Labor Day signaled the beginning of the end of what Mark Twain called the "Guilded Age" when there was more disparity between rich and poor than at any time in the nation's history, except maybe this one.
More important were the real gains that labor achieved in the next few decades: higher wages, shorter work weeks, the progressive income tax and acceptance of the fundamental concept that labor was as important as capital in the production of goods and the provision of services.
That concept is all but gone today, a victim not only of industrialization, the technological revolution and globalization, but also of shrewd, cynical and effective politics.
Working class America got distracted by its own success. It had houses in the suburbs, 500 TV channels and cheap credit so it could go to Wal-Mart and buy all the foreign-made toys it wanted.
In the 1970s, conservative billionaires began funding think tanks to attack the forces of progressivism. The Reagan Revolution co-opted a lot of labor votes with jingoism. The late Lee Atwater perfected the use of "wedge issues" — God, guns, gays and abortion — to distract the working class from economic issues.
In the 1990s, Roger Ailes, an old Nixon and Reagan hand, helped launch the career of Rush Limbaugh and turned Fox News into an advocacy platform for the political goals of America's billionaires. Working-class America was so busy applauding that it didn't notice that its pockets were being picked.
St. Louis Today, The Platform
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/article_9ba769c2-b7...The Punk Patriot's Blog can be found here:
http://punkpatriot.blogspot.com/The Punk Patriot's YouTube page is here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ThePunkPatriotThe Punk Patriot tweets: @PunkPatriot
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