To me, the largest single danger looming over America is the economic elite we call the 1%. I do not think it is an accident that the wealth of this group almost exactly the purchasing power lost by the rest of us over the past 30 years. As they grow ever more obscenely wealthy, the rest of us (including the 'upper' middle class like doctors and lawyers become relatively more impoverished. No one contests that this group possesses enormous political power. In addition, I think this group is becoming an increasingly coherent, self conscious whole, determined to perpetuate itself and control American politics. Project out this curve and we have a country where most of us subsist in hovels dressed in rags while the new aristocracy parties on, secure in their castles. A wold like this once existed for hundreds of years. It was called feudalism, or serfdom; not quite slavery but not far removed from it. There is no reason way this system could not return. The logic, or destiny so to speak of the 1% trends in this direction. I doubt the Constitution is enough of a bulwark to prevent the return of serfdom.
Any attempt to alter this situation; to return political power and economic vitality to typical Americans obviously faces an uphill battle, and a firestorm of opposition. Moreover, any attempt to right things is going to have to demand very basic -if not radical - reforms. What follows is one program that might do the job.
We need, at the outset to understand just who are the 1%. Now, there are a (very) few people in that cohort, whom you might say 'deserve' to be quite wealthy. These are the innovators, who have truly made major contributions to the general welfare. I have in mind individuals like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. True, we might say that such types don't deserve to be quite as wealthy as they are, but let's say that the true contributors have in some sense earned their gains. my suggestions do not challenge the rights of the true innovators.( I do not consider exotic financial instruments to be true innovations. The basic idea behind them was invented over a hundred years ago in the Irish Sweepstakes.) But who then, is the rest of the 1%? In brief they are a collection of coupon clippers, bunco steerers, carney barkers and all purpose free loaders
About half of them are wealthy through inheritance alone. My solution here is to abolish inheritance; perhaps beginning with the third generation. In other words, let some wealthy individual have the privilege of making his undeserving kids filthy rich, but for goodness sakes let it stop there. Now, the idea of inheritance seems to be one of those sacred, or inviolable ones. But compare: not that far back, debts as well as assets were a mandatory inheritance. If your Daddy was in the hole when he passed on well, then so were you until Dad's debt was paid off. This was known as entail. Barbaric? Mr Jefferson thought so. Let the land belong to the living. His changes, in effect let Dad's ghost declare bankruptcy. But then is positive inheritance less barbaric than debt inheritance? I suppose we could make an exemption for working family farm land, but otherwise? It seems to me both the best of American individualism and a necessary correction of the dangers of one percentism.
The other large component -and by far the more dangerous one - is made up of investment bankers and hedge fund operators. I need not rehearse the horrors that result when we allow these people to run around loose. The ghastly dislocation of the housing bust and attendant recession are with us still. We are talking here about tens of thousands of suicides, divorces, cases of alcoholism and untreated major trauma. The investment crowd ought, in any just society, be made to stand trial for mass felony murder and assault.
In the event, my solution is simple: nationalize investment banking and hedge funds. There was a time when this kind of banking made an important contribution to the economy, by raising capital for expansion or start-up for American business. No more. Today this branch of Wall Street spends 95% of its time and effort in such ponzi games as flash trading or currency trading. Basically, even if the did not hold the economy hostage while reaping obscene totally un deserved profits, they remain pur parasites. They make no contribution to the national economy. There is absolutely no reason that we ought not have a Federal Investment Bank, just as we have A Federal Reserve and a Social Security administration. There is no question but that the Feds could do it cheaper and more honestly.
So, to sum up, we could do a lot to restore political and economic power to the American people by two simple changes: Abolish inheritance and nationalize investment banking. Two relatively small changes, really. Utopian? Yep Necessary? Yup - unless you want your children dressed in rags.