I would sat that “wealth accretes at the top” is just the capitalist special case of the more general rule that “power tends to concentrate.” Wealth and power are well correlated in free market economies. But in some societies, money isn’t yardstick, so other forms of power tend to concentrate. Sometimes it is as simple as access to the king. But make no mistake people tend to pass power down to their children, and the powerful tend to use that power to defend their power.
4 Likes
On that subject:
It’s a really insightful look at something we take for granted: capitalism. Like a fish contemplating water, it’s almost impossible for us to imagine life outside this system. But Mander really analyzes capitalism and its effects, and in the last part looks at what might replace it eventually (and if it’s necessary for the wheels to come off first).
3 Likes
On it!
Oh, wait. By ‘doesn’t require expanded consumption of ecological resources’ do you allow for a temporary increase in ecological impact in favor of reducing overall future impacts?
Something that incorporates things like setting up corporate campuses/charter cities that house, educate, and support third world orphans who want to research environmental technology, for example?
1 Like
This Paul Krugman paraphrasing is excellent, because it’s all scale. Most rich philanthropists give a tiny, tiny fraction of their wealth in a high-profile way to seem and feel like a do-gooder. But do the math. If you are a 1 billionaire and you give 1 million dollars, that is 1/1000th of your wealth.
If you are a middle classer and your sum total worth is about 300,000 (modest house which you still owe a large part of mortgage, a car, a bunch of electronics, furniture and shit and some jewelry and your 401k), 1/1000th of your net worth is $300. This isn’t even on a sliding scale to adjust for anything. Just straight up math.
So you give your 300 bucks to Oxfam International and do you get a keynote address? Do you get a building named after you? You’ll get a t-shirt, or a hand-blown glass paperweight or something like that, and your name printed in a list at the back of a pamphlet.
So, it’s smoke and mirrors, most philanthropy, made to glorify the rich. Not discounting good things they’ve done, such as Bill & Melinda Gates, but it’s PISS IN A BUCKET when you do the math. It’s meaningless in size and has another purpose, one that is quite unseemly when you think it through.
13 Likes
Here’s a WSJ editorial using another Nazi theme - Envy.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304591604579290350851300782
Romney used the “envy” card also. The Nazis also made a big deal about saving the Fatherland from “class struggle” or as our Republicans say, “class warfare.”
Google either phrase with “Goebbels” for Nazi propaganda
2 Likes
“Or revolution and just take back what the 1% stole from us and frog march them to the guillotine…”
Well, that kind of talk, although it feels good to say it, doesn’t actually help (in fact it kind of justifies Perkins’ fears-- I say “kind of” because I know that people who say that stuff aren’t seriously going to act on it.)
Historically, often actual violent bloody revolutions end up causing more grief and bloodshed and inequality than what they are trying to remedy. It would be wiser to address the root of the problem: the influence money has on our legislative system.
2 Likes
It wouldn’t be so bad if the super rich spent their money, but instead it is being stockpiled in offshore bank accounts. A huge chunk of the world’s cash reserves are simply idle. If the rich were stockpiling zinc or something, economist would cry about how damaging it was.
7 Likes
You left off the Oompa Loompas! Never leave out the Oompa Loompas!
1 Like
What if we concentrated resources on public health, such that a person’s “good years” were increased so that instead of living a fruitful, active, physically able life from 0-75 years, the new normal became 0-95? 20 more years?
That’s not simply wishful thinking. The possibility is FULLY WITHIN OUR ABILITY RIGHT NOW. Even if we don’t develop any new medical advances and utilize only what we currently know, but do it well, we could do it.
And imagine all the good things that could result from a population filled with longer, healthier lifespans.
Of course, it would mean a massive restructuring of wealth and resources…
2 Likes
And we’d have to do it within the existing system somehow, so it couldn’t be stopped militarily or easily interfered with operationally. . and be capable of being economically self sufficient. . and competitive vs. whatever industry is being targeted from an effectiveness/cost standpoint.
