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Popular intellectuals always try to give socialism a pass. It is left-wing sentiments—or more generally, anti-free-market sentiments—that enable industries to c

Popular intellectuals always try to give socialism a pass. It is left-wing sentiments—or more generally, anti-free-market sentiments—that enable industries to convince the populace to support laws that give them feudalistic control. See how the Hotel Industry successfully used these to lock down major short-term rental markets: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hotel-industrys-plan-to-combat-airbnb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hot... And what can reasonably be described as socialism in the context of these type of broad-strokes grand narrative discussions: compulsory income redistribution to fund social programs, has massively grown—at the expense of the private sector's share of GDP—over the last 60 years: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long... What has happened is that socialism has advanced due to the nature of democracy and short-term voter considerations, while the private sector has become more feudalistic due to the expansion of regulations (e.g. 5% of jobs required an occupational license in 1950. Today it's 30%). Another subject that intellectuals of this type won't touch is unions. Doctorow is well aware that all of the major institutions involved in the generation of ideas, like journalism and academia, are captured by unions. He's going to remain politically correct and not talk about the rent-extraction that unions engage in. e.g. unionized government sector workers in California now earn twice as much as private sector workers: https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-workers-earn-143000-twice-much-private-sector-workers https://www.hoover.org/research/california-state-government-... Not only are government sector unions seeing their income, as a share of GDP rise as they become kingmakers in municipal and state politics, but they are also successfully getting compliant governments to agree to collective bargaining terms that increasingly shield them from accountability, e.g. only 75 public school teachers were fired in New York over 16 months in 2015 and 2016: https://www.the74million.org/article/investigation-nyc-tried-to-fire-154-teachers-for-incompetence-or-misconduct-75-were/ https://www.the74million.org/article/investigation-nyc-tried...

