I was reading an article recently, “Rising-Tide Economics” by Gene Sperling. Sperling was a former national economic advisor to President Clinton, and in this article he references his time in the white house and his comments to the speechwriters, encouraging them to drop the cliche “hang together, or … hang separately” by Benjamin Franklin and instead make an economic caution that “we will grow together or grow apart.” This is an interesting point to make in our day and age of corporate globalization. The way “progression” has typically been measured is by the GDP, strictly a measure of capital, and even when the country’s economy is on the rise there is no inclusion of who sees the benefit. It would be much more progressive, in fact, if we measured positive economic growth by the solidarity and more equal distribution of wealth throughout the country. Until we include some form of equality component to our measures of the economy, inequality will always be able to be explained away or overlooked in by the rich and in politics.
