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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: 202/219-8211.
Graduates Enter the Most Economically Stratified Society in
the Industrialized World
Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich today delivered the
Commencement Convocation at the University of California at Berkeley where he
warned of the "secession of the successful" threatening America's prosperity
and stability.
"When you leave Berkeley's beautiful surroundings -- when
you exit this heady atmosphere of intellectual ferment and political conviction
-- you will enter the most economically stratified society in the
industrialized world. And you inherit a nation that is surging toward even
greater inequality. . . .
"You may even come to see yourselves more as inhabitants
of the global economy -- connected by modem and fax to other great information
centers of America and the world -- than as citizens of a particular community.
You might feel you have more in common with a similar professional in, say,
Switzerland than with a waitress in Oakland or a custodian in Cleveland. And
this ability to succeed in the information-rich global economy may lead you to
secede from that part of America which remains trapped in the old economy, on
the other side of the great educational divide...
"We are witnessing a retreat from common ground -- not
just from public parks, public transportation, public libraries, public schools
and public universities -- but from the very idea of shared aspiration and
common responsibility. And as the successful secede, they ask with ever louder
voice -- in Washington, D.C. as in Sacramento -- why should we care? . . .
"With the degrees you will soon receive, many of you have
been handed a ticket to secede, if you wish to. But let me urge you to resist.
Not because commencement speakers are obligated to offer lofty sentiments. But
because you will not want to live in a society sharply divided between winners
and losers. . . .
"Do not tolerate what is now being considered in
Washington: Billions of dollars of cuts in student loans, work-study programs,
job training and other means by which people from working-class and poor homes
still have a chance to get ahead. When we most need paths from the old economy
to the new in order to help overcome the widening income gap which threatens
the future prosperity and stability of this nation, this is nonsensical.
Slashing education and training to cut the taxes of those who have already
crossed safely to the other side is a grotesquely misguided transaction that
will only accelerate the secession of the successful from American life."
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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