ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the consequences of the cycle of stagnant wages, rising debts, high taxes, and political disenfranchisement. The unemployment rate dipped to record lows in the 1990s, but wages barely moved. The debts acquired as a result of stagnant wages mean that no one is available to fight the current system of work, spending, and debt, so employers continue to pocket productivity gains and workers work harder and harder just to remain financially solvent. We identify four important consequences of middle-class meltdown that are corroding the social order: the growing number of personal bankruptcies filed by middle-class Americans, the cultural contradictions of American politics, the fraying of community ties, and the hardening of public discourse and development of a general politics of displacement.
