"How capitalism enriches the few rather than the many"

[applegrove]

How capitalism enriches the few rather than the many

by Harold Myerson at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-how-capitalism-enriches-only-the-few/2014/04/02/f2295a5e-ba95-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html

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Indeed, Piketty’s book provides a valuable explanatory context for America’s economic woes. Wages constitute the lowest share of U.S. GDP, and profits the highest, since the end of World War II. And with heightened accumulations of wealth come heightened accumulations of political power — a shift toward plutocracy to which Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision, permitting the wealthy to contribute to as many electoral campaigns as they wish, adds a helpful push.

Piketty’s primary contention is that it is inherent to capitalism that the returns on capital generally exceed the growth of nations’ economies, save in times of epochal population growth or almost unimaginable technological breakthroughs, and that this leads to ever-rising concentrations of wealth and power. “No self-corrective mechanism exists” within capitalism to retard this descent into plutocracy, he writes. Rather, he concludes, its prevention requires political action: He suggests a global tax on capital, which, he acknowledges, is a utopian solution, though others — empowering workers again, increasing the social provision of goods and services — are more readily attainable.

Lewis gives us a great read on today’s latest scam. Piketty gives us the most important work of economics since John Maynard Keynes’s “General Theory.”




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[cthulu2016]

1. I think that all thinkers have recognized that Capitalism requires political limitation

(The word "thinkers" ought not be wasted on economic libertarians.)

It's not a discovery. It has always been understood that Capitalism cannot self regulate in certain ways, and can not be separable from politics. Views to the contrary are a modern crackpot religion.

Adam Smith, in THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, typically credited with being the seminal first take on capitalism, noted that the state had to, for instance, break up the formation of monopolies that would arise naturally in an entirely laissez-faire environment.