In yesterday’s Washington Post, E.J. Dionne wrote a column around this idea:
The central issue in American politics now is whether the country should reverse a three-decade-long trend of rising inequality in incomes and wealth.
Politicians will say lots of things in the coming weeks, but they should be pushed relentlessly to address the bottom-line question: Do they believe that a fairer distribution of capitalism’s bounty is essential to repairing a sick economy? Everything else is a subsidiary issue.
Apparently we can’t ask whether or not our current and prior attempts to achieve a “fairer” distribution of capitalism’s bounty contributed to our sick economy. Not that we have capitalism in the way that Dionne wishes to imply. The failings of a mixed economy do not prove that it’s time to toss the capitalism from the mix. Making that case requires a bit more than tossing around the undefined, subjective word fair and pretending that the argument is won.
As Dionne continues:
“Over the past two or three decades, the top 1 percent of Americans have experienced a dramatic increase from 10 percent to more than 20 percent in the share of national income that’s accruing to them,” said Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director. Now, he said, was their time “to pitch in a bit more.”
Is there more direct proof that liberals view the rich as the nation’s piggy bank than claiming it’s time for the top 1 percent “to pitch in a bit more”? Does Orszag mean the top 1 percent who paid 39.89% of all federal income taxes in 2006? Dionne is saying that it’s okay to increase the existing unfairness in the tax code because the disparity in income at the extremes is unacceptable to his sense of fairness. He must ignore the question of whether or not the alleged victims of the unfairness of capitalism’s bounty are better off than they were in the past. He concludes:
Do we want to be a moderately more equal country or not? This is the question Obama has put before the nation. Let’s debate it without the distracting rhetorical sideshows designed to obscure the stakes in the coming battle.
I would ask something different: Do we want to be a more productive country or not? Does everybody gain, even if the distribution is “unfair”, or do we harm some to improve others in the short-term? Dionne has the wrong preference.
why don’t you take a peek at the top .1%, people grossing a couple million a year paying less than 13% as of 2008. Revenue problem much?
“Does everybody gain, even if the distribution is “unfair”, or do we harm some to improve others in the short-term? ”
I’d hardly call the whole of the 20th century, short term. And no, you don’t harm people with more money than they can account for by making them pay an equitable share. No one in the highest strata truly earns all of their pay, they get it by taking unsafe shortcuts, cannibalizing competitors, monopoly and monopsony, throwing it into hedge funds and by huge bonuses paid to prevent them from moving from one business to another. Capital is nothing without labor.
“He must ignore the question of whether or not the alleged victims of the unfairness of capitalism’s bounty are better off than they were in the past.”
Yeah he’d ignore it because its a stupid question with an obvious answer, they’re not even close to doing as well.
Please provide proof.
Please provide proof.
Please provide proof.
Please provide proof.
Please define “labor”, if it doesn’t include people who are paid huge retention bonuses, since that person is is unlikely to be an owner (i.e. capital).
Finally, asking whether or not alleged victims of capitalism are better off or not is not a stupid question. If you want the entire 20th century included, would you rather be rich in 1900 or poor in 2011?