Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Low-wage lessons

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Low-wage lessons

Click here to access article by John Schmitt from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

My fellow citizens of the US: how is that hopey-changy thing workin' for ya? Are you a part of that 25% of US workers who earn low wages? Well, you may not be paid well, but you can be proud of your country because we are number one...in low wages!

As I write in a new CEPR briefing paper, the United States leads the wealthy world in the share of its workforce in low-wage jobs. According to the commonly used international definition of low-wage work –earning less than two-thirds of the median hourly wage– about one-fourth of US workers are low-wage.

It's clear with the latest attacks on all safely nets and all the austerity measures being implemented that this trend of a widening gap between the One Percent and the rest of us is only going to increase. And not only in the US. European workers are currently under attack.

If we continue to allow the system of the One Percent, capitalism, to continue, we can only look forward to increasing numbers of people in poverty--oceans of people in poverty while well guarded islands of the One Percent live in luxury. This will be our future if we continue to mindlessly stare into the truth machines (TV) whose programs are owned and operated by the One Percent and their agents, and passively let them herd us around like sheep to the slaughterhouse.