The Gilded Age entertainments so popular these days, are in reality, shows of obscenely wealthy people living in golden bird cages mounted on the backs of the working poor and middle class.  Those glittery people’s lives are made possible by cash strapped people  who strain their shortened lives with dwindling options.  While our current leader is in the process of gilding the once White House in gold, he demands the homeless in DC disappear.  We should have known when the leaders talk about  opulence in their quarters while the poor and middle classes discover lead in their water, something is amiss.  We might insist that the Gilded Age that made Great Britain so entertaining in that Jane Austen, Upstairs/Downstairs manner was obviously built on colonial exploitation and slavery in the 18th Century; an exceptional age.  Certainly today’s showy wealth only demonstrates the rewards of hard work, discipline, God’s special love for the rich, and the American Dream. But that false interpretation is simply not true. Today’s uneven prosperity is based on dominant wealth resting luxuriously on servitude.   

Slavery, the deeded exploitation of humanity, is one version of human abuse.  Forced servitude is a shadowy undeeded slavery where people are generally stripped of their economic options and forced through the absence any viable alternative opportunities, to work for the master for table scraps.  All this while, the masters turn their vast wealth and infinite options into a national secular virtue to be worshipped.  If you have read any history you know what we see today is not new and in fact is the oldest scheme of exploitation in history. In America, the con is being successfully pulled off through the scheme of the fear, taxes, and the  debt conversation.  We sell our votes to the people who offer safety and reduced taxes, but experience regret only when they repeatedly use our hard earned income and taxes as collateral to borrow even more national public debt from the planet to divert into their private wealth accounts. In our votes we inadvertently consent to our servitude, not as individuals, but as whole communities. The “Nation” celebrates while the “individuals” grieve.

A modest proposal for good.

Poverty is deeply ingrained in capitalism’s habits. Poverty and powerlessness are reinforced by either systems of slavery, or when slavery is prohibited, simple servitude will do. There will always be wealthy individuals, but poverty need not occur if the wealthy consent not to hoard and wield obscene wealth to their own personal needs.  The allure and status of wealth will decline when the middle classes stop thoughtlessly idolizing the Golden Cages. Good is insisting that taxes be wisely spent on the necessities of society including the level playing field.  Good is not a tax cut in the middle of a shell game foisting debt on our children. Good is recognizing our country is in fact living way beyond its means and needs to prioritize resources in line with its aspirational virtues and real budget needs.  Good is not blaming the poor and homeless when their servitude turns to destitution . Good is holding your vote like a sacred trust and gathering your neighbors to vote together so that after the next election we can celebrate as a whole nation, many diverse communities and at last, as individuals.