Paul Krugman - Why Our Society is So Unequal

Have you read the reviews on Krugman's new book yet? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004J8HXGS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=t...

This talk discusses quite a bit of the content that was contained in the book Conscience of a Liberal. It is a reference to a book by Barry Goldwater, called Conscience of a Conservative. That book started a movement that reached its peak during the Ronald Reagan administration. It was a movement that was very successful. In order to understand it, it is important to understand the past 80 years of American history.

80 years ago, we had a very unequal society. It was the end of the gilded age. The gilded age continued right up into 1929. It was an inequality that was unmitigated by any sort of welfare state. No one wanted to help the less fortunate. It was a highly conservative political and economic system. No one trusted one another. Above all, white people and black people were unable to get along.

What shook that system up was the Great Depression. We had a new government and a New Deal that came into power. There was a remarkable transformation of our society. By the time World War II ended, we were a middle class society. There were still richer people than others, but the didn't live in a different material universe any longer. It is hard to believe now, but around one third of all workers were a member of a union.

This happened not through a gradual evolution, it happened abruptly. Between 1935 and 1945, we abruptly became a more egalitarian society. This society persisted up through the 1970s. Since then, America gradually became more and more unequal, until we are at the point that you see now. In the 1920s, there were rich people living in mansions, but by the 1950s, few people could afford such mansions. Many of the gilded age mansions were torn down to make way for new mansions for the rich of today's society.

Poverty has increased, and wages have been flat. All of the wealth is going to the people at the top. Politics has a lot to do with this rising inequality, and it can all be traced to the rise in power of the political right. The unions went away, because employers felt free to engage in union busting.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Paul Krugman
• Princeton
• Ben Bernanke
• Obama
• liberal
• conscience of a liberal
• economist
• nobel prize
• Investing
• Treasuries
• Gold
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• Dollar
• Federal Reserve
• inflation
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• george soros
• jim rogers
• marc faber
• keynesianism
• john maynard keynes
• economics
• inequality
• gilded age

[heavym3tal]

@briandee Have you read any of Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, or Walter Williams?

[heavym3tal]

@briandee The person who owns the factory provides wealth to the workers as well. And what usually happens. The man who owns the factory buys material possessions that then create more wealth for other people, and the cycle continues on.

[briandee]

@heavym3tal

Here are some authors you might want to read:

Niccolo Machiavelli

Adam Smith

Max Weber

Thorstein Veblen

[briandee]

@heavym3tal

Income EQUALITY is not what he is interested in. He is interested in income INEQUALITY.

Income inequality and opportunities are very much interrelated. All wealth is based upon property. And the more property one owns, the better their opportunities are. For example, a man who owns a factory is able to create a lot of wealth for himself. His children will benefit from his wealth. However, the factory workers' children will have worse chances.

[heavym3tal]

Why does Krugman only focus on income equality? Why do liberals base equality on a person's income? Shouldn't we base equality on a person's opportunity to pursue happiness?

BTW: Income equality and Equality of opportunity are not the same.

[vince33x]

@blastsummit That's a pretty sick laugh. Sounds as though the men in the white lab coats are at ur back door.

[blastsummit]

@vince33x boom! wrong again. vince the glenn beck drone! hahhaha

[vince33x]

@blastsummit Yet another nitwit who doesn't understand the political spectrum. Let me expalin it to u: On the far Left u have Communism or the Total State. Just to the right of Communism is Socialism and a little further right is Fascism. If u go all the way over to the Far Right, u have Anarchy. Just to the Left of Anarchy u have the Constitutional Republic. Simply put: Large Powerful Gov't = Left; Small, minimal Gov't = Right. There now, is that so hard for u 2 understand?

[blastsummit]

@vince33x communist are to the left, FASCISTS to the right on the political spectrum. you, are a fascist. and an ignorant puppet of fox news. perhaps a socio-path as are most conservative cranks. hope you die soon! ;)