Overcoming powerlessness.

• Author: Nader, Ralph

IN THE DEPRESSION-WRACKED 1930s, the famous British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay titled "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren." In that piece, he made a prophecy that we have shamelessly failed to fulfill. At the time of his writing, the world economy had reached a level of productivity that would enable society to eliminate the "economic problem"--that is, the persistence of abject poverty. "The economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years," he wrote. "This means that the economic problem is not--if we look into the future--the permanent problem of the human race." Keynes argued that there was no economic excuse for not abolishing poverty and for providing everyone with the necessities of life, including retirement security.

I say "shamelessly failed to fulfill" because Keynes was right--that our economy is hugely more productive per worker but also unjustly distributed in its gains and misdirected in its investments.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The growing disconnect between corporate profits and the conditions of the great majority of American workers and families represents the expanding failure of corporate capitalism--and the corporate state in Washington, D.C., that feeds and protects it--to deliver the goods. American workers labor longer than any of their counterparts in the Western world, but they are also worse-off than any of those counterparts. They are not receiving their just desserts. Let's do something together about this abomination. The problem is, there is no civic or political infrastructure at the ready, no viable machine to bring about action, to help replace the bad with the good.

Our nation has millions of skilled bikers and joggers, birdwatchers and bowlers, stamp and coin collectors, dancers and musicians, gardeners, card and chess players--and more power to them. But we have no masses of skilled citizens who know how to practice the democratic arts, to use the power of numbers to bring about change.

We need more organized and connected Congress watchers, more democracy builders, more sentinels over the industries or government agencies that affect us so seriously. We need to close our gigantic democracy gap, a people-power vacuum so noticeable that it serves as an open invitation for commercial and bureaucratic rascals. The corporations know that the few valiant civic groups and active citizens are so short in staff, resources, and media...