TheDailyBeast: Conservatism And Extreme Inequality

[alexey]

A perspective about the relationship between conservatism and income inequality.

One of interesting points for me was presenting Reagan's approach as reasonable solutions to problems of 1970s that are not reasonable solutions to modern problems, but are being pushed as a dogma.

I also like the "let them eat credit" phrase.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/extreme-inequality-threatens-americas-portfolio.html

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And so it remains true that Reaganism, enormously successful in its moment, can be seen as irrelevant to the new challenges its success spawned. Yes, growth soared for a while, but it soared far, far more for those at the top than those in the middle and the bottom. I saw no problem with that as such. I remember even mocking Al Gore's in retrospect prophetic denunciation of the "top one percent" in 2000. But over time, the extremity of this inequality began to trouble me, because of its impact on the legitimacy of capitalism and liberal democracy. ...

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...So you have most of the wealth going to a tiny few, and the rest trying to keep up in a credit bubble, while the federal government keeps on borrowing to pay for a growing entitlement state (even in its best non-dependency form, like the EITC) that its poorer citizens increasingly needed.

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And where we are is not 1979. This is not an ideological shift; it's an empirical deduction.

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And the point, of course, is that conservatives who care about the tradition of free enterprise and a thriving middle class should be among the first to worry about our return to the 1920s. It is that kind of instability that leads to expansions of the entitlement state. It is that kind of inequality and abuse of freedom (on Wall Street) that forces the state to intervene.

Conservatives, from Aristotle on, have always understood the central importance of the "middle way" and the "middle class" in sustaining a liberal democracy. Disraeli and Bismarck were the European pioneers of this conservatism. I think of Eisenhower in the last century as its great conservative defender in the US. Reagan was a necessary, even vital, correction, after liberal over-reach, but when that correction became dogma, and the right became fundamentalist about it, and the political fundamentalism was fused with a religious one, you saw the GOP degenerate into its Cheneyite and then Tea Party form: intellectually incoherent, angry beyond reason, and defined by cultural fear.

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[AsburySkinsFan]

Read this earlier and posted the link in the Romney/Ryan thread, no sense mentioning that I agree. Romney/Ryan are preaching a dogma that doesn't fit the times.

[Larry]

I think we can pretty much regard it as a proven, historical, fact, that Reaganomics leads to The Rich getting vastly richer, and nobody else. (Although I will observe that the flattening of the income tax rates isn't the only thing that's changed since The Golden Years of the 50s and 60s. Another big reason for the middle class getting left behind was the "Free Trade" movement, with the near-elimination of taxes at international borders.)

That said, though, I have to say that I have a problem with the argument that "Income inequality like this is bad, because it leads to the Peasants revolting." I much prefer to argue that inequality like this is bad for more Utilitarian reasons. Like "it's not good for the country for all of the wealth to be concentrated in a few hands. It gives the few hands vastly too much power, and it's not good for the country as a whole."

I think the current concentration of wealth is bad for the country, and should be addressed, but for reasons of fairness and the good of the nation, not for reasons of "they're going to riot".

[alexey]

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That said, though, I have to say that I have a problem with the argument that "Income inequality like this is bad, because it leads to the Peasants revolting." I much prefer to argue that inequality like this is bad for more Utilitarian reasons. Like "it's not good for the country for all of the wealth to be concentrated in a few hands. It gives the few hands vastly too much power, and it's not good for the country as a whole."

I think the current concentration of wealth is bad for the country, and should be addressed, but for reasons of fairness and the good of the nation, not for reasons of "they're going to riot".

Avioding riots is just another Utilitarian reason :pfft:

I liked this article because it provides an excellent conservative framework to argue for "proper" kind of state involvement.

Liberals want state to ensure good stuff is happening blah blah blah. Conservatives want state to ensure that things do not get out of whack and thus prevent more state involvement down the road. I like both. Compromise between using the state to achieve things and minimizing the role of the state. Sounds like the way it should work.

[Larry]

I think of it more along the lines that the government's role is to guarantee a level playing field.

And that, lately, the government has been extremely partisan, on behalf of a really tiny minority. (And the current Republican Party is firmly committed to being even more so.)

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I would also observe: Mostly the discussion about inequality centers around tax rates.

But I keep wondering, more and more often, if maybe what this country really needs is a small dose of protectionism.

The US is still one of the world's most important markets. Maybe what's needed is for more of the things sold in the USA, to be made in the USA.

[alexey]

I think of it more along the lines that the government's role is to guarantee a level playing field.

And that, lately, the government has been extremely partisan, on behalf of a really tiny minority. (And the current Republican Party is firmly committed to being even more so.)

I agree, especially with the second part.

I am not sure what is a level playing field and how can the government guarantee it. Some people are born into much better situations than others, so I do not think that everybody can have a level playing field. Terms like social mobility, access to opportunities, etc, resonate much better with me.