The real question is, “can the USA live without Billionaires”, and the answer is, Yes we can.
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I’m not for “outlawing” billionaires, I’m not even sure how that would work. I am for higher tax rates, with the highest rate at 70%.
Some are going to say that they’ll just exploit loopholes and tax shelters; well, those need to be clamped down on too.
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The anti-union argument Republicans make is that “unions destroyed the US car industry”, except back when the unions were stronger was when the US car industry was in its golden age (the German car industry has always been pro-union, and it kicks our collective butts.)
So what we’re really talking about is going back to the economics of the 50’s-60’s, when the US made actual products instead of the economy being driven by weird, opaque financial inventions. It would mean going back to the tax rates of the 1950’s, it would mean factory jobs paid more and had benefits, it would mean small towns had reliable factory jobs, and the end of cheap Chinese goods at Wal-Mart. Ironically there are a lot of things conservatives would like about the situation (it could even impact immigration to their liking.)
But the American oligarchy would never stand for that, because it would mean making only $10million a year instead of $100million. Communism!!!
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Here’s one idea…
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It’s a matter of setting limits. Progressive income tax rates are one tool (during the Eisenhower years the highest bracket had a rate of 90%). Wage ratio limits are another tool: no more than 10:1 between a CEO and the lowest-paid employees of the enterprise. Wealth taxes are another suggestion made by people like Piketty, e.g. anything over $50-million net worth in current USD goes back to the treasury.
All of these things effectively outlaw billionaires, without making the ultra-wealthy suffer personally in either lifestyle or keeping their heads on their bodies (which is the point of @Mangochin’s admonitory image).
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The answer is: no.
I will have to watch in a little bit. But the answer is yes. Yes we could.
Already some of the tariffs under Trumped seemed to have prompted some shifts to other countries in Asia. (Why the hell hasn’t Biden removed these?) If China becomes a hostile place to do business, people will set up shop elsewhere. Though China does have a huge advantage of having people who can prototype and setup manufacturing facilities pretty darn quickly.
In the near future, within 20-30 years, you are going to start seeing manufacturing shift to parts of Africa. Already China is investing in certain areas. They see it is an untapped marked for both labor AND selling goods to. I imagine SOME American companies are considering this as well.
What isn’t going to happen: a massive shift where America is making plastic widgets and action figures and such. America still DOES do a lot of manufacturing, it is #2 in the world now (and it was fairly recently we fell behind China), but a lot of it is automated.
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Narendra Modi is working hard to rectify that anomaly.
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The democratic backsliding and the selling out of workers as cheap labour to trans-national capitalism go hand-in-hand with the BJP, as they do with other such regimes.
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Neoliberal ethnonationalism, you mean?
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Pretty much. It’s so weird: “India for (Hindu) Indians, except when, y’know, there’s a buck to be made for me and my cronies.”
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That’s it. Hindus who aren’t benefiting from Hindutva are steered towards blaming the Muslims instead of transnational capital and the BJP.
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Would be interesting to get capitalists out of the drivers seat on this and let workers in US, Canada and Mexico figure out a smart, economical, modern and non-exploitative way to get things made. It only looks like cheap Chinese manufacturing benefits us because our wages have been intentionally depressed for 50 years. We could afford more for goods if our wages had kept up. And once you think about that, not supporting China starts to seem less like a faraway nicety and more like a human rights imperative. Hasn’t this system made the US the miner and China the company store?
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Is it possible for America’s culture of entitled convenience to thrive without Chinese manufacturing?
There, fixed it for you.
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Good luck with Africa, at least for now. The Chinese government built all sorts of infrastructure for manufacturing: electrical grids, roads, ports, commercial banks. Africa is way behind on these. In fact, the only people funding them in any meaningful way are the Chinese.
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There’s a huge blind spot in this discussion: the degree to which mutually assured economic destruction is a conscious decision by the US. So much of our mutual debt and interdependence is based on a simple thesis: A world is more stable and peaceful with the US & China unable to afford military aggression with each other.
When you owe $300k, the bank owns you. When you owe $300 billion, you own the bank. Our debt is a foreign policy tool to ensure that allies and rivals, alike, depend on our continued success and survival.
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Actually most of the infrastructure China is putting in concerns resource extraction in Africa, not manufacturing.
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Currently, yes, but I have read where they see Africa as an untapped market. I mean, it is already being exploited as a market to a degree. For example they aren’t selling a lot of iPhones in Africa, but they are selling a lot of the knock offs. I have read where it is thought Africa will be exploited by the Chinese for their cheap labor eventually.
They are also investing in areas like Bosnia (?) IIRC. Places that have been depressed but have infrastruture in place that could be upgraded and tapped into.
And their whole Silk Road project.
They are going to out capitalist the capitalists at this rate.
Again, this is 20-30 years down the road still. But think where China was in 1991 vs today. A lot can change in that time frame.
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- As China gets richer, more of that manufacturing will get outsourced elsewhere anyway, and 2) As robotics and automation and autonomous vehicles get better and cheaper, some of it will come back to the US and other Western countries anyway, because the economics will no longer be dominated by labor prices. The types of jobs people traditionally associate with manufacturing will not.
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I remember Maytag commercials from my childhood (late 80s, early 90’s), that focused on the Maytag repair man…the joke being he never had work because Maytags were built to last. My Grandma was still using a refrigerator from the 50s or 60s last year. My parents had the same microwave for 20 some years but have since gone through a few. Things used to be built to last and can be again.
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