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In summary: Those in the 99th to 99.9th percentile of wealth may be richer than those in the 98th percentile, but they don't enjoy most advantages implicitly gr

In summary: Those in the 99th to 99.9th percentile of wealth may be richer than those in the 98th percentile, but they don't enjoy most advantages implicitly granted to the top 0.1% of Americans.

gburt 15y ago
I think this is a very important point. The 1% is not the enemy except for in symbolic terms. The enemy is a much smaller group of individuals/corporations than that, and perhaps even, the enemy is more of a "process" than it is any group. I doubt Wal*Mart executives sit up at the top of their tower and plan about how they can tear apart society for their own self interest, but rather, there is a whole process and system built up that is doing exactly that.
- cynicalkane 15y ago
  I was ready to agree until you said Wal*Mart, in particular in the context of 'tearing apart society'. Economists--including progressives, such as Matt Yglesais--often comment on the bipartisan fetishization of small businesses and liberal demonization of large ones. This attitude often seems motivated by isolated incidents--the tendency of any deep pocketed company to attract bad press and lawsuits--not the general effect of large business on people as accounted for by sound economic data. In general, large businesses tend to offer better jobs and more advanced economies tend to have more, larger businesses. Nor should Wal-Mart be constructed as harming the lower class, as their very low prices are especially important for the lower class which they achieve by real efficiencies of scale for which mom-and-pop stores are generally incapable. I don't have time to find citations everything, but for the last claim you can check out http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dialogues/features/2006/is_walmart_good_for_the_american_working_class/the_low_prices_are_good_news.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dialogues/fe...
  - nekojima 15y ago
    In some markets WalMart is losing market share or decreased revenue growth because it has priced itself above what the 'lower class' can afford. This is largely why dollar (or less) stores have done so well in recent years in North America.
  - pyre 15y ago
    What about their response to employees trying to start a union?
    - dantheman 15y ago
      Unions in America are broken; no one has problems with a group of people organizing as long as they don't get special rights. For instance, being able to fire a person when they don't show up for work, e.g. firing strikers. Or look at what the NLRB is doing to Boeing as they try to open up a new plant in SC. It's unfortunate, but unions are a cancer - they enshrine an us vs them attitude, they demand special rights, they encourage bad management, and in general act as a parasite sucking as much benefit as they can from their host.
      - lifeisstillgood 15y ago
        > Unions are a cancer I don't wish to start a flame war so I shall be measured here. Unions came in to being to fight massive, widespread exploration of workers that today would be considered criminal. Unions are still required for their original purpose across the globe ( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides) I agree that the USA has been curiously free of unionisation (having 5% of your population as illegal indentured servants probably helps) but most western countries have had the unions win their important battles and it will take a while, if ever, before unions as they were in late 19c early 20c will be needed again oddly it feels like movements such as occupy are going to become the new union movement. Anyway my point was that unions = cancer is such a self evidently wrong thing to say for billions of workers that it even makes cancer cringe.
        dantheman 15y ago
        Many battles unions claim to have "won" were already transformation that were happening that they took credit for. Also unions in the US have reprehensible tactics such as advocating - card checks for voting (intimidation), unfunded pensions, forcing nonunion members to pay dues, having closed shops, etc. As for the conditions at Foxconn, I feel for the people - but often it's the best option that people have; i.e. it's better to work at Foxconn than be a subsistence farmer. The suicide rate there is 13.9 which is lower than Finland & Switzerland among many others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... and much lower than US armed forces @ 20.2 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c662840-9b74-11df-8239-00144feab49a.html#axzz1je4R7WRS http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c662840-9b74-11df-8239-00144feab4... In general, as a community gets richer work conditions improve. When a community first starts working it doesn't have access to the intangible wealth that richer communies have and thus they need to work more hours to make up for this deficiency. As time progresses the accumulate wealth - build roads, infrastructure, housing, stores, have savings. And so can afford to work less, as they work less they start sending children to school instead of the factory (housing and food can be earned by the parents), which then increases the wealth as they are able to work on tasks that require more specialized labor. The better working conditions achieved in America vs China are the result of capital investment and not unions. Often times unions use their power to cement the position in industry, and use labor law to decrease competition (think of it as regulatory capture). For example there is the case of LOCHNER v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK: "The true origins of the Bakeshop Act lie in an economic conflict between unionized New York bakers, who labored in large shops and lobbied relentlessly in favor of the law, and their nonunionized, mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant competitors, who tended to work longer hours in small, old-fashioned bakeries. “A ten-hour day would not only aid those unionized bakeries who had not successfully demanded that their hours be reduced,” Bernstein observes, “but would also drive out of business many old-fashioned bakeries that depended on flexible labor schedules.” The large corporate bakeries joined the union in supporting the Bakeshop Act. After all, it was in their economic interest to favor regulations that crippled the competition." (http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/14/lochner-isnt-a-dirty-word http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/14/lochner-isnt-a-dirty-w...) Now this isn't to say that unions didn't accomplish anything or to say that they didn't have a positive impact in some ways; I just think that 1. unions get a lot of credit for things they have a mild impact on 2. people ignore all of the horrible things that they do
  - gburt 15y ago
    To be honest, I was just making a point using terms a lot of people could identify with. I would agree that Wal*Mart is actually an effective social wealth creator, probably more so than any government welfare program.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Yes, it is unfortunate. 1% was a convenient number when the movement was formed. It does not seem to be factually accurate.
  - scarmig 15y ago
    We are the 99.932%! I wonder if the increase in inequality is scale invariant, or if you end up seeing some kind of kink at some point in it.

