Peter Michaelson: Class Struggle Cometh

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Peter Michaelson

Jim Webb overturned the money tables in the Temple this week, while telling the Democrats what needs to be done for our national salvation.

Webb, the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia, wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal in which he challenged the nation's wealthiest members with evidence of their covetousness, cronyism, entitlement, and hubris. He said our most important political issue "is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system" that endangers the national interest.

Letters of reaction on the Journal website pummeled Webb with sarcasm, mockery, accusations of inciting class warfare, and threats about overstepping his mandate. None of these letters addressed the issues, namely that economic disparity is indeed increasing, that it is not being moderated or corrected, and that it poses a danger to democracy.

These elites, Webb wrote, must rectify the disparity for their own self-interest. Otherwise, the growing division between the classes "has the potential to bring a period of political unrest." (Could this be the new War on Poverty?)

Mr. Webb undoubtedly understands that economic elites are not going to make this correction on their own. Without government legislation and enforcement, these people won't even curb the pollution that harms their own children. They are too emotionally invested in their own comfort, sense of superiority, and market dogmatism.

There are two questions to consider here. First, what kind of people worships property above dignity, integrity, fairness, and patriotism? The answer is important because in our self-doubt we are intimidated by these elites and their airs of superiority. When we examine them psychologically, we see they are people who place a great emphasis on wealth because they are lacking in their own personal development. This doesn't mean they're not smart or talented. It means, rather, they are primarily motivated by self-interest and enchanted by shallow values.

They believe that wealth and power establish their "superiority" and represent the best values to which they can aspire. They don't understand that money is a poor substitute for the pleasure of participation in the common good. For this understanding, we have to feel our value and our goodness without the need for outer trappings.

As for their survival-of-the-fittest mantra, they indeed are the fittest for the cutthroat environment they have created. But they are not the most worthy or most stellar survivors.

Now, the second question: Why do members of the economic elite cling so fervently to their advantages? It's not so much about reluctance to share their wealth as it is about fear of the transformative process that makes them better people. The path to becoming a generous person requires death to the old and birth to the new. There's no insurance policy that covers that roller-coaster ride through time and space, as Ebenezer Scrooge can tell you.

Senator-elect Webb's assertions imply the erosion of the middle class. We can't risk losing our middle class through misguided economics. Members of the middle class tend to be more self-actualized (to use that psychological term for the ideal of mental health) than those in the upper or lower classes. This group has a high percentage of individuals who find their fulfillment and satisfaction in being creative and skilled in their service to others. Because this group is not beholden to money, but is financially secure, its members have an advantage that lends itself to inner expansion and growth. The middle class is the backbone of democracy.

Inner growth has become our last-minute push to achieve greater wisdom before our weapons, cars, and lifestyles render us extinct. Members of the economic elite favor instead the last-minute pause to savor the safety of their illusions, while their wealth protects them from too much suffering.

It is very common for people to refuse to face or even acknowledge the poverty or the conflicted nature of their inner state. Progressives and liberals face this challenge, too, when we're unable to get beyond feelings of resentment, envy, hatred, or victimization.

Mr. Webb is challenging us to believe in our ideals. Come on, Democrats! Answer the call! If you're united on this, those gnomes of high finance and their hangers-on will collapse in a puddle of their own non-being.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Peter Michaelson is a psychotherapist in Pasadena, CA. He is author of Democracy's Little Self-Help Book, and he can be reached at www.PeterMichaelson.com

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