Nobody needs this much money. Imagine if personal wealth was limited to say, I don’t know, $1B? Even $5B? Imagine what countries could do to improve safety, health, quality of life, global stewardship for all the Earth’s current and future sentient beings …
Well, the piece on Monday will talk about that. The purpose of taxation in an economy like ours would be to limit aggregate demand (spending) from the ultra wealthy so that then government could provide infrastructure and support across the society as a whole. On its face this may not seem to be in the ultra wealthy’s interest except for the fact that if the entire system collapses, which is what happens if we continue on the road we’re on, the ultra wealthy get killed and die and lose all their money and wealth. From 1950 to 1980, we had a system that didn’t collapse the system, somehow ultra wealthy people existed (and grew wealth anyways) despite a tax rate as high as 90% on the marginal level, and we also had a robust economy where most people could work one job and afford to live a life where their needs were met.
This is piece is the first of several I suspect I’ll write on this idea. As an economist I’m trying to flesh out what might wind up a book ahead of the next election. I think ultimately this idea… a return to a normalized economy, has to be the center of a Democratic platform of any candidate running… especially after the trajectory we will be on after Trump. I also feel the electorate will be sufficiently traumatized that it presents the best opportunity for elected leaders to enact such policies.
The perfect distillation of how it's all gone so wrong since Ronnie Raygun and his merry band of movement conservatives captured the public by selling the delusion that greed is good - I've been searching for this!! Thank you!
Thank you for this. I have lived in Norway since the early 90s-strong unions and anti-corruption tactics. But I see a lot changing. ... Not to convolute things, but it is interesting that the 1950s middle class did so well. I am wondering about the lower than middle classes and how they fared then. And how even in that system, the middle class stood on the backs of others? Can America discuss this without talking about the role that race and "caste" play in the system? I know nothing about economics, but remember reading that no "great civilization" developed without some form of forced labor. Maybe the economic system needs a value overhaul: what makes a great civilization?
Hmmm... I never heard that statement about "forced labor," but when you said it, my quick mental inventory couldn't exactly contradict it either. China had forced labor. Egypt most certainly... (hearing Edward G. Robinson's voice saying "MOOHHHSESH!" from 10 Commandments)... Rome obviously had slave labor... the English had slaves... Spain... Portugal... they all had slaves (although they were willing to abolish slavery ahead of America)... and of course America had slavery...
I'd argue that serfdom/slavery was essentially a coercive version of capitalism where technology wasn't sufficiently advanced to provide for enough returns on the marginal productivity of labor. Today you could build a superpower economy without needing slavery. Indeed, I think you will see that fact with AI... machines have continued to replace humans at every step, thus, they have become the "slaves."
What Pierre Boulle might say about that... Planet of the Robots?
As for what makes a great civilization, there are measures that scholars agree on... culture, reach, economic power, soft power, hard power, etc. By those measures, the United States is the greatest civilization in the history of humanity. Its reach is everywhere (just watch a newscast - although the the language changes, they all function just like a US broadcast); everyone walks around with Coca-Cola, Nike, Air Jordan, etc.; our soft power is dominant, our hard power is dominant...
Although I think the Orange Orangutan is doing everything he possibly can to destroy all that. At the moment, we are still, by all measures, the most dominant civilization in history.
I believe, however, that if we are to add how well the economy functions for all its citizens, well then we're not doing all that well, now are we... and countries like Norway are doing considerably better than the United States. That is perhaps the greatest defect in how we've managed our economy and our tax policy for the past 50 years... and that's what I'm attacking in these articles.
I would argue that several of the Italian city-states of the 12th-15th centuries, before the Italian wars and big bullies like the Borgias, Julius II and Francis I, and Flemish cities like Bruges, and the Hanseatic League in Germany/Scandinavia, were great civilisations. Some of the greatest, as they gave us the twin Italian and Northern Renaissance! Yet they remained small, flexible and (mostly) democratic for centuries. No forced labour. It’s important not to confuse ‘empire’ with ‘civilisation’. Many empires have been thoroughly uncivilised.
