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Inequality Literally Hurts Americans, and Definitely Harms Our Democracy.
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History tells us inequality is a main reason for the collapse of civilizations, or any massive social disruption. The Roman Empire, and the nation states of ancient Greece, were forever battling their cases of undulating generational inequality. Their aristocrats continually amassed all the wealth, then ran into major problems with the lower classes. Class warfare was the common result of such wealth concentration bubbles. Hostilities over inequality only ended when a decent amount of leveling imploded the extremes.
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Economic conservatives are always touting “free” markets as if they free up everything for the perfect meritocracy Olympic Games. Survival-of-the-fittest is also trotted out as the reason for determining who should win, and who should lose. That nothing else really matters, and government should not protect its citizens from the lives-threatening pendulum it puts in motion. Government must protect private property, but humans caught in the maw of unregulated capitalism can be cut to pieces. It is no wonder flatout warfare is the result of continual, ever deeper and more harmful inequality.
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Why is The “Survival” Theory of Evolution accepted by evangelical-economic conservatives as gospel when it comes to the “free” market, and human lives being trashed, but in everything else “survive or die” is the existential embodiment of eugenics evil? Some may call that connection contradictory and hypocritical, I just call it Republican Party consistent inconsistency.
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When the economic benefits of a democratic society are significantly misaligned, the great majority of people feel its negative effects. The chicken or egg issue of whether inequality first destabilizes the democracy, or disables the population, is not as important as why both occur. Inequality harms the peoples’ outlook of their present and future. They become angry or apathetic that they or their family are not advancing much, or falling behind. When a small percent has this feeling, it could be associated with envy. Yet, the collective knowledge and perspective of the population is unlikely to be in cahoots with such base beliefs alone. There is a point where base greed and…
