According to the constant business-page reminders, half of the United States population now owns stock, either directly or through pension plans and mutual funds. Despite occasional blips, the gloaters tell us the future is rosy, at least for those who have the money and guts to log on to E-Trade. Progressives can identify the fallacies in the thickening media haze. We know that individual stock portfolios won't end injustice.
Some people get rich at the expense of many others.
And we know that the corporation is a recipe for social irresponsibility. Corporations are explicitly and legally designed to accumulate immense wealth and power solely for the purpose of making a profit, with no risk to anyone involved except the victims. Yet despite all that we know, politically conscious progressives suddenly find themselves among the new stock-holding class, increasingly dependent on the booming market to help get their kids through college and themselves through retirement. Most of us never set out to get rich. By choice, we became teachers and social workers, nurses and professors, legal aid lawyers and therapists.