What a great essay. The ultra-wealthy do what they do best: buy things and politicians, then sell them for more than they paid. Politicians did what they do best…follow their lead. One of the first things they do when they own a remuda of high-quality politicians is redo tax codes. And wait to reap the benefits…after moving manufacturing offshore to countries that use child labor and do not care about worker safety.
Reality is a beautiful/ugly/insightful/empowering thing...although we don't want to become like them...We need to have an alternative program. I have some ideas as to what they might be... although I haven't figured out all the methodologies as to how to bring it about, as admittedly I don't have any skills in certain aspects/areas needed. Perhaps others might want to help out?
Many of the alternatives starting to take off after many years of cultivation, I talk about it under the umbrella of community wealth and creating wellbeing economies xoxo
Thank you...I will follow along and do what I can or think of what might be helpful. At the moment I am working on a survival strategy. When younger I had more energy and ideas...( actually played with the biggest of boys and won most times) now not so much, when the rules changed/disappeared/became irrelevant i got my ass kicked and decided I was not cut out to be so bad.
6 years ago I proposed a redirection of our spending on a statewide and later national scale but it wasn't considered possible. Despite all the historic and present proof of how powerful it was, it wasn't considered that necessary or achievable...now it's a different story, as the need is for... down and dirty survival not only for ourselves but our planet.
I reside in a area that is oddly uber religious and at the same time anti Christ behaviorally...absolutely bizarre. Working on a strategy to get to a more sane working space and once there...perhaps.
Money, our dollars, are the fuel these bad actors capture daily to achieve their control. Without it...they are powerless. Too many are dependent on the exiting system though. Perhaps when it fails for them and we have an alternative to offer?
I live in the same kind of area and I agree. They would rather a hundred suffer than one person (at their level) get more than they think that person "needs."
Or give them a job earning a lower income salary and doing some actual work, like mowing lawns, painting houses. Certainly cannot trust them to fix anything.
Great piece. Seems like a political manifesto for a new party. You could call it "kill all billionaires" haha. Bernie is toying with another party. There is legal reasons for citizens united to be overturned. There are ways to do this peacefully. I hope you Americans figure that out. BRICS are coming to take the empire position... So it might just "naturally" happen, China in particular can "kill" the billionaires, just by releasing open source software and cheap cars... BYD are killing tesla already. Wiping billions off these guys wealth quickly. I'm sure you have read #Limitarianism and Utopia for realists. If not, you will enjoy. Also vulture capitalism.
Living very rurally where small business fails, it is hard to cut ties with the billionaires. But I personally won't devote another worthless dollar to them. Glad I can grow my own food, but many people will need to learn how to work with their hands really fast at the rate we are going...
Thank you for another history lesson and real information. This isn't the first place I've seen it, which is vindicating for the truth. I've sadly watched it all happen since I started paying attention in 1968. Sharing far and wide so people are educated. Yes, Billionaires have to go away, one way or another. Hoping against hope it doesn't get ugly.
I like all of this but the time to get to a planned/managed solution is way longer than we have. We are getting close to the Saudi model. Wealth concentration at the sheik level, a royal family and religion enabling it all. The whole American system is driven by greed. To get the billionaires attention it has to be by attacking their wealth/assets. Assets are the most direct way. They need to be devalued. There is no painless way. National strike. Product specific boycotts, not macro boycotts. Their pain is too short and recovery quick. Look at Bud Light as the example. Go after every company that supports project 2025, but target their products. Coors is a recommended target. Boycott their products until they cave. Build a list. Starbucks is another candidate. Coke. Be targeted and ruthless. Shutdown Tesla, SpaceX operations. Go after the logistics services of the country. Air traffic, trucking, rail. Golf courses, plow them under.
I like your way of thinking, and I agree that product-specific boycotts are the best means of wealth destruction we “peasants” have at our disposal. The problem is organizing an effective boycott. What person(s) or organizations have the reach to get the word out quickly to large numbers of prospective participants?
