Economic Inequality, and Cultural Evolution

There's a growing income gap in America, not merely between the rich and the poor, but between the super rich and everyone else.

The super wealthy are getting much wealthier, and everyone else's incomes are practically stagnant. The richest 10% of americans account for about half of the nation's wealth, helped in large part by public policy, including deregulation of the financial sector.

The richest 400 americans pay an 18% income tax rate. Candidate Mitt Romney pays about 15%. This is largely due to tax cuts for the wealthy enacted by recent administrations and congresses, including the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in 2003.

In 1976, the percentage of national income going to the top 1% was 9%. Thirty years later, in 2006, the same percentage of the american population was taking in 24% of the national income.

There is now more wealth in the top 1% than in the bottom 90%. For several decades the american middle class has been shrinking, some moving into the upper class, most moving down, into the poor, working, pay check to pay check class.

Shrinking labor unions under an adverse and hostile cultural environment, and deregulation of the large scale investment industry have combined to widen the gap between rich and poor.

All this is verifiable fact, not liberal propaganda. To what extent can this continue, without destroying civilization? The modern world is too educated to accept feudalism. Only democracy and economic equality will do now, as witnessed by current events in the Arab world, and the growing atmosphere of protest in america and europe.

Just at there ought to be a balance between central authority, local government, and individual liberty, there ought to be a balance between economic regulation, cooperation, and individual economic freedom.

Grotesque economic, political, and social inequality has characterized human history, as have violence and enslavement. But now, in the era of the internet, the seeds of cultural evolution are being sown, as humanity begins to demand a better system.

by Tx Trumbo and Bob Bond

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