I lived in Europe for a number of years. My husband was teaching, and we lived on the economy of the Europeans with slightly less pay and fewer long-term advantages.
But still, I could see that the redistribution of wealth consists of excellent public transportation systems, really good pre-schools and education (although the teachers my children had were not as good as American teachers, the system was so much better), secure knowledge of a pension, excellent affordable healthcare (but not as many private rooms in hospitals -- at that time, longer stays in hospitals I note), clean streets, all kinds of public investment that Americans could not imagine.
Imagine a wonderful museum that is subsidized to a great extent from public funds. In my community, a large, wealthy group of people, a private foundation or organization, just bought up the assets of a museum including the building and decided to move the assets -- the museum's collection to a more affluent area. How disgusting can you get. In Europe, the museum would probably have been saved for our community by government money. If you think about the castles in Europe, many are privately owned, but the castles of the kings and queens, Versailles, the Hofburg, etc. are publicly owned and cared for. The treasures of the past are the public responsibility. Europeans pay for these great monuments out of tax money.
We let many of our great monuments deteriorate. I am proud to say that so far, Los Angeles has saved its wonderful central library. I am wondering how our beautiful Union Station will fare as a new facility is built in back of it. (That's my understanding.)
The sad thing is that we are sinking into more and more oligarchy and our oligarchy is so lacking in "class" in the popular sense of the world. There is no sense of refinement, no aesthetic sense, no social responsibility as a rule in our oligarchy. It is pretty crass. Sorry but that is my opinion. A pretty crass, egocentric bunch.
How can we have such extreme wealth in Los Angeles and so many homeless people sleeping under our bridges and in our arroyos? That is not a good sign when we think that the people who own that extreme wealth are likely to become even more entrenched in their positions.
The Roosevelts were moved in part by their religious beliefs to help the poor and care about others. I do not see that influence taken seriously by today's oligarchs. They may profess a religion, but their faith does not seem to move them to care for the least wealthy and most needy among us.
I would like to add to my rant that I fully support the call for free college education for all Americans who can qualify based on their academic work for college. I think that would do more to raise the standards of the performance of our children in schools than any other measure.
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