Thank you for your thoughts. I think rumor needs to be part of the solution. They spread faster than any other signal fire. People like to repost/restack the salacious gooey stuff. Also a structured rumor mill that starts on Substack and flows out to all the others. If people lose their accounts, next up for that media outlet takes over. Also friends of the people need to amplify it until quits are called. This can be expanded in the future if more dire actions are needed. Those will have to be discussed under the cover of encryption.
In a system where the people doing the productive work made the decisions, this question would never arise. Marx wouldn't be surprised at the level of billionaires and their power now--he saw this coming almost two centuries away.
So long as you have capitalism, you will have the potential to recreate the mess we're in now or one very much like it. You can regulate it for awhile, but capitalism will ALWAYS erode those regulations. That's what we've been living through since the late 70s.
Thomas Piketty, also. Capital in the 21st Century describes thru the objective analysis of 3 centuries of finacial records how untaxed/unregulated capitalism always leads to the same miserable economic situation we find ourselves in today.
Oh yes, and he was right. So was John Maynard Keynes. Keynes even knew his own remedies to capitalism itself were doomed to fail. Until More Profit Soonest is no longer the prime directive of our economic system, all fixes will be temporary.
What a great article! Thank you so much for this wealth of knowledge. I’m going to share it far and wide, and I hope you have shared it with important people that can do something about this.
No one has ever become a billionaire or a trillionaire because they worked hard or were always giving back to the community. These "people" are thieves and welfare queens, taking in more taxes than they pay and still having the advantage of public roads, clean water/air regulation (not anymore), medical research etc. They need to get planted, like the precious little tulips they are, up to their necks in taxes and if not - soil will do just fine.
Nobody needs this much money. Imagine if personal wealth was limited to say, I don’t know, $1B? Even $5B? Imagine what countries could do to improve safety, health, quality of life, global stewardship for all the Earth’s current and future sentient beings …
Well, the piece on Monday will talk about that. The purpose of taxation in an economy like ours would be to limit aggregate demand (spending) from the ultra wealthy so that then government could provide infrastructure and support across the society as a whole. On its face this may not seem to be in the ultra wealthy’s interest except for the fact that if the entire system collapses, which is what happens if we continue on the road we’re on, the ultra wealthy get killed and die and lose all their money and wealth. From 1950 to 1980, we had a system that didn’t collapse the system, somehow ultra wealthy people existed (and grew wealth anyways) despite a tax rate as high as 90% on the marginal level, and we also had a robust economy where most people could work one job and afford to live a life where their needs were met.
This is piece is the first of several I suspect I’ll write on this idea. As an economist I’m trying to flesh out what might wind up a book ahead of the next election. I think ultimately this idea… a return to a normalized economy, has to be the center of a Democratic platform of any candidate running… especially after the trajectory we will be on after Trump. I also feel the electorate will be sufficiently traumatized that it presents the best opportunity for elected leaders to enact such policies.
The perfect distillation of how it's all gone so wrong since Ronnie Raygun and his merry band of movement conservatives captured the public by selling the delusion that greed is good - I've been searching for this!! Thank you!
Welcome. You’ll like mondays post too then.
I'll be reading.
Thank you for this. I have lived in Norway since the early 90s-strong unions and anti-corruption tactics. But I see a lot changing. ... Not to convolute things, but it is interesting that the 1950s middle class did so well. I am wondering about the lower than middle classes and how they fared then. And how even in that system, the middle class stood on the backs of others? Can America discuss this without talking about the role that race and "caste" play in the system? I know nothing about economics, but remember reading that no "great civilization" developed without some form of forced labor. Maybe the economic system needs a value overhaul: what makes a great civilization?
Hmmm... I never heard that statement about "forced labor," but when you said it, my quick mental inventory couldn't exactly contradict it either. China had forced labor. Egypt most certainly... (hearing Edward G. Robinson's voice saying "MOOHHHSESH!" from 10 Commandments)... Rome obviously had slave labor... the English had slaves... Spain... Portugal... they all had slaves (although they were willing to abolish slavery ahead of America)... and of course America had slavery...
