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Guest Post: Bifurcation Nation
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Many observers focus on the economic causes of the widening wealth inequality, but the divide appears to be both cultural and financial.
To say there are haves and have-nots and two major political camps does not distinguish this era from any other. But despite this surface similarity to previous eras, there is a palpable zeitgeist that the nation is bifurcating into two camps which no longer overlap or communicate using the same cultural signifiers and symbology.
There is also a growing awareness that the divide between very wealthy and the middle income households has widened into an enormous canyon of inequality:
Just as clearly, labor's share of the national income has been declining sharply: unearned income from capital is reaping more of the national income as the share earned by labor shrinks.
Politically, I have long commented on the rising political divide not between the "two sides of the same coin" parties but between those who depend on and support the Savior State and those who pay the majority of taxes that fund the Savior State. This has created the divide feared by the Founding Fathers, The Tyranny of the Majority.
A neofeudal Elite rules the roost but the Savior State buys the complicity of the lower classes with entitlements and social programs.
Tyranny of the Majority, Corporate Welfare and Complicity (April 9, 2010)
The Three-and-a-Half Class Society (October 22, 2012)
According to demographer Joel Kotkin, California has become a two-and-a-half-class society, with a thin slice of "entrenched incumbents" on top (the "half class"), a dwindling middle class of public employees and private-sector professionals/technocrats, and an expanding permanent welfare class: about 40% of Californians don't pay any income tax and a quarter are on the Federal Medicaid program.
I would break it down somewhat differently, into a three-and-a-half class society: the "entrenched incumbents" on top (the "half class"), the high-earners who pay most of the taxes (the first class), the working poor who pay Social Security payroll taxes and sales taxes (the second class), and State dependents who pay nothing (the third class).
This class structure has political ramifications. In effect, those paying most of the tax are in a pressure cooker: the lid is sealed by the "entrenched incumbents" on top, and the fire beneath is the Central State's insatiable need for more tax revenues to support the entrenched incumbents and its growing army of dependents.
This leads to a systemic question: Is Democracy Possible in a Corrupt Society? (November 12, 2012)
We can phrase the question as a corollary: in honor of my book Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It (print) (Kindle), let's call it WTAFA Corollary #1:
If the citizenry cannot replace a dysfunctional government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only.
In other words, if the citizenry cannot dislodge a parasitic, predatory financial Aristocracy via elections, then "democracy" is merely a public-relations facade, a simulacra designed to create the illusion that the citizenry "have a voice" when in fact they are debt-serfs in a neofeudal State.
Many observers focus on the economic causes of the widening wealth inequality, but the divide appears to be both cultural and financial. Author Charles Murray describes a cultural divide that informs the political and economic divides that are obvious to all in his book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.
Murray has collected evidence that Caucasian America has bifurcated into cultural/social haves and have-nots: the haves are married, have college degrees, avoid military service, are less likely to attend religious services, and have little contact with those outside their own upper-middle class.
The have-nots are divorced/single parents, less educated, are more likely to serve in the military and attend church, and earn much less than the haves.
The social glue that binds the nation includes these core values: the Constitution (and particularly the Bill of Rights), that no one is above the law, and upward mobility, that anyone born without privilege or wealth can attain status, wealth and power by exerting their own will and initiative.
What Murray suggests is not that upward social mobility has ceased, but that it's become more difficult for the have-nots to join the haves, not necessarily for lack of opportunity but for the values-based reasons he describes.
In my analysis, the cultural upper class has the income and connections to build abundant human and social capital, while the lower class has neither the values-tools, income or connections to assemble these critical building blocks of wealth.
This sociological/economic reality is ideologically inconvenient on a number of fronts, largely because it ties "personal choice" issues such as marriage to what appears to many to be a strictly economic issue.
The resentment toward the privileged class that is bubbling up suggests people don't need to read a lengthy sociological study to sense the divide is widening. The Mobile Web technology boom in San Francisco has sent rents and resentments to new heights: In defense of San Francisco's techies (S.F. Chronicle)
A growing number of San Franciscans are fed up, not just with startups, but with techies in general. With their apps and (company) buses, their gourmet coffee and skinny jeans, their venture capital wishes and IPO dreams. They're tired of watching rents soar, friends forced to relocate and beloved neighborhoods drained of diversity.
I understand the frustration, but wonder: Are we embracing a soft xenophobia applied to a sector rather than a race, to some cohesive elite tech class that doesn't exist outside of our own minds?
Rebecca Solnit discusses this issue in Diary:
The buses roll up to San Francisco’s bus stops in the morning and evening, but they are unmarked, or nearly so, and not for the public. They have no signs or have discreet acronyms on the front windshield, and because they also have no rear doors they ingest and disgorge their passengers slowly, while the brightly lit funky orange public buses wait behind them. The luxury coach passengers ride for free and many take out their laptops and begin their work day on board; there is of course wifi. Most of them are gleaming white, with dark-tinted windows, like limousines, and some days I think of them as the spaceships on which our alien overlords have landed to rule over us.
