The data seems to indicate that the gap between the 'have very muchs' and the 'have very littles' is growing. The "have just enoughs" have kind of been getting crushed.
Yet...this is invariably attributed today to the growth of rampant capitalism. Is that justified, or is that just a relationship pulled out of someone's backside because it "seems right"?
Were I to assess capitalism-ness as a metric, I'd say it's pretty clear that the USA in the late 19thC and early 20thC - the era of the rail barons, the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Pullman strikes (1894), the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911), etc. - was a society far more "nakedly capitalistic", unfettered by government oversight or regulation. Further, the sheer growth of government since that time, the 1929 crash, the New Deal, WW's I and II, the War on Poverty, the Great Society Programs, etc. would suggest that capitalism has been if not receding, than at least mitigated strongly by regulation, government instutions and, honestly, public expectation.
My point is that the growing disparity in incomes between the top and bottom has paralleled the ebbing of capitalism, not been counteracted by it. Adam Smith might hypothesize that as the government is more and more involved in the market, it picks with disproportional force 'winners' and 'losers' that may be contrary to the long-term health and benefit of the system. Capitalism is conflict-based. Successful capitalism REQUIRES some people make bad choices and suffer for those choices for the collective good. It equally requires businesses to fail - with the concomitant pain for the workers of said businesses. A close reading of the Wealth of Nations makes it clear that for capitalism to function at its healthiest, it HAS to be universal. Any intrusion of anti-market activity - specifically, government - harms the efficacy of the system as a whole in broad and subtle ways. (FWIW union activity itself is inherently NOT anti-capitalistic, as some shallow commenters have suggested; labor organization, striking, etc are all very inherently capitalistic responses to perceived imbalances in the power between employer and employee; HOWEVER, government taking a side and preventing the natural resolution of the conflict is very *definitely* anticapitalistic)
I'm not making any prescription here. Just observing that the 'common wisdom' that 'as capitalism increases, so does wealth disparity' doesn't seem to be borne out by historical fact for at least the last 100+ years.
Yet...this is invariably attributed today to the growth of rampant capitalism. Is that justified, or is that just a relationship pulled out of someone's backside because it "seems right"?
Were I to assess capitalism-ness as a metric, I'd say it's pretty clear that the USA in the late 19thC and early 20thC - the era of the rail barons, the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Pullman strikes (1894), the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911), etc. - was a society far more "nakedly capitalistic", unfettered by government oversight or regulation. Further, the sheer growth of government since that time, the 1929 crash, the New Deal, WW's I and II, the War on Poverty, the Great Society Programs, etc. would suggest that capitalism has been if not receding, than at least mitigated strongly by regulation, government instutions and, honestly, public expectation.
My point is that the growing disparity in incomes between the top and bottom has paralleled the ebbing of capitalism, not been counteracted by it. Adam Smith might hypothesize that as the government is more and more involved in the market, it picks with disproportional force 'winners' and 'losers' that may be contrary to the long-term health and benefit of the system. Capitalism is conflict-based. Successful capitalism REQUIRES some people make bad choices and suffer for those choices for the collective good. It equally requires businesses to fail - with the concomitant pain for the workers of said businesses. A close reading of the Wealth of Nations makes it clear that for capitalism to function at its healthiest, it HAS to be universal. Any intrusion of anti-market activity - specifically, government - harms the efficacy of the system as a whole in broad and subtle ways. (FWIW union activity itself is inherently NOT anti-capitalistic, as some shallow commenters have suggested; labor organization, striking, etc are all very inherently capitalistic responses to perceived imbalances in the power between employer and employee; HOWEVER, government taking a side and preventing the natural resolution of the conflict is very *definitely* anticapitalistic)
I'm not making any prescription here. Just observing that the 'common wisdom' that 'as capitalism increases, so does wealth disparity' doesn't seem to be borne out by historical fact for at least the last 100+ years.
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