kgdlg
I feel desperate for a societal value of “shared sacrifice” again – you know, the kind that existed during WW2, when everyone actually felt like there was a link between our countries’ actions and individual choices. I think that the draft heavily impacted this feeling, that the rich and poor fought for us together, as well as the fact that we had to actually tax people for our wars, instead of just borrowing money and kicking the can down the road for our kids to deal with and pay later.
I don’t think that re instituting the draft is necessarily the answer but I think it is part of the societal change that has left the elites that much farther away and insulated from the rest of us.
Personally, my fear with the minimum wage stuff in Seattle is that it won’t actually make a dent in any rich person’s/corporations’ pocket. That the two main outcomes will be higher cost of goods (cost passed on to consumers including poor people) and fewer jobs overall (layoffs in order to absorb wage hike). I fully support a higher minimum wage, but I just have given up on big businesses sacrificing profit to do the right thing. I think they will always prioritize maintaining their egregious bottom lines (necessary to pay their CEOs millions per year!)