Paul Krugman: Conservatives want you to believe there’s “a longer-term case in favor of vast inequal

[applegrove]

Paul Krugman: Conservatives want you to believe there’s “a longer-term case in favor of vast inequality”

by Scott Eric Kaufman at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/15/paul_krugman_conservatives_want_you_to_believe_theres_a_longer_term_case_in_favor_of_vast_inequality/

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New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued on Friday that contrary to what the conservative elite believe, the economy “can flourish with much less concentration of income and wealth at the very top.”



Why? Because so much of it based on dumb luck, not merit — and “not just the luck of being the first to stumble on a highly profitable idea or strategy, but also the luck of being born to the right parents.” Because high income isn’t a moral reflection or an accurate indication of economic productivity, “there’s a strong case to be made for collecting some of that wealth in taxes and using it to make society as a whole stronger, as long as it doesn’t destroy the incentive to keep creating more wealth.”

Because, according to Krugman,


In today’s world, high-tax, low-inequality countries like Sweden are also both highly innovative and home to many business start-ups. This may in part be because a strong safety net encourages risk-taking: People may be willing to prospect for gold, even if a successful foray won’t make them quite as rich as before, if they know they won’t starve if they come up empty…



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[hifiguy]

1. He is, of course, absolutely correct.

Thomas Piketty has been loudly thumping that drum for a good long while as well, with tons of historical analysis to back it up.

The best guarantor of a strong American economy is working and middle-class people with good jobs and money in their pockets to spend, not tens of millions barely scraping by while a self-appointed elite lives like King Farouk. FDR knew it, Harry Truman knew it, in fact every Democrat up to and including Jimmy Carter knew it. But it seems to have been forgotten in the desire to kowtow to the Donor Class.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Hmmm, I kind of wonder if there are any parallels in history?

Oh, yeah. The Middle Ages. How many centuries did it take to cut back on that era of "income inequality?"

[applegrove]

3. So true.

[Hortensis]

4. And the Gilded Age, the Roaring 20s?

We've been here before, pretty recently. We took what those came before suffered and won for us and trashed it. And now here we are again. How dumb are we?

[Turbineguy]

5. King Louis XVI

agrees with the republicans.