socialism can be called upon to save capitalism. In a mature capitalist state, you are either born into the monied class or you will never get there. The wife and I were discussing this last week-end and we agreed that we could not have moved up the economic ladder as far was we have if we were starting now. The upward mobility of the lower economic classes is largely gone. We're not 1 percenters by any stretch, but we're top 10 percenters. I didn't come from that background, but through hard work, an advanced degree and, to be honest, a bit of luck I was able to move up. I have serious doubts about my kids being able to maintain their economic class, let alone move up. This is a consequence of the maturation of our capitalist system over the past 40 years.

I just didn't move up high enough to guarantee my kids their position (i.e. I didn't get to the top 1 percent). And I moved up stupidly - I did it by working, not gambling in the Wall Street Casino. My kids lack of upward mobility exists notwithstanding how well they educate themselves nor how hard they are willing to work. The old idea that in our American Capitalist System, every generation does better economically than the one that preceded it is a thing of the past. We are getting close to the natural maturity of a Capitalist system. We have the robber baron class and the lower class. This situation (only two classes: the monied and the non-monied) is the goal of all Capitalist systems. We're rapidly approaching it. You can see it in our tax laws: as a society through those laws, we allow people born into wealth to keep more of the wealth they receive from passive income (investments, dividends, etc.) than we allow people making a living through earning their income. That is, we've constructed our laws to benefit the capitalists over the working class. This is expected behavior of a capitalist system - once the capitalist class has enough money and influence to dictate to the State what is to be done, it's all over for the working class. It will collapse completely eventually, probably through a bloody revolution. It won't come soon, but I suspect my kids will live to see it.

You asked of the things that can be done in such a corrupt system in the last stages of decay and I think, now, not much. I fear we are past the tipping point. One thing that could be done is to pass a Constitutional Amendment stating that the Bill of Rights is directed at human beings. Constructs of law (i.e. corporations) have no Constitutional Rights. That would help some. Then make all elections funded publicly. No private contributions of any sort. Demand anyone broadcasting on the public's airwaves for profit, set aside "public service time" for political debates and so forth. You could eliminate lobbyists by passing a law stating that only constituents may petition their elected officials (that's all the founders envisioned anyway) and they must do so directly, no hiring of third parties to "represent them to their elected officals." There are things that could be done, but at this stage, none of those things will be done. All of these things should have been done in the preceding 40 years as we watched the consequences of the Reagan Revolution. Instead, we allowed YAN Wall Street Asshat to pass as a Progressive in 2008 and so what remains is the Right and Hard Right in our body politic; neither of which represent anyone but the monied class. That's two advanced forms of cancer that will be fatal to the People.

Karl Marx in his day could not believe the volume of production could possibly expand enough to reemploy those who lost their jobs as handloom weavers as well-paid machine-minders or carpet-sellers. He was wrong. The optimistic view is that our collective ingenuity will create so many things for people to do that are so attractive to the rich that they will pay through the nose for them and so recreate a middle-class society.

Um, care to consider this: http://www.shadowsta...employment-charts

Median income in the US (adjusted for inflation) between 1999 and 2012 FELL from $56,080 to $51,017. That's a 9 percent drop in median wages!

Right, tell me again how the rich are going to "pay through the nose."

Better articulated view that I adhere to. ;0)

http://www.nytimes.c...-would-have-known