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

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Second Gilded Age

Click here to access article by economist David Ruccio from his blog Occasional Links & Commentary. 
There are still some who believe we’re all in this together. But we’re not, not by a long shot.

When the economy is organized so that the surplus is pumped out of one group (whose wages are stagnant), appropriated by another group (the tiny group of capitalists who sit on corporate boards of directors), and then distributed to still another group (who do all that is necessary to make sure the surplus continues to flow), and the top 1 percent get to spend the expanding surplus it receives on all manner of luxury goods and services—well, you get what can only be described as the Second Gilded Age.
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