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30 New Persp. Q. 2 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/nwpsp30 and id is 1 raw text is: The Rise of Plutocracy AS THE LATE DIRECTOR SYDNEY POLLACK ONCE PUT IT: AMERICAN FILMS SAY TO PEOPLE EVERYWHERE THAT YOU DON T HAVE TO BE HIGH AND MIGHTY TO MAKE IT. YOU MAY BE A KID WITH BRACES ON YOUR TEETH IN SOME SMALL TOWN WHO DREAMS OF SUCCESS AND ADVENTURE IN LIFE. MOVIES TELL YOU IT IS POSSIBLE. YOU CAN WRITE YOUR OWN NARRATIVE. IN A VERY FUNDAMENTAL WAY, THIS IS WHAT AMERICA ITSELF IS REALLY ALL ABOUT. At the GOP convention in Tampa last year, the last popular Republican, former secretary of state Condi Rice, phrased this aspirational creed succinctly: America is not about where you came from, but where you are going. Today, however, opportunity for everyone is fast becoming Hollywood fiction. Ironically, Hollywood may be one of the few pockets where upward mobility based on merit and talent is still a reality. Silicon Valley, where a kid in a dorm room with an algorithm can go to connect the world and make a fortune, is another. But for the vast majority of Americans another story is emerging: a new plutoc- racy of the super-wealthy is cementing its hold on the top. Only low-wage jobs that lead nowhere are being created at the bottom. The middle class C O M M E N T is being hollowed out because manufacturing has been shifted out of the country and new digital technologies, which out- source white-collar work to consumers themselves, are replacing everyone from bank tellers to airline clerks. Just connecting the dots with a few key figures paints a clear picture of just how America's foundational creed is under assault. Today, as Chrystia Freeland reports in her new book, Plutocrats, the top 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of the wealth. And since the financial crisis of 2008, that skewed distribution has sharpened. While the income of the 99 percent has recovered by o.2 percent, for the top i percent it has improved by 11.6 percent. While the top i percent of Americans held 8 percent of all income in 1975, by 2012 they held 22 percent. Much of this wealth is concentrated in the so-called super-elites of finance, who ' WINTER 2013

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