I'd argue that serfdom/slavery was essentially a coercive version of capitalism where technology wasn't sufficiently advanced to provide for enough returns on the marginal productivity of labor. Today you could build a superpower economy without needing slavery. Indeed, I think you will see that fact with AI... machines have continued to replace humans at every step, thus, they have become the "slaves."
What Pierre Boulle might say about that... Planet of the Robots?
As for what makes a great civilization, there are measures that scholars agree on... culture, reach, economic power, soft power, hard power, etc. By those measures, the United States is the greatest civilization in the history of humanity. Its reach is everywhere (just watch a newscast - although the the language changes, they all function just like a US broadcast); everyone walks around with Coca-Cola, Nike, Air Jordan, etc.; our soft power is dominant, our hard power is dominant...
Although I think the Orange Orangutan is doing everything he possibly can to destroy all that. At the moment, we are still, by all measures, the most dominant civilization in history.
I believe, however, that if we are to add how well the economy functions for all its citizens, well then we're not doing all that well, now are we... and countries like Norway are doing considerably better than the United States. That is perhaps the greatest defect in how we've managed our economy and our tax policy for the past 50 years... and that's what I'm attacking in these articles.
Thank you for this. I'm looking forward to reading more of your articles. I have so much to learn.
I would argue that several of the Italian city-states of the 12th-15th centuries, before the Italian wars and big bullies like the Borgias, Julius II and Francis I, and Flemish cities like Bruges, and the Hanseatic League in Germany/Scandinavia, were great civilisations. Some of the greatest, as they gave us the twin Italian and Northern Renaissance! Yet they remained small, flexible and (mostly) democratic for centuries. No forced labour. It’s important not to confuse ‘empire’ with ‘civilisation’. Many empires have been thoroughly uncivilised.
The Mongol Empire comes to mind.
I don't know enough about it...only its reputation. But based on the destruction of Baghdad, it certainly seems so!
What a great essay. The ultra-wealthy do what they do best: buy things and politicians, then sell them for more than they paid. Politicians did what they do best…follow their lead. One of the first things they do when they own a remuda of high-quality politicians is redo tax codes. And wait to reap the benefits…after moving manufacturing offshore to countries that use child labor and do not care about worker safety.
They do, they did, they have, they are.
Reality is a beautiful/ugly/insightful/empowering thing...although we don't want to become like them...We need to have an alternative program. I have some ideas as to what they might be... although I haven't figured out all the methodologies as to how to bring it about, as admittedly I don't have any skills in certain aspects/areas needed. Perhaps others might want to help out?
Many of the alternatives starting to take off after many years of cultivation, I talk about it under the umbrella of community wealth and creating wellbeing economies xoxo
Thank you...I will follow along and do what I can or think of what might be helpful. At the moment I am working on a survival strategy. When younger I had more energy and ideas...( actually played with the biggest of boys and won most times) now not so much, when the rules changed/disappeared/became irrelevant i got my ass kicked and decided I was not cut out to be so bad.
6 years ago I proposed a redirection of our spending on a statewide and later national scale but it wasn't considered possible. Despite all the historic and present proof of how powerful it was, it wasn't considered that necessary or achievable...now it's a different story, as the need is for... down and dirty survival not only for ourselves but our planet.
I reside in a area that is oddly uber religious and at the same time anti Christ behaviorally...absolutely bizarre. Working on a strategy to get to a more sane working space and once there...perhaps.
Money, our dollars, are the fuel these bad actors capture daily to achieve their control. Without it...they are powerless. Too many are dependent on the exiting system though. Perhaps when it fails for them and we have an alternative to offer?
I live in the same kind of area and I agree. They would rather a hundred suffer than one person (at their level) get more than they think that person "needs."
Or give them a job earning a lower income salary and doing some actual work, like mowing lawns, painting houses. Certainly cannot trust them to fix anything.
