[Easily the best book to read alongside “Capital in the 21st Cent." is Jeffrey Winter’s “Oligarchy”, which won the 2012 book award in comparative politics from the APSA. A teaser: “The analytical emphasis in a Marxist framework is on the power of owning and investing classes rooted in their control of capital for investment and on extraction of surpluses from direct producers. Nothing in the materialist approach to oligarchy developed here conflicts with this framework. Instead, there is a shift in emphasis to the politics of defending extreme material inequalities.” Krugman’s claim below of only a “nascent oligarchy” in the US, along with Piketty’s claim we aren’t there yet shows an almost willful naiveté when it comes to the historical record, as Winters shows with amazing clarity in his text. The chapters on Indonesia alone are worth the price of the book and made me think of the article Gene Coyle posted about Larry Summers and Indonesia several years ago.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/opinion/krugman-wealth-over-work.html [snip] He also makes a powerful case that we’re on the way back to “patrimonial capitalism,” in which the commanding heights of the economy are dominated not just by wealth, but also by inherited wealth, in which birth matters more than effort and talent. To be sure, Mr. Piketty concedes that we aren’t there yet. So far, the rise of America’s 1 percent has mainly been driven by executive salaries and bonuses rather than income from investments, let alone inherited wealth. But six of the 10 wealthiest Americans are already heirs rather than self-made entrepreneurs, and the children of today’s economic elite start from a position of immense privilege. As Mr. Piketty notes, “the risk of a drift toward oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism.” Indeed. And if you want to feel even less optimistic, consider what many U.S. politicians are up to. America’s nascent oligarchy may not yet be fully formed — but one of our two main political parties already seems committed to defending the oligarchy’s interests. Despite the frantic efforts of some Republicans to pretend otherwise, most people realize that today’s G.O.P. favors the interests of the rich over those of ordinary families. I suspect, however, that fewer people realize the extent to which the party favors returns on wealth over wages and salaries. And the dominance of income from capital, which can be inherited, over wages — the dominance of wealth over work — is what patrimonial capitalism is all about. [snip] http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/politics-general-interest/oligarchy _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
