Find it here: http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=10191&cpage=1#comment-477647
--Kim
* What Happens When the Fortunes of the Rich Are Severed from those of the Rest: A Passage from Bill Moyers (with Commentary from Me)
The following passage is from Bill Moyer's article –in THE PROGRESSIVE magazine issue of February, 2011– "The Rule of the Rich."It was called to my attention by MK Kellogg.
After this brief passage from Moyers comes a commentary from me.
***************************
Late in August, I clipped another story from The Wall Street Journal. Above an op-ed piece by Robert Frank the headline asked: "Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?" The author didn't seem ambivalent about the answer. He wrote that
as stocks have boomed, "the wealthy bounced back. And while the Main Street economy" [where the Connie Brasels and Natalie Fords and most Americans live] "was wracked by high unemployment and the real-estate crash, the wealthywhose financial fates were more tied to capital markets than jobs and housespicked themselves up, brushed themselves off, and started buying luxury goods
again."
Citing the work of Michael Lind at the Economic Growth Program of the New America Foundation, the article went on to describe how the super-rich earn their fortunes with overseas labor, selling to overseas consumers and managing financial transactions that have little to do with the rest of America, "while relying entirely or almost entirely on immigrant servants at one of several homes
around the country."
So the answer to the question "Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?" is as stark as it is ominous: Many don't. As they form their own financial culture increasingly separated from the fate of everyone else, it is "hardly surprising," Frank and Lind
concluded, "that so many of them should be so hostile to paying taxes to
support the infrastructure and the social programs that help the majority
of the American people."
*******************
When something happens in a society as profound as the rise of this destructive power in America that I'm calling "the elephant in the room," the factors behind that development are sure to be many. But what Moyers points out here seems almost sure to be one of those causal factors.
When the fortunes of the rich in this nation depended on the capabilities of its human resources, the rich had an enlightened self-interest in maintaining the overall health and solidity of the surrounding society. But when the increasing globalization of the American corporate enterprise severs the tie between the enrichment of the super-rich from the well-being of the rest of America, that self-interested motivation falls away.
Add to this change in motivation two other developments –the increasing inequality between the super-rich and the rest of Americans, and the increasing ability of money to buy political power (Citizens United, etc.)– and the corrupt hijacking of the political system by the forces of greed becomes still more probable.
And finally, when all those factors –motive, means, and opportunity– are combined with what I believe to be a decline in the power of cultural morality (i.e. the inculcation by the culture, particularly that of the dominant class, of an ethic of caring for the public good, of a sense of responsibility that goes with privilege) and the criminal political power that has risen on the right becomes still more likely.
We have seen evidence of the crime all around. Moyers here provides us with one of the clues to its origins.
******************
Please take a look at the previous posting, "* Not By Bread Alone, but Not Breadlessly Either" at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=10122.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 at 8:42 pmand is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Email This Post 8 Responses to "* What Happens When the Fortunes of the Rich Are Severed from those of the Rest: A Passage from Bill Moyers (with Commentary from Me)"
- mczilla Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 11:02 am
- Well, you have to wonder. If "enlightened self-interest" was previously the motivation for maintaining a healthy national society, wouldn't that concern then extend itself to the international stage, given that the world at large is now their theatre of operations and source of their wealth? Since we see little evidence of this, apparently the old idea of Noblesse Oblige has been tossed aside in any context, and the picture grows ever more dark. Even if one is fabulously wealthy, where is all this supposed to go? Global feudalism, or even worse? This is the stuff Conspiracy Theories are made of. And they may be true.
- Andrew Bard Schmookler Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 11:09 am
- If the rich can prosper by using the workers educated in India and China, that doesn't require them to share their wealth to help sustain the foundation. Those other nations do the educating, and they can own a share of what those workforces can produce. Hence, perhaps, the assault on public education we now see from the Republicans: "We don't suffer if your kids are illiterate, we've got call centers in Mumbai."
- Gus Falconer Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
- I just don't "get it". If the Elephant is "the criminal political power that has risen on the right" and if the Obama administration's (so-called 'leftist") policies and actions are hardly different therefrom, then it would be reasonable for your opposition to assert that the Democratic Party Establishment is One With The Elephant… owned and operated by the same entirely UNdemocratic Economic System. Despite the fact that a majority of the electorate would, given the current economic circumstances, vote leftist, the political Establishment (which is owned by the Economic Establishment) systematically precludes virtually all but Duopoly candidates … thus no populist representation for a decidedly "left" populace and no chance for the People's interest to be served.
