I am rereading John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Affluent Society"

[MikeG]

If you want the best explanation of why to help the poor, it is simple:

Because we can, and not even feel it.

[malaise]

1. Yes but if you really want to

understand what's going on read Hayek and Nozick. Taxing the rich is coercion -taxing people for education and mass health care is coercion -cut all social spending. There was a good read on TomPaine this week.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=Zna4KmZxUk3UT9z6JaW944%3D%3D

[ultraist]

4. Interesting article

It will take another Great Depression or massive social movement to bring back liberalism. Neither of which are likely, I agree with this author on that point.

I also agree that as things get worse, more fall into poverty and the lower class & the middle class really feels the sting, there will be a swing back toward liberalism. It will be different this time, not as radical, more of a watered down populism. IMO

To revive liberalism fully--to enjoy a period not only of liberal agitation, but of substantial reform--would probably require a national upheaval similar to what happened in the '30s and '60s. That could happen, but it doesn't appear imminent. What is more probable is a gradual move back toward the center, where older programs would be protected from assault (although not from refinement), where incremental change could be made, and where the stage could be set for a fuller revival if circumstances warranted. This could result, ironically, from the same causes that initially turned the United States away from liberalism.

[EVDebs]

10. You supply siders need your heads examined. Cut all social spending ?

"Taxing the rich is coercion" is social darwinist sillytalk. I'll bet your daddy was on the GI bill and didn't learn what you're putting out !

It's every man for himself...malaise has spoken ! George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion NEVER HAPPENED !

[malaise]

16. me 'supply side'/

don't you understand sarcasm when you see it.

[EVDebs]

20. The potential of the "affluent society" was done in by supply-siders

who trashed the Keynesian system Galbraith based his writings upon. Just look at his "Annals of An Abiding Liberal"

In posting above the mere thought that government has no public purpose and should be Grover Norquist'ed scares me.

BTW, Galbraith's writings were so good JFK ordered all his cables sent to him just to read the language ! Here's some quotes
http://kenfran.tripod.com/jkgalb.htm

[malaise]

24. It isn't just supply side economics

that has created this mess. It is the deepening of the marriage between the state and corporations promoted by the Hayeks and Nozicks on our planet.

The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
As imperialism has strengthened post Soviet Union, even the basic social benefits that human beings came to expect are slowly being removed. From post WW II, the state intervened to protect labour from capital- that is no more. How do you separate the state from capital when more than half of the 'so called' elected representatives around the globe are in the hands of capital?

[EVDebs]

12. Better article is "Suicide By Free Trade" by Pat Buchanan

www.amconmag.com/2004_04_12/buchanan.html

""Indeed, if the issue is jobs, Republicans ought to be thrown out. For not only are they not creating them, they have no idea how to stop exporting them. In their hearts, some of them think it a good thing. They are like the doctors of old who sincerely believed bleeding the patient was the way to get rid of the disease because that is what their textbooks and wise men told them.""

Yes, Republicans OUGHT to be THROWN OUT ! Go Pat, go !

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. helping the poor, doesn't allow for the few to live a lifestyle that

is obscene, own 1000x more stuff than you need to survive, help you dodge taxes, and generally make you feel superior to someone else. So why would we want to do that?? There are beemers to drive and mansions to inhabit. Now watch this drive.

[Cleita]

5. So why can't he buy his wife some decent clothes?

He sure spends on himself. I guess Poppy was the same and took care of himself pretty well, while skimping on Babs.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. He's out of school and has no class. eom.

[KoKo]

3. Exactly... If we didn't wage "endless wars" there would be Lots of Money"

to take care of all our "In House" American local problems. But, dammit, every time we get ready to do that...the Repugs come in and want to increase the "Defense Budget." And...so it goes on and on and on...with both parties.

[Cleita]

6. Yeah, but they have been saying this for as long as I have been

alive and yet things have to get so bad that even the privileged can't stand it before there is any change. We've been there before. Why can't we stop and change things before they get so bad? Is this the way the world is doomed to operate forever?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. world is doomed to operate forever?

Until there is some sort of otherworldly intervention I am afraid.

Not sure about this... but it is interesting just the same...



http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/prophecy/hopi1.html
World War III will be started by those peoples who first revealed the light (the divine wisdom or intelligence) in the other old countries (India, China, Islamic Nations, Africa.)

The United States will be destroyed, land and people, by atomic bombs and radioactivity. Only the Hopis and their homeland will be preserved as an oasis to which refugees will flee. Bomb shelters are a fallacy. "It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life. There is no shelter for evil. Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another world, be they Black, White, Red, or Yellow race. They are all one, brothers."

The war will be "a spiritual conflict with material matters. Material matters will be destroyed by spiritual beings who will remain to create one world and one nation under one power, that of the Creator."

