That age old academic question of why America never had a real proletariat-based socialist party seems fairly well answered these days (sorry Eugene V. Debs, but you were a flash in the pan) . Most everyone will point to the absence of feudalism, the Jeffersonian ideal, or the American Dream and say that we're just not the same as Old Europe.
But these kinds of articles in the NY Times Sunday Styles section really get my blood a-boilin'.
Beyond the lifestyle, $100,000 was a psychic achievement; it meant joining the meritocratic elite. The prospect of "six figures" kept white-collar workers toiling for 20 years, confident that hard work would be rewarded and that the American social contract was securely in place.... "[$200,000] is the new black," said Bill Coleman, senior vice president in charge of compensation at Salary.com, an online career service based in Needham, Mass., that tracks executive pay. "There's a lot of bunching between $100,000 and $150,000. That's the vast majority of the people who used to aspire to $100,000. Now they are aspiring to $200,000 or $250,000."
The answer I didn't mention above was the idea that working-class Americans direct their economic rage downwards to condemn welfare recipients instead of the elite corporate criminals who raid their pension funds and move their jobs offshore. Even though the Welfare Queen has been exposed as a GOP fantasy, she continues to draw the ire of many Americans. The GOP's shell game continues to divert economic rage away from the legitimate problems that wreak havoc in the American economy: permanent tax cuts, corporate malfeasance, creative accounting, etc. The late ODB continues to be more of a bogeyman than Ken Lay.
Yet, when Americans read this drivel about how a $200,000 salary is the new $100,000, I can't help but think that there's something wrong. The reason why the GOP is so successful isn't that they redirect working-class economic angst downwards. It's that they create an American Dream that directs ire downwards and aspirations to the sky. They show you repeals of the estate or dividend taxes as say you'll love it when you enter the top 2%. They beatify the free market and corporate initiative and denigrate socialized medicine and progressive taxation. They want an America where 98% are scrambling upwards to the $200,000 summit but have to trample their class to get there.
Now that we've finally rested control of the Democratic Party from the DLC hacks who acquiesced in the party's corporatization, we can reshape this debate into one about which party offers the better vision for all Americans. We want a country where you don't have to choose between physical health or bankruptcy. A country where college shouldn't be the preserve of the wealthy. A country where education policy is crafted by educators and not by tough-talking politicians. A country where our right to clean air and water isn't trumped by the rights of corporations to pollute. A country where every American, regardless of how much you can donate to the parties, has a government working for them.