^
Can you elucidate your interpretation of Max Weber's theory on the matter for us, RS?
^
Can you elucidate your interpretation of Max Weber's theory on the matter for us, RS?
Do you suppose that you enjoy a superior intellect, RS.
A translation isn't necessary, only your view is called for, as Webber's work is available in English.
Timothy Noah wrote a 10 part series in 2010 for Slate magazine called the “The Great Divergenceon the subject which is a very interesting read.
Here are his conclusions on the reasons for the inequality gap :
-- Race and gender is responsible for none of it, and single parenthood is responsible for virtually none of it.--Various failures in our education system are responsible for 30 percent.
-- Immigration is responsible for 5 percent.
-- The imagined uniqueness of computers as a transformative technology is responsible for none of it.
-- Tax policy is responsible for 5 percent.
-- The decline of labor is responsible for 20 percent.
-- Trade is responsible for 10 percent.
-- Wall Street and corporate boards’ pampering of the Stinking Rich is responsible for 30 percent.
But he does not offer any solutions other than those implied by his listing of the culprits.
TH
Interesting, if not predictable, listing for blame.
Rather blind expectations from a seemingly academic examination.
A much more influential and heady reasoning is left adrift - the continuous dreamy and highly delusional American lifestyle and mindset would clearly be a principle in any such downfall. This reality would never be broached within these studious models....as the reality of the cultural model would be devastating towards any such economic illusion is already firmly in place.
'Tis wonder why an offering of what is real and what isn't remains vacant.
I think one thing stands out as a screaming but obvious necessity- Inheritance Tax.
Not aimed at the merely affluent, or single digit millionaires- but at the enormously wealthy, say $20,000,000 and up.
You can't seriously tell me that someone who is going to inherit 20 million bucks and more (and there are estates that run into multiple billions, such as Walton's- who paid effectively No Inheritance Tax) is going to have to struggle, or have his or her lifestyle impacted by 'losing' 25% of what he or she never earned, to IHT. You can't tell me that person 'earned' that money- not that there is any crime, or shame in being born rich- only luck.
The concentration of wealth in the USA, and increasingly elsewhere too, is enormous- and I mean it when I say it poses a potential existential threat to our economic system, which has overall served us well until now. It's not "the 1%" I am talking about- although everyone else seems to be. It is the "0.1%"- because most of the wealth in the "1%" is actually concentrated in the "0.1%". And if we look still further, at the 0.01%, even more so.
To work, money has to circulate- not be trapped in enormous, multi-generational rich Family estates, mostly passively invested, with more and more of societies wealth trapped in these estates every passing year, and less and less for the general consumption economy.
Last edited by sabang; 26-03-2012 at 06:19 PM.
High and never-ending credit debt.
Personal and corporate.
Communist propaganda.
Oh surprise, when you mention Marx, someone says 'Communist propaganda'. How so, Professor Fabian?
If Marx was right, so was Lenin.
But now that globalization has revealed itself as a stage of capitalism beyond imperialism, they are both wrong.
Capitalism is healthy, adapting itself with great aplomb. It's the liberal-democratic politics that used to run in tandem with it that is falling apart. As is the institution of the nation state that carried them along like twins in a basket there for a while.
Getting back to the more traditional situation wherein 70 or 80% of everyone is poor, uneducated and essentially enslaved does not mean that capitalism is falling apart. It just means it has fought its way out of the liberal-democratic nation-state cradle that it was born in and gave birth to.
I just read a quote from a high-level Party member who was annoyed by a reporter who kept asking him to admit that China wasn't communist. He said: "We are the Communist Party. We decide what communism is."
At the moment, they are also deciding what capitalism is.
To me, capitalism equals follwoing your dream, working hard, reaping the rewards and dispensing of your hard earned cash as you please, including charity. Socialism/communism means government deciding for you what you will make, what you will get, what charities you will pay for -- you have no say and are treated like babies with no brains. P*ss off.
As for inheriting $20 mil -- so what. Nothing is fair in life. If a chick wins $20 mil in the lotto, you gonna castigate her, too?
Commies share the wealth? Oh sure. 555 Their elite get way more than the US' 1%. Check out the cronies in China, Burma, Cuba and tell me different.
^ I'm pretty much in accord with that minnie, but this is not about Communism. This is about a specific prediction Marx made re the Capitalist system, which is proving to be very true- this being increasing concentration of societal wealth in the hands of a decreasing few. Capital makes more Capital- but what then is left for consumption, the driver of our economy, is diminishing. Of course his dire prediction was a rising up of the proletariat and all that. My dire prognosis is that we have to find some way to keep more of societies wealth circulating, or perhaps risk a Marxian scenario- but more likely an economic collapse. We were on the brink quite recently.
In my view, the main problems are 'BIG Government' (and big taxes) and lack of regulations in the banking & finance sectors.
Taxes are too high as governments believe high tax rates mean more income to pay the for bloated public sectors that blight most Western countries, especially the UK and the US. If taxes were slashed across the board it would stimulate growth as nearly everyone and every company would have more money to use for both personal security and investment. This would actually generate more tax for the government and at a rate that people would be happier to pay. Public sectors need to be shrunk to just the minimum needed and all the public sector jobs that will get the chop can fight it out in the real world where they'll have to perform in order to succeed. Banks need to be properly regulated again, so they simply work as banks and not instruments to destroy the economies of entire nations.
