Bill Clinton’s Global Capitalism Is Responsible for Today’s Problems

[Michael Hardner]

45 minutes ago, Hodad said:

Right. -- GDP growth was fantastic. Real median household incomes did not keep pace or see much positive growth. But we DID get a lot of cheap and relatively high quality consumer goods, which people quite like.

I don't think that the problem is that global markets didn't work. The problem is that we allowed, through perverse incentives, most of the economic benefit of massive productivity gains and wealth gains to accrue to top few percent. It's become common to have CEOs earning 300x what their employees make. That should be a shocking number, but we've grown accustomed to it. 

Like everyone else, I'm a capitalist, but it's hard to rationalize that kind of wealth gap. It feels a lot more like a problem than a positive outcome. And to make it generational cements the gap. Though there's some irony in it, even Thomas Jefferson warned against an "artificial aristocracy" blessed by birth. In other words, we should probably have a massive estate tax. Let people make as much money as they want, but limit what can be left as inheritance. 

Great post.

 

To add, even Adam Smith warned about the mercantile class's greed.

There's a balance between government control and laissez-faire... take a look at our monopolies to see what happens.

And now people also want media monopolies to provide our news... so we never again hear about consumer rights.

[Hodad]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Great post.

 

To add, even Adam Smith warned about the mercantile class's greed.

There's a balance between government control and laissez-faire... take a look at our monopolies to see what happens.

And now people also want media monopolies to provide our news... so we never again hear about consumer rights.

Yes, especially to the bolded. We KNOW from observation, from history, from research, from experimentation that people aren't rational and therefore markets aren't rational. It's become almost religious dogma that any interference in the market is "communism" (which is absurd). There is nothing wrong with government powers being used to mitigate market excesses and maximize efficiencies. It would be silly not to. -- Nothing is perfect. Nothing is executed perfectly. But we can do a pretty good job.