| | The main error, even bigger than the fallacy of treating quintiles as being comprised of the same people over time, is the inability or unwillingness to visualize what capitalism looks like.* This error leads to a second error as a corollary: the assumption of a static size for the "divided pie." What statism/collectivism does to societies is indeed very harmful, but the reason it continues to exist is that apologists for statism have always successfully misled the public into thinking that it is freedom/capitalism (not statism!) that caused the problems.
This guy makes the same mistake. He makes a big stink about how bad it has gotten since 1976 (i.e., in the last 37 years). It's even worse if you look at the last 5 years from today. Now, the burning question is:
Has capitalism or socialism increased? Which one? Which one has been increasing along with the acknowledged "inequality?" Capitalism or socialism?
As I state here, you can tell if it is capitalism or socialism that is increasing in a given country (you don't have to "guess") -- by looking up numbers such as (1) total tax, (2) total inflation, (3) public sector debt in relation to private sector (non-government) GDP, (4) public spending in relation to private sector (non-government) GDP, and (5) total number of pages of regulation (e.g., pages in the Federal Register, etc.). Those 5 numbers tell you whether you are practicing more capitalism, or whether you are practicing more socialism.
What has happened to those 5 numbers since 1976? For an even better picture of reality, what has happened to those 5 numbers since 1964? Capitalism is not "the problem."
Ed
*Under capitalism, the pie grows every year (double-digit growth) and the real wages of average workers increase over time. Under socialism, neither of these things are the case.
|
|
