No Pizza For The Poor

Let's say you have a huge pizza. So big in fact, that there is enough for everyone in the entire country to get their fill. But instead of everyone getting what they need, a few individuals come up to the pizza and take enough for about half of the population. The other ninety percent of the people are left to fend for themselves on what pieces they can get, and some are left with no piece at all. It sounds crazy that a few individuals would knowingly take half of the sustenance from the rest of their fellow men, but in today's America that is exactly what's happening. The pizza is our economy, the few individuals are the upper class, and the rest of us; well we're the ones that fend for ourselves. Most of the wealth in America is held by the upper class (Krugman, 1). The redistribution of wealth reflects the ideals our country was founded on and is vital for the future of those ideals.

Some might say that there isn't really a problem with wealth, that Americans are well off and have no reason to complain. This makes sense, since we live more lavishly than most other foreign nations. Compared to a country like Haiti or another third world nation, Americans live lives of total luxury. But the kind of lifestyle that we are accustomed to may not be around in ten years. If the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow than soon there will be no middle class; only vast amounts of lower class citizens and a handful of extremely rich citizens.

Believing that there is no problem is just what the upper class would like to happen. By having the rest of the population believe that they are relatively secure and equal, the upper class is free to keep taking more away from the working class until there is only rich and poor.

Though I'd like to think that all American's have an equal chance at life and the pursuit of happiness, the upper class shows us that it's not totally true. At the end of 2001, the wealthiest 10% of Americans owned about 71% of the wealth and the wealthiest 1% owned about 38%. On the other hand, the poorest 40% of the people only owned about 1% of the wealth (Census, 2001). These figures pretty much speak for themselves in that they show the huge gap in wealth from just middle class to upper class. So what can be done about it? How do we even the wealth in our country so that all Americans have an equal chance at their pursuit of happiness?

It turns out the answer isn't all that simple. Some people would go the robin hood route and say, "Let's take the money from the rich, and give it to the poor." However there is just one small problem, capitalism. Capitalism is a double-edged sword though. While it is a good idea to have the economy separate from the government in the interest of the consumer, it's kind of the reason we're in this wealth mess in the first place. In a communistic society the profits from a certain person's business might go into a government fund pool to be distributed to citizens according to their need. In capitalism, the profits are taxed but then go straight into the pocket of the owners and investors of that business. Since the rise of industry, corporations as well as their owners have been profiting and steadily building their wealth, which gave rise to this huge gap in wealth. In our capitalistic world, distributing the wealth so that it is even could be dangerously close to communism and that is the crux of the problem.

Capitalism and equality don't really mesh well. Under the definition of capitalism it can be assumed that some people will always be wealthier than others. This is natural as some people work harder than others and are therefore entitled to more (Giddens, 2). Redistributing the wealth doesn't seek to change that, but make that true. Who do you think works harder: a pipe fitter or a CEO? While the nature of the work is quite different, it can be easily assumed that the pipe fitter, who works eight hours a day for five days a week and menial pay, generally works harder than the high brow CEO with a different car to drive to work everyday. Why should the CEO get all the wealth when the pipe fitter is actually the one doing the service?

So how can we redistribute our wealth and not betray our capitalistic core beliefs? Some might turn to the conventional means of taxing, which would only work if we taxed the right people. By simultaneously lowering the tax for the working class and raising tax for millionaires and general upper class citizens, some redistribution can be achieved. The problem is how to get the money back in the hands of the working class. Just distributing the money equally between many people is probably a bad idea; it comes too close to communism and squandering the money away might become too common.

To really make things equal we need to give the working class a chance to keep their wealth; we need to have stable careers and well paying jobs. The money from the taxations of the rich should be put to use in education. College tuition is higher than ever and many people I know say they just cannot afford to take classes. A scholarship program for every citizen in