(This column is the second of two parts.)

I ended last Sunday’s column on inequality by asking each of us: “How can I, as a citizen, get clearer in my own mind about what I can do to stem the tide of inequality that threatens us all?”

Our responses reflect our conflicted feelings – empathy for poor children mixed with censure of parents who put their own pleasures ahead of their children’s needs; compassion for the homeless and the hungry mixed with consternation about the bad choices some folks make; concern about a shrinking middle class mixed with criticism of those who fail to prepare themselves, educationally, for the new economy; dismay at the lack of adequate social services for those in need mixed with distrust of the government that provides such services; frustration over income inequality mixed with reluctance to pay more in taxes for programs that might not really make a difference.

Despite our ambiguity, I’m convinced that those of us who are relatively privileged and secure must act to counter the growing income and opportunity gap in American society. Our Congress is incapable of action. Our leaders are unable to deliver. Our politics are mired in raucous partisanship. Our fellow citizens on the left and the right are divided by an ever-widening chasm, fueled by biased cable news. That leaves us, individual people whose caring extends beyond our immediate families, to step into the breach.

It was people like us who sustained the Civil Rights movement, who ended the Vietnam War, who demanded and got cleaner air and water, who supported women’s rights and gay rights, and who – if we act together – can reverse the downward slide toward a blatantly unequal society and the turmoil and violence that will result if this slide continues.

Here are some policies we must be ready to fight for. All demand sacrifice. The first list will be attractive to “liberals”; the next is more likely to appeal to “conservatives.” We have reached the point where fidelity to one’s preferred ideology is not enough. We need to come together to make things happen.

• We have to champion a high-quality, nurturing environment for all children through world-class free pre-school and K-12 education, so children in poor communities can have the same early development chances as those from richer homes, and so working-class families don’t have to pay a huge chunk of their meager earnings on childcare. Each New Hampshire school must be a temple of opportunity for our children, with health care and nutrition and parenting support. There is just no substitute for helping all kids start off with a good chance to thrive.

• Similarly, we have to balance the pattern of ever higher spending on services for older Americans (who do vote) with enhanced services for children (who don’t). How do we justify Medicare for the elderly and not also demand quality health care and good nutrition for lower income children and their families?

• At the high school and college level, we have to invest in high quality training for future workers and entrepreneurs, to reverse the brain-drain of talented young people who leave New Hampshire for greener pastures. If our community colleges and state colleges were either free or offered loans pegged to future earnings, New Hampshire could attract and hold onto productive young people.

• Let’s raise our minimum wage to a “living wage” and be prepared to pay more for the goods and services that low-wage employees provide. Just how much more would a “Big Mac” really cost if those who make and serve it were getting a decent wage? A $15 hourly minimum wage would push wages up for all lower income workers and help us acknowledge a responsibility to end poverty.

• We must agree to pay taxes at or near the level of other first-world nations where income inequality is much less than what Americans are facing. In New Hampshire, this will mean taxing income and inherited wealth, with exemptions for lower-earning families. Our founding fathers spoke clearly – America would not replicate Europe’s aristocratic dynasties. Americans, they said, had to earn their fortunes. We are perilously close to creating self-perpetuating dynasties in how we sustain inherited wealth. The term “death taxes” is a falsehood that masks the policy of helping the rich stay rich at the expense of everyone else.

• On the national level, we need to rewrite the tax codes to eliminate loopholes for the wealthy (including removing the cap on Social Security taxes for upper income earners), change those laws that reward companies for sending jobs overseas, invalidate phony corporate and personal tax havens, and require that every dollar paid to shareholders be matched by a bonus dollar for employees. We need a national, nonpartisan commission to identify all the legal and regulatory policies that send jobs overseas and keep multinationals from paying their fair share of taxes.

Okay. So much for those measures attractive to “liberals.” Here are some that “conservatives” and even “libertarians” might support.

• We must instill the ethic of “personal responsibility” and “self-reliance” in all social services. To the greatest extent possible, our publicly funded services should emulate the philosophies of those community-based nonprofits and faith-based charities that emphasize self-help, mutual support and personal accountability. For example, people ought to be encouraged to make better choices in how they spend their food-stamp dollars by limiting such purchases to foods that promote health.

• We have to restore confidence that our tax dollars are not only being well-spent but are actually solving the problems they are intended to solve, instead of being eaten up in bureaucracy or weighed down by regulation. This might require citizen “oversight” panels and “ombudsmen” working with employee reps at all levels of government to ensure accountability and quality of service. We have to re-establish our trust in government – which means that “government” – at all levels must earn that trust.

• Our education systems must be restructured to promote self-motivation, individual and collaborative learning, and community-school partnerships, so that our young people take charge of their education to the greatest extent possible, instead of viewing “school” as an endurance test or obstacle course, where grown-ups are always telling kids what they have to do. Our public schools must collaborate with charter schools, home-schooling and internet-based learning venues to foster a love of learning among children and youth. Kids should be free to navigate between these systems to get what they need. We must build a new generation of enterprising Americans who learn together, work together and reason together.

Those of us who are able and willing to support such policies must work to reknit the fabric of American society, by reaching out to those of our fellow citizens – not just the poor or disadvantaged – who increasingly feel “left out” and “left behind.” We simply have to overcome the prejudices that have seeped into our thinking about those we refer to as “them.”

Otherwise, we risk moving ever closer to a nation of “gated communities,” both physical and societal, a nation of cloistered elites and of self-reinforcing political enclaves. This is a problem for people of all political persuasions. The anger of those working class and lower middle class people towards the insensitivity of the “elites” (cultural elites, as well as the “one-percenters”) is deep and pervasive. Any redistribution of income and opportunity, any restoration of minimum standards of civic and social services, must be matched by a renewal of faith in the idea of America as one nation, with liberty, justice, and opportunity for all.

It is up to each of us to act on that faith, to get out there and demand a fairer and more equitable society – and be willing to make sacrifices to get us there.

(Robert L. Fried of Concord is a retired educator who is now a writer, gardener and tinkerer. He can be reached by email at rob.fried@gmail.com.)