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Trickle-down theory is accurate! It's just not necessarily money that's raining down on our heads. Less snarkily: Piketty observes that reinvested capital acc
by cstross 9y ago
Trickle-down theory is accurate!
It's just not necessarily money that's raining down on our heads.
Less snarkily: Piketty observes that reinvested capital accumulates at a faster rate than labour. Also, we have no global taxation system, so capital flows through the cracks into regimes with the lowest tax rate -- meanwhile, labour is pinned down by strict laws restricting immigration, and mostly can't go where wages are higher. (In the tech sector we're privileged exceptions, but consider the plight of an agricultural labourer.)
The system itself is broken, and the people who run it have forgotten the lesson of history that people with no stake in a system eventually turn to violence when threatened with starvation.
- thinkloop 9y agoHow would you fix it? It looks like a structural/technological issue: less people needed to produce the same/more amount of value. Whereas previously you needed thousands of workers, now you can have a craigslist make hundreds of millions of dollars with 19 workers (they had the record at one point for most money per employee). Labour is just less valuable now, and the system will need to change - not that it broke.
- expertentipp 9y ago> The system itself is broken, and the people who run it have forgotten the lesson of history that people with no stake in a system eventually turn to violence when threatened with starvation. The people who run it are aware that they can, with impunity, make others starve when necessary (see multiple famines in the European history). Such potential power is extremely exciting for some.
- hippich 9y agoJust curious - where agriculture labour would go if there would be no strict immigration laws?