The Political Roots of Widening Inequality, Essay Example

The focus of the article is raising awareness of the fact that the gap between America’s middle-class and elite class has become noticeably bigger throughout the years. Robert B. Reich introduces the concept that this gap has been conclusive to big corporations and Wall Street obtaining the majority of the wealth. Reich explains that this has created a great imbalance within the market that has yet to be fixed. However, this imbalance is unlikely to be fixed anytime soon because of the manner in which the citizens who are being negatively affected by this phenomenon will most likely not collaborate with one another in order to instigate a change.

The main argument that is made in the article is the fact that moneyed interests have shaped America’s market system into what it is today. This is to say that the wealthy Americans have accumulated the majority of the money over the years while the need for middle-class workers has decline drastically. Clearly, this has a huge effect on the way in which things are run due to the fact that there will soon be numerous individuals looking for jobs. Another reason as to why there are not so many individuals employed has been due to advances in technology. For example, some jobs that may have proved useful in the past may now be outdated and not even require a human being to deliver the task at hand. An argument that the article makes, however, is that technology is not an attributing factor to the decline in income that middle-class have been experiencing first-hand.

So then if there is less money going to the middle-class citizens, where is all the money going? The answer is quite simple: the wealthy. The article explains how the wealthy have taken it upon themselves to change the market system to their benefit. In order words, instead of creating a system in which everyone, including the middle-class gets a distribution of the money, the wealthy have changed the rules of the game in such a way that there is a constant upward redistribution of wealthy. What this means for the majority of Americans is that there will be a decrease in income in years to come. For the small minority of wealthy Americans, they will continue to be provided with luxurious lifestyles. How is all of this possible or even allowed, you might ask? Due to the major influence that the wealthy have over politicians, judges, and administrators, and everyone else involved in the manner in which politics is run, the wealthy have a major say in everything that goes on within the government. For example, certain policies are deliberately made so that the rich are able to get richer while the poor stay poor, or at times, become poorer.

Despite the fact that this should clearly be seen as an ongoing epidemic, it is unlikely that middle-class individuals will take it upon themselves to actuate any kind of policy change. This is said because in order to make the wealthy listen, low-income individuals would all have to come together at once and implode the government to make certain policy changes. The reason as to why this is said to be unlikely is because low-income individuals probably have better things to do throughout the day, such as trying to make end’s meet. Since these individuals have other priorities in mind and seeing as how the rich are not willing to give up the power that has been attributed along with their wealth, things are highly unlikely to change in the near future.

The only one and true solution for this would be to make the wealthy Americans listen and respond to the conflicts that the middle-class is currently undergoing. Unless these Americans become benevolent all of a sudden, it is without a doubt that the middle-class will soon cease to exists. This means that in the next couple of years, there might only be the existence of two categories: the rich and the poor. What this will ultimately mean is that the rich will become richer while the poor will stay poor for the remainder of their lives.

Works Cited

Reich, Robert B. “The Political Roots of Widening Inequality.” The American Prospect. The American Prospect, 2015. Web. 12 May 2015.