Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele - the authors of What Went Wrong? - are pictured below. Both made their names as investigative reporters. The photograph was obtained from The New York Times, which published an obituary of Barlett in the middle of October this year. In the photo, Barlett is on the left. Steele is on the right. Steele is still alive.
I haven't read their book, but here is what The Times says about its essential message:
Mr. Barlett and Mr. Steele’s multipart series on the middle class, published in 1991, attributed its shrinking to a widening gulf in income between the top and bottom wage earners and to changes in federal tax law that favored the wealthy. It won several awards and was expanded into a book, “America: What Went Wrong?” (1992), which sat atop The New York Times’s best-seller list for weeks (emphasis added).
"Income inequality," in other words, is the culprit identified by Barlett and Steele. The growth of an overweeing income inequality is what "went wrong."
I am writing this blog posting after having just read a compelling article in The New Yorker. That article is titled, "Silicon Valley, The New Lobbying Monster." The New Yorker article, by Charles Duhigg, a Pulitizer Prize winning investigative reporter himself, provides a convincing account of how "income inequality" works out in the realm of practical politics. Duhigg's article definitely supports the idea that income inequality is where our politics "went wrong."
In fact, as I say every so often, the operational rule that most typically determines how our politics works is captured by the following saying: "Those who have the gold make the rules." That's the "Golden Rule of Politics," the way I understand it.
The foundational equation that determines how government works is best expressed as follows:
Politics > Law > Government
"Politics," in other words, is what gives us the "Laws" that govern every aspect of our lives. You can't begin with "Law" and expect to win. You have to begin with "Politics."
Of course, there is a good argument that "Money" governs "Politics," and if that's an "inevitable" truth, then we are fully and roundly screwed. By "we," of course, I mean ordinary citizens, who are supposedly in charge of a system that purports to advance self-government, a government, "of, and by, and for the people."
The only way out of the box we're in - the only way to reverse what "went wrong," is to find some way to eliminate the triumph of "money" over "the people." Again, I am talking about ordinary citizens, when I say "the people."
What beats money? Well, I am proposing that we remember another maxim that rings of truth:
Ben Franklin, one of America's Founding Fathers, is credited with the phrase I have just typed-in, above. It is unlikely that Franklin had politics specifically in mind, but if that "Time Is Money" phrase does get at an essential truth about our social, political, and economic life (and I would argue that it does), then retaking control over government means that a significant "time reallocation" is required.
We "ordinary men and women," in other words, are going to have to "reallocate" our time, if we want to establish a "Politics" that leads to "Laws" that benefit us - not those already inordinately wealthy.
Do you think we could make that happen? Well, it's only a few days till it's time for a new set of New Year's Resolutions, so think about that "time realloction" idea as you draft up your own list. The Duhigg article states, as though it were the truth (and I think it is), that "what politicians care about most is reelection." Properly organized at the relatively "local" level at which both elected state and national officials operate (and at which local elected officials operate, too), it is possible to organize the "Time" of ordinary men and women - focusing it on "Politics" - to put the reelection of current officeholders at risk, if they don't do what those ordinary people want.
Like I say, think about this as you make your New Year's Resolutions! That thought should help you decide how best to allocate your time in the challenging time ahead.
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