CLASS WARFARE IN AMERICA    



 Oligarchy is a power structure in which ruling authority rests with a small number of people with wealth and corporate control. The oligarchs rule over an underclass in the U.S. often with the assistance of the underclass themselves. Why will be examined in another essay.

Republicans have won the class war. Paul Ryan’s recent budget has steep Medicaid cuts and entails the repeal of Obamacare. This would leave and additional 50 million poor or moderate-income Americans without health insurance. Ryan would impose big reductions for food stamps, college tuition aid, child nutrition programs and many other programs that help the “least among us.” (See Dion: Calling Out Paul Ryan’s Radicalism.) All of this is to provide lower taxes for the rich! If this isn’t class warfare I’d like to know what it is.

 To further document the results of class war, it should be noted that the poorest 47% of America owned zero percent of the wealth, while the richest 400 Americans own as much wealth as 62% of America. By the way, The U.S. is nearly the most wealth-unequal country in the entire world. (See March 25, Common Dreams.) According to David Clay Johnston’s study for Tax Analysis, the income growth for the bottom 90 percent of Americans averaged just $59 over four decades. The income growth, between 1979 and 2007 saw their incomes grow by 275%.

 One should mention poverty and food insecurity in the U.S.: More than one in seven people in the United States lives below the poverty line. Annual Social and Economic Supplements from the Current Population Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, 2011. 14.5 percent of American households – or nearly 49 million Americans – suffered from food insecurity in 2010

 In Summary: Today, the government is bought and controlled by the financial oligarchy. Republicans have one the class war and, in probability, nothing will dramatically change unless the underclass develops class consciousness