Rural Ruminations

Originally published in the Rutland Herald and the Barre Times-Argus

By Haviland Smith

When 700 people called “Occupy Wall Street” were arrested last weekend on the Brooklyn Bridge, they were accused of not knowing what they were organizing for.

Some opined they were conducting a “haphazard petition for change,” or that they were focused on everything from ending capitalism, to racism, to global warming to unemployment. There is probably truth in all of that and, as this movement grows, it likely will attract anyone who has a gripe about our society.

Objectively, the demonstrators seem broadly preoccupied with their own powerlessness. They decry the inordinate amount of power and influence held by our very rich and our corporate enterprises and the power of lobbyists to further their goals in a Congress that is essentially for sale.

So far, in defiance of many detractors’ predictions, protests have been growing here and abroad. They have spread to Massachusetts, Washington, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, South Carolina and many others, including our own Burlington, Vt.

During the Cold War, largely because of its preoccupation with Soviet-sponsored “revolution” around the world, the U.S. intelligence community put together a profile of a country likely to be vulnerable to revolution. The primary indicators were: a large gap between the wealthy and the less affluent, an absent or shrinking middle class and the disaffection of large portions of society with those who hold power and their use of it.

How does America stack up against those criteria? Are we reaching a critical, revolutionary mass? Not likely, but we are certainly heading in that direction.

The richest 1 percent of the American population owns over 40 percent of the country’s wealth. The top 1 percent earn 24 percent of total national income while those 15 percent (46.2 million people) who live below the poverty line earn 3.4 percent.

The net loser, apart from the poor, is a disappearing American middle class. During the decade between 2000-2010, Americans in the middle of the pay scale saw income go down 7 percent, while the richest 40 percent actually gained wealth. And finally, 14 million Americans are unemployed and 8.8 million are part-time employees.

In our system, wage earners are not generally responsible for providing capital for job creation. That is the province of those whose income far exceeds their need for wealth. It is critical that those wealthy individuals and corporations continue to supply capital for job formation.

Nevertheless, it is equally important that wealthy corporations and individuals understand that there is such a thing as being too wealthy, particularly when the policies for which they lobby result in the destruction of the middle class and the widening the gap between the wealthy and the less affluent.

Additionally, politicians of all political persuasions must understand that positions on tax policy and government spending that feature unbending advocacy of the needs of one American constituency over another will prove disastrous for our country.

Moderate politicians have typically represented our predominately moderate middle class, which has always been the traditional strength and stability of our country. That is no longer the case as the sharp divisions in our political structure force that middle either to the right or the left, further widening the national divide and leading to increasing gridlock.

If we continue on our present course of dealing with our deficit by cutting back on taxes for the wealthy, eliminating federal programs, encouraging self-interested lobbying and ignoring the reality of our unbalanced income structure, we are likely to provide further incentive to the growing list of disaffected people that we now see in its infancy in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. If that continues, we will likely see today’s ranks of protesters swelled by joblessness, poverty and the perceived uneven application of power.

Somewhere between the legitimate needs and desires of the wealthy and those of the less affluent, there is a point where we should be able to find an uneasy but functioning balance between their legitimate competing priorities. We have, after all, been there before.

Without that sort of compromise and assuming the continuation of our present headlong congressional rush to kill taxation and federal regulation at the expense of programs that benefit all of our citizens, we are likely to see a continued move toward a revolutionary society.

America either will become more fair and even-handed, or we are likely to become much more revolutionary. That will benefit no one who believes in our system, least of all those wealthy individuals and corporations that have profited so much from it.

Moderation is in their vital self-interest.