Webb on 'Class Struggle'

Virginia's freshly minted senator, Jim Webb, has penned an opinion piece for the Wall Street Jounal that may be an eye-opener for some Democrats who have been viewing him as a rightwinger in a donkey suit. At the same time "Class Struggle" will probably make more than a few Republicans squirm.

"The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

"Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much..."

Click here to read the entire piece.

Update: Regarding Webb’s piece about class and politics, Norm Leahy at One Man’s Trash has some interesting thoughts about “paleoconservatives.”