By themselves, strong growth and low unemployment cannot wash away social divisions, any more than they can empower labor enough to substantively increase wages, to say nothing of raising the labor share of national income. The left must not be cowed into a narrow politics of income inequality and redistribution; it must look further, toward democratic control of capital itself.
I’m looking forward to reading this. I hadn’t thought of it this way before, exactly, but the sentiment resonates.
I mean, it’s a fundamental problem with capitalism, and I suspect the only solution is regulation, so in a way I think it is a political problem, but not one of merely trying to appeal to a class of people.
The other problem is, no matter what your messaging, special interests with money will endlessly advertise and twist your actions to appear harmful to the people you’re helping. There are armies of Goebbels, trained in state and private education, to twist the truth, and they are employed by companies with endlessly deep pockets. How do you fight that?
Especially when those special interests with money take “the economy is very bad, and the Democrats are improving it only in modest ways” and use it to argue, “The Democrats are hurting everyone on purpose, so let’s give power to the Republicans instead.”
Regulation is just a temporary band-aid, it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Disparity will continue to rise and Capitalism will continue to centralize, with power in fewer and fewer hands, until it inevitably collapses.
I’m looking forward to reading this. I hadn’t thought of it this way before, exactly, but the sentiment resonates.
I mean, it’s a fundamental problem with capitalism, and I suspect the only solution is regulation, so in a way I think it is a political problem, but not one of merely trying to appeal to a class of people.
The other problem is, no matter what your messaging, special interests with money will endlessly advertise and twist your actions to appear harmful to the people you’re helping. There are armies of Goebbels, trained in state and private education, to twist the truth, and they are employed by companies with endlessly deep pockets. How do you fight that?
Especially when those special interests with money take “the economy is very bad, and the Democrats are improving it only in modest ways” and use it to argue, “The Democrats are hurting everyone on purpose, so let’s give power to the Republicans instead.”
Regulation is just a temporary band-aid, it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Disparity will continue to rise and Capitalism will continue to centralize, with power in fewer and fewer hands, until it inevitably collapses.