Sometimes the Google Bus just seems like one face of Janus-headed capitalism; it contains the people too valuable even to use public transport or drive themselves. In the same spaces wander homeless people undeserving of private space, or the minimum comfort and security; right by the Google bus stop on Cesar Chavez Street immigrant men from Latin America stand waiting for employers in the building trade to scoop them up, or to be arrested and deported by the government. Both sides of the divide are bleak, and the middle way is hard to find.
I think Solnit's point touches on two key dynamics: the shrinking middle, and the casual privilege of those with earning power and the resentment of the increasingly powerless.
This is hardly unique to America: Priced out of Paris: global cities pricing out the upper-middle class.
Is this the result of capitalism? The question is an active one, for example Capitalism and Inequality: What the Right and the Left Get Wrong (Foreign Affairs, March/April 2013; the article is behind their paywall; check out a copy at your local library).
While capitalism certainly rewards the most productive (in the context of whatever incentives are in place) and creatively destroys what is no longer productive/profitable, we have to differentiate between classical open-market capitalism and the state-cartel (crony) version that is passed off as capitalism for PR purposes.
Then there are the economic forces that are sweeping aside the old structures not just in America but in China, Europe and elsewhere:
1. Automation, software and robotics are eliminating human labor on a vast scale.
2. Financialization has given those with capital and access to financier expertise ways to skim great wealth from the system without creating any value whatsoever.
3. The emerging economy gives tremendous advantages to those with ample human and social capital and the value system that enables them to continue adding to their human and social capital throughout their working lives. Those without these skills and values will increasingly be marginalized.
These are dynamics that don't track neat ideological lines, nor do they lend themselves to tidy, simplistic solutions. Before we propose fixes, perhaps we need to do more work on understanding the many interconnected feedback loops in the widening bifurcation of the nation.
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Remember now its the time to buy bonds.
God
Must.....buy...moar......bawnds....
This is purely by design. Debase the base even further.
Destroy all the bastions of society, from church, to family, to temple, to neighbour, to school....
Relentless sexualization, relentless programming for a Get Rich Quick ofr stay poor mentality....
Done in the huxlyesque manner of willing sheep....
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/of-tipping-points-and-shape-shifting/
ori
It is done by natural human characteristics known as greed and lust for power. Whether Progressive or Conservative, it matters little, when these come into play. And now with money buying elections established as the only way to get elected, the two have tightly joined hands.
America, the world for that matter, is changing in this direction and there is nothing anyone can do about.
Change you can believe in, bitchez!
I don't know. "anyone" is a fairly large sample size. I expect that things will get worse, lots worse, before they get better, but there is a group of men and women, endowed with power from on high, that will finally stand up and do something.
You forgot lazy and careless. Most of the people I know who live from check to check could do better if they just changed their priorities, but they won't look past that ____ they absolutely have to have now.
Bah beat me to it.
/glances at Lance with a smirk
top 1% = MOAR
btm99% = WOAR
it's coming!
Hard assets: food, PMs, ammo.
Forward (over the cliff)!
War...
Inc...
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/war-inc/
Well, if the money is free, then why not?
the tax code has been broken. If you look at income after tax....it is criminal. The uber wealthy can avoid tax for decades. The country is switling the toilet bowl.
The tax code came out of the woom all fucked up... it's broken from inception... nothing more than pandora's box.
Baba?
The income tax is barely 100 years old. Same as the Federal Reserve. The problem is the people allow themselves to be fleeced and will not hold "their elite" accountable. When billionaires allow your nation to be overrun by and sold out to foreigners, they need to swing from lamp posts, not receive multi-million dollar bonuses and government kickbacks.
Better watch out, they can do away with the tax code and just print money for the gov. Then everyone that buys stuff will pay for the government. It will work out for the rich believe me.
Yup, we've have a bifurcated economy for some time. This is what happens when the same trillions gets passed between members of the upper tier with a seemingly unlimited money supply, and neither the velocity nor movement of money counts anywhere except in that upper tier. The game won't stop until the upper tier realizes and announces that they are not making any money.
Thus it has always been, thus it shall always be.
2. Financialization has given those with capital and access to financier expertise ways to skim great wealth from the system without creating any value whatsoever.
Why is this news? This is exactly what happens in an inflationary system... it isn't a mistake it is a policy.http://tinyurl.com/mem7o7x
" Priced out of Paris: global cities pricing out the upper-middle class"
I used to be "upper middle class" in Seattle. Left 10 years go. The rich folk are welcome to it, I might add. Frankly, I prefer my lumpen existence in the desert of eastern Washington State.
up arrowed for the excellent use of "lumpen", a word that 97.3% of Americans would, if interviewed on the streets, undoubtedly associate with either mattresses or oatmeal.
Adding "proletariat" to it makes it what is was best for : as Karl's diatribe against capitalism.
But as neo feudalism is back with an "elegant city loves my gal's titty" narcissistic vengeance, we are now being sandwiched into the lumpened, the double lumpened, the triple lumpened, labour arbitraged serfdom class who work for the outsourcing lords of the world.