esarbe 3y ago
And yet income has stagnated [0], income inequality[1] has let wealth coalesce into the hands of a few oligarchs[2] and those rich have the lowest tax rates in about 80 years[3]. Which is not surprising, because they enjoy almost excursively the politicians' attention[4]. Seems we direly need a bit of socialism. I'm sorry, what was your point? [0] https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ [1] https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/07/american-oligarchs-report-details-how-the-wealthiest-us-dynasties-hoard-their-fortunes-and-accelerate-inequality/ https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/07/american-oligarchs-... [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/rising-income-inequality-role-shifting-market/ https://www.epi.org/publication/rising-income-inequality-rol... [3] https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-booklet/fact-sheet-taxing-wealthy-americans/ https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-bo... [4] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- ETH_start 3y ago
  Income growth has stagnated because of growing centralization. All of this socialism you claim we need is contributing to that centralization. The EPI, which you cite twice, is heavily funded by public sector unions who are the primary beneficiaries of this socialism, and puts out misleading graphs. For example, the graph showing a growing gap between wages and productivity in the first article is based on using measures of wages and GDP that use different inflation indexes. [1] As for tax rates, the top income tax bracket was $400,000 in 1950, which adjusted for inflation, was equal to $4,000,000 today. And average incomes were lower in real terms too, so very few fell in that bracket. There were also significant tax loopholes in the 1950s, and a much larger cash economy, which enabled tax avoidance and evasion, respectively. Due to the loopholes being closed, the effective tax rates on the top 1% only decreased slightly since the 1950s, despite a massive decrease in nominal taxes. [2] When Kennedy decreased the nominal rate, tax revenues increased. So no, there's nothing to suggest we should return to those high nominal tax rates, especially as inflation and income growth would make those high brackets cover a much larger proportion of the population today than when those tax rates were last in place. Also let's look at the 1950s: that era had huge unions, which led to the destruction of the largest US industries. So the wage growth in the 1950s wasn't sustainable. And counter-acting the massive burden of the unions, the 1950s had: * fewer social programs (no Medicare) * much fewer regulations (no EPA or OSHA) * lower government spending * no collective bargaining for the Big Three Automaker workers (that death knell came in the 1960s) There was zero income tax between 1870 and 1900, when wages doubled and the financial position of industry improved. This was very much unlike the post-war period, where US industry was running on borrowed time, making increasingly burdensome concessions to unions. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sources-of-real-wage-stag... [2] https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
  - esarbe 3y ago
    > Income growth has stagnated because of growing centralization. All of this socialism you claim we need is contributing to that centralization. That's an unsubstantiated claim. The material you referenced points to other sources as the culprit. But let's start from the beginning. There has been wage stagnation and the workers share of the profit has been steadily shrinking ever since the 1970ies. The Bosworth piece you link to asserts that much. To quote from the article: > all of the evidence points to uncommonly small gains in workers’ real (adjusted for inflation) wages All the while, non-worker compensation has been rising disproportionately at double digit levels, at times decoupled even from the growth of the associated companies[1]. So, there's money. It's just not going to the workers. > All of this socialism you claim we need is contributing to that centralization. I'm not sure I see an argument for that. > especially as inflation and income growth would make those high brackets cover That's fine. We don't have to go back to the rates of the 1950ies. But having a person earning hundreds of thousands of USD per year paying a lower effective rate than a janitor is just cynical exploitation. > Also let's look at the 1950s: that era had huge unions, which led to the destruction of the largest US industries. The US industry and manufacturing was doing fine - until the shareholders and the management decided it would be more profitable to offshore production.[2] > So the wage growth in the 1950s wasn't sustainable. Differences in compensation between management and workers have been continuously expanding ever since the '50ies. So there seems to money around to continue to grow some wages. Just not to grow those of the workers doing the actual work. Strange, right? Meanwhile, Bosworth makes a compelling argument that offshoring and reduced competition is very much responsible for the drop in real wages. He writes: > However, some analysts point to the development of a highly competitive global market for labor combined with a more general reduction in product-market competition through reliance of mergers, IT patents, and regulations that suggest a reduced labor share may be a longer-lasting phenomenon. Percentage of workers represented in unions has not been as low as today in the last fifty years.[3] So, there you have it; by not having bargaining power, workers are being exploited by companies that leverage their size, reach and influence of regulations, resulting in record profits for these companies[4]. So, maybe we actually need stronger unions. I think there's an argument to be made. [1] https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/compensation/Pages/confront-pay-disparity.aspx https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/compensatio... [2] https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling-manufacturing-employment.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/195351/number-of-employees-represented-by-unions-in-the-us-since-2000/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195351/number-of-employe... [4] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/2022/04/why-corporations-are-reaping-record-profits-with-inflation-on-the-rise/ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/2022/04/why-corporati...
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Socialism aside, since that is a boogieman. As much as 'free-market' is boogieman. There were problems in the free market in the 1900's with employees being slaves, corporations were hiring Pinkertons and killing people. It was actual war. So Unions were the outcome. Maybe Unions were not optimal, but they were not the cause of all this, they were the outcome. Nobody formed Unions to 'extract' rents, they were formed for preservation. Now --> Things changed. Just like all organizations, maybe Unions then went sideways, became rent extractors. That was much later. Unions weren't formed to extract rent. But this is a boogieman. Unions are at an all time low % of population. Membership has been decreasing for decades, they no longer have much political power, even Democrats barely pay attention to them. SO in some sense maybe 'free' market is already eroding them. They definitely are not big enough or widespread enough to be causing a general problem in the economy. While at the same time, employee rights have been eroded, many people with full time jobs live in poverty and are on welfare, exactly because the 'free-market' has allowed corporations to pay below-living wage. If any thing, we need more Unions to correct the downward pressure of the free-market. On Rents. I find the real scary part of this article is discussion of Monopolies that extract rent, under pressure. From the article. "" Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The "free market" of Adam Smith wasn't a market that was free from regulation – it was a market free from rents. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist's due: https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/ https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/ Today, we live in a rentier's paradise. People don't aspire to create value – they aspire to capture it "" Or if not monopolies, by entire industries that only offer bad choices. Lets say you want to buy a car that doesn't track you, you go to the free market and through competition try and find an option that does not track you. But, every car company is going down the same path of tracking, now you the customer that wants to make a free choice in the free-market, can't. There are no options.
- ETH_start 3y ago
  >There were problems in the free market in the 1900's with employees being slaves, corporations were hiring Pinkertons and killing people. It was actual war. So Unions were the outcome. Pinkertons were brought in when unions set up picket lines, and then beat up or killed any worker who crossed it. Unions call replacement workers "scabs" to dehumanize them, so that they can rationalize brutalizing them. It was always a racket, and dominated by Communists and organized crime from the very beginning.

