Delusional Democracy Breeds Delusional Prosperity

[G2099]

The unwritten theory seems to be that if citizens have personal freedom they will ignore economic inequality. And it seems to be working well here in the United States of Affluence. Aristocratic power-economic elites that really run the country have done more than shred the structure of our democracy under both Republican and Democratic regimes. They have engineered an economic system that is destroying the vaulted middle class, creating a simpler two-class system: the wealthy and the working poor. Americans are kept in a distractive state of consumer borrowing and spending. They never use their consumer power to challenge the system. They are continually fed economic lies. They are mostly blind to their delusional democracy and its flip side – delusional prosperity.

What should be the talk of the town throughout the nation is rising economic inequality. Every time you hear some news report and statistic about how well the American economy is doing stop and ask yourself: But what’s the story on economic inequality? Is economic prosperity being shared? Is wealth disproportionately flowing to the wealthy, not just here but also increasingly exported to foreign super-rich?

http://www.progress.org/2006/hirsch01.htm