Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: We're Headed for Oligarchy
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/nobel-prize-winning-economist-were-heading-for-oligarchy/361200/
This article was mentioned and talked about in class and I decided to do some more digging into it.
Nobel prize winning economist Robert Solow back in April posted a review on a book by Thomas Piketty's called The New Republic. Particularly he went off about effects of income equality and the concentration of wealth in the top 1%. He mentions, what we were talking about in class, that more and more government is not about governing for the right reasons and also why we have a government but being controlled by people with large amounts of money. "If that kind of concentration of wealth continues, then we get to be more and more an oligarchical country, a country that's run from the top." Solow said. He isn't the only economist to use the word oligarchy when reviewing this article. In Solow's review of Piketty's book he analyzes what he says and explains what trends and theories he is suggesting and offers his own opinion to make an economy or country to favor merit over inheritance.
Here is a link to Solow's review http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117429/capital-twenty-first-century-thomas-piketty-reviewed
I read a good part of Solow's review and will finish it later but it really is a fascinating reading. It has a lot of really good points about income inequality and I would recommend it. I personally am still gaining knowledge and a stronger opinion on the subject but I do think that the wealth distribution is way to out of wack. With millionaires and billionaires inhabiting our country with people who are barely earning enough income to own a apartment, pay for food, shelter, etc, and provide for a family does seem cruel and unjustifiable but it is also a free market economy does and that is how our economy is set up. My question is should government regulate income more to allow there to be more equality so people can live better lives?
Absolutely. The rich should be taxed much more heavily than the general populace, they make significantly more. Even if every relatively wealthy person was taxed at a rate of, say 60 or 70%, which would be quite a steep rate, they still would be making, in their 30-40% of their income, much more than the average wage, more than several times that, in fact. The big issue though, is that campaigning takes a ton of resources, and the only people who can provide them are those with a ton of money. Those people have an immensely disproportionate influence on the outcome of elections, the outcome of political decisions, and the outcome of representatives' votes. If we do not regulate the influence money has on campaigns, and hence, the wielders of such influence, America's democracy will be in more and more danger as the rich rise higher, and the poor sink lower.
ReplyDeleteI really like that point David. There is a huge influence that just changing the rules of campaign financing will have on the economy and agenda of the politicians in DC.
ReplyDeleteThanks for looking this up for us! When I read this article, my mind goes back to Citizen's United, which we discussed in class a few days ago. (This is the case where it was determined that money=speech and corporations=people.) And it definitely bothers me that campaigns are so money-oriented because some of the smartest people and best leaders I know will never have the kind of money required to run for office. Also, for any ancient world history nuts out there, ancient Rome's Senate became a money race only a few decades before their decline...I think we need to be careful about the focus of our country on only financial issues.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism has been criticized for this very reason for so long: the vast separation between the rich and the poor. I agree with you guys in the respect that political campaigns are way too expensive and, consequently, the candidates with the most funding often gain more votes. I can see that, unless we change something, an oligarchy really isn't that far off for the U.S.
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