The Elites Are Unanimous: Lower Everyone's Wages and Standard of Living -- Except They Don't Say it Out Loud

By Jeff Faux, AlterNet
Posted on July 19, 2012, Printed on July 21, 2012

Editor's note: This essay is derived from Jeff Faux's new book, The Servant Economy: ​Where America's Elite is Sending the Middle Class, which William Greider calls a "really important book" that tells the "astonishing story of how class works."

Calls for a bipartisan “Grand Bargain” on taxes and spending for the next decade ring out daily, if not hourly, from the politicians and pundits who dominate our political media. But the national discourse is silent on the tacit agreement both parties have already made on the future that lies ahead for the majority of working Americans: a dramatic drop in their living standards.


The United States can no longer satisfy the three great dreams that have driven most of its domestic politics since the end of World War II: the multinational corporate class's dream of limitless profits; the military-industrial complex's dream of global hegemony; and the dream of the people for rising incomes and expanding opportunities. One out of three? Certainly. Two out of three? Maybe. All three? No.