The Health of the Middle Class

America’s middle class, once the most prosperous the world has ever seen, in much worse shape than it has been in many years. Due to irresponsible government legislation, the exporting of jobs overseas, and measures greedy corporations take to earn money, America faces a huge gap in money earned at each income level. In order for a country to thrive, a healthy middle class is a must. If our problems aren’t solved soon, we could face a larger collapse in the economy and make living in this country, which once flourished with people living out the “American Dream,” a much more difficult task to tackle.

The span of time in late 19th century America is known as the “Gilded Age,” a term coined by Mark Twain in referring to our society, which was glittering on the surface but corrupt deep within. Popular views of the time indicate a period of shady business practice, biased politics, and corporate dominance of society. 

These characteristics allowed for the empires of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and James Pierpont Morgan to blow up beyond belief, whilst the working class’s standard of living decreased and began to lose power. The aspects of this point in time are not unlike what is going on today. The rich are getting richer at the expense of the health of the middle class who support the entire unit.  In our readings and discussions about Marx, we can see that he clearly makes this observation, loathes its existence,and argues that it creates extravagant inequality. He advocates for extreme change in order to fix this problem, but the issue is entirely too broad to tackle at an effective, all-encompassing level.

Those who immigrated to America during the gilded age did so in hopes of achieving what is known as the “American Dream”. Freedom, equality, opportunity, and prosperity were expected upon moving to the United States at that time. Entire families would get up and move everything they had from a country, in which they most likely were suffering from unemployment and injustice, to America in hopes to be successful for themselves and their children. The promise of success oozed with every story of triumph among the thousands of people who turned their lives around in America. It was the land of faith for quite a number of years. Its transition from land of hope to land of hurt is well documented among those who have lived through the boom and bust periods.

Today, the jobs that were once prevalent in America for the working class are now being shipped overseas. The offshoring of jobs, also known as outsourcing, is one of the major culprits of our economic downfall. While in America, we have a structured minimum wage system, in other countries, such as China and Vietnam, there is no minimum wage. Large companies began to send jobs to these countries in order to save money, while eliminating American jobs in the process. It didn’t matter to them because they made more money this way. There has been no type of compensation given to many those whose jobs have been outright eliminated, and are still not enough jobs being created to replace those lost with the great labor flight to foreign countries.

Detroit is one of the most prominent examples of this sad downfall of proletariat society. While driving through the metro-Detroit area, one can see the dreadful ramifications of a lost battle against our financial system; Huge warehouses and production facilities are left behind to rot and take up space, and houses are being foreclosed and boarded up, all being left behind as eyesores on a vast scale. It is losing the confidence of most people, which, in turn with a dwindling unemployment rate, has spurred a mass movement away from the metro-Detroit area. The region has witnessed the spiraling undoing of a once consumer dominated area into one run directly by the dollar.

The elimination of middle class jobs has allowed for a wealth disparity in the U.S. similar to that of the Great Depression. The income gap has skyrocketed in the past 20 years. Working class people now collectively hold less of the nation’s wealth than the top tier earners. Recent figures indicate the bottom 50% of the country collectively own 1% of the wealth of the entire nation, and the bottom 80% hold 7%. According to the latest Census figures, one in six Americans lives in poverty, the highest figures ever recorded. In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx predicted these events entirely. He indicated that those left in control of the means of production would ultimately use it for their own personal gain. The “One Percent,” as they have been known in recent years, have given themselves unfair advantages in advancing their own agendas at the expense of the “99%.” Wealth inequality has led to further separation between the rich and the masses, and the income gap has only grown worse.

The middle class is now seemingly expendable to those who control the corporations, because we now must compete with the global employment market, due to cheaper labor overseas. Many wealthy business executives and owners disregard the health of our economy for profit of their own companies and their personal monetary benefit. While the average middle class hourly wage has steadily dwindled, the salaries and pay rates of executives have skyrocketed. In 1950, the ratio of the average executive paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was approximately 30 to 1. Since then, the ratio has increased tenfold, to over 300 times the average worker’s paycheck. This has occurred during a period in which countless jobs have been cut and sent to countries in which laborers work for cents an hour. Those in power are the ones reaping all of the benefit; the Bourgeoisie as Marx would call them. Job loss has contributed to a failing economy, and in this, companies and corporations have resorted to cutting pay, hours, and jobs. The measures being taken to fix the problems only create a more intense cycle of economic downturn.

The question is, what is to be done about this? Do you shift power toward government to fix the problem? Or is the problem rooted in government? Do you trust in the people? Rousseau would rely upon the political realm in order to fix the issue. Marx would say we need a revolution, possibly bloody. Žižek would say it's already happening.