How has wealth inequality destroyed democracy in America?

How is Noam Chomsky? 
Noam Chomsky is an eminent American theoretical linguist, cognitive scientist and philosopher, who radically changed the arena of linguistics by assuming language as a uniquely human, biologically based cognitive capacity. He suggested that innate traits in the human brain give birth to both language and grammar. The most important figure in “cognitive revolution” and “analytic philosophy”, Chomsky’s wide-ranging influence also extends to computer science and mathematics.
http://www.famousscientists.org/noam-chomsky/
What is the American Dream? 
the idea that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work determination and initiative. 
Describe each of the 10 principles used for the wealthy to consolidate their power. 
1. Reduce Democracy - the new constitution would need to protect the wealthy from too much democracy. 
2. Shape Ideology - the over engagement of young people with civic life and the idea that young people are just not receiving proper "indoctrination." Meaning that young people weren't getting enough teaching and therefor were engaging in acts that were considered wrong.
3. Redesign the Economy - deregulation has produced wealth concentration and economic crashes, followed by anti-capitalist bailouts making for  more wealth concentration. Offshore production has reduced workers' pay. We need to reassure workers of their employment and start treating workers as equals instead of mules. 
4. Shift the Burden - since the 1950's and 60's, we've seen the steady advance of what Chomsky calls the plutonomy and precariat, that is the wealthy few who run the show and get all the new wealth, and the precarious proletariat. Now, the poor are being over taxed while the rich aren't being charged significantly. The capitalist country we are living in are making the low wage workers over work themselves while the rich just acquire more money and have little to no care in the world. 
5. Attack Solidarity - the U.S. of the 1950's was able to make college essentially free with the G.I. Bill and other public funding. Now a much wealthier United States is full of "serious" experts who claim that such a thing is impossible (and who must strictly avoid watching Michael Moore). The America that we live in today are full of money hungry delegates who rather make Americans live in debt than provide them with free college. After all, America doesn't care about happiness, they care about money. 
6. Run the Regulators - The 1970s saw enormous growth in the lobbying. It is now routine for the interests being regulated to control the regulators, which makes things much easier on the regulated. We now have more people standing in our corner for us to seek to influence a politician or public official on an issue. Keeping people in charge-who can actually change things-informed on the ongoing issues. 
7. Keep the Rabble in Line - Here Chomsky focuses on attacks on organized labor, including the Taft Hartley Act, but one could imagine further expansions on the theme. Informing us that we need to change the law restricting us from power labor unions. This law was devised to limit the expansion of laborers. 
8. Manufacture Consent - The goal of directing people to superficial consumption as a means of keeping people in their place was explicit and has been reached. That the idea of inhumanely overworking people and exacting your "authority" over them is inhumane. 
9. Marginalize the Population - the marginalizing of people is cruel and need not continue any longer. Meaning the treating of someone or a group, insignificantly or minuscule because they share different views. 
10. Dump Massive Funding into Military - we should stop the over excessive funding for the military, another problem in which lobbyist should and are bringing to the forefront. Funding for the military are being deducted by the obscene amount of taxes they take from the poor while the rich are barely effected by the reduction. It's unfair. 
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/noam-chomsky-wants-you-wake-american-dream

What can be done about it?

MAKE WORK PAY- The fastest-growing categories of work are retail, restaurant (including fast food), hospital, hotel, childcare and eldercare. But these jobs tend to pay very little. A first step is to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 and hour, pegging it to inflation; abolish the tipped wage; and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. No American who works full time should be in poverty. 

UNIONIZE LOW-WAGE WORKERS- The rise and fall of the American middle class correlates almost exactly with the rise and fall of private-sector unions, because unions gave the middle class the bargaining power it needed to secure a fair share of the gains economic growth. We need to reinvigorate unions, beginning with low-wage service occupations that are sheltered from global competition and from labor-replacing technologies. Lower-wage Americans deserve more bargaining power.

INVEST IN EDUCATION- This investment should extend from early childhood through world-class primary and secondary schools, affordable public higher education, good technical education and lifelong learning. Education should not be thought of as a private investment; it is a public good that helps both individuals and the economy. Yet for too many Americans, high-quality education is unaffordable and unattainable. Every American should have an equal opportunity to make the most of herself or himself. High-quality education should be freely available to all, starting at the age of 3 and extending through four years of university or technical education. 

