by Charles Hugh-Smith
As I typically observe right here, while you push the pendulum to an excessive of wealth and revenue inequality, it would swing to the other excessive minus a tiny little bit of friction.
The depth of America’s indoctrination may be measured by the unquestioned assumption that Capital ought to earn 15% yearly, rain or shine, whereas employees are fated to lose floor yearly, rain or shine. And if wages ought to ever begin ticking upward even barely, then the Billionaires’ Apologists are unleashed to shout that greater wages means greater inflation, which can kill the financial “restoration.”
Mentioned one other means: if wages stagnate so employees lose floor yearly as inflation in necessities rises, that’s the way in which it must be. If wages rise so employees can sustain with inflation, then that can set off an inflationary demise spiral.
That this indoctrination is so extensively accepted reveals the success of America’s Aristocracy in reshaping the narrative to make their plundering seem like “inevitable.” However the siphoning of $50 trillion from employees to nobility, and the The Aristocracy’s management of political energy was something however inevitable: it was engineered by insurance policies that enriched billionaires, the highest 0.01% Aristocracy, and the highest 10% who personal 90% of America’s productive capital.
This wholesale switch of wealth and revenue from employees to Capital was documented by a RAND Company report, Tendencies in Revenue From 1975 to 2018. Time journal summarized the findings: The High 1% of People Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Backside 90% — And That’s Made the U.S. Much less Safe.
There are some who blame the present plight of working People on structural modifications within the underlying financial system–on automation, and particularly on globalization. In keeping with this common narrative, the decrease wages of the previous 40 years had been the unlucky however essential worth of holding American companies aggressive in an more and more cutthroat international market. However in reality, the $50 trillion switch of wealth the RAND report paperwork has occurred totally throughout the American financial system, not between it and its buying and selling companions. No, this upward redistribution of revenue, wealth, and energy wasn’t inevitable; it was a alternative–a direct results of the trickle-down insurance policies we selected to implement since 1975.
The online results of this four-decade siphoning of wealth/revenue from employees was not too long ago documented by a Overseas Affairs article: Monopoly Versus Democracy:
Ten p.c of People now management 97 p.c of all capital revenue within the nation. Practically half of the brand new revenue generated for the reason that international monetary disaster of 2008 has gone to the wealthiest one p.c of U.S. residents. The richest three People collectively have extra wealth than the poorest 160 million People.
In different phrases, the underside 90% have little or no stake in the established order: they obtain basically zero revenue from America’s stupendous $121 trillion hoard of personal wealth and have basically zero political affect, as documented in Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Curiosity Teams, and Common Residents.
Now the worm has lastly turned, and employees are refusing to simply accept the Neofeudal dominance of nobility, not by open revolts that the State can violently crush however by oblique means. Fed-up Boomers are retiring, fed-up Gen-Xers are reducing their hours, refusing to return to the workplace, beginning their very own enterprises and Millennials are assembling a number of revenue streams, constructing micro-houses, and leveraging shortages of employees for greater wages.
The techno-fantasy that’s Company America’s fondest dream is automation of all labor: do away with all human employees and simply handle the robots with loving care. However the actuality is robots have limits, as I clarify in my guide Will You Be Richer or Poorer?–limits imposed by physics and finance.
And so, weeping inconsolably, Company America continues exploiting its workforce with the same old threats: you’re powerless as a result of we will automate your job or offshore it to Decrease Slobovia.
Distinction this with the actual world: a younger man of my acquaintance not too long ago took a job at a Company America Massive Field outlet. His wage was $12/hour, and all the ability was after all within the palms of Company America: he had no energy over his schedule, or the rest.
Within the script of the previous 4 many years, Company America (whereas crushing small enterprise and shopping for the very best authorities cash can purchase) might preserve the serfs slaving away for stagnating wages, all in service of maximizing company insiders’ inventory choices, buybacks and hovering income.
This particular person was tipped off to a a lot better alternative, and when he gave discover to the Massive Field supervisor, the supervisor corralled him for 2 hours, first providing a $3/hour increase (25%) after which badgering him to remain on as a serf on the Massive Field plantation. He refused.
That is the pure distillation of Company America and nobility: in the event that they’d provided this hard-working particular person the 25% increase after he proved his value, then perhaps he wouldn’t have been so motivated to hunt higher alternatives elsewhere.
In the end, some the $50 trillion plundered from employees is trickling again to the individuals who truly create the revenue and wealth. As a thought experiment, think about an financial system by which farmers and employees reaped 15% positive factors yearly like clockwork, and Company America’s insiders, financiers and speculators, and Wall Avenue’s parasites all misplaced 15% of their wealth and revenue yearly like clockwork.
In different phrases, think about the $50 trillion flowing again to those that generated it from those that looted it.
As I typically observe right here, while you push the pendulum to an excessive of wealth and revenue inequality, it would swing to the other excessive minus a tiny little bit of friction. The serfs are quietly slipping away, and nobility, blinded by hubris and greed, believes nothing will ever change as a result of, effectively, their wealth and energy is deserved. What they actually deserve will manifest within the subsequent 4 years because the chairs on the banquet of penalties are shuffled.
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