That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further \u2014 ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Case in point: Freeland notes that at a time of severe economic crisis, both Democrats and Republicans rewarded our present day oligarchy, the top 1 percent, with a huge percentage of the economic gains from the 2008 economic bailout.\u00a0She also calls the subsequent weak economic recovery a \u201ccrony recovery\u201d because it has benefited corporations more than individuals.<\/p>\n

Exhibit A is the bipartisan, $700 billion rescue of Wall Street in 2008. Exhibit B is the crony recovery. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that 93 percent of the income gains from the 2009-10 recovery went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers.<\/strong> The top 0.01 percent captured 37 percent of these additional earnings, gaining an average of $4.2 million per household.<\/p>\n

The second manifestation of crony capitalism is more direct: the tax perks, trade protections and government subsidies that companies and sectors secure for themselves. Corporate pork is a truly bipartisan dish: green energy companies and the health insurers have been winners in this administration, as oil and steel companies were under George W. Bush\u2019s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The American people know very well the deck is stacked against them\u2014more now than in 2008. They are aware the Citizen\u2019s United SCOTUS decision allows billionaires to buy elections. They have given Congress a well-deserved approval rating in the single digits. Despite premature announcements of its death, the Occupy movement is alive and well, regularly fielding its representatives to cable talk shows. We even have a genuine oligarch running for president, one who dismisses 47% of the population as irrelevant slackers, and, if elected, would fast track the funneling of money upward.<\/p>\n

It feels to me like we are at a tipping point. Either the United States will go the way of 14th century Venice, with increasing poverty and a declining middle class, or Progressives of all stripes, inside and outside of government, will begin to fight back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chrystia Freeland\u2019s October 13th,\u00a0New York Times opinion piece, \u201cThe Self Destruction of the 1 Percent\u201d\u00a0compares the rise of the oligarchy in 14th century Venice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[869,93,172],"tags":[2514,698,2488,1070,1302,602],"yoast_head":"\n