Did I miss anything big?
3 Likes
There are many ways that growth manifests itself. American-style growth in productivity has been heavy on the kinds of growth that aren’t things like human capital and infrastructure. Rents, essentially. Government controls, in theory, don’t reduce growth but instead divert it to the kinds of growth that make sense. Don’t be diverted by simplistic ideas about what growth is. That just plays into the plutocrat’s narrative, that the only thing that makes growth is stick-built suburban housing developments and 30 percent profit margins on their cushy racket.
2 Likes
What does this even mean? When was the last time you ate some of those stockpiled digital bits (or thought you could)?
Cash reflects the value of the economy, not the other way around.
I bet they´d cry even more if they were actually capable of realizing how many people would gladly see them literally strung up on the nearest street light.
Yeah, because we know how well people respond to being told to eat less crap and do more exercise. The only reason they’re not getting to 95 is because of the damn 1% stealing all the wealth and resources.
The predominant causes of premature death in the western world (cardiovascular failure and cancer) can be dramatically reduced through lifestyle changes. It’s not like the information isn’t readily available on this. There’s no conspiracy by the 1% to keep people dying young.
If you’re talking about populational improvements, the ball is very much in the individuals court now (though, granted, this is distinctly not the case in the developing world).
A much more interesting question is whether it’s possible to educate the whole world to the same level so people can contribute usefully in the emerging world. The issue now isn’t between nations, it’s between the educated class and everyone else (on an international stage). Individuals can now operate on a multinational level, and people will increasingly do so. How will this leave the 18 yo school leaver on benefits with 2 Cs at GCSE in inner city manchester? I don’t know, but national governments are going to find it harder and harder to generate tax revenue from the educated class to support benefits for the hangers-on.
Immigration is just one manifestation of the multinational mindset of people the world over. Responding by looking inwards and trying to keep out the dodgy foreigners seems to me to be an odd strategy.
You’ll find most “self-made men” are the most vicious defenders of the status quo exactly because they come from nothing. It self-validates them: “Look at me, I made it because I’m not a lazy bum like you whiners, the system works! I’m better than you, I deserve everything I have!”. Which also explains why the main supporters of winners-take-all turbo-capitalism are from the US, where wealth is new, so to speak, often coupled with barely disguised deeply-Victorian values.
European old money learnt some lessons in the last three centuries, and now know how to quietly go about their business without making a scene.
3 Likes
Capitalism has nothing whatsoever to do with “improved well-being”. Capitalism is, by definition, a process for the continual growth and concentration of capital, through the conversion of labor and resources into capital. Take away the features you say you don’t want, and you have nothing left of the concept of capitalism.
4 Likes
Bill has actually given away around half and plans to give away practically all. When you have that much it is actually quite difficult giving it away and achieving the intended effect.
The Koch brothers on the other hand give with strings attached. So there is a ‘science’ museum in New York with a dinosaur exhibit with all references to evolution excised and there are about a hundred ‘professorships’ at universities where the Koch bros effectively appoint the chair, a good way to pass off wingnut fables as science.
2 Likes
And how, pray tell, is having a McDonald’s on every street corner an “individual” issue?
That is true, but also do the math on this, in a different form: Bill and Melinda’s, what? 50 or 75 Billion compared to the total size of all the wealth of those 85 richest people? Also piss in a bucket. That wealth is not being utilized for the betterment of mankind. It’s being used to draw interest so that they can enjoy flat screens in every room on the yacht.
2 Likes
If you are part of the 1% it would be trivial to get with other members of the 1% and just pay to have the masses re-educated to like the 1%. Unfortunately the 1% are mean bastards who hate each other as much as they hate the plebs for being poor. So they never get together and do anything - unless its things like funding the Heartland Institute to educate the morons into not understanding Climate Change and Global Warming. They also spent a bloody fortune on educating us that smoking doesnt kill.
Nah, cut their heads off and give their assets to governments who can use them to bale out the bankrupt banks.
2 Likes
