Recently British theologian Andrew Wilson visited America and saw “the pain, and the hurt, confusion and fatigue.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) agreed with this assessment of life in America: “Adult anxiety, depression and suicide are increasing.” Today, coincidentally, there are more billionaires in America than union-protected corporations. America’s rich control the way we, the common working men and women, live and die, and even when and how long to pee if you work at Walmart or Perdue, while your wages froze decades ago.
But, what has reduced once-proud Americans to such a childish and powerless state?
If you are an average working American, you are slowly dying from stress and loneliness. You are isolated from other human beings and your constant, slow-burn worries drive you to your early graves. Surprise, your early death is directly and causally related to your economic status (research shows rich people live longer than average Americans — by 15 years!).
To save yourselves, you must strengthen your position in society, together, as you are not alone in your predicament. You must do something that you have forgotten about in the last two or three generations: You must demand and regain economic equality, now! You must join unions to increase your political power, and tax the rich to increase your economic share.
It’s not socialism, but just plain Americanism. Survey after survey shows that the majority of Americans (65 to 75 percent) support revitalizing unions for workers and levying higher taxes for the rich. When unions are strong, workers benefit, as unionized jobs “pay solid middle-class wages,” according to researcher Rod Graham. When we suffer record inflation, the rich rake in record profits. “Tax-avoidance provides massive benefits to billionaires,” reports ProPublica (June 24). The top 10 percent controls $100 trillion dollars of our wealth, and bottom half of us only $3 trillion dollars! How can you tolerate such an outrage?
There is no freedom without economic freedom, and no economic freedom without economic equality. Your own suicidal thought is the best proof of economic inequality, and its killing effect in America. Why do you think America, that gives its citizens every known toy to play with, refuses to give them the most precious gift of America, namely, economic equality? To live as a free American and an equal human being, you must first recognize what is keeping you from living free and being equal. You must fight for your political freedom and economic equality, without which your life is neither fully living nor peacefully dead.
To be a free human being, you must stand up for your equality as an American working man. How? You must demand that all of your fellow American workers join forces in unions. Next, you must demand fair (higher) taxes for the super-rich. We used to tax the rich as high as 92 percent only three generations ago; today their actual rate is 3.4 percent. Defending billionaires’ wealth only drains your own pocketbook. (Also remember that all U.S. tax codes heavily favor the rich).
It takes no rocket scientist to know that you are poor because they are rich, and you are powerless as a working man because all of the working men are, without the solidarity of unions, as powerless as a flock of chickens. Corporate America fights higher taxes and unions by spending billions of dollars lobbying for tax cuts and destroying unions (by promoting the “Right to Work Law” at state legislatures). Why do 80 percent of teachers and policemen participate in unions? Simply because, as non-profit workers, they don’t face the ferociously well-lobbied opposition from corporate America. Ask yourself: Why do the super-rich strongly oppose fair taxes and workers’ unions unless they are beneficial to the workers?
Working men (and women) are hopelessly divided and effectively conquered, and reduced to a practical non-entity. Once 35 percent strong, now less than 10 percent of workers are union-protected, thanks to the billions that corporate America spends on lobbying against workers. (By contrast, most European workers are unionized and protected by law, and are consistently “happier” than Americans). You make up 90 percent of Americans and you have absolutely no obstacle in your way except your own unmotivated willpower and weak spirit.
So far, you’ve allowed them to control your mind with drug-like escapist distractions, bleed your pocketbook dry, and threaten you with unemployment. Alone, left to your own device, you are but a child. You must overcome this weakness with your numbers. In this enterprise, all of the Founders stand by you and all of America’s promises are with you. The Scandinavians, the best of humanity, provide all their citizens with tuition-free education, universal healthcare and childcare, among other basic necessities, because they tax the rich and belong to the unions. The famed Scandinavian workers’ haven didn’t come overnight; they had to fight for it, often in bloody battles.
In American society, being average is a punishment, not a blessing. As an average American, you are punished as a “failure,” instead of receiving an average man’s (or woman’s) reward. If you were to receive an average person’s income, for a family of four, you could earn $250,000-plus dollars a year, but only if the super-rich did not steal your share.
To equalize political power in democracy, we allow only one man, one vote for everyone in America. Why do we allow one man, many dollars, then, so that the rich can monopolize economic power over all of us? Is this democracy? As long as the rich stay rich, you cannot escape your economic misery or dependence. You are eternally on their welfare roll.
With no more false pride or fake individualism, join the union and tax the rich. Otherwise, “adult anxiety, depression and suicide” are your lot.
Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield.