Back to the Good Old Days

You probably haven't read enough American history to recognize the return of the "Good Old Days" of three to four hundred years ago when America was being "founded" by wealthy British expatriates and supposedly persecuted Puritans, but should. You see if you read that history you will better understand how you as a middle class American are being screwed today.

Back in the 1600's and latter, the wealthy colonists with the British king's blessing divided up the best land and setup farms/plantations along the eastern shores of New England stretching to Virginia and South Carolina using indentured white slaves and/or Puritans to work the land. These workers were soon replaced by captured and enslaved Native Americans who were ultimately replaced by kidnapped Africans. Under this system all the benefits, that is, wealth went to the owners of the farms/plantations, in other words all the income flowed to the top and of course to the British royalty who financed the initial operations. The freed whites, former indentured servants, where pushed further west to provide a bulwark against the feisty Indians who did not like their homeland being stolen.

These folks became the small farmers, tradespeople, common laborers, and protectors against Indian uprisings etc., essentially the middle class of the period with the slaves at the bottom of the economic ladder. Fast forward to the Great Depression where the middle class was in soup lines, starvation was commonplace, and homelessness rampant along comes the New Deal; and with the growth of unions we saw the growth of the middle class. Income equality existed, of course, but the playing field was much fairer.

Since 1980 with the election of the buffoon, Ronald Reagan, and the adoption of neo-liberal economic policies America has become a bastion of economic inequality. The job market is defined by a recent report:  In the NELP’s report “The Low Wage Recovery: Industry Employment and Wages Four Years Into the Recovery,” researchers found that there were now 2.3 million more of the lowest-paying jobs, 700,000 fewer middle-income positions and more than a half million fewer higher-paying jobs. 

In addition, rents consume 50% of low wage salaries, close to 47 million people live in poverty including 16 million children and 1.5 million people live in extreme poverty. Needless to say, the wealthy are still wealthy and acquire most of the economic growth. It seems that after 400 years not much has changed but the form of slavery, exploitation, and the denial of opportunity just like in the "Good Old Days".