Tag Archives: income inequality

New Year’s Newsletter — January 2020

Posted on January 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

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The dirty secret of capitalism — and a new way forward
In this TED talk, billionaire businessman, Nick Hanauer debunks the assumptions of neo-liberal economics and shines light on the path toward a new economics that promotes a more sustainable, Hanauer_biz_tedtalks_0517prosperous and equitable society. Hanauer argues that neoliberal economic theory has sold itself to us as “unchangeable natural law, when in fact it’s social norms and constructed narratives, based on pseudo science.” He says that “If we want a new economics all we have to do is choose to have it.” Watch it here.

Of course, implementing that choice depends on “we” having enough power to tilt the political landscape back toward something closer to level. I continue to argue that E. C. Riegel had it right when he said:

We have not even made a beginning in democracy by merely putting at the westPointAdjdisposal of man an occasional ballot to choose who should be his governor under a system that is inherently paternalistic and autocratic. Man must have untrammeled command of a daily – an hourly ballot which he casts in the market place to support the things and services he desires and which he withholds from others and which he transmits to the state or denies it according as it merits his patronage. He must have the power to create this money ballot in a measure commensurate with his power to produce and serve his fellow man without hindrance from his servant, the state. The moment we limit or thwart or bias this money power, which is natural to man, and the very criterion of his sovereignty, we pervert democracy beyond the power of any political ballot or any parliament to remedy. Money power cannot be separated from democratic power without miscarriage and ensuing frustration – political and economic. Democracy implies the sovereignty of man; and, since man cannot be sovereign without the money power, there cannot be democracy under the political money system.

Until, through the assertion of his money power, man can requisition from industry all he produces, and put government under his direct patronage, human aspirations will be unattainable.
— From Private Enterprise Money.

 

How to assert our “money power” has been the substance of my work for more than 40 years. See my books, articles, presentations and interviews at my website, https://beyondmoney.net
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Presidential Debate
I took a pass on watching the January 14 Presidential debate which pitted Bernie against five establishment candidates in what was a predictably bland rehash that Tulsiwas limited in scope. I chose instead to watch the discussion between Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich, Lawrence Lessig, and Stephen Kinzer which was live streamed on YouTube. The discussion focused on the key policy issue, the US interventionist foreign policy, and the fact that most Senators and Representatives of both parties in Congress are beholden to the military-industrial [and banking] complex, and are complicit in the immoral, illegal, and wasteful pursuit of global domination. If you missed it you can still see it at https://tulsi.to/discussion.
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All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars
Anyone who wishes to be well informed and understand civilization’s present predicament would do well to watch this video. I may not agree with all the specific details but the basic story is correct and well documented, and congruent with my argument that the global interest-based, debt-money regime that centralizes power and concentrates wealth is the primary obstacle to social justice, economic equity and peaceful relations among people and nations, and indeed, an existential threat to civilization itself. View it here.

Wishing all a happy, productive, and peaceful year,
Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

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Posted in Developing Alternatives, Economics, Emerging paradigm, Geo-politics, money, My sites, Politics, The state of democracy

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Income (and wealth) inequality becoming a political issue

Posted on April 27, 2014 | 4 comments

At long last, income inequality is becoming a mainstream political issue, thanks in large part to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Thomas Piketty, an obscure professor at the Paris School of Economics.

The English translation of Picketty’s new book Capital in the Twenty-First Centuryhas become a political bombshell especially since Krugman’s review of it appeared in New York Review of Books. Titled, Why We’re in a New Gilded Age, the review highlights Picketty’s research findings and political agenda.

As Krugman describes it, “The big idea of Capital in the Twenty-First Century is that we haven’t just gone back to nineteenth-century levels of income inequality, we’re also on a path back to ‘patrimonial capitalism,’ in which the commanding heights of the economy are controlled not by talented individuals but by family dynasties.” And in assessing the book, he calls it “a tour de force of economic modeling, an approach that integrates the analysis of economic growth with that of the distribution of income and wealth. This is a book that will change both the way we think about society and the way we do economics.”

Krugman concludes his review with this statement: “Piketty ends Capital in the Twenty-First Century with a call to arms—a call, in particular, for wealth taxes, global if possible, to restrain the growing power of inherited wealth. It’s easy to be cynical about the prospects for anything of the kind. But surely Piketty’s masterly diagnosis of where we are and where we’re heading makes such a thing considerably more likely. So Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an extremely important book on all fronts. Piketty has transformed our economic discourse; we’ll never talk about wealth and inequality the same way we used to.”

Now, Krugman has upped the ante with his April 24 editorial The Pikkety Panic, arguing that “..what’s really new about “Capital” is the way it demolishes that most cherished of conservative myths, the insistence that we’re living in a meritocracy in which great wealth is earned and deserved.” Krugman presents evidence to suggest that “conservatives are terrified” and in a panic to try to refute Pikkety’s inevitable conclusions, but failing to find substantive arguments, they have fallen back on name calling. If you can’t refute the facts, then try to discredit the source.

Summing up, Krugman says,

“Now, the fact that apologists for America’s oligarchs are evidently at a loss for coherent arguments doesn’t mean that they are on the run politically. Money still talks — indeed, thanks in part to the Roberts court, it talks louder than ever. Still, ideas matter too, shaping both how we talk about society and, eventually, what we do. And the Piketty panic shows that the right has run out of ideas.”

If that isn’t enough to make the political pot boil over, another newly published academic study, Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens finds that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.”

Of course, most activists and even ordinary people have known all that, but now that academia has taken notice and begun to present solid scientific evidence, the pressure on politicians to acknowledge these conditions and act on them will build more quickly.

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Posted in Economics, Finance and Economics, Government, Politics, The state of democracy

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