stuck there, and those who undermine their confidence to move up, from oppresive government regulations with which only the largest corporations can comply, to demoralizing anti-U.S. propoganda like this article.
John Wren www.JohnWren.com
Thank you.
Harry Hardin
The editorial correctly draws attention to Laboren Exercens and Matthew 25. There is in addition a rich body of Catholic philosophy and Social thought that is badly neglected.
Your "What can we do?" list omits what is very probably the single most important thing to be done in the near term: removal of the formidable legal impediments in the US to union organizing and bargaining.
I was amused by the view of a recent subscriber that the editorial "is nothing more than socialist propaganda." Clearly he's not very familiar with socialist propaganda. I wonder what his reaction was/would be (as the case may be) to the minister's peroration in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
John T. Joyce Swans Island, Maine