Land of the free full of inequality

• Reprints

Updated: March 2, 2011 12:21AM

In Tunisia and Egypt, dire poverty, worsened in the world downturn, provided the kindling for uprisings that already have displaced a dictator in Tunisia and threaten the reign of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, people are stirring; rulers sleep uneasily.

Commentators connect the uprisings to economic inequality that makes political oppression unbearable. If there is no justice, there can be no peace, no matter how repressive the dictator or how powerful the military.

One thing the media haven’t noted: According to CIA data, the U.S. endures greater inequality than Tunisia, Yemen or Egypt. Here we suffer that inequality with little protest . . . thus far.

Political freedoms help release frustrations. But the poorer and more unstable your economic condition, the less likely you are to vote or to protest. The United States will learn the same lesson: Even with freedom, if there is no justice, there will be, in the end, no peace.

Inequality here is at levels not seen since the Gilded Age. The top 1 percent captures nearly 25 percent of the nation’s income. They control as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. CEOs make more than 260 times as much as the average worker, up from 42 times as much in 1980. During the last “recovery” from 2002-07, the richest 1 percent captured about two-thirds of all the rewards of growth. The economy was growing, profits and productivity were up, but for the first time, most Americans lost ground. And that was before the housing bubble burst and Wall Street excesses blew up the economy.

A market economy suffocates in this environment. The wealthy few live luxurious lives, but have sufficient money to engage in ever-greater speculation, inflating bubbles — the dot-com bubble, the housing bubble — that eventually burst.

Middle-class families struggle with stagnant incomes and rising costs of health care, education, housing and retirement security. They work longer hours, send more family members into the work force, go into debt. They remain a serious illness or lost job away from ruin.

The poor struggle just to survive. Their children cross unsafe streets to go to overcrowded schools, often relying on school for a good meal. They are denied equal opportunity from the start.

This is not the natural order of this country. After World War II, we created an economy in which we grew together as the great middle class was built. Eisenhower kept the top tax rate that applied to the highest levels of income for the very rich at 90 percent. The minimum wage rose regularly. Unions represented 30 percent of the work force. America was still scarred by segregation. Women and gays were still in their kitchens or closets. But our broad middle class became a beacon to the world.

Wrong-headed public policy changed all that. Taxes were slashed on the affluent, business declared war on unions, corporations developed a trade policy that shipped jobs overseas and banks were deregulated, with catastrophic consequences.

Let us hope that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt move peacefully to a democratic transition. And while we watch those struggles, let us not forget the need for justice here at home.