{"id":12712,"date":"2026-03-01T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/?p=12712"},"modified":"2026-02-28T23:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T04:33:42","slug":"melanie-cen-labor-and-class-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/2026\/03\/01\/melanie-cen-labor-and-class-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Melanie Cen- M. Parenti: \u201cConcentration of Capital, Who Owns America?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For me, the most striking statistic is that the wealthiest 1% of Americans own 40% to 50% of the nation&#8217;s wealth\u2014more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90%. This disparity is truly alarming because it reveals the extent of wealth concentration, despite the U.S. often touting itself as a middle-class society. This article is so compelling because it challenges common myths about economic mobility. It explains that most people are poor not because of a lack of effort because wealth is primarily inherited and concentrated. These figures clearly demonstrate that inequality is not accidental\u2014it is rooted in the structure of capital and ownership.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Living in a society with severe wealth inequality can lead to stagnant social mobility, decreased trust, deteriorating mental health, and generational despair (such as complacency and low birth rates). This phenomenon is significantly reflected in daily life as excessive housing burdens, disparities in educational resources, health inequalities, and rising fraud and anxiety, severely weakening social cohesion. When most wealth is inherited and concentrated at the top, lower-income family members face numerous barriers to education, property ownership, and economic stability.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":11304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-5-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12770,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12712\/revisions\/12770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0507-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}