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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Liberty University study: "Sun rises in East."

Sorry, couldn't resist the snark. Of course Harvard is correct, but it's pretty obvious. And extremely irritating.

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The middle class is beleaguered. A global reserve army of the unemployed batters wages and marginalizes labor’s political power. Even elite professions are becoming proletarianized. Ideologically, the view that markets are good and states are bad is close to hegemonic. With finance still supreme despite the 2008 collapse, it is no longer risible to use “capital” as a collective noun. The two leading treasury secretaries during the run-up to the 2008 financial crash, Democrat Robert Rubin and Republican Henry Paulson, were both former CEOs of Goldman Sachs. If the state is not quite the executive committee of the ruling class, it is doing a pretty fair imitation.

Yet Marx, for all of his stubbornly apt insights about capitalism, is an unreliable guide to its remediation. Polanyi, with the benefit of nearly a century’s worth more evidence, has a surer sense of how markets interact with society. More humanist than materialist, Polanyi did not believe in iron laws. His hope was that democratic leaders might learn from history and not repeat the calamitous mistakes of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Polanyi lived long enough to see his wish fulfilled for a few decades. In hindsight, however, the brief period between the book’s publication and Polanyi’s demise is looking like a respite in the socially destructive tendencies of rampant markets. In seeking to understand the dynamics of our own time, we can do no better than to revisit Polanyi.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Indeed, thanx, Second. I'm gonna hafta hunt the guy down and read his theory. SOunds very interesting.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
I saw it expressed this way: they are predators and all they think of us is as prey.

And I think that's true.

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:

Long is the way & hard that out of Feudalism leads up to Equality.



... oooOO}{OOooo ...

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Originally posted by reaverfan:
We're back to robber barons, again. Literally. They really don't give a fuck. They'll be long dead when their equally psychotic kids inherit basically all their wealth.

There was a time when inheritance laws prevented "royal families," but no more.

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Originally posted by reaverfan:

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:

Long is the way & hard that out of Feudalism leads up to Equality.



... oooOO}{OOooo ...

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We're back to robber barons, again. Literally. They really don't give a fuck. They'll be long dead when their equally psychotic kids inherit basically all their wealth.

There was a time when inheritance laws prevented "royal families," but no more.

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when all three independent variables are included in the multivariate Model 4 and tested against each other. The estimated impact of average citizens’ preferences drops precipitously, to a non-significant, near-zero level. Clearly the median citizen or “median voter” at the heart of theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy does not do well when put up against economic elites and organized interest groups.

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By contrast, economic elites are estimated to have a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy. This does not mean that theories of Economic Elite Domination are wholly upheld, since our results indicate that individual elites must share their policy influence with organized interest groups. Still, economic elites stand out as quite influential –more so than any other set of actors studied here – in the making of U.S. public policy.

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the system has a substantial status quo bias ... normative advocates of populistic democracy may not be enthusiastic about democracy by coincidence, in which ordinary citizens get what they want from government only when they happen to agree with elites or interest groups that are really calling the shots. When push comes to shove, actual influence matters.

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the predictions of Biased Pluralism theories fare substantially better than those of Majoritarian Pluralism theories... Relatively few mass-based interest groups are active, they do not (in the aggregate) represent the public very well, and they have less collective impact on policy than do business-oriented groups – whose stands tend to be negatively related to the preferences of average citizens. These business groups are far more numerous and active; they spend much more money; and they tend to get their way.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

Cite?

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
Think of this on a smaller level: my Son starts making deals with peeps in my house. He'll do the laundry for this bit of food, the car washing for that bit, the dishes for another, the garbage for another, errands for another, he'll flat out purchase some of it with his allowance, he'll have friends over that we have to provide snacks for, he decides to feed a stray dog every day, etc. I suddenly find out there is no food left for the rest of us. I say, whoah buddy, you're makin' so many deals here I can't keep track, you're back to getting your fair share so WE can eat too.

Is THAT Communism? Am I over-controlling my family's free-market economy? Shouldn't the rest of us just starve because we aren't as good at wheeling & dealing as my boy?

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Not communism, but definitely child abuse!

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"Happily" because you want it to get done

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
It means you got your son working like an indentured servant around the house for "bits of food". Lord only knows what he has to do for a hot meal. Poor kid.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I have to admit I dont share the despair/hopelessness/cynacism that is demonstrated by many American posters on these boards. Maybe its because we've never seen ourselves as either a global power or the greatest country on earth, so there's not that despair at feeling knocked off one's perch.

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Harder to get them to sign documents or type in their PIN when they can't move their hand.
I don't think you can't threaten the rich well successfully, especially if they own the rings of power as you suggest. You might guilt them into it, or annoy them into it, "Begone peasants! Here's a weeks wages, scurry off to do you muddy buggering you call life!" But lasting contributions? Again, do you want to see blood or money?

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Originally posted by G:
So, seems like trying to strike a deal makes the most sense to me. I understand The Rich like deals too. Hey, maybe we could sell them shares in infrastructure projects?

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I proposed voluntary, non-violent redistribution.

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mine is related to the other discussion about evolving Man.

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