Inequality

It's hard to have a conversation about this without sounding like a communiss, I realize. Most people, including me, agree that hard work and success and talent and commitment ought to be rewarded. Economic incentive is a powerful thing. I like money, and I wish I had more of it. (Mostly so I could give more of it to people in my family who need it.) I think the profit motive and capitalism are good things. But can there be too much of a good thing? If national wealth is sort of finite (for purposes of discussion) does it become a bad thing when it's only available to a few?

The problem with the video is that it doesn't attempt to explain why the post-Reagan reality of income distribution in our country is so perverse, and how it works against economic success in terms of the whole society. Nor does it offer any suggestions about how changes, assuming it's desirable, might come about. There are, of course, other sources for that conversation.

As I've said before, any change in the tax code is a form of wealth redistribution. It's a loaded term, suggesting rounding up rich people, reaching into their pockets, extracting money, and handing it willy-nilly to poor people standing there with their hands out. There needs to be a better term. "Tax fairness" comes to mind. So does "minimum wage."

Again, you can't bring these things up without raising Republican hackles. But you'd think they'd get it: their beloved job creators and "makers" won't be able to push product absent people willing and able to buy. If you make a little less per widget because you're providing a living wage and a couple of benefits to your workers, you can, in theory, more than make that up in an environment where more people have the means to buy your widgets. It's basic math, and not very high-order economics.

Sadly, and mystifyingly, the people most adversely affected by the current reality are the most reluctant to countenance ideas that might change things. Well, not those most adversely affected; the teabagging ones, fully Foxified into thinking we need more, not less, inequality, are the ones happily carrying the water for those making off with the booty, taking the future with them. It seems pretty intuitive that there's something really wrong with the picture.

Of, By, And For The One-Percent

Addressing the causes and implications of the massive redistribution of wealth, toward the top 1%, that has occurred in this country over the last three or four decades, Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz -- whose years at Amherst College overlapped mine -- has written a thoughtful piece (what else would you expect from an Amherst man?) -- in Vanity Fair. For anyone interested in seriously addressing the issue, it is worth reading in full. Sadly, it's somewhat lengthy and factual and requires the sort of attention of which teabaggRs appear wholly incapable. Which is too bad, because I'd say its many points ought to form the basis for real discussion from both political parties. Here's a sampling:

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. ... While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall....

.... Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale shadow of what we are seeing in America today. The justification they came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell, this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a greater contribution to society. It is a theory that has always been cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains thin...

... Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.

First, growing inequality is the flip side of something else: shrinking opportunity....

... perhaps most important, a modern economy requires “collective action”—it needs government to invest in infrastructure, education, and technology. The United States and the world have benefited greatly from government-sponsored research that led to the Internet, to advances in public health, and so on. But America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels. Further cutbacks in these areas lie ahead....

.... America’s inequality distorts our society in every conceivable way... ... Inequality massively distorts our foreign policy. The top 1 percent rarely serve in the military—the reality is that the “all-volunteer” army does not pay enough to attract their sons and daughters, and patriotism goes only so far. Plus, the wealthiest class feels no pinch from higher taxes when the nation goes to war: borrowed money will pay for all that. Foreign policy, by definition, is about the balancing of national interests and national resources. With the top 1 percent in charge, and paying no price, the notion of balance and restraint goes out the window. There is no limit to the adventures we can undertake; corporations and contractors stand only to gain....

...Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. ... Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.

Sure, sure, it sounds like some lefty screed. Worse, it's just what I've been saying: the greed of some is killing us all. But read it and tell me where's he's got his facts wrong. Think it over and consider the falsehood of calling the return to reasonable tax rates "income redistribution" as if it's a bad thing. How about "re-redistribution," back to where society has a chance of working, of surviving?

Crazy Talk

No longer able to be amazed at political stupidity, I comment once again on the latest inanity: "wealth redistribution." For the Republican party and Joah McPalin, it's the distortion du jour.

To state the obvious: the only government that's not in the business of redistributing wealth is one that collects zero money; ie, no government that's ever existed. You pay taxes, the government gets the money and sends it somewhere, in a transaction that is known as, oh, redistribution. Any change in any tax leads to re of the distribution. Last wealth redistributer: George Bush, when he took money from the peons and gave it to rich folks. Next in line: anyone who makes any change in that plutoid formula.

Whoever it was who said you'd never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people must be all achuckle. Newspapers, talking heads, even commenters here on at least one occasion, are spitting it out like it's poison, certain that it's also a winner for McPalin. Socialism it is!!! Taking money from taxpayers in differing patterns based on income!! If Barack Obama weren't spending all his time palling around with terrorists, he'd be plotting it right now. And he's a liberal terrorist, so he'd probably call it, say, maybe, oh, a PROGRESSIVE income tax. It could happen here, folks. It could happen here.

A recent study found that Republicans are "happier" than Democrats. Well, duh. When your response to reality is to deny it, when facts are minor impediments on the road to ignorance, of course you're happy. (The study also said they're richer.) I'm gonna call it the happiness response: it's like the flight option of "fight or flight." Hardwired, at least in the credulous.

This idea that any change in Bush's incredibly unbalanced and ineffective tax structure is, by definition, socialism, is like saying improving your kids' education is brainwashing. Returning to some of the tax policies of Bill Clinton??? Why that'd be like, like, going back to times of, what did they call it back then, what was that concept, fading from memory?

Oh yeah.

Prosperity.

I believe John McCain is smart, at least enough to know what bullshit this is. And there's no doubt he thinks so little of his "base" that he assumes they'll eat it. Unsurprisingly, lots of them are. From every angle, his campaign assumes the worst in us, treats us like we're stupid. If it works again, as it has in the past, our descent is unstoppable.

Commies

You could knock me over with a feather: the Republicans have adopted a new meme and it makes no sense! Didn't see that coming.

So every Republican talking head, starting with John McCain and his marionette Sarah Palin, is screaming "socialism!!!" "redistribution of wealth!!!" As if there is some tax system that is not a redistribution of wealth. And coming from Sarah Palin, whose state owns all its oil and divvies up profits to its people (socialism, anyone?) it's particularly amusing.

What happened when Bush and his Congress pushed his tax-cuts for the wealthy? Redistribution of wealth. Up. And if we were to return to the (highly successful) tax policies present during the Clinton years? Redistribution of wealth. Down. Is there anything more obvious? It reminds me of the politician (some say it was, ironically, Red-baiting Florida Senator George Smathers) who said of his opponent: in college he matriculated in public, his wife was a known thespian, and he practiced nepotism with his sister-in-law.

Once again we are left to wonder if the people who fall for this (some of them are intelligent enough to be reading and commenting on this blog) are present in large enough numbers to affect an election. Meanwhile, anyone wanna predict how many more days before John McCain forswears his last vestige of honor and starts campaigning on Reverend Wright?