At 10:42 AM -0500 11/30/04, Paul wrote:
But people shouldn't feel that there is no other space left for their own
research :-) Galbraith's project *mostly* focuses on inequality in "pay"
or salary. The data it uses (like the US Census Bureau) exclude profit
income (income from stocks, bonds, capital gains, etc). This is usually
true even when the studies misleadingly refer to "income inequality" -
profit income is excluded. Likewise, perhaps by necessity, the project
doesn't include work on wealth inequality (and so also misses some key
recent changes like pensions, assets, etc).
As a result, a lot of what JKG often captures is the rising inequality
*within* the "working class", very broadly defined. This sort of rising
inequality has often been a serious factor in the early stages of a
neo-liberal opening (leading to a fragmented political response) such as
the US in the 1980's, but it is less a factor as the changes proceed (eg
the US in the '90s). In the "mature" phases of a neo-liberal process, the
big changes, seem to be between salary income and profit income (or asset
wealth).
Is there a neat 15-25-page paper that makes Paul's point above?
--
Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and
<http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>
