Letter to The Editor
Dear Editor:
Let us lay to rest, please, the shouts of “class warfare!” That charge invariably comes from those who either do not know the facts or those who are winning the war. In any event, merely labeling economics with the interests of working people in mind as “class warfare” is not an argument
that such measures are not just or good for our economy.
Let us look at the facts. In the period from the end of WWII to the end of the Vietnam War, the “Golden Age” of capitalism, as the economy grew, the income of every economic level from the working poor to the wealthy grew at the same rate. In other words, no matter one’s income, the next year one would — in real, inflation adjusted terms — earn more the next year.
In comparison, since the late 70′s, the wealthiest among us have absorbed the vast majority of the growth in the economy, while the middle income, lower middle, and working poor are faring little or no better than when
Richard Nixon was President. Currently, 1% of the people in our country have more wealth — which translates into power and influence — than the bottom 95% combined.
My mother-in-law recently decried the death of the work ethic in our country. One must ask what the point of working is when the fruits of one’s labor goes more and more to others.
Some more facts help illustrate this point. If the minimum wage had simply kept up with inflation, it would be $10 today. More striking, if it had kept up with the growth in the economy in the last decade, it would be $25 an hour. We are working longer hours; we have two-income families, two-
income families with three and four jobs, single parents with two jobs (and no time for their children), all just to tread water.
The effects of the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands are sad. Children with absentee parents have problems in school and tend toward crime. More and more of us suffer from depression.
On the other hand, our government is almost literally for sale to the wealthy corporate elite. Chemical companies write our pollution laws, food corporations determine what pesticides and artificial hormones we must tolerate in our food, drug companies obtain patents on medicines we paid to develop with our tax money and charge exorbitant prices for life-saving medications. Our health and well-being are routinely sacrificed to the short term profits of industry.
Corporations and elite interests obtain hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies from our government. Here in Georgia, our legislature made a major tax give-away to Brown & Williamson tobacco in the last legislative session. Now, we are hearing how Georgia will have to tighten its belt. In my home county, Newton, we give one million dollars each year in property taxes to a plastics manufacturer that makes billions. This, in a county where the Sheriff says he needs twenty more deputies to have a properly staffed department.
The tragedy of “class warfare” comes from the bottom line truth. Our nation has so much wealth that not only can our wealthy citizens know a life beyond the dreams of Midas, not only can the vast majority of people who work for a living enjoy a rising standard of living as the economy grows,
but we can also solve problems of poverty and disease for the entire world.
We can return to an economy where all people who work share in the benefits of that work. This does not mean “redistributing the wealth;” we have plenty for all. It does not mean any kind of “class war.” What it does mean is dedicating ourselves to looking through the name-calling rhetoric, finding the facts, and getting to a politics where we as citizens set the
standards instead of having a wealthy elite set the standards for us.
Yours truly,
Roy T. Evritt
Green Party Candidate
Georgia Senate District 25
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Dec 7 2001. Filed under Letters to the Editor.
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