Race or class?

I heard once that the real difference between the French and the Americans is that the French refuse to acknowledge race as an issue, while Americans refuse to acknowledge class as an issue.

Think about it. When was the last time someone you know admitted to being anything other than middle class? Even if you knew they were either poor or wealthy, most people would say they were middle class. A few might say they were financially "comfortable" or they were "in between jobs" but very few will admit to being rich or below the poverty line. Yet the number of people living under poverty level is increasing (35 million plus and counting).

From the little debate DeeK and I are having over immigration I am reminded that we have groups of poor people, separated only by race, that are kept fighting amongst each other for small change while the fat cats run off with the bags of cash. Poor whites are afraid of poor blacks getting an equal shot at jobs and education through affirmative action, poor blacks and whites are afraid of immigrants taking their jobs and using up precious resources for their children, and looming large over all of it is the threat of TERRORISTS coming across the border to blow us all up with dirty bombs. But in the end we all want the same thing, to be able to provide for our families and what is keeping us from doing that is not each other.

We can try to force businesses to provide a living wage for everyone, immigrant or citizen, though that has had no success so far. Or, we could go with an idea I first heard attributed to Nixon(I know - what the fuck?) called the mandatory minimum income. The idea is that you make bushiness as competitive as possible by eliminating the minimum wage and you offer everyone a monthly subsidy until their income reaches a certain point. After that point you progressively tax income received form employment or investments. Through this you eliminate social security, welfare, and unemployment (they would get the subsidy instead). Taxes would be substantially higher, but costs of goods and services would go down. And while wages would go extremely low at first, employers would have to increase them enough to entice employees out of the safety net.

It's an idea that needs a lot of work, but it gives business what it wants (competition without minimum wages) and employees get a stable ground to negotiate from.