These days lots of people bemoan the gap between the very wealthy and the rest. Chuck Collins is working on the hard part — figuring out what comes next. Collins directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and has worked to show leaders in business, academia and government how wealth inequality harms society.
Rather than simply sharing ideas at conferences and in the media, Collins wants to take it to the streets. By writing “99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality Is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It,” Collins aims to put his message that we can and should diminish wealth inequality in front of those who are most likely to make change: the people who comprise the 99 percent.
Why did you decide to write this book now?
Well coming out of the We Are The 99 Percent movement, Berrett Koehler publishers asked if I would do a short accessible book on inequality. I wrote it in about six weeks. Really, it was pretty easy.
Why is this issue so important to you personally?
I believe that inequalities contaminate and undermine quality of life for all of us. I grew up in Detroit and was seven at the time of the Detroit riots, which I later understood came from growing racial and wealth disparities. I traversed the class and wealth divide living in Detroit. I grew up in the 1 percent and went to same high school as Mitt Romney.
You made a decision in your early 20s to give away your inheritance. Tell me about that.
[After graduating college] I was working on issues of affordable housing and homelessness and also had experience doing international work in a refugee camp. Those experiences contributed to my sense that I was on the benefitting end of the class divide. I did not know exactly what I could do about that, but one thing I knew I could do something about was the money that was in my name. I was the great-grandson of Oscar Mayer and came from a very wealthy family. When I received a substantial inheritance in 1985, I felt that I had not earned it and didn’t feel much of a claim to it. I knew that I didn’t want to live in a society that has extreme inequality, so what could I do? I knew that I could personally redistribute the inheritance that has come to my name. So I decided to give it all to social change organizations and foundations doing grassroots organizing.
How did that feel?
I’ve described that feeling best as a sense of alignment: aligning my values with my actions. I still sometimes feel contradictions, but at least I know that I did not contribute to a system in which people are passing down massive sums of unearned wealth.
We’re at the highest rates of inequality since the Great Depression. How did we get here?
A segment of the 1 percent, what I call the rule riggers, used their substantial wealth and power to benefit the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent. For example, anti-tax groups have worked to cut taxes on the wealthy, support think tanks that put forward a pro tax cut method, create policies that benefit investors over wage earners. Specific examples include the inheritance tax and the differential that has income from capital taxed at a much lower rate than income from work.
We’ve been through this before with the first gilded age a century ago. What’s similar and different this time around?
What is similar is that the 1 percent has a huge concentration of wealth and that a handful of corporations have captured a political system. There is a sense of corruption among the wealthy and powerful. They are looting the national treasury and meaningful reforms have been blocked.
One thing that has changed this go-around is the concentration of media ownership. There was much more decentralized media in the first gilded age. This makes the survival of progressive independent media organizations like Real Change all the more important today.
Another difference was that a century ago, the conversation around inequality was much more advanced. People saw it for what it was — a threat to society. And there was a more mobilized and engaged populous. Until the collapse of 2008 and the fallout, our society had been much more passive and indifferent to inequality. Now we are entering into a similar awakening period.
By the awakening, are you referring to the Occupy movement?
Well, the Occupy Wall Street movement was obviously a big piece of it, but Occupy was just one thread. For example, within religious institutions, the conversation around inequality is now on peoples’ minds. There is a much more heightened consciousness now about the costs of extreme inequality and the collapse of the middle class and their standard of living. I think that other streams are flowing out of Occupy. It’s a swarm of activity. Occupy played a useful role, and, that work is moving to another stage. You see it, as I said, in the churches. You see it in groups like 99 Percent Power that is mobilizing people to reign in corporations and to repeal Citizens United. And you see it in a re-awakened labor movement.
Labor has historically played a huge role in containing inequality, but its role in the last thirty years has been in decline. What is the role of the labor movement in addressing inequality today?
Labor always has a very uphill battle to fight. It’s a low moment right now because of Scott Walker’s recent success in Wisconsin. The good news there is that democrats got majority control of the senate. But in terms of the big picture, organized labor was 35 percent in 1955 and was a huge factor in decline of inequality after World War II. The fact that there is not an organized force for workers is one of the reasons we are in this mess. But there is a re-awakening going on now and enhanced efforts to fight for a fair economy. Labor is on the front lines of the fight and is active in building coalitions between unions and community allies.
The 99 to 1 frame is pretty black-and-white. What’s the role of wealthy allies among the 1 percent?
The 1 percent is not a monolithic group. Many organizational allies like Wealth for the Common Good, Patriotic Millionaires, Responsible Wealth and Resource Generation are full of wealthy allies who are speaking out publicly and validating messages around a fair economy. Having business people talk about taxes, for example, is really effective in helping debunk the conservative narrative that raising taxes on wealthy will kill jobs. It really strikes a chord when you have a bunch of CEOs and entrepreneurs saying that is not true.
You and others have claimed inequality is not just bad for the poor and middle class, but for everyone. That rings a bit hollow to some. Can you really say that the 1 percent suffer from inequality?
I would not say that they are suffering, but that the extreme inequality of wealth is causing a breakdown in society. Wealthy people are affected less, but they are still affected. The degradation of the natural environment, for example, hurts everyone. And history has shown that a society with extreme concentration of wealth is not sustainable. The rich can distance themselves, but they can only build walls so high and islands so far away.
If it’s really 99 to 1, why is the upcoming presidential election supposed to be so close?
There is still a lot of confusion about where our interests lie. If people bring a 99:1 lens to the election, they will re-elect Obama. If they bring a lens that divides people, immigration, gay marriage, working poor/poor, politics of resentment to the election, it’s going to be close.
How do you think that the American perception and attitude toward wealth has changed in the last four years?
I think that historically we as a country have had a high tolerance for inequality. We don’t begrudge people wealth if we feel it has been fairly earned and there is social mobility. But with the meltdown in 2008, people discovered that the rules are rigged and that mobility is declining. This awareness has contributed to shifting attitudes towards wealth and inequality. Today, people see that extreme wealth inequality contributes to an unfair economy. That it is, in fact, undermining their chance to have a good life. People have started to see that concentrations of wealth are in fact blocking their opportunities.
What are people doing that give you the most hope?
One thing that gives me hope is that people are not waiting for our leaders to lead. They are protesting corporate tax dodging by going to their shareholder meetings. They are moving to amend resolutions in municipalities to vote to overturn Citizen’s United. They are moving money out of mega banks and into credit unions and local banks. And institutions are doing this too. I am treasurer of Sojourner’s magazine, for example, and we just voted to move our money into a credit union. People are also clamoring for tax fairness, for example a financial transactions tax that would be imposed on Wall Street speculators. We are breaking open old stuck models of action and taking new forms of creative action. Billionaires for Bush is a great example.
So, would you say you are optimistic looking ahead?
Right now it’s hard to imagine any meaningful reforms passing in the current congress. But as I said, we have a collapsing middle class, students saddled with debt no plan, people stuck in poverty feeling no path forward. These realities are not going away. The pressure is going to keep building. And ultimately will create a re-alignment.
Our current system is incapable of solving problems because it’s been captured by corporate interests. What will ultimately lead to change is enough people saying enough is enough. And having candidates of the 99 percent running for office. There is a new set of values coming into play and momentum is building for a re-alignment. This isn’t to say there won’t be efforts to repress protests and clamp down on civil liberties along the way. Something to be concerned about. [But I believe that in the end] there is going to be a re-alignment. People will be called to something greater than just consuming. We are capable of transforming ourselves and our communities.