The editorial staff of an openly socialist U.S. newspaper is using the top Sunday spot to delve into the myth of the American dream:
This nation […] is held together by an appealing faith: that anyone who works hard and plays by the rules can attain the American dream […]. But the trends of the past quarter-century compel a reexamination of this creed. When President Kennedy promised that "a rising tide lifts all boats," he was correct. Today that claim could be disputed.
They present and thoroughly debunk some theories which try to dispute the widening gap between rich and poor.
[B]ut after a quarter-century of disappointment, the struggles of Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution cannot be viewed as temporary.
The difference between rich and poor has serious consequences in areas like education.
Tuitions at four-year colleges have more than doubled since 1980, with the result that gaps in enrollment by class and race, which declined in the 1960s and 1970s, are as wide now as 30 years ago.
They editors put the blame where it belongs, on the rich. Their preferred models are Sweden and Germany, where taxes are much higher and social redistribution a major part of government definition.
[I]t’s not quite true that the rich can enjoy their riches without harming anyone; their money changes life for people lower down. This might not matter if inequality brought compensating gains: if the growth of relative disadvantage were offset by absolute wage rises or by social mobility. But increases in wages have been small or negative, and the United States has become less socially mobile than nations such as Sweden and Germany.
It is heartening to see a U.S. paper argue and embrace social-democratic to socialist policy and laud Old European nations for their achievement. But then, we know of those liberal media and some may wish for a new McCarthy to suppress such communist tendencies.
But what is stated above is obviously correct and easy to understand.
It should be equally easy to get most of the electorate behind politicians that stand to correct the situation. But party politics in the U.S. being what they are, expect nobody to pick this up an run with it.
What Republican or Democrat would risk to demand higher taxes from the rich and threaten distribution to the poor? Looking at their campaign trough and the hands who feed them, expect none of them to do so.
Not even with the support of the Washington Post.