Conservatism or Corporatism?

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

What accounts for the spikes in these graphs? Conservative (free market) policy or corporatist (government intervention) policy?









Why'd average Wall St. bonus pay recently quadruple average annual salaries? Why'd the financial sector recently triple the nonfinancial sector? Why'd the highest incomes recently increase 36 times faster than median family income?

Provide concrete explanations as to how X (policy) caused Y (economic indicator). Point to specific legislation or executive orders.

The liberal position is predictable: The unprecedented extreme growth in the financial sector and increased inequality is bad. Free market policy (deregulation of banks --> derivatives market expansion --> collapse) is to blame.

I'm more interested in the conservative position: How do you explain the unprecedented growth in the financial sector and the increased income inequality? What're the causes? Is corporatism (government interventionism) responsible? If so, how? Do you draw a connection between the above figures and the financial collapse?

I honestly don't understand the conservative position.

Comments

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about owning luxury items. I'm talking about the relationship between high relative wealth and socio-political power.

Besides, wouldn't you argue that under current law in effect right now taxes the wealthiest excessively and unfairly? So logically, you are arguing for a system that would stop taxing them at a higher rate and therefore allow for a massive increase in the existing disparity.

So we aren't discussing the current situation in the U.S., we're actually talking about what it would look like if things were how you preferred, and the wealthy disparity was 10, 20 or 100 times greater than at present, with all that implies for the power ratio between rich and poor.

I'm not complaining that the poor don't have enough to eat (although last year 1 in 30 in the U.S. didn't have enough money to buy the minimum caloric intake) or whether they own cars.

I'm saying that when you have so much money compared to virtually everyone else that you can buy political power in bulk, things inevitably get slanted in your favour.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Besides, wouldn't you argue that under current law in effect right now taxes the wealthiest excessively and unfairly? So logically, you are arguing for a system that would stop taxing them at a higher rate and therefore allow for a massive increase in the existing disparity.

I'm arguing for a system that taxes people fairly, period. The end result of disparity or whatever is immaterial.

I'm saying that when you have so much money compared to virtually everyone else that you can buy political power in bulk, things inevitably get slanted in your favour.

And, again, I'm not convinced that matters in the first world.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

So basically you don't think that the age-old adage about power corrupting, doesn't apply in places where poor people have nice cars.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The old adage is about absolute power.

I think you need to check your adages

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"

Besides mentioning that power alone is sufficient to cause corruption, without needing to be absolute, I think both of us know very well that they were intimating that corruption increases as a function of power. The more power, the more corruption.

So again, do you actually think that so long as poor people have nice cars and food on the table, this ever-increasing corruption won't occur?

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So again, do you actually think that so long as poor people have nice cars and food on the table, this ever-increasing corruption won't occur?

More that it won't have as much of an impact, or perhaps more that they'll retain the ability to fix the problem. It's not as if the poor are powerless in this case.

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Well I agree that the relatively high (compared to the rest of the world) wealth of the poor in this scenario helps.

But wealth and the power it creates is relative.

If I have a million bucks in the bank and a nice car in the driveway, I still have nowhere near the individual power you do if you have a trillion dollars in the bank. The power ratio between us is still at least as great as if you only had a million dollar and I only had a $100.

Either way you can use that massive financial advantage to stack the decks against me, politically, legally, socially or in virtually any other respect.

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Without putting to fine a point on it, do you think in that scenario, that my million dollars and nice car, could prevent you using your trillion dollars to buy judgements in court to your favour, to create political smear campaigns that discredits me which I don't have the funds to fight, or even to have me killed with virtually no chance of consequences to you, for instance?

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No, I don't.

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

And you don't think that's a problem? Which the greater the disparity, the greater this problem becomes?

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You're working under the assumption that I accept your premise as valid in this circumstance.

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Which particular assumption?

a) High relative wealth = high relative socio-political power
b) Power corrupts
c) Or?

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Actually having $100 in the bank can in many cases lead to your winning judgments in court in the US.

In many cases a poor person merely needs to be harmed and sue a rich person or company and they will be awarded a judgment even if the defendant is judged to not be at fault merely on the grounds that said defendant was involved and can afford to pay.

This is not universal but it certainly exists.

The same is true on the political front. Your trillion dollars in the bank could not have bought John McCain the presidency, but a relatively speaking poor man (net wealth of only a few million) was able to win it on the basis of his charisma, charm, and skill at running a campaign.

Yes, wealth gets you power in the US but it is nowhere near the direct correlation that it is in places like Cuba or Nigeria.

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

The "adage" is Power TENDS to corrupt, Absolutely power corrupts absolutely.

But even so it is an adage, not an absolute sent down from Olympus. Altho like most adages that last (I believe this was Lord Acton in the 1890s) tend to have more than a modicum of truth to them :D

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Well of course the adage is speaking in generalities, and I wouldn't personally read too much specific into the word "tends". It's interesting to note that Lord Acton also admonished, seperately:

"And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

What I suppose we can fairly conclude from all this, is based on the same historical record that Lord Acton was mindful when he made these pronouncements, is that power certainly has a reliable tendency to create corruption, and that the level of this corruption correlates strongly with the level of power.

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Indeed, but what is not necessarily true in modern western economies is that power strongly correlates with wealth.

Also this more than anything is a reason to lessen government's ability to meddle in the economy (and yes, that includes it's power to regulate) because that power draws those who would abuse it until they inevitably control it and become like the "gangsters" Acton referred to.

Re: I think you need to check your adages

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Another thing we can agree on, when we get down to clarity :D

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Actually the point is in a first world country the relative power that simple wealth gives you is greatly reduced from a third world company.

Is Bill Gates more politically powerful than you or I? Certainly. But how does his power relative to us compare to the power of a rich Sheik in Saudi Arabia to a common worker there?

Yes, great wealth gets you more political power everywhere but in a modern first world economy the amount of power a given quantity of wealth will get you is greatly reduced.