Posted: Nov 30, 2013 10:34 pm
GT2211 wrote:http://www.democracyjournal.org/30/capitalism-redefined.php?page=allCapitalism Redefined
What prosperity is, where growth comes from, why markets work—and how we resolve the tension between a prosperous world and a moral one.
Nick Hanauer & Eric Beinhocker
For everyone but the top 1 percent of earners, the American economy is broken. Since the 1980s, there has been a widening disconnect between the lives lived by ordinary Americans and the statistics that say our prosperity is growing. Despite the setback of the Great Recession, the U.S. economy more than doubled in size during the last three decades while middle-class incomes and buying power have stagnated. Great fortunes were made while many baby boomers lost their retirement savings. Corporate profits reached record highs while social mobility reached record lows, lagging behind other developed countries. For too many families, the American Dream is becoming more a historical memory than an achievable reality.
These facts don’t just highlight the issues of inequality and the growing power of a plutocracy. They should also force us to ask a deeper set of questions about how our economy works—and, crucially, about how we assess and measure the very idea of economic progress.
Since capitalism/inequality/growth get discussed endlessly here. I thought this would make a good addition for those who care to read about the subject(which may just be me!) but be warned it is not a short read.
This is of course, a timely piece, as are others that take much the same focus and perspective, and it's very likely we'll see a good deal of these kind of analyses as things continue to go downhill for most Americans.
Something, as one might say, is dreadfully wrong in River City ... and it's causing enormous economic pains for the middle class and the poor., the "99 per cent," if you will, while the one per cent is enjoying more wealth than it knows what to do with. Income distribution has become obscenely skewed toward the top, long ago wiping away any sense of fairness people may have had 20 and 30 years ago.
I don't think we can redefine our way out of this dilemma, which I think is a rather normal outcome of (the now) largely unfettered nature of the capitalist system and its ethos. On the other hand, I've not read this piece yet, so when I do I'll probably have further comments.