Ever-Widening Wealth Inequality Spells Trouble

As we look at the graphic here, comparing wealth inequality in the United States with that of Western Europe, we need to understand that there are both moral and practical problems associated with this phenomenon.

Most people have ethical issues with the idea that, in the richest country in the history of humankind, 21% of children (that’s 15 million) live in poverty, and people who can’t afford prescription drugs are dying of treatable diseases.

Yet, as mentioned above, there are plenty of real-world problems in a country where  the top 1% now has more combined wealth than the entire middle class. Perhaps most visible are things like homelessness, human waste in our streets, disease, blighted neighborhoods, child prostitution, human trafficking, and all the other horrors that come along with impoverishment.

But behind that lies disenfranchisement, apathy, and withdrawal from the democratic process, which leads to oligarchy, where government leaders can get away with outrageous self-enrichment (not like any of that’s happening today, of course).