According to Bernie Sanders, income inequality means many Americans aren’t “truly free”
“True freedom does not occur without economic security.”
Bernie Sanders, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, delivered his latest campaign speech at Georgetown University on Nov. 19. Sanders is a politician, not a professor, but his speeches recently have taken on a distinctly educational cast. Mostly, they aim to teach Americans about democratic socialism, to dispel boogey-monster fears about the “s-word” and explain how it can be used to address America’s current social and economic woes.
The lessons he delivers to audience after audience are pretty much the same: economic inequality in America is severe and growing; the middle class has all but disappeared; the majority of new income generated today is going to the top 1% of Americans; the US is controlled by “a handful of billionaires.” His proposed solutions are familiar now, too: free universal healthcare, free college education, paid parental leave, higher taxes on the wealthy, banking regulations, a living wage.
But last Thursday, Sanders added a new dimension to his argument: the yawning gap between rich and poor has created a growing class of Americans, he suggested, who aren’t really free.
“People are not truly free when they are unable to feed their family,” he said. “People are not truly free when they are unable to retire with dignity. People are not truly free when they are unemployed or underpaid or when they are exhausted by working long hours. People are not truly free when they have no health care.”
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http://qz.com/560106/according-to-bernie-sanders-income-inequality-means-many-americans-arent-truly-free/
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