Where is my fellowship of that ring, to chime the bell, tolling it like a lollypop in and out of mary poppin's levitated broom stuck butt, to unleash the proletarian swell back to enlightened reappropriation of inalienable rights of city dwellers.
What did she say when I did that to her?
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, like Maria Sharapova on London center court!Some dame who can call a name; ask that other witch on a broom stick, Q Serena of Roland Garros.
Ain't that a tale of two cities to cut Bernanke's QE tail like Jack Saw?
Right. On.
I thought it also was a phrase used to describe sex with a mis-shappen partner.
Well then 2/3 of the Amurikan population would be lumpen.
Last year we stayed with a friend in Seattle. We jogged around green lake and took in all the sights. Fabulously gorgeous emaculate properties, money obviously in great abundance. People were kind and happy. When we left for Cali I felt sick to my stomach thinking my husband was going to complain we were heading back to our dusty middle class existence in our tiny working class town. To my amazement he was glad to go. He stated he felt we were staying at Versailles. People had no understanding or empathy for others who were struggling. They were living in a bubble, a gilded cage of their own creation, ignorant, unaware and apart. Ok, we are experiencing reality in our lives and it is not pleasant. But at least it's real.
Miffed;-)
It's not called Seanal for nothing, a most uptight humorless city.
Sad, too, 'cuz it wasn't always that way. Up until the California migration of the '80s, it was pretty gritty. I think the Seattle Sound thing was the last little middle finger raised. Humourless is a great word. I lived there a LONG time.
... and the solution is beauracracy :))
Hillsenramp no doubt busily crafting another last half hour bullshit media blurb.
... until he isn't. ;-)
there are not two political parties.... there is the National Republicratic / Demopublican Party and a small Libertarian fringe movement..... That is one crucial difference. There is also only state sponsored media, another key difference. Hardly any difference between reading Huffpo and Fox News these days....
No country is 'developed'. We capitalist are still evolving and the end .........well......unless you are in the white bus is not looking pretty.
There is a children's board game that does a good job of teaching kids the logical conclusion of capitalism. It's called monopoly.
"Ooh, you landed on Park Place with four hotels, I'm sorry. Do you need a loan?"
Yes, going around in circles and getting screwed by the "landed class" is apropos introduction to life for the masses...
Thomas Lee, JP Morgan Chief U.S. Equity Strategist, on the Red Phone hotline to CNBC to "re-assure" investors that the economy is recovering, this is a great opportunity to buy stocks, and glossing over the fact that even the mention of FED tapering has caused a 5% drop.
And he adds, that there is "pent up demand" for housing and that higher rates won't effect home sales.
I smell fear. "Tyranny of the Majority" indeed. The middle and upper middle class MUST NOT take their money out of the Casino! How else can the elites use it to leverage their gains? How else will their complicit government tax the piss out of it to keep the poor quiescent?
Speaking of the stock markets and Wall Street, here is a 777's slot machine with a "Wall Street" label.
Enjoy! http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebworthen/9127304164/sizes/o/in/photostream/
I said this in another post, but is worth repeating. Although anecdotal, Widowmaker has been made aware of three unrelated instances of IRA liquidation this month. In each case it was fear/distrust and spite fueling the liquidation, not need or want.
Confidence is shot. Zero justice = zero trust.
The fuckups of finance have a really big problem that printing Hebrew confetti can't solve.
Ebworthen, I think making the analogy that wall street is like a casino is frankly unfare to casinos. A casino doesn't cheet the players for the simple reason they don't have to. Each game has a various percentage going to the house and all they need is an endless stream of math challenged people with money willing to play. Wall street and bankers clearly are not in the same realm. Liars and fraudsters who have found themselves above the law and are raping all at will.
Miffed;-)
Agreed.
Casinos at least have the decency to post the odds on the betting table and allow the roulette wheel to be inspected for magnets while agressively busting card counters and skimmers.
So true, my card counting days went by the wayside with multiple decks and mechanical shuffling. I have a few friends that still do it but are finding it more and more difficult. The house doesn't like competition and I wont play without an advantage. Observing our local casinos popularity, most people don't share my view.
Miffed;-)
Capital markets are where supply and demand set the price of capital. As central banks flood the financial system with counterfeit credit, and drive down yields on all investments whether productive or speculative, the incentives for saving and capital formation are reduced. This naturally results in less saving and capital formation.
The decline in saving and capital formation will push up the real value of capital. Our disfunctional immigration and educational systems supply an increasing number of un-skilled / wrong-skilled workers. Is it any surprise that capital's share of income is rising?
https://sites.google.com/site/parcontre/home
LOL, look at you attributing education Inc. to something other than profit.
Kansas beaches are all on sale.
Capital's share of income has risen dramatically due to our turn from a Constitutionally guided Republic to a crooked crony capitalist/banker controlled political machine.
A machine that has over the past 30+ years strip-mined the middle class by changing all the rules and unleashing a predator class upon us.
A machine that has allowed our jobs and manufacturing base to be packed up and shipped to foreign lands, destroying our tax base and sentencing untold millions of our citizens to un/under-employment and despair.
