August 9, 2011--Class Warfare: Bianca Platform Pumps

There is a civil war raging right now within the United States.

Unlike the Civil War of 1861-65, the battlefields this time are not littered with the dead and wounded but rather with the frustrated and angry.

One side is clearly winning; the other dramatically losing.

The winners are the rich and powerful; the losers, the rest of us, are the working and struggling middle class and poor. It is classic class warfare, but a war we are loath to talk about because according to our founding ideology and myths in America we do not have economic classes or a class system. It is Europeans who have those.

Among the things that make for American exceptionalism is this lack of a class structure and the fluidity and impermanence with which some rise and others fall.

Or so it is claimed.

Here, since everyone has an equal chance to succeed, one class does not have to actively dominate another in order to prosper. Differences are decided by a honest struggle between those who have merit and those who, too bad, do not. Or between the ambitious and the "lazy," with those lacking merit or too indolent to compete responsible for their own ultimate circumstances.

Or so it is claimed.

Class war between and among us, therefore, is unnecessary. We have an open system and individuals fall into natural or self-determined configurations. As if according to the Market, Nature, or divine plan.

Or so it is asserted.

Further, to even broach the subject of class in America, much less class warfare, taints one as foreign, a Marxist, even a communist because it was Marx and his intellectual and political followers who promulgated the notion of class struggle as the natural, final product of European capitalism. Again, among the things that make America allegedly different is this lack of inevitable struggle.

Conveniently for the very affluent, this pressure, almost a prohibition not to discuss class matters in these terms is yet one more way that they are protected from exposure and direct confrontation. Rather than talk honestly about economic and social differences and their actual causes we condemn even the beginning of a discussion of these and instead turn against those who want to have this conversation.

A consideration of class in the United States, though, is getting harder and harder to suppress as the economy worsens and recession persists and more and more evidence emerges that sheds light on the truth about class, inequality, and the American opportunity structure. The gap between the income and assets of the wealthiest 5 percent and the remaining 95 percent has grown to be so wide now as to surpass the social distinctions common during the 19th century's Gilded Age.

And then there is the anecdotal evidence, in many cases the worst kind, since it is right there before us to contemplate and rubs in our faces how we are straining to live--keep or find jobs, pay bills and mortgages, sustain our children, and contemplate retirement--while the fortunate and privileged few increasingly go about the merry business of getting and spending.

We are currently unpacking more about the getting part--how much of it is because of loopholes and unfair education and tax advantages--but it is the spending part that is making increasing numbers of us crazy.

Take, for example, an article from last week's New York Times that chronicles how luxury goods are again flying off the shelves (linked below).

If you aren't frustrated enough by concerns about your own circumstances or the status of your shrinking 401(k) how does it make you feel to learn that Nordstrom has a waiting list of women eager to snap up Chanel sequined tweed coats with a $9,010 price tag? Not good I am sure.

Or that Neiman Marcus has sold out all their $775-a-pair Christian Louboutin Biance platform shoes? Or the fact that Mercedes-Benz reports that it sold more cars in July in the U.S. than in any other month during the past five years. Or that the luxury items sector of the economy has shown increased sales in each of the last 10 months? Tiffany's alone saw its first-quarter sales up a cool 20 percent. Louis Vuitton can't keep its plastic handbags in stock nor can Givenchy or Gucci or Yves Saint Laurent turn out enough multi-thousand dollar dresses to satisfy the soaring demand.

These folks are winning the class war because they have figured out how to mobilize powerful allies. Allies such as the dug-in Republican Party, dominated now by the Tea Party, that protects and expands the super-rich's tax advantages and works day and night to resist filling in even oil companies' tax loopholes. They have other partners who are in effect hired to do their bidding. Lobbyists who labor to protect their advantages; even presidents of the United States who care more about pandering to the economic interests of the wealthy than serving those of the majority. And then of course there is the current Supreme Court which, through a series of rulings since John Roberts became Chief Justice, has consistently sided with business and corporate interests at the expense of the rest of us.

This is not a pretty picture. In fact, to use a phrase from the 1970s, it represents "social dynamite." It needs to be defused by more balanced policies or it will, well, explode. We have seen this already in Greece and economic riots are currently flaring up in north London.

Be further warned that government-enabled inequality is actually worse here than in either Greece or Britain. We may not be comfortable having a public discussion about class in America; but to save our otherwise wonderful country, the time to do so is long overdue.