Systemic Oppression: Government and Wealth Inequality in America

The systemic oppression that we are currently experiencing is a lively and complex system that keeps repeating itself over and over through history. One form of oppression is with the use of the government to control the masses. Another form of oppression, wealth inequality, is a very familiar concept to humans. Throughout history humans have endured one or the other or both. However, we are currently living in a moment in time where the world is experience a systemic oppression that is using both of these types of oppressions to control us. Government and wealth inequality is certainly a system in place today to oppress the people, in fact this mix is embedded in our ideology, traditions, and culture; however, it is in human nature to fight back when they have reached a tipping point as seen in the movie V for Vendetta (2005).

The movie V for Vendetta portrays a time where the government has taken full control of the people and uses the institutions of the government to oppress the people. The movie V for Vendetta is significant to our explication because it shows the governmental form of oppression, totalitarianism. It helps understand how our current situation is so numbing. We do not have it as bad as the people in the movie where they will even be arrested for being outside pass curfew. In the movie, V, one of the protagonist, is responsible for helping the people wake up from the oppression of the government and what is important about this character's behavior is that he promotes a society where we should be seen as people of the state rather than objects of the state. This totalitarian government created a system where everyone turned against everyone. By having everyone as objects against each other the government places the focus on each other instead of the government. Though our form of government is Democracy we too are told to see our neighbor as another object and as competition.

As I said before wealth inequality is another form of oppression and not knew to Americans. In fact we have come to accept it to the point where we promote it. We tend to believe that anyone can achieve the American Dream, if one works hard enough. However, the truth is that some (more like the majority of Americans) are in extremely disadvantage positions to acquiring the American Dream. Though some staunch proponents of the constitution would argue that the U.S. was founded on freedom, equality, and the distribution of wealth; they neglect to see the embedded systemic socioeconomic oppression that wealth inequality creates. History shows that when a community endures oppression, they eventually fight for their liberty. This idea of fighting the systemic oppression is also not knew to the U.S., after all the U.S. did fight a war with its oppressive mother country, Britain, and was founded on principles of equality for all. However, what some neglect to see is that these very same principles are what created the oppressive nature of the wealth inequality in the U.S.

I am not arguing for or against capitalism. What I am arguing is that some of the principles, most specifically Adam Smith's The Invisible Hand, that the founders decided to implant onto the U.S. foundation became counterintuitive. The very principle that was suppose to eliminate monopolies became the principle that assisted monopolies. Capitalism has increased its power through U.S. history by creating the wealth gap. The movie In Time (2011), depicts and advanced global society that uses time as their currency and everyone after their twenty-fifth birthday is chasing it or else they will die. We are not currently chasing time because it is infinite (more on that on a later blog) but we are chasing the dollar bill.

Though Democracy allows for some to participate in making decisions. I would even argue that we are worse off than the two movies because we do not know who are enemies are. We have been turn against each other instead of the people against the oppressors. Some of the wealthy elites that own most of the wealth own the government officials. It is true that we are not in a condition like the move In Time where we work and have no freedom and literally can die any second. That would be too extreme and not profitable for the wealthy elite. The wealthy elites rather keep us in a state of limbo. We are not too bad off as the people In Time or V for Vendetta but the wealthy do have a hand on liberty. Instead of using time or totalitarianism as oppressors, our oppressors use a combination of wealth and governmental inequalities to submerge our heads.

To better understand how these concepts of totalitarianism and wealth inequalities oppresses the masses in similar ways, one can apply Karl Marxist's ideas to the broader context of our current state. Marx's political philosophy is enlightening because it helps the viewer to step back from one's current life and observe the current conditions from a third person point of view. There are some key similarities in the movies In time, V for Vendetta, and our current socioeconomic system that we are currently living under. According to Marx one can not only point fingers to the beholders of power as the institutions or wealthy elites but rather a combination of systemic oppressors, he says, "the forms and the specific situations of the government of men by one another in a given society are multiple; they are superimposed, they cross, impose their own limits, sometimes cancel one another out, sometimes reinforce one another" (793). I chose this sentence because it reveals a lot of Marxist's ideology. It reveals a system where men rule others by imposing constraints on others. As seen in the movies In time, V for Vendetta, and our current situation there are multiple factors that are placing constraints on us and creating a society where we see each other as objects. Men have driven a wedge between men to create a society where we see one another as competition whether that is in an educational, work, or societal setting. Marxist's Alienated Workforce theory is at the very heart of this sentence because it shows how the oppressors have converted the masses into objects that see others as objects and as a means rather than an ends! This theory is seen in the movies In Time, V for Vendetta, and our situation because we are competing with one another while the wealthy and other elites take advantage of us.



The video below is a short clip demonstrating the wealth inequality in the U.S. I felt like adding this piece to my blog because it showed me in numbers how the real American Dream looks like.