A machine is working overtime to make debt slaves of us all, as fast as possible, even the educated. By offering up the easy money and allowing colleges to raise tuitions while pading their payrolls and building elaborate campuses, .gov is making it impossible for many college graduates (and non-grauatete drop-outs) to have a fast start on their future. Many will be draggin that giant dept ball around for decades.
A machine intertwined with any slimey way that can be concieved of to pump more money from the Treasury into the pockets of the ruling class. A machine married to the MIC and hell-bent on keeping us in a constant state of wars against 'concepts', and concepts can never be defeated.
Good luck with your Republic of Texas idea. Let us know how it turns out.
When manual labor is obsolete and has been replaced by robots you are going to have a lot of unemployed manual laborors whose only remaining function is as consumers. Face this fact and you can begin understanding the present, and planning the future.
A general decline in the populations' IQ coupled with ever increasing technology should insure that the spread keeps getting wider as more fall into the category of unemployable.
change IQ to Education and I would agree.... Its intentional by the way.
Unfortunatley for most of these chimps, there are just not enough bananas to train them, but I will concur that the quantity and quality of the trainers is also a problem.
the portion of society you are referring to was created by Dumocrats to be loyal to whomever is righting the check... Its not fixable unless they are given larger more destructive weapons to self immolate, which wouldnt be a bad thing.
Political correctness and education are mutually exclusive goals. When we tell people that what they see is incorrect they either hide what they know or get confused. In reality most people get confused and hide what they know since it just gets them into trouble. Our education system is teaching our chldren to fail. The only children I see getting ahead have parents that help them see how things really work. Even with helpfull parents the dicotomy makes it very dificult for the children especially since their parents are usually in the same "boat" that the children are in.
Might I also add that the low IQ'ers appear to reproduce at a faster clip than the high ones....
Through out history the lower classes reproduced at a great rate hoping a few children would survive to care for their parents in their elder infirm years. Now we pay the lower classes to reproduce prolifically. I wonder if they would continue to do so if the incentives were removed.
Miffed;-)
That may be because they are not held back by having kids. They see that the system rewards them for having children. The reward may hurt them in the long term, but in the here and now it pays them to be on the dole and in debt.
These groups will be put to work, it's just that productivity isn't the same... the necessity of efficiency is largely gone... it's just setting everything up for a caste system... the inflationary juggernaut is ramped up to keep all socioeconomic conditions in place... granted, the top have reached escape velocity, but it also tends to create gaps between the other levels... (and also creates a larger bottom pool, but only because we don't measure past a certain point, poverty... sadly, there are all kinds of levels of poverty too). But don't take my word for it, huxley already wrote the book.
General Education Board, Teacher's College, John Dewey...for the socialization of the education system ala Prussia for all those obedient little socialists...smart enough to work machines but not smart enough to ask why or how.
Oh yeah and widespread consumerism...they intentionally keep children in school, through University, so they never grow up!!!! Children are given iPads at school the world over now. Burger King or Pizza Hut and the like have been served in school cafeterias for decades. Public Relations departments make a killing....the idea is to have adult children who are only able consume, unable of independent critical thought, and are thus completely dependent on TV, Mass Media, and their favorite characters for philosophy, religion, and knowledge. Have you ever spoken with someone and because of their emotional maturity the conversation quickly becomes a name-calling, shouting match? Yep, adult children. Behavioral psychology has something to say on the topic...emotions cease cognitive function ala abortion, gay rights, capitalism, communism, socialism, terrorism, and all other soundbite catch words.
NAFTA...that wasn't enough. Wars were forced down our throats to divide up the chess board more to 'their' liking and then they force 'free trade' agreements on us which guts the industrial base of nations...Economic warfare ie sanctions on Iraq, Iran, or Japan for that matter.
GMO's, USDA, FDA, EPA, Chemtrails, Fluoride, vaccination, BigPharma, BigAg...outright poisoning to lower the average IQ...and increaes incidences of allergies and dependence on the Sick Care industry.
BIS, Fed, BOJ, BOE, ECB, etc.
proxy war after proxy war...buying off governments with Federal Reserve Note Confetti...it would be genius if it weren't so diabolical.
All brought to you by the MSM...
There are no words. There is no defending the indefensible.
May spirituality smile on us one day with the return of justice
I agree with you. Of course the problem is that ultimately the system is unsustainable for that very reason. How will people earn their "piece of the pie" when there is no work for humans to do?
Actually, we're long into the adventure of how to make society function without productivity (in the classical sense). Sustainability is simply a function of how big the "piece of the pie" is for the unproductive... I'm thinking that many people have already RSVP'd for some xanax and government programming for the remainder of their days... probably perfectly content. I'm not sure it can't be done...
Yep...
We are such a success, that we have made ourselves redundant (at least to the upper 1% or so)...
What do you think is the most humane way to deal with the excess and the required downsizing?
Edit: At least one person cannot grasp what the real implications of a GINI ratio run amok is....
Feudalism, bitchez!
This is what happens when you cease to let gains from productivity increases remain with those whose labor is more productive. Hell, in many cases those people actaully responsible for the productivity gain are not even reaping the fruits of their ideas....
