Today I read an impassioned, yet
reasonable article in Politico Magazine by Seattle billionaire Nick
Hanauer entitled The Pitchforks are coming for us Plutocrats.
Hanauer calls it "a memo to my fellow zillionaires."
Hanauer argues that American income inequality will be the cause of
the coming revolution, in much the same way as it is in every
uprising, thus the pitchforks. The rich get richer, the poor get
poorer, the middle class shrinks, the statistics are all there. We,
having now grown accustomed to the phenomenon, continue to eek out
our existence, cursing the government and corporations under our
breath. Then one day, someone sets something on fire and we have a
revolution on our hands.
Surprisingly,
Hanauer has a reasonable solution, simply pay everybody more. Leave
the government out of it, they will win by being able to reduce
social assistance because everyone will be able to fend for
themselves. With the American workforce requiring less help,
government can shrink. When Walmart employees make twice what they do
now, (Hanauer's minimum wage is $15, which is being instituted in
Seattle,) they will have more disposable income, thus spend more
money, thus sell more crap, thus help the corporations make more
money, so they can hire more employees and on it goes. People who
barely get by don't go out for dinner, or buy new clothes, or flowers
for their mom.
Corporations
can afford to pay their employees more. Simply look at the profits
reported by the companies. Walmart profited 25
billion last year. What do you do with 25 billion dollars a year? You
trickle it down, but it doesn't trickle very far with nearly 500
billionaires in America. Hanauer's "Middle-Out" economics
take some of that wasted money and flush it back into the system
through the working class. It's worked in the past, Henry Ford did
it, Eisenhower did it. The problem, argues Hanauer, is that
corporations like to "keep their customers rich and their
employees poor." This is backwards thinking, yet Hanauer is
mocked in his own community for admitting it. Corporations, really
the folks at the top of them, aren't interested in making less money.
Historically, they've balked at the idea every time, "We'll go
bankrupt." Of course, they don't, quite the opposite really...
Hanauer's
piece is not without its faults, for instance, it is short on detail
and makes use of some fuzzy math. However, its philosophy isn't
wrong: Everyone wins in a
system that shares the wealth.
It's a real shame that I think someone is going to have to burn
something down in order to build it back up. Capitalism can work, if
it's made to be just. Capitalism has been highjacked by the greedy
elite and governments have been made complicit. It's not a distinctly
American phenomenon. There could be a distinctly American solution,
but it will require either a changing of minds or a changing of
hidden hands.
To
read the article by Nick Hanauer
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.U7BQ0LEXKY0
To
read relevant essays of mine.
