A.H. Schectman 18601 NE 14th Avenue Apartment 312 North Miami Beach, FL 33179 (305) 949 2701
July 24, 2006
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Please click on www.aaron.schectman.com for a wide selection
of essays. Your responses are valued.
HAVES, HAVE MORE & HAVE MOST
Since my first night-time course in Newark after the Army in the old Pharmacy College, I have never understood obvious and the arcane facts about managing money. I do know, however that we are divided according to classes; traditionally the working class, middle class and upper class. This is simplistic and unrealistic. The polyglot composition of American can teach us some truths.
Paul Krugman wrote about “Black and Blue” Monday morning in the NYTimes looking at the relationship between Republicans and the African-American Community. As you probably know, like the Jews who do not speak in one voice there is no one voice that speaks for all Black people. The old stereotypes of elite Black families (lighter in color than most) looking down at their own blacker and poorer brothers has some truth in it. But, as Krugman states that “Economic issues alone … partially explain African-American disdain for the G.O.P.”
Americans distain the luckless who really have nothing and live in old cars or on the street (and I am only talking about Americans if any ancestry here). They do not live in a money economy for they have none and nothing to fall back upon. There was a dole and if some were lucky and physically able there might be sub par work that garnered not-quite enough to live on – particularly if there are many mouths to feed. Equality in income is not practiced here in democratic America.
There used to be those who HAVE. That could mean anything and anybody for there is never enough to satisfy the haves. They have enough but not enough as compared to the class above. They heavily pay for the privilege through taxation and there are never enough of them to pay the whole bill for the whole nation. Obviously, there are not enough of them to do the job and joined with those at the bottom they are a dose of reality in the pursuit of happiness here in America – the Land of the Free and the Untaxed. Americans of color are still cheated the most.
The HAVE MORES are those in a small class of managerial types and those who have found a niche where they can succeed where others would not want to be. They are perhaps not the entrepreneurial type but of the artistic and intellectual persuasion that have a way with lines and words that make them the darlings of other classes. Their skills are truly unusual and stand out from all the rest.
But, the smallest group is the HAVE MOSTS. These are the richest and for the most part have not done a lick of work to have more than whole cities and small nations. Of course there are those who fall in cracks here and there, but this is how it looks to me. There should be ways to recognize unique contributions to the community. Reward work from the bottom to the top - not wealth.