[Peace-discuss] U.S. economic system oppresses the poor

[David Green]

That was the title given to my letter to the editor this morning:
In “Money can’t buy everything” (August 14th), News-Gazette editors assert that “society can't even give each child a family structure that lays the groundwork for a happy, healthy, successful life.” Thus, educational spending is limited in its effects on achievement and economic outcomes.

If money can’t buy everything, one wonders why the top 10% need 50% of the income, the top 1% need 40% of the wealth, and the top .1% need more wealth than the bottom 90%--all of these constituting spectacular and arbitrary increases in inequality over the past half-century.

But since money can’t buy everything, it makes sense that the bottom 50% in income haven’t had a significant raise over the past 50 years, in spite of the near-doubling of real per capita GDP. What good would it do if, as the editors claim, “The family structure is at death's door”?

In reality, money in our rich and developed society could buy all families a decent and affordable system of housing, healthcare, social and cultural supports, and some combination of universal basic income and guaranteed employment at a living wage. This would do wonders for family structure, and leave educators as co-facilitators (with parents) of child and adolescent intellectual development, rather than co-oppressors (with “job creators”) of a future low-wage labor force.

For students in the bottom 50%, neither condescension regarding “family structure” nor fantasies of “equal opportunity” will resonate with their valid perceptions of a system that dramatically favors the inter-generational perpetuation of the privileged classes.

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