from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:
Rags to Riches: Who Should Really Care?November 6, 2011
Not the 99 percent. We’ve let the cheerleaders for the richest among us get away with myths about mobility for much, much too long.By Sam Pizzigati
Mobility, apologists for America’s grand fortunes love to argue, trumps inequality.
Our society may be deeply unequal, the argument goes, but that doesn’t really matter — because anybody in America, with a little grit, can get rich. In our “land of opportunity,” no one has any legitimate reason to grouse.
Researchers over recent years have unveiled a ton of data that demolishes this “land of opportunity” mobility mythology. Fewer and fewer Americans are getting ahead, they’ve documented, as America has become more unequal.
And the world’s most equal developed nations, researchers have also shown, have significantly more social mobility than the distinctly unequal United States. ..............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://toomuchonline.org/rags-to-riches-who-should-really-care/