esarbe 3y ago

And yet income has stagnated [0], income inequality[1] has let wealth coalesce into the hands of a few oligarchs[2] and those rich have the lowest tax rates in about 80 years[3]. Which is not surprising, because they enjoy almost excursively the politicians' attention[4]. Seems we direly need a bit of socialism. I'm sorry, what was your point? [0] https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ [1] https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/07/american-oligarchs-report-details-how-the-wealthiest-us-dynasties-hoard-their-fortunes-and-accelerate-inequality/ https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2021/07/american-oligarchs-... [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/rising-income-inequality-role-shifting-market/ https://www.epi.org/publication/rising-income-inequality-rol... [3] https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-booklet/fact-sheet-taxing-wealthy-americans/ https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-bo... [4] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

ETH_start 3y ago
Income growth has stagnated because of growing centralization. All of this socialism you claim we need is contributing to that centralization. The EPI, which you cite twice, is heavily funded by public sector unions who are the primary beneficiaries of this socialism, and puts out misleading graphs. For example, the graph showing a growing gap between wages and productivity in the first article is based on using measures of wages and GDP that use different inflation indexes. [1] As for tax rates, the top income tax bracket was $400,000 in 1950, which adjusted for inflation, was equal to $4,000,000 today. And average incomes were lower in real terms too, so very few fell in that bracket. There were also significant tax loopholes in the 1950s, and a much larger cash economy, which enabled tax avoidance and evasion, respectively. Due to the loopholes being closed, the effective tax rates on the top 1% only decreased slightly since the 1950s, despite a massive decrease in nominal taxes. [2] When Kennedy decreased the nominal rate, tax revenues increased. So no, there's nothing to suggest we should return to those high nominal tax rates, especially as inflation and income growth would make those high brackets cover a much larger proportion of the population today than when those tax rates were last in place. Also let's look at the 1950s: that era had huge unions, which led to the destruction of the largest US industries. So the wage growth in the 1950s wasn't sustainable. And counter-acting the massive burden of the unions, the 1950s had: * fewer social programs (no Medicare) * much fewer regulations (no EPA or OSHA) * lower government spending * no collective bargaining for the Big Three Automaker workers (that death knell came in the 1960s) There was zero income tax between 1870 and 1900, when wages doubled and the financial position of industry improved. This was very much unlike the post-war period, where US industry was running on borrowed time, making increasingly burdensome concessions to unions. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sources-of-real-wage-stagnation/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sources-of-real-wage-stag... [2] https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
- esarbe 3y ago
  > Income growth has stagnated because of growing centralization. All of this socialism you claim we need is contributing to that centralization. That's an unsubstantiated claim. The material you referenced points to other sources as the culprit. But let's start from the beginning. There has been wage stagnation and the workers share of the profit has been steadily shrinking ever since the 1970ies. The Bosworth piece you link to asserts that much. To quote from the article: > all of the evidence points to uncommonly small gains in workers’ real (adjusted for inflation) wages All the while, non-worker compensation has been rising disproportionately at double digit levels, at times decoupled even from the growth of the associated companies[1]. So, there's money. It's just not going to the workers. > All of this socialism you claim we need is contributing to that centralization. I'm not sure I see an argument for that. > especially as inflation and income growth would make those high brackets cover That's fine. We don't have to go back to the rates of the 1950ies. But having a person earning hundreds of thousands of USD per year paying a lower effective rate than a janitor is just cynical exploitation. > Also let's look at the 1950s: that era had huge unions, which led to the destruction of the largest US industries. The US industry and manufacturing was doing fine - until the shareholders and the management decided it would be more profitable to offshore production.[2] > So the wage growth in the 1950s wasn't sustainable. Differences in compensation between management and workers have been continuously expanding ever since the '50ies. So there seems to money around to continue to grow some wages. Just not to grow those of the workers doing the actual work. Strange, right? Meanwhile, Bosworth makes a compelling argument that offshoring and reduced competition is very much responsible for the drop in real wages. He writes: > However, some analysts point to the development of a highly competitive global market for labor combined with a more general reduction in product-market competition through reliance of mergers, IT patents, and regulations that suggest a reduced labor share may be a longer-lasting phenomenon. Percentage of workers represented in unions has not been as low as today in the last fifty years.[3] So, there you have it; by not having bargaining power, workers are being exploited by companies that leverage their size, reach and influence of regulations, resulting in record profits for these companies[4]. So, maybe we actually need stronger unions. I think there's an argument to be made. [1] https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/compensation/Pages/confront-pay-disparity.aspx https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/compensatio... [2] https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling-manufacturing-employment.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/195351/number-of-employees-represented-by-unions-in-the-us-since-2000/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195351/number-of-employe... [4] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/2022/04/why-corporations-are-reaping-record-profits-with-inflation-on-the-rise/ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/2022/04/why-corporati...

