Layers

How does it feel when you hear billionaire Warren Buffett state, “Actually, there’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won?” Though he was bemoaning that eventual outcome, it still stings to hear the words.The subject of class warfare is now being introduced increasingly into conversations, but it’s likely we’re not there – yet. Political stagnation and economic elitism have actually created a state of indifference. Citizens are cynical, slow in coming to terms with a future that might not be as prosperous as hoped. They are not angry enough to demand change, yet grow increasingly fretful over their financial future. This is especially true of the young, who now envision futures more characterized by poverty and unemployment than potential.As more and more social investments in education, infrastructure, technology and health are abandoned for the cause of market efficiency, Western nations are slowly restructuring, gradually abandoning their commitments to social and financial equity. It’s the same old historical cycle: declining social investment leads to societal breakdown, which causes governments, especially federally, to put their emphasis on crime protection, jails, even strong militaries. Canada is slowly merging into that phase and the population at large senses the tensions.On Facebook last week, I watched a debate ensue in which someone, lamenting the rise of the Occupy movement, tossed out the notion that we should embrace the spiritual prayer, “God, help to accept the things I cannot change" - the insensitive remark of someone living comfortably. How can students who have graduated with even two degrees but can’t find work accept it? As people with mental health issues grow in number at the same time as support programs, already functioning in silos, fall into decline, it is remarkably hard-hearted to tell them to just deal with it. Homelessness, the lack of affordable housing, veterans with shrinking benefits, seniors losing catastrophic drug coverage, workers increasingly without benefits, unjust trade policies, people unable to find work even after searching for two years - the hurdles are immense. The problem is not that these challenges exist but that they are growing. And so are crime bills, massive prisons, and even military super-products.Knowledge of these realities lay behind the latent support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Citizens aren’t collectively ready to fight yet, but they are curious concerning the Wall Street movement and they are sensing there’s something important transpiring.  What drives much of the resentment is not that the upper classes are doing well, as that they appear increasingly insensitive to the troubles of others struggling to make ends meet. Watching similar disparities grow in his own country of Germany a century ago, writer Robert Walser laid bare what citizens were feeling:

How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows—this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you … to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what things look like in our cities at present

Some will say that such shared sentiments are not fair, but they are the growing perception of struggling citizens around the world. Increasingly they are calling for a connecting of economic policies to ethical considerations, and the effects such economic actions have on those caught in the burgeoning cycle of despair and misfortune.No, we haven’t yet reached the point of violent class struggle, of wealth versus warfare. But what we are witnessing is the cementing of the lines between the classes. There are the desperately poor and homeless, the unemployed, those working but at minimum-waged jobs, those in service industry jobs offering no benefits, those fortunate enough to have enough work and benefits to pay all the bills, the upper-middle class and their ability to survive the economic downturn, the millionaires, and, ultimately, those stretching into the far upper reaches of economic wealth. These classes have always existed in Canada and elsewhere. The difference now is that there is little mobility between those classes – the ceilings are too strong and the floors overly precarious. The spirit of idealism, shared goals and the compassion that once characterized this nation and enhanced the promise of democracy are approaching some kind of vanishing point.Most of us sense this, and the thought of entrenched classes in Canada is mildly disturbing to a large number of us. There is increasing evidence that corporations are sitting on billions of dollars worth of assets. That troubles us yet, to date, we have let it pass. But to learn that they are increasing that capital by eliminating jobs rather than creating them is too much to bear. Class relations are intricately woven together in Canada and the most successful governments and businesses recognize that reality and provide for effective mobility upward. That bargain is now gone and what we are getting are movements like Occupy Wall Street. Soon enough, unless those in the upper layers above the clouds take note of the gaping inequities created by financial collusion, we will witness the calling of arms of one class against another until either reform or revolution take place. Let’s work towards the former.