This Labor Day let's dispense with the usual insincere platitudes about the dignity of work and declare which side we're on in our current state of class warfare.

For too long, we have indulged the myth of an American Dream in which hard work and perseverance can buy you a ticket into the Middle Class – and even beyond.

The myth may have had some credence between the end of World War II and the rise of Reaganonomics in the 1980s.

But today's Middle Class has become no more than a rhetorical fiction which faux-fighting politicians pretend champion while they implement policies that diminish any transitional ground between the poor and the rich who essentially have declared a take-no-prisoners war on anyone they deem to be their inferiors.

To be sure, there are enough tattered remnants of a Middle Class for savvy spin doctors to fashion a narrative that includes a sociological DMZ between the warring factions. But these media agents of the ruling elite portray a Middle Class that’s bigger and more accessible than it actually is in order to obscure the reality that America is devolving into a two-caste society:
– One caste comprising the few who have sufficient tangible assets working for them to sustain their lifestyle; and
– Another comprising those who have to work themselves to survive, whether it’s a subsistence level or something that approximates the mythical Middle Class.

The distinction between castes is clear in theory, but more subtle in practice. Because we live in a nation that has been desensitized to subtlety, the elite’s spin doctors have been instrumental in containing class warfare to a few skirmishes by marginalizing the voices of The Working Class by casting them as radicals who are disconnected from society's mainstream.

It’s liberating to know your place

At the same time, the voices of discontent have failed to create their own compelling counter narrative to convince delusional wannabes who study CNBC like a handicapper studies the Daily Racing Form that they are part of The Working Class — which, in the post-industrial age, can be defined as including all wage earners and hands-on owners of small businesses, whether they can afford to lease a BMW or have to take the bus to work.

That's why perpetuating the myth of the American Dream is so sinister. It denies the reality that even those obsessed with a belief in their own unlimited upward mobility have more in common with the minimum-wage mopes they consider their inferiors than with those they dream of becoming — members of The Upper Class, who may sometimes pay lip service to the mythical American Dream but who have no real interest in welcoming “Nouveaus” into their virtual gated community.

You are free to take issue with my cynical view of American society. In fact, even I hope I’m off base. But one reason for my Labor Day inspired rant is to join in the push for changing the way we frame the debate over sharing the wealth of our nation. For me, the best place to start is by exposing The Middle Class for what it is: Over.

That being said, it’s time for us all to start identifying which side of the Class divide we’re on. Which is the side that aligns more closely with our real-time self-interest:

– The one whose members work to survive; or

– The one whose members survive off of the work of others?

Once we dispense with the corrupted mythology of the American Dream and we all complete a reality check to determine on the side where we properly belong, perhaps we can engage in an honest war of words and ideas that will lead us to a new middle ground where a real Middle Class can be re-established.

That’s my American Dream for this Labor Day.

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Robert Douglas is a former union official and business editor for The Palm Beach Post and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. You can find him at www.RBDMedia.com/blog.html.