Forum Post: The Causes of and a Solution to Income Inequality and Political Underrepresentation, part I

What caused the recent economic downturn? Many people have blamed it on a lack of personal responsibility, lack of financial oversight and transparency, banks assuming too much risk, but the root cause is that the real income of most Americans has stagnated over the last 30+ years. The driving force of the US economy during that time has been consumer spending. However, since incomes of all but the richest Americans did not keep up with spending, the average American has had to assume a large amount of debt to, not only to keep up with the Jones, but to keep the economy expanding. First we maxed out our credit cards; then we cashed in the equity in our homes. When the housing bubble burst, the government bailed out the financial sector to keep our economy from collapsing. However, the government did little to help those who lost their homes, their jobs, or both. In addition, the cost of healthcare and education has skyrocketed over the last two decades compounding the debt problem. There is definitely something to be said for personal responsibility, but it would have been much easier to be personally responsible if the vast wealth of the richest nation on the planet had not found its way into the hands of less than 1% of its population. Which begs the question, why hasn’t the pie been divided more evenly? In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ralph Nader was considered one of the most powerful men in America. He would research inequalities resulting from our capitalist system; present his research to congress in an organized, coherent manner; and legislation would be crafted to mitigate the problem. In addition, we had a progressive income tax system that helped pay for the social safety net, infrastructure, and technological research that made America a great place to live for most of its citizens. Then the plutocracy began to fight back. Nader was marginalized. The income tax system became regressive. Gaping holes began to show up in the safety net. At the same time, thanks to globalization and automation, the jobs that kept many Americans gainfully employed moved to other countries or disappeared all together. Precisely when we needed our government more than ever, it abandoned us. It sold itself to the highest corporate bidder. As the 1% has gotten richer and richer, it has been able to exert more and more influence over the electoral process. Corporate money flows into elections as freely as water flows down a hill. Money is speech, people have the constitutional right to speak, and corporations are people. This is the rationale they have used to undermine our democracy, and it only took five people to agree with this logic for it to work: Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy. So how can we take back our democracy? Clearly those already entrenched in our two-party system have no interest in true reform. We must therefore find an alternative to the current two-party system. There is no way around it. Once we take our democracy back and politicians are beholden to the will of the people that aren’t corporations, we can work on making our economic and financial systems more equitable; making healthcare and education more affordable; providing equal opportunity to people from all races, religions, and genders; ending war; rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure; and investing in green technology that will save our environment from the ravages of human-induced climate change.