The US is still marching towards a feudal economy or a Banana Republic. Even the bananas themselves are shared very unequally:
National income gained overall in 2010, but all of the gains were among the top 10 percent. Even within those 15.6 million households, the gains were extraordinarily concentrated among the super-rich, the top one percent of the top one percent.My bolds,
Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain.
OK. That wasn't bananas. It was money.
This society is becoming increasingly unequal. That bodes increasing instability in the future which is bad news even for those who wouldn't otherwise mind living in the enclosed and guarded communities for the handful of the super-rich.
And at least some of this development is by design. The attacks against Social Security, against Medicaid, against public schools all contribute towards the feudalization of the USA. The demands for minimal taxing of corporate profits and minimal taxing of unearned income similarly contribute towards a future Banana Republic and globalization mostly benefits the multinational firms which can easily shift their production to areas where worker protections are nil and wages just cover the day's nutritional requirements.
Taxes pay for civilization, as someone smart once said. And they do. Civilization is a public good, meaning that it benefits us all by making it safe to go outside and by offering interesting reasons to go outside. But reverse that and you might notice that destroying the civilization is a public bad. Life in a feudal society is not fun. Not even for the rich.