Getting to Know You

Back when the Virginia senate race was in full swing, many observers (myself included) were so happy to see incumbent Senator George Allen on the ropes that we didn't pay a lot of attention to his opponent. I knew that Jim Webb had served as secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, but I also knew that a number of conservatives had grown disillusioned under George W. Bush. I didn't expect that he and I would agree on too many policy details, but if he could get George Allen out of the Senate (and off the campaign trail for a presidential run in 2008) and would add his seat toward a potential Democratic majority, he had my support.

Now that he's senator-elect from Virginia, perhaps it's time to get to know Jim Webb a bit more closely. He must've been feeling the same way, because Wednesday morning, he penned an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. Yeah, I know, the WSJ isn't exactly the most progressive venue he could've found, but he was secretary of the Navy under Reagan. We were never expecting a wild-eyed liberal in the first place. Here are a couple of excerpts:

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.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.
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The true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

Wow. Normally, I'd add some sort of quip about class struggle or something, but that would be redundant. "Class Struggle" is the name of the column.