The widening of the wage inequality worldwide is going to destroy democracy as we know it today and destroy the economy for the economy and democracy go hand-in-hand. If we take out the guts of both, which is the wage slaves, we can lose it all. The wage slaves are the ‘have littles’ and the ‘haves,’ which leaves the one who are at the top, the 1 percent, and the ones at the bottom, the ‘have nothing.’
The 1 percent just sits on their money and the ‘have nothings’ have no money to add to the economy. If we could get more money into the hands of the ‘have littles’ through higher wages, tax breaks, and free healthcare. They, then, would employ the ‘have nothings,’ then the new money and taxes they pay and the funds that are saved from welfare would trickle up to the government and the 1 percent, who could make even more money. The inequality of wages would start to lose, which might just save the consumer economy and democracy.
The alternative is what? A plutocracy or a revolution? It may only be money, but the working poor need $15 to $16 an hour to subsist. You have to ask yourself why it is that the Stock Exchange is set to hit 1600, there are more billionaires made in the retail industry and yet Walmart is asking its employees to donate food so their co-workers can have a Thanksgiving dinner.
If you, the worker or unemployed, aren’t willing to risk it all, they, the 1 percent, will eventually take it all. We are headed straight back into the Dickens’ era of "A Christmas Story," when we should have already learned that a concentration of wealth hurts everyone.
There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
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