We Can No Longer Afford To Remain Silent About Growing Inequality.
In Volume 1, Chapter 26 ( The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation ), of Capital , Karl Marx describes how the more closely society corresponds to a deregulated, free-market economy, the more the lop-sidedness of power between those who own the means of production and those who labor under them will produce an "accumulation of wealth on one pole" and an "accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole." This was not idle speculation on Marx's part; history has proven him correct. You don't believe me? Well, look at the data. The nation's poverty rate: according to data released earlier this month by the US Census Bureau, about 2.5 million Americans slid into poverty last year. The number of people living below the poverty line (46.2 million) is the highest number ever reported in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing poverty statistics. The official poverty rate, however, does not fu