Article archive / September 2023
Originally published: . Volume 14, No. 9. Source pages: 2.
"Rich Men North of Richmond"– A Large System View by J. Nelson
Like most good art, Oliver Anthony’s song about wealthy elites in Washington, D.C., highlights a system dynamic. The simplicity and resonating theme explains why it went viral.
“Rich Men North of Richmond" is a song about the current political establishment and the plight of the middle class and working poor.
The populist theme is soulfully captured in the performance, but it is also supported by straightforward facts.
The cost of living is now $5000 more than the average family income. Inflation, caused by Government irresponsibly printing dollars, has ushered in a 50–75% rise in food and groceries. The housing market, juiced by inflation and corporate monopolies, is now almost completely out of reach for an average family. The goal of home ownership destroyed by the economic devastation. The national debt is over $30 trillion and we're pouring money into an undeclared, proxy war that could lead to WWIII. Robert Kennedy, Jr., an antiestablishment, often censored, outsider candidate, says both political parties are tone deaf to the populist themes.
"Nobody’s even talking about what’s really going on in this country, which is this corrupt collusion between state and corporate power, that’s strip-mining the wealth from the American middle class, and destroying the lives of the working poor, in this country where you do not have a chance anymore. The whole system is rigged against you," he said. "And those corporations, because of government collusion, these rich men north of Richmond, have their boots on the neck of every American."
Where does psychology fall in this? Do the rich men north of Richmond have their boots on the mental and psychological health of the American public? Does psychology oppose the populist theme or embrace it?
Health statistics on suicide and other “deaths of despair” point to a wholesale failure of psychology to have made an impact in the trajectory of chronic disease in the country, the mission we were given 50 years ago. Our vision was of an alternative to the medical model, not a facilitator of it.
Is the vision of an independent, scientific psychology being consumed by the establishment elites that run the health corporations? Are we blocked from creating real changes for the American citizens, citizens that rank at the bottom in health when compared to similar nations?
You can't see clearly from inside a system––the system will mindlessly generate ideas that profit the establishment, it will restrict information flow to profit its own agendas, and it will lack all ability to innovate new solutions. To offer a clear diagnosis of this system we must step back and think about the whole landscape.
The reason why we’re in this situation right now is there is a large segment of people that for 30 or 40 years has been increasingly disenfranchised and ignored for a variety of reasons.
Oliver Anthony's song steps away from the issues of race and sexuality, the main ways they currently divide us–the oldest trick in the book–and draws the boundary instead around the middle class and working poor.
The populist view of this is something bigger than typical politics. It’s not about Trump anymore–it's about the wealthy elites that run the country and that have cannibalized the American middle class.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.