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Edited by Bistromathics:
4/13/2014 5:42:07 PM
19
"Capitalism simply isn't working"
[url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/12/capitalism-isnt-working-thomas-piketty]Guardian article on a new and slightly controversial book from French economist Thomas Piketty.[/url]
[quote]...Piketty is in no doubt, as he indicates in an interview in today's Observer New Review, that the current level of rising wealth inequality, set to grow still further, now imperils the very future of capitalism. He has proved it.
It is a startling thesis and one extraordinarily unwelcome to those who think capitalism and inequality need each other. Capitalism requires inequality of wealth, runs this right-of-centre argument, to stimulate risk-taking and effort; governments trying to stem it with taxes on wealth, capital, inheritance and property kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Thus Messrs Cameron and Osborne faithfully champion lower inheritance taxes, refuse to reshape the council tax and boast about the business-friendly low capital gains and corporation tax regime.
Piketty deploys 200 years of data to prove them wrong. Capital, he argues, is blind. Once its returns – investing in anything from buy-to-let property to a new car factory – exceed the real growth of wages and output, as historically they always have done (excepting a few periods such as 1910 to 1950), then inevitably the stock of capital will rise disproportionately faster within the overall pattern of output. Wealth inequality rises exponentially.[/quote]
[url=http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X]Capital in the Twenty-First Century[/url] is pretty much on fire right now and has brought its author into the limelight. Thomas Piketty, from the Paris School of Economics, has analyzed hundreds of years of data and come to the conclusion that massive wealth inequality is very detrimental and very inevitable in our current, capitalist structures.
[url=http://www.vox.com/2014/4/8/5592198/the-short-guide-to-capital-in-the-21st-century]Here is a quick guide to the book and Piketty's arguments.[/url]
[url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/]Unsurprisingly, the most thorough review of the book comes from a certain left-leaning economist.[/url]
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2 RepliesI started writing a massive post to counter the topic of this thread, but I was beginning to start an entire book, lol! Simply put, Capitalism is supposed to be about working hard, giving your best in anything you do and moving up in the workforce so you can become a success. Not everyone is guaranteed this and there will be losers in a capitalist economy. It doesn't mean that they have to stay losers. It's their freedom to choose whether they stay losers or find a new avenue to success. That's the nature of capitalism. The economy you are seeing now is [i]not[/i] capitalism. It's a hybrid monstrosity that's slowly being morphed into more of a socialistic economy, by the government, where the government dictates who wins and who loses instead of letting the free market decide. Yes, the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer, but [i]not[/i] because of capitalism. If you understand basic economics and pay attention to what the crooks in Washington D.C. are doing (both D's and R's), you'll realize this is all a power grab that will result in most everyone losing in the end. As a side note- not all rich people are evil, fat cats screwing the little, hard-working guy. There are plenty of rich people that actual donate tons of money to charity and build their businesses to promote job growth and opportunity for more Americans to one day become wealthy themselves. That's capitalism at it's best. The major news outlets will rob you of this reality and only focus on the small bunch of rich jerks that take their money and horde it while paying off politicians to help game the system so they can get richer and prevent others from becoming wealthy on their own. Dang, that was still pretty long. My bad.
