It’s Class War
Could Working Class Anger Decide America's Next President?
Will corporate greed become an issue in the November elections? The candidates are betting it will. Some voters, like Mike Paquette (see cover story), support Pat Buchanan, even though Buchanan is opposed to most things working people stand for.
But when presidential candidate Buchanan attacked "the big boys in New York who don't give a hoot what the common people want," he created a deep class division.
American voters have long been divided along racial and ethnic lines. We have divided ourselves by language, sex, education and geography. But working people have not solidly lined up against America's business class since the 1930s when Franklin D. Roosevelt took aim at the "economic royalists." This could be the year that class is back.
In the past, election-year demagogues have blamed what's wrong with America on immigrants, ethnic groups or the poor in general. This has been Buchanan's stock-in-trade since he was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon. But even if it was out of character for candidate Buchanan to condemn the corporate elite, the working class said, "Amen" to that, even if they reject the rest of his program.
This response shows how desperate we are. Our real, spendable income in constant dollars has actually been falling for the lower 53 percent of the population over the last 20 years.
We worry about losing our homes, our kids' educations, our retirement plans—everything we hold dear.
To add insult to injury, hundreds of thousands are being downsized while stock prices soar.
No wonder Buchanan got applause and a boost in the polls when he called the stock market "un-American." He did well in the Iowa caucuses. All of a sudden, Sen. Bob Dole ceased to be the shoo-in Republican candidate.
Dole was caught off balance. But even the great defender of Corporate America felt obliged to make some statements critical of corporate greed.
Then Newsweek put mug shots of the worst capitalist "downsizers" on the cover, under the title "Corporate Killers." Pres. Clinton and U.S. Sec. of Labor Robert Reich vowed to do something about corporate greed. They want to reward "responsible corporate citizens" and are looking into incentives for corporations to create jobs instead of destroying them.
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt declared this election year "the era of income politics." The New York Times Magazine headline declared, "Class is no longer a four-letter word," and predicted that class will be a factor come November 5.
What has moved working people so? After all, recent job loss is no worse than the 1981-1983 recession. But, there is a huge difference: Most workers laid off during a recession at least have the hope of getting their jobs back. The 77,800 AT&T employees were given none. They, and thousands like them, were "downsized," their jobs lost forever—when the economy was growing.
As this scene is repeated across America, something else just as insulting has been going on in the economy. The American worker, already the most efficient in the world, has gotten more efficient—by three and four percent annually. In the past, such in-creased efficiency has always driven wages up. Yet our wages have remained flat since 1980—and have barely begun to sneak upwards in the past few months.
Unemployed and low-paid workers pay less in taxes. Our cities and highways, infrastructure and services are suffering as a result, something AFSCME members see firsthand every day.
These corporations are throwing the tax burden onto working people. While corporate income taxes pay 10 percent of federal revenues, income taxes on working people pay 44 percent—and that percentage is rising. In 1960, corporations paid 23 percent.
Poverty leads to crime and drug abuse. A record number of rich Americans now live in walled communities and blame the victims of econo-mic hard times: the poor and jobless.
No wonder working people are mad. The New York Times calls this "class anger." If we can aim it in the right direction—at those at the top who cause the problem, rather than at the victims at the bottom—then we can think about electing officials this November who can take on the problems.
Be sure to register and vote for candidates who defend America's working families. Candidates who care about people more than corporations. Candidates who serve all Americans.