Fair enough- but this still doesn't address the concentration of wealth issue. 'Wealth' per se is a good thing- the concentration of Capital thus engendered drives Investment. But too much concentration of wealth in too small a sector, with not enough investment opportunities for it to address, is the real issue now- combined with a diminishing pool for the critical element of consumption- which is in fact the driver of those investment opportunities. I'm hardly gonna put up a factory, if there is nobody to buy my product. Get my drift?
That may be so (or not), but that's not what I was saying as I explained.Originally Posted by robuzo
I believe forcing banks to be banks and allowing companies and industry to 'breathe' will gradually redistribute wealth.Originally Posted by sabang
The only short-term fix to 'redistribute' wealth is for governments to turn on their masters and steal it from them (whether it's legal or not, it'll still be theft). I think the organic approach I outlined would provide a more solid and sustainable platform for growth in the 'poorer' levels as it automatically draws from the 'rich'.
I was trying to point out that your definition of "big government" is at variance with "big government" as it is usually understood. You would be seen by most people as contradicting yourself when you say "I am against big government and want more government regulation." Not that people don't contradict themselves all the time when discussing politics.
“You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.” Dorothy Parker
I'm not sure that talking "fiscal policy" is really talking about "politics" per se, especially not in a thread that began with the assertion that Marx was right. The substitution of one for the other, as has happened throughout the "west" over the past 3 or 4 decades, is a marker of the political success of the capitalist class in removing "politics" from the general discussion altogether. It isn't necessary to let them have their way in every venue, though.
I introduced Lenin as a way of pointing out that the idea that politicians in a given nation can at this point effectively "retool" capitalism to take us back to the brief golden age of 1945-1975 when wealth was distributed a little more evenly in capitalist economies ignores the reality of the nature of globalization in its current guise.
Lenin pointed out correctly that imperialism functioned to deal with the problem of declining demand in the advanced economies by forcing open new markets and driving down the costs of raw materials. The creation of a privileged class of workers in the advanced economies has also unfolded as it should.
What neither Marx not Lenin foresaw was the elimination of the core/periphery distinction and the rise of a whole new "world system" wherein former colonies become capital centers that included their own peripheries and former metropoles are forced through competition with the new centers to immiserate sufficient numbers of their own citizens to incorporate their own internal peripheries. Which, when you think about it, just takes the whole capitalist world back to where it was when England's dark satanic mills got the whole ball rolling in the first place.
Anyone who thinks that the gradual imposition of government controls and welfare programs that have acted to diffuse the effects of capitalism over the past 80 years or so in developed economies were the result of "fiscal policy" is being more than a little naive. Without the threat of communism and violent social unrest from organized labour that short golden age never would have happened at all.
It is more than ever the case that "Workers of the world! Unite!" is the only way that capitalism can be saved from itself, if by that you mean a more equitable distribution of wealth to allow all and sundry to be consumers. It's just not the way capitalists would define the saving of their system. It's also not the way the workers see it.
Talking about the success or survival of capitalism in modern terms means looking at the whole world, not just the rump of Lenin's imperialist system.
^I agree that we've gone OT, but regulations and fiscal policy (taxes and revenue) are of course both tied to politics.
In any case, Lenin essentially reversed course when he instituted the New Economic Policy, which acknowledged the need for certain elements of capitalism in the economy. The very first place that communism failed was in agriculture, and the pragmatic introduction of the NEP provided a very quick remedy for that. Had Lenin not had a stroke and then died, and had his warnings about Stalin been heeded the USSR might have evolved quite differently.
AS Noah points out in his articles, back in the early 20th century the "filthy rich" as he calls them, primarily made their money through capital, i.e. rents, dividends, etc. With some exceptions, the "filthy rich" today make if from salaries, bonuses and stock options.
The "filthy rich" do circulate the money. The fact that their consumption is what is fueling the recovery shows that. They are the only ones that have the income to increase their spending.
TH
No, I am saying I want sensible government regulation with regard to the banks, as they have proven to be unable to govern themselves and have caused a global mess.Originally Posted by robuzo
They certainly have considerable purchasing power, and I daresay they use it- but .5% or .1% of a population doth not a consumption economy make. That is what was notable about the recent financial crisis- consumption fell in a hole, even when the economy was in a faltering recovery.Originally Posted by Thaihome
No Consumption = No investment. Nothing to invest in. No Investment = No Employment growth. Thus the syndrome gets set in concrete.
I'm certainly not looking at this from a "class struggle" perspective (a la' Marx), rather a self sustainable economic model. If you go back to my OP, it's obvious how stark these trends are. I'm most certainly plugging for an Inheritance Tax, and really it would affect very few people, and not affect their lifestyle.
I fail to see how giving money to the government in the form of an inheritance tax for the “filthy rich” is going to raise the income the middle class. It smacks of demagoguery and does not address the problem.
The problems are excessive compensation for a few, increasing organized labor’s effectiveness, and improving the education system to increase the availability of highly skilled workers.
TH
Have you looked at the federal Deficit recently?
Agreed- but what pays for that?Originally Posted by Thaihome
Not disagreeing with that, but the more cogent problem seems to me inadequate compensation for the many.Originally Posted by Thaihome
Now the US has some employment growth happening- but it is mostly in the low wage sector, and this is a country where people on minimum wage or close are routinely being subsidised by government food stamps.
Once again, forget the "class struggle"- it's the economy. Burger flippa's can't meaningfully consume.
How so?Originally Posted by Thaihome
Since you're restricting this thread to a discussion of US fiscal policy, which American products would you like to see the flippas being able to consume?Originally Posted by sabang
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