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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (31559)	11/13/2006 7:17:59 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541911

That fact helps increase class mobility. If you couldn't accumulate the wealth you couldn't move up, and the rich truly would be a separate social class that consists of the same people staying on top of everyone else. True, but as the article, (and I before as well) pointed out, this is why the richest Americans are getting richer, they are the "asset class". Those who have assets, and enough so that they don't dip into them significantly for living, are the ones benefitting the most these days. With paragraph 2 I mostly agree. Those are the primarily regulator mechanisms I can think of in a non-enforced systems. I would add outright philanthropy as perhaps the biggest one. The European aristocrats controlled the land, at a time when land wasn't generally freely available. Which is why America was a unique experiment. The new immigrants understood land ownership, while the natives did not. For the immigrants it was virgin country as far as they were concerned, something they lacked in Europe. Property ownership has been a very fundamental part of the American middle class ever since. All I'm trying to point out, is that the data now looks very interesting: A very free market system, although one with still significant "progressive" mechanisms such as estate tax, has resulted in a quite skewed income & wealth distribution. At the same time, our system tends to tax working income (wages) significantly more than asset income, so the system is reinforcing the problem. IMO, the system currently enhances the upper reaches of the wealth ecosystem. I would like to see more thought as to how the middle and lower reaches can be enhanced. Unlike you, I think such proactive means on the part of the State, can help ensure a stable and healthy society long term.