The "UNITED" STATES

The United States was not the United States of America that we recognize it for until it became “united.” The United States that we speak so highly of and think of as the “greatest nation in the world” was actually just another developing country. In context, developing countries face challenges like lower industrialization, poverty, limited access to healthcare and education, and political instability. As a young, new nation, the United States was nothing more than that. Having come out of the Civil War, then World War I which led into World War II, the United States was experiencing instability that was predictably leading to its own downfall. 

Saved by the birth of industrialization demanded by the complex needs of critical wars, the United States found itself at the forefront of what we have come to know as capitalism with socialist values. You see, World War II accompanied by The Great Depression, meant that social services pooled the money of all citizens in ways that had not been done before. Believe it or not, taxation was the catalyst to quite frankly saving the country (I wish that I could say “our country” here). Socialism is not the same as communism and the United States recognizing the need to maintain its relevance to the hierarchy of Europeans, continued to proclaim a system that they called capitalism. However, the greater society had to rely heavily on the government to prevent its collapse. 

This has been in the midst of what has become the 200 year war between the wealthy and the have-nots (aka poor - anyone who would not qualify as the top 5% of earners) in the United States. The wealthy have waged a war against assisting and uplifting the poor since the Civil War. And honestly, since the birth of the nation. For the sake of argument, I will leave the exactness of the timeline to another story. The Civil War was about wealth. Jim Crow was about the maintenance of wealth. The Civil Rights era was about wealth. Reaganomics was about wealth. The backlash to Obama-care was about racism - I mean wealth too. And now, Trump and his administration, have come to take back and impose their control over the availability to wealth. This war is nearing its end if they can control it.

What has separated the United States from other developing countries is not industrialization, innovation, technology or wealth. I’ve traveled to many countries and there are extremely wealthy individuals throughout the world and in some of the most impoverished countries. The United States was different when the government made it possible for the non-wealthy citizens to have access to many of the services that only the wealthy can afford in other countries. Things like health care, education, clean water, public assistance in the form of Social Security benefits and food stamps, affordable housing, and functioning government that did not completely take advantage of the poor (there are always examples of corruption and inept management). 

The United States was different because the poor were given a lifeline. The poor suddenly through government programs had a chance to survive outside of living and dying to serve the rich. What you would find through the last 100 years is a country that transformed only due to socialism. As crazy as that sounds, the only way The Great Depression and The Great Recession were survived in the United States was socialist acts by the government. The wealthy themselves would have lost nearly everything in the Great Recession had the government not stepped in. And in my opinion, if there is a Ponzi scheme, it is our government overall with its ability to balance the total loss of wealth without creating anything new, but that too is another story.

Fast forward to today, we have a government that is dead set on pulling back the very programs that separate the United States from any other Super Power let alone Third World country (I know that isn’t politically correct, but we’re talking about the United States). The idea that government should do less and be smaller is undoubtedly an easy target to help push this agenda. The reason this becomes an easy target is because people in general have never trusted the government. However, if anyone is paying attention, who goes to the government and makes sure that there are “handouts” for their failing companies? It isn’t the poor. You have to understand that while you are upset about some of the issues of government, the importance of government in the everyday U.S. citizen’s life is paramount to making it even possible for a poor person to have any opportunity to attain a semblance of wealth. We have forgotten the reason why we are the “United” States. It wasn’t as individual states, but united that this country has been able to build a relatively unique economic landscape. The problem is, too many people are so “happy” with their personal progress that they’ve forgotten how they got here. 

They didn’t get here because the wealthy gave it to them. They didn’t get here because God said let there be equitable options in the United States. They didn’t get here because they were lucky. They didn’t get here by chance. Those who have been able to establish wealth or any self reliance in the United States has always been with the help of others. Unfortunately, the story that we lean into is how it has been on the backs of Black and brown people. We tend to forget that government has also played a role in every economic advancement in this country. Every comeback, turnaround and rebound (its basketball season) has been on the back of our government and not technology, not industry, not capitalism. The changes in wealth that the United States has experienced has always been through a shared economy that valued success for all (mostly rich White men) over the success of just a few. And believe it or not, success for those at the top has never been lost due to the uplifting of those below.