Letter: Too much wealth and power for too few

Too much wealth and power for too few

History has revealed that dictatorships, oligarchies and plutocracies can exist for only a relatively short period of time before being pulled down by the proletariat, often with the assistance of outside aid. Without exception, the demise of these once high and mighty individuals comes with the same grim consequences. Examples of this are the beheadings of the French Revolution and the violent deaths of the once-powerful dictators Benito Mussolini, Muammar Qaddafi and Sadam Hussein.

Today, the ongoing experiment in governance called the United States of America is threatened by a plutocracy that is characterized by a perverse and unsustainable transfer of the wealth of the nation from the pockets of a once-large middle class into the coffers of approximately 1 to 2 percent of the population.

The current “trickle down” economic system now in place, stemming from the Ronald Reagan years, clearly works for only the very few at the top. As a consequence, the once-growing and thriving middle class in America is rapidly disappearing, and as capitalism requires a large, vibrant and healthy middle class in order to flourish, it is safe to say that the nation is in very deep trouble.

For readers with an inquiring mind, I urge you to visit http://www.TED.com and view an excellent short talk by Nick Hanauer titled, “Beware, Fellow Plutocrats, the Pitchforks Are Coming” on the subject of the inevitable results stemming from allowing the concentration of too much power and wealth in the hands of too few individuals.

Peter Bergh

Edwards