They now inhabit a privatized economy and have left us at the mercy of the market
David Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries. (Credit: Reuters/Brendan Mcdermid)
America is falling apart — and this nation’s super-rich are to blame.
There was once a time in America when the super-rich needed you, and me, and working-class Americans to be successful.
They needed us for their roads, for their businesses, for their communications, for their transportation, as their customers, and for their overall success.
The super-rich rode on the same trains as us, and flew in the same planes as us. They went to our hospitals and learned at our schools.
Their success directly depended on us, and on the well-being of the nation, and they knew it.
But times have changed, and the super-rich of the 21st century no longer think that you and I are needed for their continued success.
And in some ways, they have given up on America, period.
As Paul Buchheit brilliantly points out over at AlterNet, “As they accumulate more and more wealth, the very rich have less need for society. At the same time, they’ve convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that contributing to societal needs is unfair to them. There is ample evidence that this small group of takers is giving up on the country that made it possible for them to build huge fortune.”
Buchheit goes on to say that, “The rich have always needed the middle class to work in their factories and buy their products. With globalization this is no longer true… They don’t need our infrastructure for their yachts and helicopters and submarines. They pay for private schools for their kids, private security for their homes. They have private emergency rooms to avoid the health care hassle. All they need is an assortment of servants, who might be guest workers coming to America on H2B visas, willing to work for less than a middle-class American can afford”
Unfortunately, these millionaires and billionaires who have given up on America and on the working class are in control of the political process in this country.
They have brainwashed Republicans into thinking that the success of working-class Americans no longer matters for the future of this nation.
As a result, Republicans are no longer investing in things that have traditionally made America – and the working-class – successful.
Take America’s infrastructure for example – or lack thereof.
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