As of now, with the current economic turmoil, the middle class is wondering “We did everything right. How could this have happened to us? We work hard, paid our mortgage, and paid our loans on time. How are we now struggling?” To even begin understanding these problems we need to back track just a bit, well a couple decades that is to the New Deal programs implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
These programs laid the groundwork for the greatest expansion of the middle class with large economic growth after WWII and into the 1960s. The New Deal programs such as the 1944 GI Bill, enabled millions of servicemen and veterans to go to college, open businesses, and afford homes for the first time. While in the early 1980s, under the presidential leadership of Ronald Reagan, these programs were pretty much dismantled and the government tax policy shifted money from the middle class to the wealthy creating a growing gap between the rich and poor that we see today. It seems that wealthy individuals and corporations got their very own New Deal programs. The Occupy Movement, although lacking in strategy and clear goals, has brought up important issues that the majority of Americans have not thought about on a collective level and that is corporate greed. The mentality that the poor or the unemployed are simply just lazy and not willing to work is being challenged because we see that the middle class (“the working class”) is struggling, losing their jobs, and falling into poverty. Just like how the word: liar has become synonymous with politicians; greed has become the same for corporations.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not bashing the rich for being rich; I’m bashing them for getting rich over the backs of everyone else. What the American Dream meant to people was that they could “prosper” and “have the chance to acquire a good life” for their family. As we have seen, the American Dream doesn’t necessarily come true for many, but this dream creates an American optimism that can’t be challenged…except by the cyclical and redundant dream that tax cuts will create a trickle down effect making everyone prosperous. We are at a stage in America where manufacturing has ended, and our investments in companies and corporations are being majorly invested abroad. The American Dream is supposedly achieved through hard work only, but the people are becoming restless; this sense of hopelessness among the “comfortable poor” will not be felt by those of the middle class who have prospered before.
No one wants a history lesson, but if you want the truth then it’s time to start looking at what brought us to our current situation. Just because the people are advocating for economic justice doesn’t mean they want to overthrow the whole economic system. Those who start labeling the poor as socialists for wanting a living wage, fairness, and representation should first try to understand the intent of real democracy..
