Is America now a plutocracy? Interesting commentary. . .
While I'm not essentially pleased with some of this view of our economic/political situation, there is perhaps more truth in it that I would like to admit. In this commentary, Francis Fukuyama ponders the growth of American plutocracy, and how it may have encompassed both political parties. Catch a glimpse:
It has been a central theme of the Obama campaign that Mitt Romney wants to undo the President’s hard work to end the rule of, by and for the rich in America. In one sense, this is all just crude campaign rhetoric to paint Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch elitist. But it also touches on a serious case to be made that the rich throughout American history have manipulated government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence at the expense of others.
[snip]
A study by French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez shows that, between 1978 and 2007, the share of U.S. income accruing to the top 1 per cent of American families jumped from 9 per cent to 23.5 per cent of the total.
As the years went by and those outsized gains at the top of the income distribution pyramid failed to trickle down in any substantial way, one would have expected growing demand for a left-leaning politics that sought, if not to equalize outcomes, then at least to bound their inequality.
Why, given the economic history of the past 30 years, have we not seen the emergence of a powerful left-wing political movement seeking fairer distribution of growth? Why was Mr. Obama pilloried during the 2008 campaign for even using the word “redistribution,” when all modern democracies (including the U.S.) already engage in a substantial degree of redistribution? Why has anti-elite populism taken a right-wing form, one that sees vast conspiracies not among private-sector actors such as bankers and hedge-fund operators but among government officials who were arguably trying to protect the public against real collusions if not outright conspiracies?
[link:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/money-power-and-class-in-america/article4666223/|
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