My retired uncle and aunt live in a once-thriving upper working
class/lower middle class neighborhood, the same one they have for nearly 50
years. The transformation of the economy
from being middle class centric to upper class centric has unfortunately also
transformed their neighborhood. The good
jobs the people who lived there once held are largely gone. Rental houses now dominate. The neighborhood pool has closed, and the
neighborhood association has dissolved.
My uncle did everything right. He bought used cars not new, paid off his
little house early and never “traded up,” invested in the stock market, and
although he had a decent pension and Social Security, he saved enough money in
addition to live comfortably, raise three daughters, go on vacations, and be
able to enjoy his retirement.
Except that picture is marred. He now sees, where perhaps he didn’t before,
that if you take care of yourself only—if you aren’t helping to support, sustain,
and fight for a healthy economy and social structure for the rest of people, ultimately
it won’t matter because of all the stress around you.
That’s the way it is—unless you’re super rich. Then you can live—courtesy of the decisions
you support that gut the places like my uncle lives—in a gated community, with
armed guards, amid a purposely ignorant life of relative seclusion and
disconnection at others’ expense.
Potter may not have won in Frank Capra’s fictional holiday
classic, but his ideological brethren are well winning in real life.
Just like the same Roman wealthy did. Until they could no
longer escape the results of theirs and their predecessors' myopically selfish
decisions.
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