I wish I could restack this a billion times
LOL! Me too! I appreciate the sentiment. :D
Great piece. Seems like a political manifesto for a new party. You could call it "kill all billionaires" haha. Bernie is toying with another party. There is legal reasons for citizens united to be overturned. There are ways to do this peacefully. I hope you Americans figure that out. BRICS are coming to take the empire position... So it might just "naturally" happen, China in particular can "kill" the billionaires, just by releasing open source software and cheap cars... BYD are killing tesla already. Wiping billions off these guys wealth quickly. I'm sure you have read #Limitarianism and Utopia for realists. If not, you will enjoy. Also vulture capitalism.
Living very rurally where small business fails, it is hard to cut ties with the billionaires. But I personally won't devote another worthless dollar to them. Glad I can grow my own food, but many people will need to learn how to work with their hands really fast at the rate we are going...
Thank you for another history lesson and real information. This isn't the first place I've seen it, which is vindicating for the truth. I've sadly watched it all happen since I started paying attention in 1968. Sharing far and wide so people are educated. Yes, Billionaires have to go away, one way or another. Hoping against hope it doesn't get ugly.
I would leave Bill Gates off that list. His philanthropy is legendary.
All means all bill, if Beyoncé and Taylor are on the block then so is bill
I like all of this but the time to get to a planned/managed solution is way longer than we have. We are getting close to the Saudi model. Wealth concentration at the sheik level, a royal family and religion enabling it all. The whole American system is driven by greed. To get the billionaires attention it has to be by attacking their wealth/assets. Assets are the most direct way. They need to be devalued. There is no painless way. National strike. Product specific boycotts, not macro boycotts. Their pain is too short and recovery quick. Look at Bud Light as the example. Go after every company that supports project 2025, but target their products. Coors is a recommended target. Boycott their products until they cave. Build a list. Starbucks is another candidate. Coke. Be targeted and ruthless. Shutdown Tesla, SpaceX operations. Go after the logistics services of the country. Air traffic, trucking, rail. Golf courses, plow them under.
I like your way of thinking, and I agree that product-specific boycotts are the best means of wealth destruction we “peasants” have at our disposal. The problem is organizing an effective boycott. What person(s) or organizations have the reach to get the word out quickly to large numbers of prospective participants?
Thank you for your thoughts. I think rumor needs to be part of the solution. They spread faster than any other signal fire. People like to repost/restack the salacious gooey stuff. Also a structured rumor mill that starts on Substack and flows out to all the others. If people lose their accounts, next up for that media outlet takes over. Also friends of the people need to amplify it until quits are called. This can be expanded in the future if more dire actions are needed. Those will have to be discussed under the cover of encryption.
In a system where the people doing the productive work made the decisions, this question would never arise. Marx wouldn't be surprised at the level of billionaires and their power now--he saw this coming almost two centuries away.
So long as you have capitalism, you will have the potential to recreate the mess we're in now or one very much like it. You can regulate it for awhile, but capitalism will ALWAYS erode those regulations. That's what we've been living through since the late 70s.
Thomas Piketty, also. Capital in the 21st Century describes thru the objective analysis of 3 centuries of finacial records how untaxed/unregulated capitalism always leads to the same miserable economic situation we find ourselves in today.
Oh yes, and he was right. So was John Maynard Keynes. Keynes even knew his own remedies to capitalism itself were doomed to fail. Until More Profit Soonest is no longer the prime directive of our economic system, all fixes will be temporary.
For that matter, Marx had plenty of examples in his own times. The Tsars and the Robber Barons come to mind.
Well said. Bravo!
What a great article! Thank you so much for this wealth of knowledge. I’m going to share it far and wide, and I hope you have shared it with important people that can do something about this.
No one has ever become a billionaire or a trillionaire because they worked hard or were always giving back to the community. These "people" are thieves and welfare queens, taking in more taxes than they pay and still having the advantage of public roads, clean water/air regulation (not anymore), medical research etc. They need to get planted, like the precious little tulips they are, up to their necks in taxes and if not - soil will do just fine.