The only way to elect people who will serve the People's interest is to awaken the masses to the predatory nature of the ECONOMIC SYSTEM (Elite Banksters & their Corporate Establishment) that has purchased and corrupted our POLITICAL SYSTEM. Anyone who couldn't convince a majority of voters in his/her district of this now self-evident fact shouldn't be seeking a leadership role in politics. It is obviously the only viable alternative to "more of the same" and should be an relatively easy sale. So enlightened, we the People could then be lead to set aside the emotional issues that have been used to divide and disempower us in order to oust the Duopoly.
The economic reality is that our country sorely needs fiscal conservatism NOW… that's why I expect Ron Paul to be a major factor in 2012… but the social reality dictates an equally compelling need for social progressivism NOW… a "New Deal". The only way both of these objectives can be simultaneously accomplished without huge tax increases is to severely cut back on our counterproductive Defense [sic] budget which only the Elephant (the ruling Establishment) favors. Unless we on nonesoblind were ourselves simply blinded by bullshit and jive, there remains the possibility that Obama would support such a movement in his reelection bid.
Please read Katrina vanden Heuvel's "Wake Up! …" article published today at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/24-4
Without such a nation-wide movement, the Duopolistic Status Quo Elephant will simply consolidate it's supreme power and will increasingly impose their fascist police state on a global scale. - David R Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
- Have you never heard of the feudal system ? Looks like the evolutionary process is overtaking the 'enlightenment'.
Why and how could it have been otherwise ?
Looks like natural progression, to me. …………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Time to write a letter to the editor . . or maybe call your congressman, no ? Ho ! ho ! …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. - Andrew Bard Schmookler Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
- Looks like natural progression, to me.
But just as it's natural for things to slide downhill, so is it natural for people to work to combat the entropic process.
Note, David R., that this movement toward "the feudal system," as you call it, is not taking place in the advanced democratic societies of Europe, which, unlike America, actually had a feudal system in its past.
Shall we consider the resistance of those European societies toward increasing inequalities of power and wealth somehow unnatural? Was the movement in the United States, for the half century between the 1920s and the 1970s, toward greater equality of power and wealth "unnatural"?
I don't think so. - David R Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
- Well, I must say there you have food for thought there, Andy. A real comparison-all aspects considered- Western Europe and America today how we have arrived at this currnet state or social and economic state and what the trends portend or indicate might be interesting if all questions indicated could be answered.
- Gus Falconer Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
- Methinks only an authoritarian or an authoritarian follower would imply that a People's Resistance to tyranny is futile even before martial law is imposed… Yes, I see it as a race between accelerating spiritual enlightenment of the heretofore subservient masses versus the Global Capitalist's End Game. My personal experience is that Believers are rapidly, if belatedly, awakening to the reality that their authorities work for a higher authority (Mammon) that couldn't care less about them if and when they too lose their job, pension, home or health. Ho, Ho, Ho!
- David R Says:
- March 24th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
- Re Resistance: I like the expression spoken by The Apostle Paul those many years ago :" So fight I NOT as one that beateth the air" I see and hear a lot of beating the air. The arena for the 'fight' appears:
The people are using foreign made goods,
living in cities where a minor power outage is a major disaster and
their entire economy operating within a banking system controlling their currency and credit (and who and/or what gets the loan and who/or what gets the shaft,
and a government subservient to global interests apparently loyal only to their own personal interests.
Now ! There WAS a time when there WAS time and when Americans were producers, frugal, and responsive to and appreciative of WISDOM and TRUTH.
I'm not sure now what avenue is open for effective resistance.
I know HOW, with a loyal and truly superior Army and a Loyal Secret Service and absolute control of the drones theoretically a takeover at the top could be effected
BUT with Capital being largely data in computers and shifted around the world at the press of buttons and beyond that even
Money now being largely a myth with NO value redeemable except the willingness and faith of the seller to accept
I am wondering just exacrly what the resistance might be . . .
Refuse to buy at Walmart ? Invade your Congressman's office ? Picket the Pentagon with stop the war signs and symbols ? Have more town hall meetings ? Vote more new people into Congress that will turn out like the last batch ? Buy gold. Ho ! ho ! Build an altar and offer sacrifices to the Big Bang ?
There WAS a time' yes there was. - kim Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
- March 24th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
- David R Yes. Exactly that. I have been advocating for a while and sending out messages about a three-part plan:
- 1)Take your money out of Wall St. Get rid of all stocks. Take your money out of big national banks and put it into local credit unions.
- 2)Support local business: buy local, buy at small businesses whenever possible, support worker-owned cooperatives.
- 3) Elect really Progressive candidates to office, especially local offices.
- The goal of the program is to return the wealth of America to the working people who produce it.
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