4 ms·

Are there any facts to substantiate your assertion about power being the problem? It would seem to me that the power of elites is trending down if anything. The

by cjlars 10y ago

Are there any facts to substantiate your assertion about power being the problem? It would seem to me that the power of elites is trending down if anything. The rise of Trump, the Brexit vote, and the rise in taxes as a percent of GDP across most rich counties would seem to go against the selfish interests of the monied elite.

mcguire 10y ago
Taking the US in isolation...[0] Donald Trump's campaign is populist, not whatever-the-political-opposite-of-elite-is. He is tied for #121 on the Forbes 400, after all.[1] I don't actually know enough about Brexit to tell what the hell is going on there (like a lot of people, apparently). I do know that some people[2a] are very unhappy that David Cameron called a referendum instead of going through parliament.[2b] See also populism. My feeling, however, is that the anti-immigration thingy has more to do with the UK's own inequality situation. Individual income taxes have been hovering between 6% and 10% of GDP since WWII; overall taxes have been between 15% and 20% of GDP since WWII.[3] Now, as far as power being the problem, to the extent of my knowledge there are no facts in politics. All I've got is that, historically, concentrating power into the hands of a small minority seems to be a poor idea; and that most of the modern "rich countries" are de facto pseudo-democracies, apparently in an effort to avoid having ultimate authority concentrated in a small minority. YMMV. Some shrinkage may occur. Not for internal use. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. [0] Unless someone's done gone and created a secret world government without copying me on the memo (Again, dammit!), rich countries' governmental structures should probably be treated in isolation. Particularly the US, which has remarkably little in common with "most rich countries". [1] http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/2/#version:static http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/2/#version:static [2a] https://next.ft.com/content/7877a0a6-3e11-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a https://next.ft.com/content/7877a0a6-3e11-11e6-9f2c-36b487eb... [2b] http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/02/graphics-britain-s-referendum-eu-membership http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/02/graphic... [3] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-share-gdp http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-sha...
- cjlars 10y ago
  Regarding [3], you're disregarding state and local taxes. I have a hard time seeing anything but an upward trend in a chart like this [4], given that spending deficits must ultimately be paid. [4] http://www.justfacts.com/images/taxes/federal_state_local_revenues_spending-full.png http://www.justfacts.com/images/taxes/federal_state_local_re...
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    Rich people have many tax loopholes available to them that everyone else doesn't have, including hiding income overseas. And many of them simply break the law, as the Panama papers revealed. And the tax loopholes are there largely because of lobbying and campaign contributions they paid for. You know, if the rich were actually suffering under confiscatory taxes, their percentage of total national income and wealth would be in the decline, but actually it has been steadily going up. Were you really not aware of that?
  - mcguire 10y ago
    You mean the chart that shows "Current Revenues" fluctuating between 25% and 30% of GDP since 1969, after a low of roughly 20% in 1949? I keep forgetting state and local taxes. I'm from Texas, which doesn't have a state income tax; I'm living in Alabama, which has an income tax rate of something like 4%. Both localities rely heavily on sales taxes to a typical tune of about 9% (and sales taxes are regressive, I'll remind you) and property taxes. Anyway, check this: http://taxfoundation.org/article/short-history-government-taxing-and-spending-united-states http://taxfoundation.org/article/short-history-government-ta... Chart 1 duplicates your graph's "Current Revenues" and "Current Spending" lines, while Table 1 shows total gov't receipts as a percent of GDP by (roughly) decade since 1930. In 1950, 22%; 1980, 28%; 2000, 31%; 2012, 26%. So yes, taxes have gone up. But not spectacularly, certainly not as much as deficit spending, and probably not to the excessive detriment of the "moneyed elite".
Futurebot 10y ago
Start with these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects http://rooseveltinstitute.org/stiglitz-why-inequality-matters-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/ http://rooseveltinstitute.org/stiglitz-why-inequality-matter... http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-rich-and-powerful-are-increasingly-well-suited-earning-wealth-and-power http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-ric... Also read "Twilight of the Elites" to learn about how inequality leads to greater "vertical social distance" and how the government now largely reflects the interests of those at the top (http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oli...)
- cjlars 10y ago
  Thanks for the links, I wasn't aware that the Wikipedia article was so flashed out on this topic. However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory. The economist article paints a link between education, IQ and income, but not political power. Stiglitz breifly asserts it's truth in point six in his article, but doesn't actually provide any documentation. And similarly, despite clicking through to a dozen promising sources in the wiki, I wasn't able to find any evidence of any sort of trend or change in political power associated to income inequality.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    "However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory." I am a little unclear on what you specifically mean by "the power theory". Do you mean to question the proposed relationship between greater monetary resources and greater (political and social) power? This is something that seems pretty obvious but there are some interesting graphs presented in: "Economic Inequality and Political Power (Part 1 of 3)", Martin Gilens, 2012. http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-political-power-part-1/ http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-pol... "When preferences across income groups do diverge, however, I found that the association with policy outcomes persisted for the affluent but disappeared for the middle class and the poor, as the second chart shows...If federal policy more equally reflected the preferences of all Americans, we would see a more progressive tax structure, higher unemployment benefits, stronger regulation of business and industry, a more protectionist trade regime, more prayer in public life, and less access to abortion."[1] Another source is: "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans", Benjamin I. Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright, ?. http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-... "There is good reason to believe that the wealthiest Americans exert more political influence than their less fortunate fellow citizens do. Historically oriented scholars like Thomas Ferguson, William Domhoff, Fred Block, and others have long argued that “major investors” or business elites dominate the making of public policy and the agendas of both the Republican and the Democratic parties.1 Jeffrey Winters maintains that the top one-tenth of 1 percent of US wealth-holders constitute an “oligarchy” with decisive power over certain key policy areas related to what he calls “income defense.”2 Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe how Washington has “made the rich richer.”3 "Even without being able to gauge the actual political power of wealthy citizens, we can confidently reject the view that extensive political power by the wealthy would be of little practical importance anyway because their policy preferences are much the same as everyone else’s. On many important issues the preferences of the wealthy appear to differ markedly from those of the general public. Thus, if policy makers do weigh citizens’ policy preferences differentially based on their income or wealth, the result will not only significantly violate democratic ideals of political equality, but will also affect the substantive contours of American public policy." Which I found from, "Wealth Inequality and Political Inequality" by Bruce Bartlett. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequality-and-political-inequality/?_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequali... Or, do you mean to question the proposed relationship between monetary inequality[2] and (political and social) power specifically? There are several links on the Wikipedia page concerning specifically inequality and social cohesion, crime, and social, cultural, and civic participation; all of these are more or less linked to perceived social and political power. However, more specifically: "Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement", Frederick Solt, 2005. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602.5620&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602... "It finds that income inequality has a large negative effect on political interest, frequency of political discussion, and participation in elections among those with median and lower incomes." Another source is: "Income Inequality and Participation: A Comparison of 24 European Countries", Bram Lancee and Herman van de w erfhorst, 2011. http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lancee,vdWerfhorst-2.pdf http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lanc... "To conclude, although resources are important to explain participation, there seems to be support for the theory that resources are not fully able to explain inequality effects on participation. In addition to the material or neo-material theory that explains inequality effects in terms of resources, we found support for the idea that inequality affects people of different income levels differently through non-material, inter-individual processes. " Also, Martin Gilens' subsequent blog posts provide further discussion of the effects of inequality specifically. [1] A blog post, yes, but I believe the data is taken from his book, Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. [2] Yeah, I'm assuming income inequality is strongly related to wealth inequality, at the very least.

