There are places in the world where the majority of people are doomed to live no better than their parents and grandparents did, places like Burma, Kenya and the United States

another cry for a return to the concept of the common good...

from truthout...

According to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States has some of the lowest rates of entrepreneurship in the world. Even at the top of the boom in 2005-2007, only two countries (Belgium and Norway) had lower levels of new business formation than the United States. The other 22 countries studied by the OECD all had higher rates of new business formation than the United States.

In fact, over 50 percent of Americans work for large companies of 250 employees or more. Only two other countries in the world have economies that are so dominated by large firms: Slovakia and Luxembourg.

We are not a nation of entrepreneurs. We are a nation of workers. And over the past forty years the American worker has gone from riches to rags, not the other way around.

[...]

Government can and should promote greater social mobility. Inevitably, however, greater mobility for the poor and working classes comes at the cost of higher taxes and fewer privileges for the middle and upper classes. Economic opportunity is incompatible with an economy dominated by $8-an-hour service jobs.

We can return to an America of boundless upward mobility only if we return to an America of well-funded schools, good union jobs and top-quality government services supported by progressive taxes on those who can most afford to pay. Like all good things, mobility comes at a price. Those who have achieved the American dream have to be willing to share it with everybody else. Sadly, it seems they no longer are.

"...it seems they no longer are."

i take issue with that statement... i don't think "they" have EVER been willing to share their good fortune with everybody else... yes, there have been and still are exceptions... yes, there have been heart-warming examples of philanthropy and overwhelming generosity... but the general trend has consistently been one of "i've got mine cuz i'm smarter and more motivated and if you ain't rich it's probably because you're lazy and ignorant"...


i'm just like everyone else in my age group... from early childhood, i was steeped in the american exceptionalism mythology and like most of my peers, i bought it... it's been a hard road over the past decades to realize that the american dream is just that, a myth... perhaps at one time, there was at least a tad bit substance to it but the past 20 years have seen the leaching out of whatever substance might have been there...

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