Unstable capitalism driving class warfare

Unstable capitalism driving class warfare

Many scoff at the idea that we have class warfare in the United States. According to Richard Wolff, author of "Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism," we have class warfare in spades. He says, "It is the corporations and the rich who are waging class warfare against the rest of America." His conclusion is based partly on a remark by billionaire Warren Buffett, who said, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that is waging war, and we're winning."

Wolff says that part of the problem stems from the reluctance of Americans to discuss capitalism. He says, "There's a kind of mystique about it. In the last thirty years, the greatest taboo in America was the discussion of capitalism. It's a serious problem when individuals in a culture can't talk about something as important as their economic system. Capitalism has resulted in great extremes of wealth and poverty. There is nothing sacred about the system."

He says that most people believe they belong to the middle class, a mistaken notion. "The middle class is small and growing smaller," he says. "Because of the failure of governmental regulation, the rollback of New Deal reforms, the growing inequalities of wealth and income, and new austerity programs, the capitalist system itself must be questioned. Capitalism is an inherently unstable system -- its history is punctuated by a series of busts, depressions, and recessions."

He traces the decline of capitalism in the West. "At the end of World War II, for every tax dollar Washington received from the people, it obtained $1.50 from corporations. Now, for every tax dollar the government receives from the people, it obtains only 25 cents from corporations. There has been a tremendous shift of the tax burden from corporations to the people. This adds up to class warfare, especially since the rich have also found ways to greatly reduce their personal income tax. The rich paid up to a maximum of 91 percent of income tax after World War II, yet today they must pay only about 35 percent."

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/courier_times_news/opinion/guest/unstable-capitalism-driving-class-warfare/article_3de8d697-d9ec-5151-ad4a-f997389ccdeb.html