Why the rich are getting richer: It's the government, stupid

[Hannah Bell]

The share of total income going to the top one percent has increased from roughly eight percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today.

This is what the political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson call the "winner-take-all economy." It is not a picture of a healthy society.

Such a level of economic inequality, not seen in the United States since the eve of the Great Depression, bespeaks a political economy in which the financial rewards are increasingly concentrated among a tiny elite and whose risks are borne by an increasingly exposed and unprotected middle class.

Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced industrial democracy and by conventional measures comparable to that in countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, and Turkmenistan.

It breeds political polarization, mistrust, and resentment between the haves and the have-nots and tends to distort the workings of a democratic political system in which money increasingly confers political voice and power.

It is generally presumed that economic forces alone are responsible for this astonishing concentration of wealth. Technological changes...have transformed the economy, making workers more productive and placing a premium on intellectual, rather than manual, labor. Simultaneously, the rise of global markets...has hollowed out the once dominant U.S. manufacturing sector and reoriented the U.S. economy toward the service sector...

Champions of globalization portray these developments as the natural consequences of market forces...

Skeptics of globalization, on the other hand, emphasize the distributional consequences...

But neither side in this debate has bothered to question Washington's primary role in creating the growing inequality in the United States.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67046/robert-c-lieberman/why-the-rich-are-getting-richer?page=show

[Sherman A1]

1. Thanks for posting this one, it's a good piece from what I

considered to be an unlikely source.

Caught it on their FB page and re-posted it to mine.

[Hannah Bell]

2. unlikely source is right. "yeah, it's us creating poverty"

[lib2DaBone]

3. You can't destroy our manufacturing base and ship all jobs to China...

... and fight two unnecessary wars and expect the country to prosper.

Nothing is going to change or get better because it's "business as usual" in Washington.

[lonestarnot]

5. China making junk, but somebody is getting a trinket for making junk.

Political corruption based on stealing the dough and China are in the lead. Control energy and slaves control the planet. Watch 'em. :grr:

[Lorien]

11. Manufacturing and call center jobs are not the only jobs being shipped overseas

for some reason it's become popular to think jobs = manufacturing. Among my friends (most of whom are white collar) there are scientists, software developers, computer programmers, engineers, graphic designers, illustrators, animators, researchers, chemists, physicists, video game designers, and even accountants who have lost their jobs to workers in India, China, Russia and South Korea. Just bringing manufacturing back isn't going to do it. Bring ALL the jobs back to our shores-and tax the Hell out of corporations that outsource.

[Karmadillo]

4. Kick. What's the solution when it's government policy to create massive inequality?

nt

[ladjf]

8. The solution is for the 95% of the population to gain control of the

Government. However, doing that may be impossible at this point.

[Starry Messenger]

6. recommend.

[ladjf]

7. The obscene, immoral and illegal transfer of wealth happening

now is the number one problem for life on Earth. If it isn't reversed soon, our planet will be void
of the resources necessary for thriving life.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

9. IMO, it's the corporations that own and control the government....

...and that - is fascism. ("It's the fascism, stupid")

[blindpig]

10. Money well spent. n/t