We've had a long history of robber barrons in league with elected officials, not to justify this, but to just put things in perspective.
I believe that LIBERALISM is at the core of our problem.
Liberalism promotes and enables a dumbed down populace.
Liberalism promotes and enables a victim mentality.
Liberalism promotes and enables the entitlement mentality.
Liberalism mocks and destroys family values.
Liberalism destroys any sense of sanctity for life.
Liberalism teaches that no one should fail, and if you do, it's not your fault.
Liberalism pushes the societal values envelope.
Liberalism establishes the mindset of “good enough”, instead of pressing for “exceptionalism”.
Liberalism tolerates, and in fact celebrates, mediocrity.
Liberalism targets those who have succeeded as being evil.
Liberalism: It's What Ails America
Interesting thesis...
So if you were correct, you should be able to point to empirical evidence supporting your assertions. Things like definate "liberal" policies related to decling societal standards. And you should be able to do it honestly without trickery and the analysis should be internally consistent...
Go ahead and make my day, because all the data points to the 1980's being the inflection point and we all know that we did not become more liberal in the 80's...
So put away your pom-pom waving empty ideological rhetoric, it does not stand up to any even handed scrutiny of the data. Christ, even David Stockman, an illiberal person as they come, knows that the source of the problem was the Voodoo economics of the 1980s...
Nonsense... Liberalism is simply the desire for more government involvement... I've never witnessed a conservative politician with any semblance of power... whether it be Reagan, his predecessors, or successors.
The "inflection point" is a vastly broader measurement than simple monetary or fiscal policy... oil, cultural values, demographics, immigration, inertia from previous world wars, the rest of the world getting electricity, et al, all have material impacts on this "inflection point." To claim that this all simply boils down to decisions of U.S. officials is... nothing short of worship.
Rookie error on your part, conflating liberalism with statism... But that is beside the point, you are merely handwaving, show me the meat, some real empirical data that backs your assertion.
And yes, the inflection point is broad based concept but you can certainly look at what was done at the time and determine whether it accelerated the new trend. I do remember a certain right wing economist, the real Uncle Miltie that told us "greed was good". In fact, it became the mantra of the 80s... Do you think that he might have had an influence on peoples conceptions of social responsibilities?
Correlation isn't causation... we've all seen the charts of global warming vs. # of pirates... telling me that the charts changed at some point in time without particularizing the reasons for the change, again, is academically lazy.
All isms, other than anarchy, involve statism... the battle between liberalism and conservativism is over how much state involvement there should be in our lives... it presupposes that there will be a state... You could apply the same concept to all levels of organization, but I digress.
Sorry, the battle between conservatism and liberalism is not about how much the state is involved.... According to your definition, there is essentially no difference between Louie Gohmert and Bernie Saunders... And that is a very hard pill to swallow...
BTW, the state exists because it is a natural evolution of a social species. Hierarchies arise in wild, read up on the social dynamics of the Great Apes...
the battle between conservatism and liberalism is not about how much the state is involved.
Well... could you fill the rest of us idiots in then?
the state exists because it is a natural evolution of a social species.
No dispute there... although, it should be noted, that the form of the state (as well as the degree of intruision) can largely be dictated by the victors...
You really want to flog that horse even more?
The argument you are making is what you get when you are limited in your political thought to movement along a single axis...
Given your paucity of understanding, it is clear that I have been simply wasting my time in this discussion....
I'll try the great society programs and subsequent destruction of the black family for 1000 jack......
Here comes Flak again, bitches.
He loves to dare and make senseless blog bets.
........and use 'big words'
Whatsamatta?
Are you jealous?
Liberalism is a mental disorder! Spread the word patriot!
Ohhhh Noooo!!!!! You used the word "patriot" be prepared for an IRS audit!
That dog died last week.....
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth whenever someone asks if capitalism did this. That's bullshit, Fascism did this to us, and capitalism will set us free Chuck.
You want to talk about solutions, here's your solution: When the pain of change becomes less than the pain of staying the same, we will change. Folks need to understand how to fight with their wallets instead of their guns(not saying don't use guns, just know their place in the priority list). Sound money matters, community matters. Understanding how to deploy what's left of your financial resources to better your life and the lives of people around you rather than giving it away to corporate Amerika; that's most of the solution right there. Starve the beast bitchez!
+ 1000.
Well said.
All very nice, would you care to discuss the thesis that the natural outcome of a Corporate Capitalist system is Fascism? How would that modify your conclusions?
All very nice, would you care to discuss the thesis that you blindly accept the natural outcome of a Corporate Capitalist system is Fascism?
All very nice, would you care to discuss the thesis that the corporations (especially the "people" ones) are even necessary or even desirable in capitalism?
Buddy, the corporate genie was let out of the bottle well before the emergence of the modern state which you decry...
Corporations are a very natural evolutuon of capitalism, and we do have about 250 years of data from many countries to demonstrate that....
The rise of the modern state is in part a response to the rise of massive corporations, or did you forget about the Robber Barons of the Gilded age???
