According to NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF of the NY Times:
In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie.
But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality. We now have it right here at home — and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it may get worse.
The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.
C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.
If you despise that there’s a gross inequality between the rich and poor in this country, give this post 5 stars.
This argument of his is so one dimensional in its pushing of the idea of economic disparity behind everything that it comes off almost juvenile. Granted such disparity arguments are inherently populist in nature, but it just seems like he could act like he’s talking adults with both vocabulary and reasoning.
Like most economic disparity arguments, they generally fail to ever broach the subject of standards of living, their measurement, and how that plays a major role in almost everything else they talk about… whether it be comparing us to actual banana republics or whether some other guy being insanely wealthy would affect some poor guy’s marriage as much as more/less effective social safety net, etc.
Today it’s also an extremely urban argument in America where economic disparity is on grand display to almost everyone who moves around in it, with parts resembling war zones. There used to be a stronger rural argument a la “It’s a wonderful life,” mining towns, etc. The rural “buy up the town” craziness is more a memory for older folks elsewhere than a daily reality for those in the distant burbs and rural areas. Even then you have older and even newer generations that still buy into near social darwinist rags to riches views that might come straight down from Horatio Alger Jr himself. Taxing the rich guy more doesn’t reduce his income or increase the poor guy’s… to them it’s just less incentive to do better on your own (easier believed when one is capable and/or fortunate).
I’m not sure any major policy proposal, dem or repub, does much more than shift around or massive debt problems. Social programs don’t generally add wealth to the poor, even if it helps them live a better life. Higher income taxes on the rich doesn’t take their wealth away but might make the accumulation slower… but unless someone is actually suggesting a redistribution of wealth, it’s not going to impede any income disparities.
It also comes off very disingenuous to refer to keeping tax rates the same as some massive tax cut. Both sides like to play this word smithing game… call a smaller spending increase a cut, or call a smaller reduction an increase, etc. But to use the rhetoric of partisans and political propagandists is to preach to a choir and the gullible. If he wants to reach the ears of the reasonable, it’d be better to write with reason over rhetoric. He fails here spectacularly. It comes off as dumbed down pandering tripe. It’s unfortunate because he may actually have a fairly reasonable argument on how important a role disparity actually plays, but chose to reduce it to politico fodder.
*sigh*
Kristof hinted at this and this is well-known that inequality brings economic instability which causes crashes. The crash of ’29 came at a time of greatest disparity and this was replicated in time for the ’08 crash. Don’t you think that this instability and these crashes are dangerous and therefore massive inequality is dangerous? The idea that the poor can get microwaves so it’s OK for the CEOs and hedge fund managers to pocket all the increases in productivity is a wrong one. May I add also that Kristof mentioned what I call the “Make the Pie Higher” theory claiming a trade off between equality and growth. During the more equal Keynesian period (1945-80), there was more economic growth and progress than there was in the post-Reagan Revolution Neoliberal era that followed. “Make the Pie Higher” is not only an utter lie, it is a Big Lie and a dangerous one.
Your comment was more of an argument for his case than his article was for economic disparity being a destabilizing force. I’m not arguing that it isn’t. I’m criticizing the linked author for presenting the concept in a standard issue vapid package.
There is another point that must be made. As those at the top get a larger and larger share of the national wealth, they gain with it power. Their power eventually overwhelms the democratic institutions. Right now both major parties are dominated by these people. This is feudalism being built. This idea that trying to prevent this and preserve democracy is evil because it involves “stealing” or reducing incentives for the rich by supposedly punishing them is absurd. They already take far more than they deserve, and this is a function of their power. Those who own those who direct, they decide how the proceeds are divvied. With the demise of real union power and the concentration of wealth and power, they have more power still to take it all, to abide by that vile maxim that Adam Smith described all too well, “All for us, nothing for everyone else”.
Supporting tax cuts for the rich is treason because it undermines the democratic system. That’s the bottom line.
Money only buys votes when the population allows its votes to be bought. We don’t all get the government we deserve, but people generally get the government they deserve in systems with strong democratic influence. Right now most people are quite happy not worrying about any details of why this policy or program isn’t working for the other guys… the overwhelming majority of voters (let alone those eligible to vote) don’t bother to fact check or even research the positions of all or nearly all of their ballots.
The complacency is astounding. A new opiate of the masses arising via the entertainment industry because things just aren’t crappy enough for us to care most of the time, especially not enough to put forth effort.
You end your strange rant by making the same disingenuous statement the linked author did, that the issue is “tax cuts for the rich” when the reality is whether or not current rates will remain the same or go up. Calling it treason is just hysterical nonsense that puts you in Bush league Rovian BS tactics. wtg bz
You sound like you’ve been arguing with a stereotype so long that you’ve become the stereotypical opposition, and just as hyperbolic.