Social Inequality in the U.S.

Just watched the latest Fault Lines episode about the wealthiest people in the U.S. and was impressed with it, so I thought I'd mention it in my blog. Fault Lines is a great video series produced by Al Jazeera. It tackles major social and political issues and is mainly concerned with the U.S. and its impact throughout the world.

Here are the program notes for this episode:

"The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country’s income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it’s been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US’ 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US’s social safety net, and whether to raise taxes — or to cut them further.

The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the United States has never seemed so divided — both politically and economically.

How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top 1% impacting the other 99% of Americans? Fault Lines investigates the gap between the rich and the rest."

During the episode, a wide variety of people are interviewed including economist Jeffrey Sachs, sociologist Shamus Khan, representatives of both the Democratic party and the Republican party, as well as a Harvard graduate and a progressive businessman who feels let down by Obama.

For me, the most sickening aspect presented was the self-serving bull-shit ideology of the rich and successful: the American-dream, rags-to-riches, "we're richer because we worked harder and because we're brighter" rubbish that gets spouted a lot. And of course all those cliches that are dragged out constantly: a rising tide lifts all boats and other grossly insulting myths.

One of the most disappointing stories of the last couple of years is Obama, and this program contributes to our understanding of this immensely disappointing figure of contemporary politics. As the show points out, Obama has extended the Bush tax cuts, and has accepted the terms of the debate on cutting the deficit provided by the Republican party. Obama has given a lot away and seems to have gained nothing in return. It seems that Obama is either unable or unwilling to fight. But then as Sachs makes clear in the video, Obama isn't about to upset his Wall Street donors the year before his re-election campaign. [As a side note, I recently learned that the projected total campaign spending for both parties in 2012 will be over $2 billion!]

Another frightening but significant issue which this episode of Fault Lines examines is the huge political power that the wealthy have accrued thanks to their increased incomes. One prominent example which is explored is that of the Koch brothers, whose estimated total wealth is fourth highest in the U.S. The brothers not only support the Tea Party but also many right-wing think tanks including the Tax Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. They have donated large sums of money to many political candidates and are against many current issues such as climate change, financial reform and health care reform. The case of the Koch brothers illustrates rather bluntly and boldly the falsity of the idea of shareholder-democracy since it is clearly the case that the more wealthy you are, the more political influence you have.

The program ends with a rather sobering image of Harvard students celebrating their graduation, alongside an interview with one of them who boasts of his superior intelligence and discipline which have given him access to an elite club of businessmen and entrepeneurs. He argues that the wealthy would be wasting their time in distributing their greater income throughout society, and instead should invest it in order to make yet more money. Once again we see this illusory idea of the rising tide which lifts all boats: if the rich get richer, it helps all society. This is clearly nonsense as many prominent scholars and intellectuals have pointed out time and again. But it makes sense as it serves the ideological needs of the rich and no doubt serves them psychologically too.

There is a nice short video which accompanies this episode of Fault Lines in which the presenter talks about the difficulty of interviewing the wealthy in the U.S. The rich might like to show off their wealth through conspicuous consumption but clearly they are not particularly keen to discuss and debate it!

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Fault Lines: The Top 1% video presented by Zeina Awad for Al Jazeera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdVODFombco&feature=relmfu

An extra video with presenter Zeina Awad on the difficulty of interviewing the wealthy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFYH4ROPgAo

Fault Lines website: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/