Well sport, I didn't decry anything nor did I forget history. And the only natural evolution of any form of human association is based on human behavior.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein
The gratuitous AE quote doesn't quite mask the fact it is a bit of a non sequitur...
It's "a bit of a non sequitur" only if you're
A) not paying attention
B) have a vested interest in the status quo
C) are a tool
D) All the above
Yawn....
bingo. Adam Smith was quite skeptical about corporations, too. me, I'd limit their size, if I could. makes 'em more human
That's bullshit, Fascism did this to us, and capitalism will set us free Chuck.
Bullshit. You haven't yet made the connection that fascism and capitalism are simply different points on the same timeline... they're each just symptoms of the same problem, a problem that humans haven't yet been able to answer.
A couple of questions: (1) If we implemented capitalism, today, what effect would the wealth gap have on competition and access to resouces? (2) Could you please cite a single instance when the regulator of capital markets (the government) ever limited its role to referee, instead of choosing winners and losers? (3) A follow-up to #2, could you please cite a single, modern civilization that rose to any material form of prominence without a government?
1) The wealth gap will make it difficult, always has. The problem here is will people support each other, or will they continue to mindlessly transfer their wealth to the wealthy? No system will work where people intend to give away what little power they have in the first place. If you implement capitalism from the bottom up and the people support it, you can overcome the wealth gap. Rich people need shit too, and I am consistently amazed by the resources people have at their disposal that can be used to generate income, but these resource rich people take it for granted and do nothing with it, because they can't produce anything unless someone 'gives them a job and tells them what to do.'
2) FME and the Icelandic banking crisis of 2008? This is a somewhat oddly worded question to me, as I associate enforcing rules with declaring a winner and loser based on judgement. Let me know if this is not satifactory.
3) For this I do not have an answer. I would however say this, a government should be by the people, for the people. I am not an advocate of anarchy. I would ask you this: If an informed citezenry gives their consent to be governed, is it also plausible that they would have the power to keep the government playing in check?
You and I approach this from opposite ends of the table, perhaps it is because I view the solution as something which is not quite here yet, but attainable, and while you view one as an inevitable outcome of the other.
1) So humans are going to dispense with 100,000 years of trials because the banksters are rich... got it. This is the issue, oft misdiagnosed... Humans will cede autonomy for comfort. Moreover, humans are incapable of significant political and economic strife for very long. There has to be some order to it, even if that order is completely fucked. The fundamental rule of human existence is self interest... you ask whether people will "mindlessly transfer their wealth to the wealthy?", well, I ask whether it is in their self interest, as best as they can guess, given their value system (which prizes security and comfort at the expense of autonomy). It isn't like it's some revelation that the state has just now latched on to these most basic of human needs... I presumed everyone was in agreement on the issue...
2) Not a chance... that "crisis" isn't over by a long shot... see Kyle Bass' most recent presentation posted on ZH for the reasons. [aside from the fact that it's an all encompassing remark, so I strongly suspect that at some place in the nation, there are favors being made].
3) Yep... obviously... the question isn't of power or right, the question is of diligence... we have the former, but lack the latter.
"Starve the beast bitchez!"
The beast can't be starved when directly fed as it is via artificially low interest rates, QE, and continuing direct and indirect bailouts by taxpayers, all done at the point of a government gun. And even if consumers bought only necessities, debt they are liable for would be (and is) accrued by those governments to compensate.
Capitalism just hasn't been implemented correctly.
Was waiting for someone to throw that out there... happens every thread... I'm pretty sure that laissez faire capitalism has already been tried in numerous places... of course, they still pound sand and fuck goats, but eventually they'll make it to the 21st century I'm sure.
All we can say about capitalism is that it more closely coincides with our natural feelings of autonomy and self worth... However, at this juncture, to claim it's merely an implementation problem is to ignore voluminous failed trials. I'll posit that the book needs to be re-written... It's much easier to change policy than to expect humans to change because you demand it. This is why capitalism is a failure, it purports to know humans, but yet even a single false premise can create an imbalance that crashes the system... it's purveyors are too proud to accept that humans behave differently (outside of its confines) and this crashes the system, each and every time. Simply put, markets need a regulator and the regulator is always corrupt, ergo it only lasts so long as the sand in the top of the hourglass has to fall... just like every other failed economic/political system.
I'll entertain a cleanest dirty suit argument for capitalism... but when we measure the success of these systems in years (decades at most on average, centuries for the lucky ones), it's hardly any testament to our ingenuity.
Well stated...
Platitudes does not a socio-economic system make....
Despite what a number of ZH'ers think...
