The thoughtful commentary by Jim Mittelman (Dec. 17, 2024) discussed many of the reasons for anger and unhappiness in American society. Nearly everyone can agree that we face a slew of issues including: inflation, unaffordable healthcare, homelessness, climate change, gun violence and an unresponsive dysfunctional government. What happened to the United States full of possibilities where all it took was honest hard work to get ahead and live a good life? We are the same people. We live in what is considered to be the strongest economy on earth. Why then can’t we have a better society? How did we get to the place where everything seems on a downward path and today the murder of a corporate CEO on the street is cheered and admired by a good chunk of us?

The memory of a society is only as long as its oldest members, and there are no longer any people who experienced life in the U.S. after World War One through the Great Depression. There is an old saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This axiom is one of the reasons that education is so important for a healthy democracy.

The industrialization that followed World War One led to the roaring 1920s generating unheard of wealth and prosperity. This was validation of the power of capitalism and the free market. It came to a crash at the end of that decade and while the 1930s continued to support a very wealthy class, a great many Americans fell into extreme poverty with little to no chance of improving their situation. It was during this time that the board game Monopoly was born and it still serves as a good illustration of what unregulated capitalism delivers; everyone starts out even, but by the end, one player overwhelms everyone else — who end up penniless. A more academic example can be found in the extensively researched book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Piketty. This book documents the history of capitalism to concentrate wealth into fewer and fewer companies and individuals until, unless constrained, it comes crashing down into revolution, war or depression. It is not an uplifting tale, but it is what we are beginning to experience in our society.

Wealth disparity today is at the highest level our country has ever experienced. The richest 400 people in the U.S. now control more wealth than the bottom 200 million. Corporate concentration has resulted in key industries dominated by a handful of large players with little competition and the unrelenting drive to increase profits. Home builders and auto manufacturers target the top half of society and produce larger, more expensive and higher profit products. There isn’t as much profit in smaller $200,000 homes or $20,000 cars. The health insurance industry continues to post record profits by delaying and denying needed drugs and procedures while siphoning off 20% of healthcare spending. Industrial food producers have the market power to squeeze smaller farms and dairies into unprofitable pricing while prices at the retail level create massive profits. Quality and health suffer resulting in nationwide recalls of contaminated products. Remember when we could enjoy rare hamburgers? That was before industrial meat processing made fecal contamination the norm.

The influence of the wealthy over our lives has never been greater. The Heritage Foundation now appears to have influence over the majority of the Supreme Court. This has resulted in rulings allowing unlimited secret political donations and curtailing the government’s power to regulate. Tens of thousands of corporate-funded lobbyists swarm Washington writing legislation and directing our representatives’ votes. It’s no secret that large corporations and the wealthy want minimum taxes, minimum government and maximum power to do as they please. Don’t be fooled by their statements that they are for freedom and energizing the economy and helping the middle class. We still have the power to vote and we can turn things around just as we did nearly a hundred years ago. We need to start now to take back our country from corporate monopolies and the super wealthy’s insatiable greed.

James O’Neill is an independent policy analyst living in Lafayette Colorado.