BC: THE CRUX OF THE PROBLEM ..
..
..
..
.
.
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...
..
.
TOD discussion follows ..
==============
I'll attempt to be more concrete and direct. Over the last thirty years, in the developed world, we've witnessed a truly massive transfer of society's wealth upwards into the hands of the ruling elite. Whilst the American Dream has stopped, been reversed, and has turned into a nightmare for the great American middle-class, not to mention the poor, who have been more or less pushed outside society; the richest fraction of Americans have seen a collosal rise in their share of national wealth on an unprecedented scale. The top 5% now live in a fabulously wealthy, close to a dreamlike, virtual paradise; far removed from the lives of the majority.
This tendency, far from slowing down, is accelerating. The oligarchy now control almost all of society, and what was once held in common, the common wealth, has been sold off for the benefit of a tiny minority.
The oligarchy now owns and controls the state and the political system, as well as the economy and the financial sector. It's a concentration of wealth and power which one would be hard-pressed to find a parallel for, at least in the modern period.
What we are seeing today, with the financial crisis, and the massive transfer of wealth towards the financial aristocracy, is the beginning of a new form of fuedalism. A tiny elite, which owns all the wealth, and the media, controls the state, is protected by its military wing, and is determined to hang on to its lavish lifestyle at all costs. This requires the forced impoverishment of the American middle class, who can no longer be afforded. Their jobs are moving overseas, followed by their wealth, and consumption. But this doesn't, over the short term, matter to the elite. Even when they lose in the casino, the state steps in to cover their debts. A form of inverted socialism that supports the lavish lifestyles of the richest fraction of society at the expense of the poor. What a system. Marx must be turning in his grave!
What this means is that the aristocracy in the developed world no longer need the working, or even the middle classes; they have richer pickings and lower wages in the developing nations. The paracites are leaving the old host and moving off towards a new one, only leaving the empty husk behind.
===============
I live in India and I can see the same story playing out; that ultimately the rich can only use so much wealth and it will finally reach the masses who would otherwise have lived in extreme poverty. And that before you can distribute wealth you have to create it and so on.
Interesting that you start 30 years back. Did you consciously or unconsciously have the election of Ronald Reagan in mind? What other events or policies come to your mind as those that are causal factors in this unfolding of events? I can think of the Glass Steagall Act, the WTO and free trade, union busting. But are these sufficient to bring things to such a state? What are your thoughts on this?
According to you the system has been gamed (and I tend to agree) but how does one prove it? Our representatives who are supposed to work in our interests and dig the skeletons out have also been bought off or coerced into favouring the elites. Each time a bail out happens it is said that things would be worse if the bail out did not. Each time jobs get shipped out to China it is said that corporations would not survive if they were not competitive and that would lead to even more job losses. None of this is provable and therein lies the beauty. The consuming public is only too happy to get the best deal today not understanding that there will be no tomorrow if this continues on.
From the elites point of view - they have a very compelling story to tell as well. Something on the lines of "This is the beauty of capitalism and America. Many of us were not born into wealth (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Buffet) but through our enterprise and hard work we made billions. So if you work hard, you can too. Why grudge us our paradise when we have earned it?" How would you counter this? And then there will be the inevitable question of what the alternative is?
I love your narrative and tend to agree. I just don't want it to be a case of confirmation bias.
Srivathsa
==============================
And someone always wins the lottery.
How about the graveyard of "entrepreneurs" that make up 99.99999% of all that "work hard".
The individuals that make it are invariably ruthless uncaring selfish, psychopaths and the bounty that trickles down to the masses is simply a side effect.
We could do so so much better if the focus was to improve the quality of life for all humans.
============================
Calling them names is fine, but does not answer the question of how they gamed the system in their favour. Did e.g. Bill Gates change some laws to favour Microsoft? If so did he use his wealth to do so? How did they engineer this transfer of wealth?
(I live in India and it jars when Mr.Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries builds a $2billion apartment block for just his family when there are 350 million Indians who don't see a dollar a day. But poor sensibility is not a crime in itself.)
In India it is a bit more straight forward because corruption is rampant. In my state there are mine owners (one family) who have made so much money on the China boom that they must be worth a few billion dollars. A lot of their activity is illegal. So what have they done. They have funded one of the political parties and have become cabinet ministers in the state government. They are now virtually immune and continue plundering and accumulating even more money. I am assuming this sort of thing is not possible in the US.
So how did it happen in the US?
Srivathsa
=======================
My point is that much of the success is luck and timing that is unforeseen until after the fact.
You can't win if you don't play and those that play dirty with the right people at the right time are the ones that win.
Why do you think that the US is not corrupt?
Don't you watch the news? Even the main stream media is giving out enough information to see that corruption is rampant here as well.
The reality of the US is not what you believe.
================== |