I hope my downvote was for improper use of an apostrophe... I deserve it.
you gotta have Government. What we have right now...on days like today...is simple anarchy. this is an interesting conceptual approach to "what we see going on" (the numbers don't lie either) but the fact of the matter forget friggin' Paris... WE HAVE A STATE. the right people have to be in charge and that thing needs to be...well, run isn't the right word but certainly managed. the problem therefore is not Democracy at all (the irony that we are more wealthy now than ever should be lost on no one) but the so called "dialogue" that passes for political discourse these days. i really find it hard to believe the American people aren't worried about a Fukushima happening here in the United States. can we even carry on such a conversation in a rational manner? we're a highly educated population now...wtf? we can't even do that? i'm sorry but the lack of DATA...ESPECIALLY ON INTERNET PLATFORMS...is really disturbing to me. this venue has become an even more insidious form of "dumbing down"...almost like a weapon of terror itself actually...."with the target the American people." the great battle between "rich and poor" is a nice meme...but honestly...it's a load of bullshit isn't it? i mean the REAL war is just Alex Jones has said...this is all about INFORMATIONAL ADVANTAGE...and of course "the totally illegal, unethical, and if anyone found about this we'd be sentence to death" approach to dealing with "who the human individual actually is" as opposed to "who he thinks he is" (or she of course.) so sure...continue with the tripe. but this is the USA. WE WANT ANSWERS.
"Before we propose fixes, perhaps we need to do more work on understanding the many interconnected feedback loops in the widening bifurcation of the nation."
After we dismantle the corrupt CB Cartel that controls all of the interconnected feedback loops, perhaps we should educate the sheeple about what just went down. (What he meant to say but was too scared to write in case the STASI revoked his credentials).
"In other words, if the citizenry cannot dislodge a parasitic, predatory financial Aristocracy via elections, then "democracy" is merely a public-relations facade, a simulacra designed to create the illusion that the citizenry "have a voice" when in fact they are debt-serfs in a neofeudal State."
CHM nails it again. From another of my favorite bloggers, Fred Reed:
Plumbing the Depths
How the Gears Turn
March 9, 2008
"Common delusions notwithstanding, the United States, I submit, is not a democracy—by which is meant a system in which the will of the people prevails. Rather it is a curious mechanism artfully designed to circumvent the will of the people while appearing to be democratic. Several mechanisms accomplish this."
http://www.fredoneverything.net/TACDemocracy.shtml
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And one on government spying:
The Eye of Sauron
Something New Under the Sun
August 18, 2012
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Saurons_Eye.shtml
Don't put it all on the Top 10%, the bottom 10% is getting worse (lazier, less productive, less intelligent). To observe the growing gap just go to your wife's OBGYN office and observe the dregs of society who are having babies these days.
The author clearly doesn't get the techie thing.
Having been a coder during the heady days of the Internet boom (before 2000) and being a (just starting) Tech Entrepreneur now (and still mostly a coder), let me explain a few things:
absolutely agree Acet - these "coder types" you describe support the corporate fascism that has taken over the infrastructures, as described in the "Bonesaw" post over the weekend.
a parallel private military-style of "Alpha" workers ala Brave New World, visible to all, yet existing in their own corporate bubbles. . .
for now.
the author also does not get the "city" thing. there are huge differences between them when it comes to "footprint" and potential in energy crisis
ancient Rome had over one million inhabitants without the use of fossil fuels. London and Paris grew to metropolises way before the motor-car appeared. and so on
"The resentment toward the privileged class that is bubbling up suggests people don't need to read a lengthy sociological study to sense the divide is widening."
Exactly 6 minutes and 24 seconds should do it for most:
Wealth Inequality in America
Not to worry, Durden, Sam Colt made everyone equal when it matters.
Only the fascist-rich think money makes one bulletproof, or that "government" and their crooked-corporations will protect them.
The tension in the air is already palpable. Most notably, the US' roads are becoming much more dangerous. Expect "freedom" to be revoked there next.
"A truly democratic society has never existed and so far as we can see, never will exist. Society is of its nature oligarchical, and the power of the oligarchy always rests upon force and fraud. James Burnham does not deny that ‘good’ motives may operate in private life, but he maintains that politics consists of the struggle for power, and nothing else. All historical changes finally boil down to the replacement of one ruling class by another. All talk about democracy, liberty, equality, fraternity, all revolutionary movements, all visions of Utopia, or ‘the classless society’, or ‘the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth’, are humbug (not necessarily conscious humbug) covering the ambitions of some new class which is elbowing its way into power. The English Puritans, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, were in each case simply power seekers using the hopes of the masses in order to win a privileged position for themselves. Power can sometimes be won or maintained without violence, but never without fraud, because it is necessary to make use of the masses, and the masses would not co-operate if they knew that they were simply serving the purposes of a minority. In each great revolutionary struggle the masses are led on by vague dreams of human brotherhood, and then, when the new ruling class is well established in power, they are thrust back into servitude. This is practically the whole of political history, as Burnham sees it." -- Description of the beliefs of James Burnham (1905–1987), American philosopher, political theorist, and author of the book "The Machiavellians"
Looking at the income chart above you realize that in the 5-10% group the majority of those people are government employees. This nation is screwed.
I went from pink-collar to upper-middle class in 3 years, doing nothing more than reading sources like Prudent Bear, International Forecaster, Richard Maybury, and paying everything in cash and not using credit unless it was paid off by the end of the month. I missed the bull markets but was forewarned of the bears. Do not participate in her sins and you will not receive of her plagues.
This is almost a demonstration of the fact the the marginal value of an extra million dollars to someone who has $100,000,000 is not properly reflected given the *observed* cost to a society....