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Socialism aside, since that is a boogieman. As much as 'free-market' is boogieman. There were problems in the free market in the 1900's with employees being slaves, corporations were hiring Pinkertons and killing people. It was actual war. So Unions were the outcome. Maybe Unions were not optimal, but they were not the cause of all this, they were the outcome. Nobody formed Unions to 'extract' rents, they were formed for preservation. Now --> Things changed. Just like all organizations, maybe Unions then went sideways, became rent extractors. That was much later. Unions weren't formed to extract rent. But this is a boogieman. Unions are at an all time low % of population. Membership has been decreasing for decades, they no longer have much political power, even Democrats barely pay attention to them. SO in some sense maybe 'free' market is already eroding them. They definitely are not big enough or widespread enough to be causing a general problem in the economy. While at the same time, employee rights have been eroded, many people with full time jobs live in poverty and are on welfare, exactly because the 'free-market' has allowed corporations to pay below-living wage. If any thing, we need more Unions to correct the downward pressure of the free-market. On Rents. I find the real scary part of this article is discussion of Monopolies that extract rent, under pressure. From the article. "" Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The "free market" of Adam Smith wasn't a market that was free from regulation – it was a market free from rents. The reason Smith railed against monopolists is because he (correctly) understood that once a monopoly emerged, it would become a chokepoint through which a rentier could cream off the profits he considered the capitalist's due: https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/ https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/ Today, we live in a rentier's paradise. People don't aspire to create value – they aspire to capture it "" Or if not monopolies, by entire industries that only offer bad choices. Lets say you want to buy a car that doesn't track you, you go to the free market and through competition try and find an option that does not track you. But, every car company is going down the same path of tracking, now you the customer that wants to make a free choice in the free-market, can't. There are no options.

ETH_start 3y ago
>There were problems in the free market in the 1900's with employees being slaves, corporations were hiring Pinkertons and killing people. It was actual war. So Unions were the outcome. Pinkertons were brought in when unions set up picket lines, and then beat up or killed any worker who crossed it. Unions call replacement workers "scabs" to dehumanize them, so that they can rationalize brutalizing them. It was always a racket, and dominated by Communists and organized crime from the very beginning.