by cjlars 10y ago

mcguire 10y ago

Taking the US in isolation...[0] Donald Trump's campaign is populist, not whatever-the-political-opposite-of-elite-is. He is tied for #121 on the Forbes 400, after all.[1] I don't actually know enough about Brexit to tell what the hell is going on there (like a lot of people, apparently). I do know that some people[2a] are very unhappy that David Cameron called a referendum instead of going through parliament.[2b] See also populism. My feeling, however, is that the anti-immigration thingy has more to do with the UK's own inequality situation. Individual income taxes have been hovering between 6% and 10% of GDP since WWII; overall taxes have been between 15% and 20% of GDP since WWII.[3] Now, as far as power being the problem, to the extent of my knowledge there are no facts in politics. All I've got is that, historically, concentrating power into the hands of a small minority seems to be a poor idea; and that most of the modern "rich countries" are de facto pseudo-democracies, apparently in an effort to avoid having ultimate authority concentrated in a small minority. YMMV. Some shrinkage may occur. Not for internal use. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. [0] Unless someone's done gone and created a secret world government without copying me on the memo (Again, dammit!), rich countries' governmental structures should probably be treated in isolation. Particularly the US, which has remarkably little in common with "most rich countries". [1] http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/2/#version:static http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/2/#version:static [2a] https://next.ft.com/content/7877a0a6-3e11-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a https://next.ft.com/content/7877a0a6-3e11-11e6-9f2c-36b487eb... [2b] http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/02/graphics-britain-s-referendum-eu-membership http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/02/graphic... [3] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-share-gdp http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-sha...

