A common campaign message from Democrats, including the Biden ad I saw on television last night, is that all Americans deserve a fair shot at the American Dream. I beg to differ. I do not want a fair shot, I want a fair share. Until most recently, most of us were working full and according to earlier reports, 44% of U.S. Workers were paid $18,000. I do not want 44% of Americans to get a fair shot at a higher wage. I don’t want to leave to chance with some getting it and others not, as in any game of chance where all have a fair shot. I want all who work to get a fair share of the bounty that we all, as a nation, create. No, this is not a cry for communism or everyone getting the same regardless of effort or any other nonsense. No, this is a cry for a fare share of the wealth. Who decides what that fare share is? We do, just as we have in the past and just as we have in the present where the top 1% holds over $25 trillion in wealth, which exceeds the wealth of the bottom 80 percent. We made the decisions that lead to this. We can make decisions to change that. We must not simply press for a chance at it, a shot at it, but commitment to make it happen.
I like this. I think the distinction drawn between “fair share” and “fair shot” is important and fundamental.
I think my communist friends might dispute the contention that “this is not a cry for communism” — in some sense it is precisely the intended result of communism.
Interestingly, the math that describes Coronavirus geographic distribution also describes wealth distribution. The difference, of course, is that nobody wants to be in a Coronavirus spike neighborhood, while a great many people would love to be at the top end of the wealth distribution. I suspect that at least one PhD thesis will address the observation that the response to the CV pandemic is to pursue a nationwide UBI. I think the connection is more than just coincidence.
It is also interesting how quickly and effectively the mainstream media persuaded us to flatten the Coronavirus incidence curve. We would all benefit by a similar flattening of the wealth distribution spike — its concentration is the cause of the pervasive and extreme wealth scarcity outside the spike. We’ve known that an unregulated economy results in extreme wealth concentration for more than a century — Vilfredo Pareto attempted to formulate the math at the end of the 19th century. The relevant math was revolutionized by Lazlo Barabasi at the turn of the 21st century a little over a hundred years later.
It is no accident that our media so effectively teaches us the importance and mechanisms for flattening the Coronavirus incidence curve while simultaneously obscuring the even more important and equally manageable wealth distribution curve.
I see no evidence that our government or political system will be of any help in solving this — it appears to me that we continue to move in the other direction. As allegedly bad as the Donald Trump administration is, our mainstream media appear to be doing all in their power to insure that he not be removed.
I suggest that there are a great many people in academia, government, and the media who know what it takes to solve this fundamental economic inequity. Elizabeth Warren is one. It seems clear enough to me that the mainstream media, together with the institutions that manage such matters, have made a clear choice to suppress those people in favor of a 77 year old nominee with visibly worsening cognitive deficits who is running this crucial campaign from a bunker in his Delaware basement.
Joe Biden is not going to solve or even seriously address any of the crushing burdens that face America today. He will not champion efforts to clawback the obscene wealth already concentrated at the top of the wealth distribution. He will not drive an effort to provide universal health care. He will not drive an effort to provide a universal base income to every American.
The current hysteria about Tara Reade exemplifies the deceitful way that the mainstream media manipulates us. Her groundless accusations are repeated over and over. Allegedly “liberal” outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post publish “opinion” and “analysis” pieces that keep the non-story alive even though their own reporting correctly demonstrated that there is no “there” there.
Meanwhile, the Trumpists are busy rewriting the Michael Flynn story. Courageous public servants who risked life and limb to reveal deeply disturbing connections to Russia are publicly punished, scourged, and harassed. Our much-vaunted rule of law has been casually jettisoned — and we here at BMG are still arguing about what Joe Biden did or did not do to Tara Reade thirty years ago (with no witnesses and no evidence).
The same publications will no doubt fill their pages with self-serving apologia after a “surprising” re-election win by Donald Trump and the Trumpists in November. We’ll have all sorts of Monday-morning quarterbacking about how the Democratic 2020 campaign went wrong.
Amidst all that sound and fury, the rate of wealth accumulation by the very wealthy will continue to accelerate.
I want a fair shot.