Fuck, it is not as if almost every society has parables about the evils of greed.....
The Tolstoy one about "How much land?" is one of my faves....
The Tolstoy story is great, but not sure it speaks to relative inequality.
My life experience to date seems to suggest those in the bottom half are more greedy (desirous, covetous) than those in the top 1%. Lottery ticket sales are just one data point.
And then those in Africa think the poorest in the US are wealthy. Does the income equality thing just get applied on a national basis? Why not global? If the definition of greed is having more than you really need, than everyone in the US needs to cut back - even the poor.
There are economic / political systems that directly support financial equality -- but I thought we were trying to move away from those systems.
The Tolstoy story is about the dangers of greed, and ultimately on a "local" basis, is not a good chunk of income inequality related to greed at some level. Comparing Africa and the US is not really the issue, the societies are not closely linked.
And yes, the conundrum lies is resolving the marginal cost of greed... I don;t claim to know the exact answer but if somehow no one had more than ~$50,000,000, my intuition tells me the world would be a better place...
I don't think greed has much to do with the size of your bank account. Generally, I have found those with less tend to be greedier than those with much. It is unclear how a $50 million wealth cap would help the poor. It seems the rich folks would just stop working / investing when they got to the effective 100% tax rate -- not sure how it would make the poor wealthier (?) and presumably would incentivize people to not create billion dollar ideas (think small, not big, no reward for the extra effort).
This is the problem with defining poverty of a relative basis and assuming one's economic gain comes at the expense of someone else (pure zero sum game). But this is a popular notion in the US and the administration is doing what it can to push it.
Let me remind you, this is not a policy discussion...
The number was a guesstimate based on any realistic expection of creature comforts and the fact that no one person has the financial resources to signifigantly manipulate the system....
And if you wanted to approach the problem from a policy perspective, you get rid of income tax and implement a progressive wealth tax that forces the uber wealthy to invest in society... And I don't mean tax free munis....
I'm damn sure that it is confusing. I will agree that more "poor" people try to rip me off than wealthy ones. I guess part of that is "poor" people may be more transparent. I've had tradesmen come into my home who assume that I can't see what is going down. I will usually fix simple things myself and this may give me an edge of sorts. On those occasions where I'm in a hurry it bothers me when they come up with some silly ass reason that I can see through...
No one ever clearly states what is the "correct" distribution of income, why that is the "correct" level, and who gets to decide this "correct" level. Pretty sure there is no "correct" distribution. Why was the distribution 30 or 50 years ago "correct?"
I'll take the flat tax or the fair tax to pay for very basic govt services. After that, everyone keeps whatever money they legally earn and let the income distribution chips fall where they may.
Equality posts? Eat a dick.
What the mainstream media will NEVER discuss:
Another Lesson From 1965: More Immigrants=More Poverty
By Edwin S. Rubenstein June 6, 2013
The story so far: the 2013 Schumer-Rubio Amnesty/ Immigration Surge bill, which aims to double legal immigration from what are already historic highs, must be regarded as the 1965 Immigration Act on steroids. The 1965 Act notoriously unleashed an era of mass immigration after a 40-year lull, and shifted the ethnic mix of new immigrants from predominantly European to Hispanic and Asian. It is responsible for setting the US on the path to a white minority by 2040 or so. It has had other consequences that the Main Stream Media won’t discuss, so VDARE.com (not for first time).is filling the gap. Today: poverty.
For two decades following the end of World War II, poverty rates fell like a stone. In 1947 nearly one-third (32%) of all families were officially classified as poor. [Have Antipoverty Programs Increased Poverty? By James D. Gwartney and Thomas S. McCaleb, The Cato Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1 1985] By 1959, only one-fifth (22.4%) of persons had incomes below the poverty line. By 1973 the fraction of American families living in poverty dropped by more than half, to just over a tenth (11.1%).
But then progress against poverty stalled—and it has never resumed. The poverty rate rose back into the 15% range in the 1980s and early 1990s. The late 1990s boom, and welfare reform, pushed poverty down to 11.3% in 2000. But it has been on an upward trajectory since then.
Poverty rates have never broken under the low set in 1973—forty years ago.
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IMO, this is the best damned comment in this thread of discussion. Furthermore, I cannot believe that it is the ONLY one that identified unrestricted immigration as the root cause of the economic inequality in America.
-- Paul D. Bain
PaulBain@PObox.com
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Examine the R^2 if you regress poverty versus domestic oil production...
Now run along back to your little day dreams....
I'd like to see a work visa system. To me it seems like the best all around deal.
So now, as a software engineer, I am apparently part of the plutocracy? Or am I only nomklaturati if my employer runs a vanpool? Or only if the van has wifi and tinted winddows?
And as for homeless people - whereas in most of America, liberals shout "think of the children" when they want you not to think, in San Francisco they yell "think of the homeless".
Long live the 20%! (strikeout) 19%! /s
Hollow it out, bitchez...
When you are viewed as a cost, you are going to get shit on. That is your percieved role from the 1%'ers.
Free bus rides if you wear a hoodie.