12 December 2010
By Jeff Gates
Is America
the target of class warfare? That claim, though widely
made, misses the point. The problem is more serious
and the long-term effects far more troubling. Though
the facts are compelling, that conclusion is
misleading.
In 2007, 1%
of U.S. households claimed 24% of the national income.
Those figures were compiled well before a debt-induced
recession cost the jobs of millions of Americans. And
well before the payment this year of a $144 billion
bonus to Wall Street's elite.
The topmost
1% now owns 34% of all private net worth; the bottom
90% owns 29%. Is that evidence of class warfare or is
there something else at work?
The facts
suggest that these record-breaking disparities were
foreseeable by those sophisticated in trade and
finance—but not until Americans could be persuaded to
put their faith in a shared mindset now known as the
"Washington" consensus.
With its
U.S. origins traceable to academia, this mindset
insists that we grant not deference but outright
dominance to those values denominated in money. That
worldview worked its way from intellectuals into
legislation to become the law of the land.
Instead of
the civil rights refrain, "Let my people go," this
widely shared belief insists on "Let my money go." So
we enacted laws to ensure that money can flow wherever
money wants to go in pursuit of the highest returns –
as measured in money.
Money,
after all, is what really matters.
Over
decades, the respect granted financial markets became
akin to reverence. In the creation of that shared
faith lies how we were induced to displace commonsense
with a ‘generally accepted truth' that unleashed the
unbridled forces of finance.
Exaggerated Authority
The origins
of this mindset recede into the mists of time. Yet its
lineage traces to those who honed the skill sets used
to excel in global trade and finance.
Fast-forward to modernity and this mindset was
imbedded in the curriculum of business and law schools
worldwide. Akin to an operating system running
silently in the background, this narrow perspective
now forms the unstated foundation on which entire
economies are built.
Yet those
metrics measurable by money fail to reflect either the
costs imposed on communities or the values required
for healthy and sustainable communities. This glaring
mismatch is widely understood with an intuitive
certainty that cannot be denied.
Induced to
grant lawful dominance to money, people find
themselves living unfulfilled lives in unhealthy
communities and distressed environments. Educated to
behave inconsistent with their inner knowing, people
begin to mistrust themselves, societal impotence grows
and self-governance recedes.
A simmering
resentment colors all as disillusionment morphs into
indifference in a disabling cycle that leaves this
systemic flaw intact. Rather than challenge the
mindset, people adapt and comply.
With
compliance come the symptoms of class warfare. But the
malady is far more fundamental and its source
thoroughly internalized.
Financial Narcissism
The roots
of this mindset trace to a form of narcissism made to
appear natural and even rational. Money pursuing more
money is a pernicious form of self-adoration enabled
by our faith in this flawed mindset.
Clinically,
narcissism describes a devastatingly vulnerable person
who compensates for an inadequacy with a desperate
need for admiration and a grandiose self-image.
Within the
consensus mindset, this grandiosity takes form as the
legally enforced deference granted financial markets
to ensure that money can seek more of
itself—regardless of the non-monetary results.
By
exaggerating the authority that money is allowed in
our lives, a mistrust of our intuitive knowledge grows
alongside a sense of civic impotence and widening
disenchantment.
This
mindset is not itself class warfare. Its symptoms are
similar but the malady is more debilitating. Financial
narcissism not only fractures societies, it also
deeply imprints a sense of personal inadequacy and
undermines the confidence required for
self-governance.
The Seduction of Zion
By inducing
America to embrace this mindset, proponents of this
narrow worldview evoked a social environment granting
dominance to those values calculable in money. No
financial return is too much; nor can any return be
paid too quickly.
By living
with the effects of a shared mindset ill-adapted to
people, place and pace, our lives become inconsistent
with our intuition and authenticity is displaced with
an ill-fitting faith.
Many of our
best minds were educated to excel within this narrow
range of values while ignoring its incapacitating
effects as this perilous self-absorption expanded to
global scale under the guise of the U.S.-discrediting
Washington consensus.
The
seduction is now complete. Major nations, including
the U.S., find their principles displaced, their
policies dismissed, their economies devastated and
their environments depleted.
As the
source of this narcissism is identified, this mindset
can be replaced with a consensus that reflects the
diversity of values required for sustainable
communities and truly human societies.
Jeff
Gates is author of Guilt By Association—How Deception
and Self-Deceit Took
America to
War.
See
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