To Save the Republic, Tax the Rich

[Joanne98]

by Robert Parry

For all the laid-off “Joe the Plumbers” who share the Right’s fury about the “class warfare” of imposing higher taxes on millionaires, there is this hard truth: the rich don’t need as many of you as they once did – and taxing the rich may be the only way to make the economic system work for you.

Indeed, the surplus labor of everyone from factory workers to bookkeepers is fast becoming the biggest structural problem facing U.S. society. Even an economic “recovery” is unlikely to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work, at least in any meaningful way.

That’s because in today’s brave new world of high technology and global commerce, many blue-collar and white-collar jobs can be done more cheaply through computerized automation or by low-cost overseas labor than by American middle-class workers regardless of how much retraining they get.

So, whenever the current recession ends, many Americans who lost their jobs or had to take severe pay cuts are not likely to make up lost ground. Unemployment and under-employment are almost certain to stay high, and those lucky enough to have jobs will have to work harder, faster and longer than before.

Already, most of us scramble to make ends meet, with fewer protections in the work place as unions shrink, with the 40-hour work week disappearing for many, with cell phone and e-mails putting us on call virtually 24/7, and with retirements postponed sometimes indefinitely.

This era’s great irony may be that those of us who grew up watching “The Jetsons” or similar representations of the future didn’t see this bleak future coming. We thought technological progress was going to mean more free time for the human race – to play with the kids, to read a book, to travel or to just take it easy.

Instead, technology has contributed to making our lives more slavish and more brutish, especially when job loss is combined with lost health benefits and endless pressure from bill collectors.

Yet, while the middle- and working-classes have seen the American dream recede, the upper stratum of the super rich have watched the benefits of the high-tech global economy flow disproportionately into their stock portfolios and trust funds, creating wealth disparities not seen in the United States since the age of the robber barons.

Continued>>>
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/21-7