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> What fascinates me is that the authors of The Asset Economy are not talking about what anthropologist Dave Graeber called the 1 percent—the Trumps and the Mur
by legitster 5y ago
> What fascinates me is that the authors of The Asset Economy are not talking about what anthropologist Dave Graeber called the 1 percent—the Trumps and the Murdochs, the very, very rich. What about the, say 19 percent of Americans in the upper-class income tier, who will defend their right to be landlords, to increase their unearned wealth through their investments?
This is something I want to drum from the rooftops - the political effects of a handful of billionaires is vastly overrated compared to the sheer number of "merely" wealthy people. Your local zoning issues aren't because Jeff Bezos has taken a personal interest in destroying the lives of poor people in your neighborhood, it's because there are enough doctors and lawyers and children of doctors and lawyers acting selfishly to protect their investments.
In this regard, I wish more people would read Progress and Poverty. The book is a lightning flash of clarity. Especially in the last decade, it has become shockingly prescient.
- beaconstudios 5y agoYes the problem is class conflict, not a handful of people. The handful of people are just a sign of how badly the capitalist class are winning the conflict.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago"the problem" is the pareto distribution of wealth and power we can observe in every human society we know of. The tension ("class conflict") between the 20% and the 80% is a symptom. Even those systems that try to reduce its effect still have it.
- beaconstudios 5y agoWealth distribution is not the same as class conflict, it's an effect of it, but yes class division has existed since civilisation began (not so much beforehand though). In feudal times it was between the aristocracy and the peasantry, now it's between business owners and investors, and employees.
- CSSer 5y agoDo you have any recommendations for which publication/edition to choose? I have a Wikipedia-fueled, cursory knowledge of Georgism, but I'd like to learn more because it does seem compelling and relevant as you noted. It seems that it keeps coming up.
- legitster 5y agoThe free public domain version on Gutenberg is perfectly fine: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55308 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55308 It gets a bit heady near the end when it diverges into politics and philosophy, but the economic observations are on point.