Over winter break, I went to see The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie that concerns itself with the American dream. I'm not going to attempt to disprove the American dream, but I can offer some statistics that show that class mobility in the US is largely a thing of the past. Right wingers love to trot out these feel good stories about people who grew up in poor neighborhoods and went on to become millionaires, but these are extremely rare cases. It seems to me that in talking about these stories, they are actually implying that we should pick it up. It's kind of like saying, "Come on, he did it, why can't you?" Well, the problem is that everyone isn't a genius like Will Smith's character in The Pursuit of Happyness. Of course it's possible, but is it probable??
Here are some interesting statistics from Lou Dobbs' latest book, War on the Middle Class:
Over the last twenty-five years, median family income has risen by 18 percent while the income of the top 1 percent has gone up by 200 percent. 43 percent of Forbes richest 400 Americans inherited enough money outright to qualify for inclusion. Nearly 7 percent had originally inherited more than $50 million. Another 6 percent had inherited more than $1 million but less than $50 million; 14 percent were raised in wealthy or upper-class homes.
These numbers sure do say a lot, don't they? Only about 30 percent of the richest Americans started out in the middle or lower classes. Clearly, the best way to have money in our country is to be born into wealth.
And if you are rich in America, we are going to do everything in our power to make sure you stay rich. Evidence the Bush tax cuts, which predominantly favor the uber-rich. Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the world, is even disgusted by these sobering statistics. "This is class warfare. My class is winning, but they shouldn't be."
My conclusion is that class mobility in this country is severely limited, though still somewhat feasible. George Carlin once quipped that, "They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." Although this may not be entirely true, it is fast becoming the status quo. And here's another statistic for you to write down, from Gar Alperovitz's America Beyond Capitalism: "The top 1 percent now garners for itself more income each year than the bottom 100 million American's combined." I know, it sounds like I'm making that up, but trust me, I'm not.
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