- 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
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- 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.
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- Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association-How Deception
and Self-Deceit Took America to War. See <http://www.criminalstate.com>www.criminalstate.com
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