In summary: Those in the 99th to 99.9th percentile of wealth may be richer than those in the 98th percentile, but they don't enjoy most advantages implicitly granted to the top 0.1% of Americans.

gburt 15y ago

I think this is a very important point. The 1% is not the enemy except for in symbolic terms. The enemy is a much smaller group of individuals/corporations than that, and perhaps even, the enemy is more of a "process" than it is any group. I doubt Wal*Mart executives sit up at the top of their tower and plan about how they can tear apart society for their own self interest, but rather, there is a whole process and system built up that is doing exactly that.

cynicalkane 15y ago
I was ready to agree until you said Wal*Mart, in particular in the context of 'tearing apart society'. Economists--including progressives, such as Matt Yglesais--often comment on the bipartisan fetishization of small businesses and liberal demonization of large ones. This attitude often seems motivated by isolated incidents--the tendency of any deep pocketed company to attract bad press and lawsuits--not the general effect of large business on people as accounted for by sound economic data. In general, large businesses tend to offer better jobs and more advanced economies tend to have more, larger businesses. Nor should Wal-Mart be constructed as harming the lower class, as their very low prices are especially important for the lower class which they achieve by real efficiencies of scale for which mom-and-pop stores are generally incapable. I don't have time to find citations everything, but for the last claim you can check out http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dialogues/features/2006/is_walmart_good_for_the_american_working_class/the_low_prices_are_good_news.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dialogues/fe...
- nekojima 15y ago
  In some markets WalMart is losing market share or decreased revenue growth because it has priced itself above what the 'lower class' can afford. This is largely why dollar (or less) stores have done so well in recent years in North America.
- pyre 15y ago
  What about their response to employees trying to start a union?
  - dantheman 15y ago
    Unions in America are broken; no one has problems with a group of people organizing as long as they don't get special rights. For instance, being able to fire a person when they don't show up for work, e.g. firing strikers. Or look at what the NLRB is doing to Boeing as they try to open up a new plant in SC. It's unfortunate, but unions are a cancer - they enshrine an us vs them attitude, they demand special rights, they encourage bad management, and in general act as a parasite sucking as much benefit as they can from their host.
    - lifeisstillgood 15y ago
      > Unions are a cancer I don't wish to start a flame war so I shall be measured here. Unions came in to being to fight massive, widespread exploration of workers that today would be considered criminal. Unions are still required for their original purpose across the globe ( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides) I agree that the USA has been curiously free of unionisation (having 5% of your population as illegal indentured servants probably helps) but most western countries have had the unions win their important battles and it will take a while, if ever, before unions as they were in late 19c early 20c will be needed again oddly it feels like movements such as occupy are going to become the new union movement. Anyway my point was that unions = cancer is such a self evidently wrong thing to say for billions of workers that it even makes cancer cringe.
      - dantheman 15y ago
        Many battles unions claim to have "won" were already transformation that were happening that they took credit for. Also unions in the US have reprehensible tactics such as advocating - card checks for voting (intimidation), unfunded pensions, forcing nonunion members to pay dues, having closed shops, etc. As for the conditions at Foxconn, I feel for the people - but often it's the best option that people have; i.e. it's better to work at Foxconn than be a subsistence farmer. The suicide rate there is 13.9 which is lower than Finland & Switzerland among many others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... and much lower than US armed forces @ 20.2 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c662840-9b74-11df-8239-00144feab49a.html#axzz1je4R7WRS http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c662840-9b74-11df-8239-00144feab4... In general, as a community gets richer work conditions improve. When a community first starts working it doesn't have access to the intangible wealth that richer communies have and thus they need to work more hours to make up for this deficiency. As time progresses the accumulate wealth - build roads, infrastructure, housing, stores, have savings. And so can afford to work less, as they work less they start sending children to school instead of the factory (housing and food can be earned by the parents), which then increases the wealth as they are able to work on tasks that require more specialized labor. The better working conditions achieved in America vs China are the result of capital investment and not unions. Often times unions use their power to cement the position in industry, and use labor law to decrease competition (think of it as regulatory capture). For example there is the case of LOCHNER v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK: "The true origins of the Bakeshop Act lie in an economic conflict between unionized New York bakers, who labored in large shops and lobbied relentlessly in favor of the law, and their nonunionized, mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant competitors, who tended to work longer hours in small, old-fashioned bakeries. “A ten-hour day would not only aid those unionized bakeries who had not successfully demanded that their hours be reduced,” Bernstein observes, “but would also drive out of business many old-fashioned bakeries that depended on flexible labor schedules.” The large corporate bakeries joined the union in supporting the Bakeshop Act. After all, it was in their economic interest to favor regulations that crippled the competition." (http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/14/lochner-isnt-a-dirty-word http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/14/lochner-isnt-a-dirty-w...) Now this isn't to say that unions didn't accomplish anything or to say that they didn't have a positive impact in some ways; I just think that 1. unions get a lot of credit for things they have a mild impact on 2. people ignore all of the horrible things that they do
- gburt 15y ago
  To be honest, I was just making a point using terms a lot of people could identify with. I would agree that Wal*Mart is actually an effective social wealth creator, probably more so than any government welfare program.
sliverstorm 15y ago
Yes, it is unfortunate. 1% was a convenient number when the movement was formed. It does not seem to be factually accurate.
- scarmig 15y ago
  We are the 99.932%! I wonder if the increase in inequality is scale invariant, or if you end up seeing some kind of kink at some point in it.