The Blog | Andrei Cherny: A New American Democracy | The Huffington Post
The Blog | Andrei Cherny: A New American Democracy | The Huffington Post
Quote: But now we all know that America is changing yet again. We’re moving from cities to suburbs and exurbs, from a national economy to a global economy, from the top-down hierarchies of the industrial age to the bottom-up workplaces of the information age, from assembly lines to iPods.
Not everyone is part of that shift, but with each passing day more and more are. And again, American democracy is at risk.
We once again have a corrupt bargain between powerful interests and pliant politicians. Energy policy is set not by citizens or their elected representatives, but behind closed doors by lobbyists and industry. Congress prohibits Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has doubled since 2000 and the amount these lobbyists charge their clients has increased 100 percent – and those clients are getting every cent of their money’s worth. You don’t have to look much further than this week’s headlines to see that the voice of everyday people in our government is getting drowned out by the desires of a few.
Social equality is disappearing once again, in ways unseen since the last time our economy changed, back in the Gilded Age. Thirty years ago the top 100 CEOs made 39 times the wage of the average worker. Now it is more than 1,000 times higher. And the top 1% holds a third of the country’s net worth. The days of “the President is Mister and I am Mister, too” are disappearing. And yet, Congress is clamoring to eliminate the estate tax with what might as well be called “the American Aristocrats Protection Act of 2006.” Right now the fight is whether or not to cut off the estate tax at seven million dollars or higher.
Opportunity – the idea that in a democracy each person should have an equal chance at success – is also at risk. A 1978 study showed that 23% of the adult men born in the bottom fifth made it to the top fifth. When they did the study over again a few years ago, that number had dropped to 10%.
Class lines are becoming hardened and the avenues of democracy are being closed off. At the country’s top 146 colleges, 75% of the students come from the top 1/4th and only 3% from the bottom 1/4th. You are 25 times as likely to sit next to a rich student as you are a poor one. The days of Bob Crachit and Ebenezer Scrooge sitting down together are vanishing before our eyes.
And where the richest in our country can choose their children’s schools and their family doctor and how to save for their retirement, most middle class and poor Americans have little to no say on most aspects of their lives, little ability to make decisions for themselves.
Those of us who believe in American democracy now have a choice to make – and it is just like the choice a hundred years ago. We can try to hold back change: say no to globalization or no to technology replacing manufacturing jobs and bank tellers being replaced by ATMs.
A good read. It doesn’t address detailed solutions, but please check it out.
I think things in this country are coming to a head. Something is going to have to change.
Politicians are out of touch, and extremists from all sides are polarizing the country—which is stupid. The vast majority of Americans can work out our differences. I’m sure we could come up with some compromises on all these issues that are being blown out of proportion…
We need to reboot democracy in this country—excellent way to put it. That’s now my new motto. It expresses exactly what I feel.
So-called democracy here is dead—but it doesn’t have to stay that way.