Americas GILDED AGE wasn’t so gilded for the ninety nine percent.  This period of American history (1878 – 1917) is also descriptively known as ROBBER BARON ERA.  The ROBBER BARON ERA, saw a Dickensian USA, a tiny club of VERY wealthy businessmen and landowners , the titans,  the Newport mansion club, and a very large class of desperately poor workers. The Gilded Age gave birth to well know American family names. Dynasties were born: Rockefeller, Mellon, Morgan, Carnegie as the super rich industrialists and financiers created the American “upper class” of opulence. Wealth was accumulated through exploitation of very low wage scales and dominant government influence.

Sound familiar? It should!

In the Gilded Age, the wealthy minority obtained control, claimed ownership, created monopolies over the countries resources. technology, the railroads, steelworks, oil production etc.  They, with their corporations, amassed huge wealth.  The country’s wealth grew but moved no further than in the grasp of the top 1%. There was no “trickle down” $$$$, no crumbs “trickling” from the table in the Golden AGE. Just the lavishly RICH few and the multitudes of poor.

The gilded age formula was to cut government interference, pay no taxes, avoid inheritance taxes for the dynasty, create monopolies too bid to fail, “buy” the politicians, strangle employee bargaining and destroy “unions”, keep workers off balance, concerned, worried about their security, their paycheck, then pay wage scales as low as possible. Move off shore but still keep your fists in the US government  “pot” and, of course,  fly the patriotic flag, even if only for show.

FAMILIAR?

Virtually all recorded history society has been divided into very small fantastically wealthy powerful class, the political rulers, and the enormously large population of poor, slave, serf, working class.  Society stayed this way until the emergence of DEMOCRACY.  Democracy, in the political machines of government, in the factory workrooms, in formation of unions and guilds, in government laws and regulations aimed at leveling the economic, political field, intent on creating fairness, for the peoples’ good, a MIDDLE CLASS, a DEMOCRACY.

A democracy produces a middle class and requires a middle class to survive. Democracy and the Middle Class are inextricably intertwined.  To break either of them is to destroy the viability of both. Democracy gives birth to the Middle Class and can only exist when the Middle Class is strong and allowed to grow.

At the end of the Gilded Age, (Robber Baron Era) and  the depression,  the people  recognized the need for a social and economic fight on behalf of WE THE PEOPLE. They acknowledged this interdependence of Democracy and Middle Class. A struggle to develop a period of change was undertaken, focused on  opportunity through sharing, truth, pride, hope, and trust.  Under the leadership of FDR, the THE AMERICAN DREAM was truly born. The middle class grew and America boomed.

FDR pointed out in 1936 the rule of many requires that WE THE PEOPLE have a degree of economic as well as political freedom. When WE THE PEOPLE are given the opportunity to a good education, earn a decent living wage, own home, feed confident and secure, good child care, health care, care for the old age, then America has a thriving pulsating MIDDLE CLASS – America has a thriving DEMOCRACY.

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington did not fight a revolutionary war to create a country only for the wealthy property owners.  Thomas Jefferson in particular knew what was needed for the foundations of an American  middle class, perhaps why he put “LIFE LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS” into the Declaration of Independence.  Thomas Jefferson did not want business to profit at the expense of WE THE PEOPLE. The government he created was designed to operate for the benefit of ALL the people and not a select few nor benefit of business at the expense of “we the people”.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816   “those seeking profits were they given total freedom would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure.  Indeed it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government. ”

These days we are told “government is too large, small government is best”. All the countries ills are due to BIG government, government  interference in business. Organized labor is destructive, Taxes are too high. “Free Trade” is the answer as tariffs  are removed and laws to protect the workforce and disowned.  It is easy to understand and appreciate why.  What the pundits, the preachers of the one cent,  do not say is that the reason they want SMALL GOVERNMENT is because they can make an enormous amount of money – a killing – when they with “their” government privatize formerly owned government functions.  The result of such privatization is a power vacuum that allows herculean corporations and the super rich to step in and PROFIT $$$$$ from anything and all that used to be government “WE THE PEOPLE” and NONPROFIT.        Who wins? the ONE PER CENT.       Who makes it happen?  the “in the pocket”  POLITICIANS.    Who looses? the middle class.     Who pays?  “WE THE PEOPLE”.

Small Government doesn’t mean fewer politicians, fewer taxes for the 99%. It means government of, by and for the corporations, for inherited wealth, the elite,and the super rich.  It means  HELL with “WE THE PEOPLE” . It means a lean mean government stripped of all power to “interfere”, governing for the benefit of the very few, the 1%!  The return of the ROBBER BARON ERA.

The newest political manta is “let the market decide” not government.  BUT where and what is the market independent of government, any government? What is really being said is “Let us make government work to help corporations instead of people. Let us provide all the services corporations need and then make the people foot the bill, like let corporations decide how much to pay for their labor and when, where, how to trade.  No government restrictions, no laws protecting employees rights, salaries, heath care, hours, and NO agencies peering over the corporate shoulders!!!!   Easy to do?  Sure,  hide the true intentions with a few Hollywood meaningless but catchy political slogans like “Job Creators” “Trickle Down”  “Compassionate deficit” “let the market decide” even “food stamp President”!!  Be sure you “BUY RIGHT” by paying the campaign of the chosen and winning President:  $$$ for their buddies the “in for a  lifetime” politicians:  $$$$$$$$ for the K Street lobbies, Then you cut public education budget,  manipulate your news, add some hate, racism, religion, guns, gays and finish with a ton of FEAR…..just stay away for the truth and ECONOMY.

Government is a necessity and a Democratic government depends on the ability to play referee to the game of business while protect labor and the public good.  Jefferson himself  insisted on the importance to control “overgrown wealth” from becoming “dangerous to the state”; a danger to democracy, the government of “WE THE PEOPLE”.

Since Reagan’s introduction of VOO DOO economics, and with the help of his pal, Alan Greenspan, convinced the American public it works; the rich grew fabulously richer  and have continued to accumulate vast wealth under subsequent administrations.  During Reagan (1981 to 1989) the income of the wealthiest 5 percent rose by 25% while the income of the bottom 50 per cent stayed flat. Today 400 people own as much as 150 MILLION Americans combined.  Laws have been created aimed at destroying the fair play safety nets of FDR, attacking unions and workers rights to organize, creating a “comfy” Supreme Court, at the same time passing laws with vast loop holes in restrictions and enabling tax avoidance.  The “middle class” of FDR is being pushed aside.  The American Congress has justly earned its miserable, polarized and dangerous approval rating of NINE PERCENT 9% – by doing the “will” of the tiny few.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, FDR,  AMERICA NEEDS YOU!!!ONCE MORE