FREE FALL USA (original) (raw)

America’s business class should be ashamed to now be posing as the great defenders of inclusive social ideals – given how they’ve put those ideals at risk to advance the bottom line. It’s good to see CEOs speaking up against a bigoted president. Now it’s time for some deeper introspection in executive suites. History tells us that societies with extractive and self-serving upper classes tend to fall into decline – whereas societies with inclusive elites are more likely to thrive. With the rise of Trump, we’re seeing what an unraveling of the social fabric looks like after decades in which nearly all the nation’s income gains have flowed upwards to a tiny sliver of households. Rarely has the American experiment – the notion of a country united by ideas rather than shared heritage – felt more fragile than it does right now. It’s an ugly picture of division and resentment, but a predictable one given the economic trauma inflicted on millions of people over recent decades.