from a global point of view, incomes in poor countries have increased. The author found solace in the fact that while in the US, income disparity has increased, we have an aging population and crime is in decline. He seemed, therefore, to imply -- the rich need not fear an uprising by the poor so the fact that income inequality is growing rapidly in the US is nothing to worry about.
He did not deal with what the growing disparity in incomes in the US means for the health and welfare, not just of the poor, but of all Americans and our entire country. Think of the cost of maintaining sewer systems in large, American cities. Open sewers and impure drinking water are health hazards for rich and poor. The only way you can support good municipal sewer systems is with money from taxes and fees from the local citizenry. See how the water delivery system in Detroit has responded to a population too poor to pay their water bills.
He also did not deal with the fact that the decline in the American economy and the rise of the Chinese and other formerly third-world economies that are still dictatorships cast doubt on the American mantra that our economic system is the best in the world because it provides the highest standard of living to the most people. That is simply no longer true.
The Soviet Union created wealth for the power elite. That system failed because all incentives were aimed to reward the powerful. The secret of our system was supposed to be incentives that rewarded the hard-working and creative. The economic decline and suffering of the people in the Soviet Union was viewed as a failure or the economic system. How can we explain the economic decline and suffering of Americans today?
And if we don't think that is happening, we need only look at Detroit.
Feudalism created wealth for the already wealthy. We rejected the idea of royalty and a wealthy elite when we opened up our frontier to settlers willing to work to make a living for themselves rather than parcel it out to the British nobility.
(Of course, this may not be something that a writer for the New York Times could understand. It may not be part of his family history as it is mine.)
So what makes capitalism such an exciting system if it ends up back where it started, creating a society of feudal relationships between rich and poor?
Not much in my book.
At this time, there is still creativity in the computer industry provided that the bumbling of the NSA hasn't placed American computer engineers on the sidelines while the rest of the world communicates without us.
I suppose we still lead in terms of weapons manufacture. But to what extent are we even there losing ground as a leader in engineering and technology. There is lots of competition out there. And their innovators are less likely to be hampered by enormous student debt obligation than are ours. Think India and China, Germany and France.
It is in our national self-interest to fight the spreading social disease of economic inequality in the US. Instead of imposing taxes only and primarily on income, we should be imposing them also on imports. Unfortunately, our binding trade agreements are choking our ability to impose those taxes. But we need them.
As an alternative, I think we should raise sales taxes on all items bought and sold in the US other than food, medications. It is the only way I can think of to place the tax burden where it belongs -- on the importers who amass fortunes outside our country by stashing the profits they make on the products they produce at unlivable wages in the third world and sell to Americans at high prices. We can reduce the impact of the high prices on low and middle-class Americans with tax policies that substitute the sales tax revenues for part of the payroll tax revenue.
In addition, we need to enact and enforce very strict laws against monopolies -- horizontal and vertical. This is especially true in the communications, food and retail industries. My grocery store is part of a huge chain that virtually always offers its store brand-name products for less than any other company's. We need to discourage huge chain stores from taking over the markets in local communities. Consumers should have choices. Efficiency is great except when it stifles creativity and variety and when it permits a few employers to control the market for wages in an industry.
We also need to abolish right-to-work laws. Unions are vital to the economic health of our country.
The American way, the American economic way, is supposed to be based on competition. I don't see that in my community. Do you?
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