What are the causes?

A prime example is the United States for instance. The income share of just the top one half of the top one percent grew from 5.39 percent of the nations income in 1979 to 13.37 percent in 2010. By contrast, over the same time period the share of the bottom 90 percent fell from 67.65 percent to 53.74 percent of the nations wealth. Yet again, keeping the rich more richer while the poor just keep getting more and more poor.

A grotesque depiction of the rapid inequality. 

First, they focus largely on the relatively high wages of the 90th percentile of earners to that of the 10th percentile, which misses the fact that much of the increase in inequality was well above the 90th percentile. Again, with the United States as an example, growth in wages at the 90th percentile of wages only just kept pace with the overall average. Ninety percent of the distribution failed to keep up.

Why is this issue important to all of us?

Well, income inequality should be, if not already, important to all of us. We as a community should understand what's going on with our economy and not only concerned when it peaks our interest. We are being treated as if we don't need to provide for our families because a minimum wage job is only meant to support yourself. This issue should be important because we can complain about income inequality all day but unless we are really ready for a change, it would be nearly impossible for things to work in our favor. Minimum wage workers shouldn't be able to barely put food on the table because they don't get paid enough. Minimum wage workers shouldn't be able to fight for what's right and still get cheated out of their hours. We need a stronger worker union. We shouldn't be settling because we feel as though if we question or ask for more we can be replaced. We need to fight without the worry of being fired because if we don't who will? How much longer are going to continue to let companies railroad us? Take out insurance policies on workers without their knowledge because they feel they can do as such? IT'S NOT FAIR!


In the Untied States, consumer spending account for approximately 70 percent if economic activity. If consumers don't have adequate purchasing power, businesses have no incentive to expand or hire additional workers. Because the rich spend a smaller proportion of their incomes than the middle class and the poor, it stands to reason that as a larger and larger share of the nation's total income goes to the top, consumer demand is dampened. If the middle class is forced to borrow in order to maintain its standard of living, that dampening may come suddenly-when debt bubbles burst.

In progress..

Why this issue matters to me?

Income inequality matters a lot to me because America is supposed to be the greatest country ever, (opinionated.) There are tons of resources here that aren't available in other third world countries and here were are, still having workers who cannot make a living off of minimum wage. It's revolting. We have people putting in hours, many hours and can't even earn a decent living. Housing keeps gentrifying and the money more you're allowed to make off of minimum wage the less hours you work. Unbelievable right? We fight for more money but then they cut our hours. The rich keeps getting more rich meanwhile the poor stays poor. So much for our economic system right?

What do I hope to achieve with this goal?

With creating this blog, I hope to achieve my goal of further extending my education. I mean there's nothing wrong with a minimum wage job, even the jobs you don't want have someone doing them. I need to set the bar for myself and my soon to be family in the future. I need stability. With doing this research, I realized that a lot of families are not surviving or even barely making it by on minimum wage. Things need to change. How can we strive for better when we can't even help our fellow brother or sister out? The change starts with us. If you're only concerned with yourself and ways to only benefit you, there will never be a change because a job just doesn't concern YOU, it concerns their other EMPLOYEES who work their hardest and strive for better too. They also need someone standing in their corner, vouching for them as well. 

• The wealthy percentage (10%) of the population versus the poor percentage (90%) have been at an advantage since the early 1970's. 

In New York, it's almost impossible to live off of minimum wage. It's like the rich keep getting richer and richer and the poor don't get a dime. The prices of living in New York keep skyrocketing. Popular housing areas in New York becoming gentrified with new people who actually can afford the living prices, making it so that they have to up the prices for families that have been living there for years! People are starting families and having more mouths to feed but it's as if they want the poor to stay poor. Because you can really only provide for yourself on $10 an hour pay, especially when they cut the hours down since minimum wage went up. You can't get in 40 hours a week anymore and don't get me started on what your paycheck actually looks like at the end of the month after they take out taxes.