Anyone who has honestly studied Marx knows that the father of communism thought the USA was the best chance his ideas had for catching on. The gilded age had begun in the USA with the industrial revolution and the serious lack of social justice was ever present in the lower ranks of America.
The Bolshevicks were an unexpected but welcome suprise to Marx. It wasnt an industrial nation as he had predicted but rather the agrarian world of Russia. Not that the rules Marx had outlined really needed to have industrial rather than agrarian-the reality was the same--the rich were super rich and super powerful and most of the population was seriously poor and oppressed.
The USA did have an up and coming communist party at the time too..and we soon had seen serious excess of capitalism, force millions into poverty, left a visible wasteland no one could deny in the undeniable wreckage of the Great Depression.
What the USA has even today is something Marx hadnt counted on--a middle class. A place where those of us not seeking a mansion and a yacht can go with something more than poverty level income but nothing approximating a wealthy capitalist. The middle class has long been the barrier to the Marx predictions-something achievable to most with a work ethic and something less than a complete grounding for those who lose a fortune.
Mike Moore is not playing the role of Chicken Little though. He is right about the actions of many in capitalisms royalty going to near criminal lengths and that excess has been a real problem even as thousands of workers each week join the ranks of the unemployed, the uninsured, and even the homeless. Were the trend to reach epidemic levels, Marx would be sitting up in his grave and shouting "see I told you so" because he thought the capitalism model had only winners and losers rather than anything like a middle class.
Moore is the squeaky wheel we need to oil....the warning light that annoys you but eventually makes you take the car in for a tuneup before worse things happen. No one argues that a lot of what Moore points out is true regardless of the extreme conclusions he may come to. Sure, Moore is as white as the subject is black sometimes and neither will admit that sometimes its really a gray area.
But Moore is right. Like it or not, the problems he addresses are real enough. Sure, some of his answers and conclusions arent. But pointing out symptoms doesnt require a doctor...and Moore is excellent at shining a light on things we need to fix.
Does anyone really need to have millions or billions in income? Does anyone really need six or more homes, ten or more cars, etc? To Moores point, many Americans are struggling month to month to have a roof and three meals while the upper class is wondering which vacation home to go to this weekend......the symptoms are real.
Marx of course would say that the starving masses can and should rise up and take down the upper classes in a fit of anger over the discrepency in their lifestyles....but when properly working capitalism does have an answer--the middle class. Its true that many companies are screwing their workers more and more often and that outsourcing, illegal labor, and other issues are making the issues become more and more hard to ignore. Like Moore or not, the symptoms are there and he is reminding us of it.
Whether we choose to bring the car in for a tune up or simply see if Marx was right is up to the American corporate leadership.
