Why Is America Great?, Part III, The Case for 'Spreading the Wealth Around'

"In an article last year in The American Interest, Philip Auerswald and Zoltan Acs of George Mason University suggested that the defining characteristic of American capitalism is not only an entrepreneurial culture that generates great wealth but also a philanthropic infrastructure that recycles that wealth in ways that create more opportunity, more growth and more wealth. . .

The problem with this approach, however, is that it focuses on only one of the institutions that have corrected for the inequalities inevitably created by a capitalist system. Yes, philanthropy has been important, but so have unions, which ensured a fair distribution of corporate profits. So have antitrust laws that prevented successful companies from snuffing out entrepreneurial competition. So have norms of corporate behavior that made it socially unacceptable for top corporate executives to pay themselves 350 times what their workers made. And so have tax-supported schools, playgrounds and hospitals that were good enough to be used by rich and poor alike.

All of these institutions accounted for the vibrancy of the American economy by ensuring that prosperity was widely shared. But with the erosion of those institutions, that is no longer the case. . .

[I]n recent decades, there has been a dramatic erosion in both the ideal and the reality of shared prosperity that threatens to paralyze our political system and undermine economic growth. "

Read the Washington Post, Why sharing the wealth isn't enough.

The lesson, there is not much of a future in the Republi-con everyman-for-himself philosophy.

For another reasons, read Why Is America Great?, Questioning the Status Quo and Why Is America Great?, Part II, The Case for Diversity.