Greed and its fallout
“Where once We the People held capitalism’s leash, now we wear the collar.” It’s something I’ve repeated since taking the Hullabaloo morning shift ten years ago. “Working people know in their guts they work for the economy, not the other way around.”
Joe Biden gets it. In July 2021, he spoke of ensuring “that our economy isn’t about people working for capitalism; it’s about capitalism working for people.” Unfair competition and monopolies the Roosevelts once worked to rein in have landed us in a second Gilded Age.
“Forty years ago, we chose the wrong path, in my view,” Biden said, “following the misguided philosophy of people like Robert Bork, and pulled back on enforcing laws to promote competition.”
People still know in their guts they are getting screwed, write Katherine J. Cramer and Jonathan D. Cohen in a New York Times guest opinion:
When asked what drives the economy, many Americans have a simple, single answer that comes to mind immediately: “greed.” They believe the rich and powerful have designed the economy to benefit themselves and have left others with too little or with nothing at all.
We know Americans feel this way because we asked them. Over the past two years, as part of a project with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, we and a team of people conducted over 30 small-group conversations with Americans from almost every corner of the country. While national indicators may suggest that the economy is strong, the Americans we listened to are mostly not thriving. They do not see the economy as nourishing or supporting them. Instead, they tend to see it as an obstacle, a set of external forces out of their control that nonetheless seems to hold sway over their lives.
“Greed” is an oversimplification, like reducing the MAGA cult to racism. But it’s handy shorthand for people feeling “the economy is rigged against them.” While income inequality has shrunk somewhat over the last few years, people surveyed still feel their lives are as shaky as a fiddler on the roof, to borrow a famous phrase.
An absence of economic resilience prevents people from spending time with family, from getting involved in their community and from finding ways to build a safety net. “The way the economy is going right now, you don’t know where it’s going to be tomorrow, next week,” a human resources employee in Indiana said. Well-being “is about being financially stable. It’s not about being rich, but it’s about being able to take care of your everyday needs without stressing.”
Stress is a rampant part of American life, much of it caused by financial insecurity. Some people aspire for the mansion on the hill. Many others are looking just to get their feet on solid ground.
Auto loan and credit card deliquencies are up, along with child poverty after the pandemic child tax credit expired. The fiddlers still feel shaky. And our political system is not addressing that sense by meeting their needs:
“In my democracy, I’d like to see us get rid of Republicans, Democrats,” one Kentucky participant told us. “Just stand up there, tell me what you can do. If you can do it, I don’t have to care what you are.” Many Americans seem to see Washington as awash in partisan squabbles over things that have little effect on their lives. Many believe that politicians are looking out for their political party, not the American people.
It should not be surprising, then, that so many are so pessimistic about a seemingly strong economy. A rising gross domestic product lifts lots of boats, but many Americans feel as if they are drowning.
What would make the people we talked to less stressed? The ability to accumulate savings. Low-wage workers have seen their incomes rise only for many of these gains to be wiped out by inflation. And the costs of housing, health care and child care can quickly absorb even a very robust rainy-day fund. Without a safety net that can propel people into security, the threat of these costs will continue to make many Americans feel unstable, uncertain and decidedly unhappy about the economy.
Cramer and Cohen recommend eliminating the benefit cliffs that knock people out of eligibility for financial supports. That would include safety net programs Republicans seem determined to shred for all Americans, their voters included.
Fundamentally, however, what people feel is disempowered, not so much by others’ greed as corrupt elites’ need to stand above and dominate their peers. Accumulated wealth is a means, not the end.
Whatever promises America makes it fails to fully deliver. Over a half century ago, Martin Luther King spoke of broken promises made to its citizens of color. Those remain unfulfilled, but today citizens of color have company. The American economy has defaulted on its promise that anyone who worked hard and played by the rules could get ahead, live a good life, and leave a legacy to their children. Is it any wonder people feel the political system has failed them, not just the economy? Is it as broken as it seems. Biden, ever the optimist. thinks not.
But look at the desperate measures made today, financed by the wealthiest among us, to disenfranchise and marginalize anyone who might ask for a fair share of the tattered American Dream in exchange for their labors. That working people feel their lives as shaky as a fiddler on the roof is no accident. It is intentional.
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