The great social divide in this country gets greater

Many people feel that the divide in America is primarily caused by location, ethnicity and education. To a large extent those are the markers or the outcome of the real reason behind the divisions among the population. 

And, no, I am not blaming the rich or the poor here either. America has always been the nation where you could work to get ahead, to prosper if you had the brains or the drive.  But there is a creeping issue that’s endemic in America now — social mobility seems frozen. And as anyone who’s been immobile can tell you, the body, mind and possibilities atrophy.

Sometimes, to study a phenomenon you have to go, get involved, see firsthand. How many people reading this go to a food bank event when they hand out food to the so-called needy? 

Needy is a term most of the people there reject. Needy is for people who are helpless or impoverished because they are disabled. Most of the people I see at a local food bank here in New Mexico, or the distribution of food events at St. Thomas’ Church in Amenia Union (which my wife and I helped establish 14 years ago) are hardly incapable. They are good working people, struggling financially certainly, but never devoid of pride nor ambition. They just can’t get ahead.

America wants to retain the status quo, a place where everyone is supposed to be equal and have equal opportunity yet America seems set on a path to reduce everyone to food bank status. I can assure you, everyone at a food bank is equal. Mobility frozen.

What they all lack is any pathway for upward social mobility.

Social mobility is the natural outcome from a unity of corporate and social goals to strengthen the foundation of society. Like Henry Ford said, when criticized for paying his workers twice the normal day rate: What do you think they will spend their money on? Yes, it cut company profits, but upward mobility of the workers allowed greater business and, in the end, nothing became stagnant. Ford prospered.

Look at it this way: If General Motors wants to make cars, they need to have railroads, roads for deliveries, electricity for power, communications to tie its systems together. If Apple wants to make computers and phones, they need to use chips, plastic or glass screens, computer base code, cars, trucks, planes, communication, cell towers, wave lengths for cell phones. 

All, yes, all of these factors were paid for, invested by, the taxpayer. Every single one. GM doesn’t build roads. GM doesn’t invest in railroads. GM didn’t help build the internet. Apple’s products are built and run on taxpayer inventions and infrastructure. Yes, what they make becomes unique, but that does not obviate the fact that without the taxpayer’s investment, they would have nothing to build with.

Taxes and tariffs are not the same thing. Taxes are levied on the profit needed to continue operation. Tariffs are levied on all costs, base costs. Tariffs are downward mobility producers. Gross profiteering is also a serious downward mobility producer for society. These two things need to be remedied just as Teddy Roosevelt did. Eisenhower also knew that, he sought to balance out the revenue profiteering — to allow aspirations, education and endeavor to flourish in America.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this: What is a 21st century American? Is she or he going to have a pathway upward, socially and financially or is she or he going to be faced with the real downward spiral of tariffs and corporate greed (to avoid return of profits to the taxpayers who made their businesses possible in the first place)? 

This is not about taking someone’s money and giving it away, this is about those making the most profit realizing they would have nothing — and will soon have no one to sell anything to — unless they help build the unity back in America.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.