On this sixth Labor Day of the 21st millenium, I read a disturbing article that appeared earlier this week in the New York Times Business Section, by writers Steven Greenhouse and David Leonhardt. It bears this ominous headline: “Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity.” America is experiencing the worst mismatch of capital and labor since the statistics were recorded. The result is a fading quality of life for most Americans and greater profitability for those that own the means of production.

Typically, when productivity rises -- when workers produce more value -- their wages rise. The rewards of an expanding economy are shared, somewhat. Today, there is no sharing. Workers produce more by working harder, working longer hours, and doing it with fewer vacations and benefits -- yet real wages for at least 90 percent of the American workforce are declining. UBS, an investment bank, is quoted in the Times, "[this is] the golden era of profitability.” What it boils down to, according to Greenhouse and Leonhardt, is the loss by labor of bargaining power attributed to globalism, new technology, and a general lack of organization. Some workers do all right: those at the top of a very pointed pyramid. One percent of the American workforce, mainly CEOs, senior managers, and star professionals accounted for nearly 11 percent of all salary increases in the last year. Shareholders also did well. But the middle class, once buoyed by boom market stocks and seemingly infinite elasticity in the price of homes, has seen its share start to slip away as the housing bubble bursts and everything necessary to just living life -- like gas for commuting to work and driving the kids to school -- skyrocket in price. Throw in an expensive, poorly executed, and needless war overseas (costing $10 billion and thousands of lives each month) -- and you can understand how the social services that once constituted a social safety net have been shredded.

You'd think all of this would make Americans a hardened people, ready to take to the streets. You'd be wrong.

Yes, there is discontent. The Conference Board's Index of Consumer Confidence is dramatically declining. Polls show that the Republican Party, the party that burnt the Treasury down, is in grave danger of losing control of the House of Representatives and just possibly the Senate. But these are formalities. Even if the parties switch, it's unlikely to change the systemic causes of worker impoverishment. Because we haven't the means to design solutions. As The Economist reports this week, American solidarity and overseas admiration that was at an all-time high following 9/11 has eroded to almost nothing. And the nation is riven.

So why are the American people still hopeful?

Hope has been part of the American ideology, growing larger in scale with each quantum leap in the national enterprise. When the first Europeans arrived to confront a seeming wilderness, they hoped to make it through the winter. The Declaration of Independence relied on hope to last for the duration of the Revolution, as its signing portended sure hanging for the signatories had the Colonies not prevailed. There was hope that the Civil War would end animosity between North and South. Hope that U.S. involvement in conflicts overseas would bring an end to imperial wars. Hope that comity might be restored between capital and labor. Hope that a global economy would float all ships. Hope for world peace. Hope in the hearts of each generation of immigrants. And hope in every American's mind that he or she might one day become the next Bill Gates or Angelina Jolie -- and if not that person himself or herself, then that person's children or grandchildren.

This is America's ideology. Wikipedia defines ideology in benign terms as “a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things”; but also as “a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society.” It's the latter application of the term that worries me.

Establishing a dominant ideology, like the ideology of hope, of optimism -- some would say, of “irrational exuberance” -- is something that the powerful do well, because it helps them to retain power. How does ideology manifest itself? In canons of belief. Take the nature of the state. In modern times, the integration of government, corporations, cultural institutions, and the educational system into a unitary state is an acknowledged fact. But Americans are taught that it isn't. As one Republican pundit told the Times reporters, “Americans don't blame the government for the current state of affairs. They blame big corporations.” It feels odd to argue the opposite, though the opposite is empirically proven every day. And the notion of classes at war, using the machinery of government -- tax policy, investment policy, global policy, etc., and the law -- to achieve advantages, while obvious to everyone, is not permitted as a topic of conversation in any of the popular media (except some films). In fact, it's not welcome. "Class warfare" is taboo. This situation, which has been written about extensively, harkens back to the singularity of national socialism, state communism, and other forms of fascism that sprang up in Post-WWI Europe. One does not invoke differences of class in America without penalty, and as a result, the nation cannot resolve problems that have their origins in class. Too bad. We almost punched through in the 30s. Then WWII intervened.

Intentionally designed experiences have a lot to do with the dominant ideology in America. Media experiences, themed experiences, and educational experiences for the vast majority of Americans who never learn to think critically are among the factors that engender America's ideology of hope, even in the face of events that objectively signal alarm. Others are a pubic history that glorifies the state as a bringer of equality and religious faith that preaches the notion of heavenly intervention to alleviate suffering. Distraction with triviality disguised as culture has a place in America's ideology. Lastly, there is the myth of the self-made man or woman, that everyone can be one, despite historical proof that being a scion of inherited wealth and influence is the predominant key to personal financial success and power.

Americans remain hopeful, not taking to the streets, not speaking our discontent unless they're among a sliver of organized labor or political activists. Moment to moment, sunshine optimism may be preferable to many Europeans' pronounced cynicism, or the despair that grips half of all people living today regarding how they'll survive the next 24 hours. But optimism per se is no solution to pressing, systemic problems; it's simply a condition. Rolling up one's sleeves and engaging in action -- that's what makes change happen. If, however, we wait while ideological optimism keeps a lid on discontent, our problems will get worse and then we may find ourselves as a nation and a society in the grip of cynicism, despair...or, as elswhere where ideologies have failed, bloody anger.