Ray Fisman and Daniel Markovits suggest that we’re seeing right now, with the insurgent campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and elite hopes that they will just fade away, are “early skirmishes in a coming class war.”
Why? Because their research (along with coauthors Pamela Jakiela and Shachar Kariv, just published in Science) revealed stark differences between attitudes toward economic justice between ordinary Americans and those at the top. Basically, the elites (both intermediate and extreme) are much more likely to be selfish as their compatriots in general. What’s more, elite Americans show a far greater commitment to efficiency over equality than ordinary Americans.…I'd say it is here already and Occupy kicked it off. The brutal repression of dissent sent a message about just how committed to maintaining the status quo, and expanding it, the upper classes are. That destroyed a lot of illusions.
Now the two populist candidates are pulling ahead, while the Establishment of both parties prepares to roll out the big guns.
Occasional Links & Commentary
A coming class war?
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame
13 comments:
How do you divide on class? What are the talking points? Race, Regionalism, Guns, Abortion, Climate, Deficits and the other issues are soooo powerful that the two parties use those instead.
Re: How do you divine on class?
For starters, Money. Lots of money. Incomparably more money. That is why there is the term 1%. It refers to money.
Joseph Stiglitz: “the fundamental truth about American economic growth today is that while the work is done by many, the real rewards largely go to the few.”
Inequality in abstract is difficult because a majority of people are not abstract thinkers. A good anecdote or story to illustrate with those conclusions.
Satisfaction with government and concern about Corruption seem to go hand-in-hand. Might have to be presented from a few angles.
Class structure is chiefly a sociological concept. Economic stratification is only one aspect of it, albeit an important one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class
Obamacare was a noteworthy achievement to level the standard of health care between classes. Not perfect, but if he did nothing else as President that one thing is more than most Presidents and Congresses ever achieve. Maybe not too much else in the last several years to celebrate though. Education and Employment remain as problematic as ever.
Well at least a fraction of the USA population is not scared any more by the word "socialism" (used by Sanders), is an advance...
Fisman and Markovits' results are interesting.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_dismal_science/2015/09/income_inequality_rich_democrats_don_t_care_about_the_problem_any_more_than.single.html
It is unfortunate that their experiment may have reinforced to participants the (traditionally neoclassical) misconception that greater equality must come at the cost of reduced efficiency. Studies in recent decades (including neoclassical ones) suggest that equality and growth are positively correlated. Up to a point, this seems intuitive as well, I think. The stronger levels of demand that come, other factors remaining equal, with greater equality can be expected to create a "high pressure economy" that is a spur to productivity growth. But none of this is to negate the point the authors are making.
I suspect the elite placing a low value on equality suggests on their part not so much a relative indifference on the matter as a strong feeling that they dislike equality. They want more inequality. They very much want more of it. Their desire for it may even be more intense than our desire for more equality. I think they may suffer from a form of mental illness. :-)
Wow John that is just an amazing quote from Stiglitz! Wow!
Glad he said that or maybe no one would have ever thought about that!
@peterc
There is something I found interesting there and it's the other side of the coin you mentioned.
The "efficient" ones, according to Fisman et al, favour redistribution when it is "cheap", when it is efficient, when it makes the pie bigger.
Between 1/3 and 4/10 of the elites are what Fisman et al call "selfish". The selfish are against redistribution even if it is cheap, efficient. They don't care the pie is smaller, provided they get the whole pie.
Now, you make of that whatever you will.
Yeah John you're right the left should just keep trotting out that fossil with no ideas! Seems to be working for them.
Stiglitz was clearly wrong. There isn't actually much work that happens anymore. More of the money simply goes to the rich. I prefer to trot out articles like this.
It should be called the Warren Buffet method of extracting rent from the lower classes, buy assets and businesses that have regulatory and natural monopolies and then boost prices. Using orthodox productivity models, these are huge increases in productivity. (Higher priced pills are assumed to reflect value, and innovation, new quality...etc)
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