cjlars 10y ago
Regarding [3], you're disregarding state and local taxes. I have a hard time seeing anything but an upward trend in a chart like this [4], given that spending deficits must ultimately be paid. [4] http://www.justfacts.com/images/taxes/federal_state_local_revenues_spending-full.png http://www.justfacts.com/images/taxes/federal_state_local_re...
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  Rich people have many tax loopholes available to them that everyone else doesn't have, including hiding income overseas. And many of them simply break the law, as the Panama papers revealed. And the tax loopholes are there largely because of lobbying and campaign contributions they paid for. You know, if the rich were actually suffering under confiscatory taxes, their percentage of total national income and wealth would be in the decline, but actually it has been steadily going up. Were you really not aware of that?
- mcguire 10y ago
  You mean the chart that shows "Current Revenues" fluctuating between 25% and 30% of GDP since 1969, after a low of roughly 20% in 1949? I keep forgetting state and local taxes. I'm from Texas, which doesn't have a state income tax; I'm living in Alabama, which has an income tax rate of something like 4%. Both localities rely heavily on sales taxes to a typical tune of about 9% (and sales taxes are regressive, I'll remind you) and property taxes. Anyway, check this: http://taxfoundation.org/article/short-history-government-taxing-and-spending-united-states http://taxfoundation.org/article/short-history-government-ta... Chart 1 duplicates your graph's "Current Revenues" and "Current Spending" lines, while Table 1 shows total gov't receipts as a percent of GDP by (roughly) decade since 1930. In 1950, 22%; 1980, 28%; 2000, 31%; 2012, 26%. So yes, taxes have gone up. But not spectacularly, certainly not as much as deficit spending, and probably not to the excessive detriment of the "moneyed elite".

Futurebot 10y ago

Start with these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality#Effects http://rooseveltinstitute.org/stiglitz-why-inequality-matters-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/ http://rooseveltinstitute.org/stiglitz-why-inequality-matter... http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-rich-and-powerful-are-increasingly-well-suited-earning-wealth-and-power http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-ric... Also read "Twilight of the Elites" to learn about how inequality leads to greater "vertical social distance" and how the government now largely reflects the interests of those at the top (http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oli...)

cjlars 10y ago
Thanks for the links, I wasn't aware that the Wikipedia article was so flashed out on this topic. However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory. The economist article paints a link between education, IQ and income, but not political power. Stiglitz breifly asserts it's truth in point six in his article, but doesn't actually provide any documentation. And similarly, despite clicking through to a dozen promising sources in the wiki, I wasn't able to find any evidence of any sort of trend or change in political power associated to income inequality.
- mcguire 10y ago
  "However, I'm not sure I see any actual evidence to support the power theory." I am a little unclear on what you specifically mean by "the power theory". Do you mean to question the proposed relationship between greater monetary resources and greater (political and social) power? This is something that seems pretty obvious but there are some interesting graphs presented in: "Economic Inequality and Political Power (Part 1 of 3)", Martin Gilens, 2012. http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-political-power-part-1/ http://themonkeycage.org/2012/08/economic-inequality-and-pol... "When preferences across income groups do diverge, however, I found that the association with policy outcomes persisted for the affluent but disappeared for the middle class and the poor, as the second chart shows...If federal policy more equally reflected the preferences of all Americans, we would see a more progressive tax structure, higher unemployment benefits, stronger regulation of business and industry, a more protectionist trade regime, more prayer in public life, and less access to abortion."[1] Another source is: "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans", Benjamin I. Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright, ?. http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-... "There is good reason to believe that the wealthiest Americans exert more political influence than their less fortunate fellow citizens do. Historically oriented scholars like Thomas Ferguson, William Domhoff, Fred Block, and others have long argued that “major investors” or business elites dominate the making of public policy and the agendas of both the Republican and the Democratic parties.1 Jeffrey Winters maintains that the top one-tenth of 1 percent of US wealth-holders constitute an “oligarchy” with decisive power over certain key policy areas related to what he calls “income defense.”2 Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe how Washington has “made the rich richer.”3 "Even without being able to gauge the actual political power of wealthy citizens, we can confidently reject the view that extensive political power by the wealthy would be of little practical importance anyway because their policy preferences are much the same as everyone else’s. On many important issues the preferences of the wealthy appear to differ markedly from those of the general public. Thus, if policy makers do weigh citizens’ policy preferences differentially based on their income or wealth, the result will not only significantly violate democratic ideals of political equality, but will also affect the substantive contours of American public policy." Which I found from, "Wealth Inequality and Political Inequality" by Bruce Bartlett. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequality-and-political-inequality/?_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/wealth-inequali... Or, do you mean to question the proposed relationship between monetary inequality[2] and (political and social) power specifically? There are several links on the Wikipedia page concerning specifically inequality and social cohesion, crime, and social, cultural, and civic participation; all of these are more or less linked to perceived social and political power. However, more specifically: "Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement", Frederick Solt, 2005. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602.5620&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.602... "It finds that income inequality has a large negative effect on political interest, frequency of political discussion, and participation in elections among those with median and lower incomes." Another source is: "Income Inequality and Participation: A Comparison of 24 European Countries", Bram Lancee and Herman van de w erfhorst, 2011. http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lancee,vdWerfhorst-2.pdf http://www.uva-aias.net/uploaded_files/publications/DP6-Lanc... "To conclude, although resources are important to explain participation, there seems to be support for the theory that resources are not fully able to explain inequality effects on participation. In addition to the material or neo-material theory that explains inequality effects in terms of resources, we found support for the idea that inequality affects people of different income levels differently through non-material, inter-individual processes. " Also, Martin Gilens' subsequent blog posts provide further discussion of the effects of inequality specifically. [1] A blog post, yes, but I believe the data is taken from his book, Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. [2] Yeah, I'm assuming income inequality is strongly related to wealth inequality, at the very least.