This Is NOT What A Democracy Looks Like

[kpete]

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
via: http://sideshow.me.uk/

[xchrom]

1. indeed. nt

[kpete]

2. but xchrom

where are all those wealthy teachers?

just kidding,
peace, kpete

[LARED]

3. Is there a relationship between different forms of government

and the distribution of wealth within those government systems?

I am not saying the present distribution is how it should be, but am questioning if we know what a democracy and it's distribution of wealth should look like?

[moondust]

5. The point may be

that a majority of voters anywhere would never vote for that much inequality. So how did it happen in a democracy where the majority supposedly rules? I don't think it's nearly that imbalanced in other democracies around the world but I don't have the statistics.

Dumb voters? Rigged elections? Compromise?

[LARED]

7. The reality is the USA is not

a democracy. It never has been. Also I have no reason to relate the distribution of wealth to a democracy.

My view is we have diverging wealth stratification for a number of reason.

Stratification of education is by far the biggest problem, and our Politial system is largly broken.

[moondust]

8. The chart in the OP

looks like something you might see in an autocracy like Mubarak's Egypt or Gaddafi's Libya where the people don't have much say in the way things are and can't vote to change things.

[LARED]

10. We can vote to changes things and routinely do just that.

Remember 2008?

Remember 2010?

Yet income stratification continues, and has for a pretty long time.

We don't seem to suffer from a lack of democracy, we suffer from things that are not directly related to political structures.

This is not related but I thought it was interesting that counties with strong democratic principles (not the same as a democracy) do OK on a per capita bases.

http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/infopays/rank/PNBH2.html

[moondust]

12. The question is:

Who gets how much of the rewards for producing that GNP?

Republicans would have owners and investors devour virtually ALL the rewards for that production (near slavery) and pretend that anything more equitable is the great crime of "redistributing the wealth." Intelligent voters would demand a more equal distribution through government policy (living wage, taxes, offshoring curbs, perhaps tariffs, etc.)

[LARED]

14. Intelligent voters

can already push us in the right direction.

Which gets me back to education.

[stlsaxman]

4. Correct- THAT is what "Capitalism" looks like.

[blindpig]

6. But it is what capitalism looks like...

the Cold War illusion is abandoned, this is the real thing.

[RevStPatrick]

9. Yes, actually that is what democracy looks like...

When half or more of the people don't vote!

That being said, it's capitalism that's the problem, not our supposed democracy.

[SoCalDem]

11. The problem is that in EVERY form of government, the well off/greedy

will ALWAYS manage to skim of the most for themselves..'

The main "differences" happen when a change of power is warranted.. Democracies tend to let the scoundrels they oust, live.. The other forms..not so much

[chill_wind]

13. Says it all! K & R. n/t