[KoKo]

15. I know...and one would think knowing our history at this point it would

have changed...with Hitler so fresh in our minds and most folks having some kind of education in World History. Why do we keep repeating these mistakes when we are probably the most enlightened and informed civilization in history??? It boggles my mind...makes my head hurt. How did we get to where we are now...with what we all know. :shrug:

[EVDebs]

9. The affluent society only represents 1 and 1/2% of taxpayers who

make over $3 million annually. The rest of us are feeling the effects of the 'convenient social virtues' of rampant Republicanism in fiscal matters. Jobs, outsourced; capital, outsourced; labor, imported and jobs going to immigrants; pension and healthcare benefits, slashed.

In Galbraith's economy of the 50's and 60's, not the present day, the federal and state governments actually worked because the tax systems were fair and equitable. Today the corporations are multinational and don't pay taxes; the super rich are subsidized since they are 'job creators' (a claim as yet unproven).

Bush and co. have yet to create a net new job over and above population growth (including immigration).

This is the New Post-Industrial State. The planning sector has been destroyed by Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich. Get over it.

[MikeG]

13. Reread Chapter 1 if you can find a copy.

[EVDebs]

22. Ch 1 "Taxes--They're not for everyone" is good but I loved Ch 8

"How Social Security Taxes Subsidize the Rich" and Ch 7 on the AMT beautifully described how we de facto have a 'flat tax' structure in the US, at around 20% for EVERYONE when you add up all taxes (federal state and local) that each income group pays. The key point that I think you were hinting at is that the rich can hide income while everyone else can't.

The book's full title is quite inflammitory which is why I think all DUers should read it "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--And Cheat Everybody Else"

David Cay Johnston should be given a Pulitzer right now no questions asked and if it was in my power a Presidential award of the National Medal of Freedom !

[EVDebs]

11. "Wealth and Democracy" by Kevin Phillips is a more up-to-date analysis

along with "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston.

The rich will continue having problems getting into heaven, paraphasing Jesus.

[applegrove]

14. I think you are all lovely. You give me hope. Keep suggesting with

the reading. We can become an army of 19th Century country intellectuals: thinking for ourselves, finessing our skills re: recognizing patterns, and kicking those 19th Century neocon ***holes and their gop friends in the ass.

[malaise]

17. the truth is

that the Reagan/Thatcher period ushered in the neo-liberal policies of Friedman/Hayek and Nozick. In this dispensation, all liberal ideas associated with Keynes et al - ie New Deal social democratic ideals - are sacrificed at the altar of the market.
Developing countries and Eastern Europe have long felt the sting - hence the counter-globalization and anti-IMF/World Bank movement. These policies are now visible in Bush's budget.
They facilitate the Wal Mart's rejecting hard fought rights like trade union membership. Watch the cuts in all social spending - education, health etc. They will privatize everything because all they want is a minimal state that deals with nothing but security while the corporations up the profits - devaluation, deregulation and divestment - they'll even privatize the parks, water and anything they wish. Cronies will be the new owners of public resources.
This moment will only pass when we all wake up. Nothing changes without popular pressure from below.
edit - add sentence.

[DU_ONE]

18. If You Have Not Done So Already - Check This Out

Trans-generational Financial Terrorism

http://www.alternet.org/story/16573

I should be nice and warn you. But why spoil the fun?

[malaise]

19. Great article

more proof - thanks.

[EVDebs]

21. Chicago, chicago, that toddlin' town ! My favorite quote

"The Chicago bug has bitten both parties to such an extent that only the top-earning 20 percent of families are able to keep up financially. Yet even this highly indebted top fifth live in constant fear of financial free-fall, a concern worsened by the loss of 2.2 million jobs in just the past two years, particularly among the bottom four-fifths who find themselves working more and having little to show for it, including not only less time for their friends and families but also less time for the civic engagement required to replace legislators who've long embraced this perilously anti-democratic model." from your Trans-generational Financial Terrorism article.

Supply siders have effectively created a model designed to self-destruct the world's economy, and hey, that includes US ! You might also read Galbraith's "Free Market Fraud" essay from 1979 when this was all just beginning

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Economics/FreeMarketFraudGalbraith.html

[malaise]

23. Until people

really understand the implications of neo-liberalism and reject all who support this approach, we'll all suffer. Good read - thanks.
edit. sp.

[applegrove]

25. Amazing article. Though I think it is possible that fewer at the top

are aware of the outcome. They just drink the Kool Aide & get lost. I also read (in Economist Article posted yesterday on MBAs) that the culture of teaching MBAs changed to encouraging MBAs to see their competitors as not just other companies, but their: customers, universities, regulators (government), etc. So thus the culture of doing in anything but Supply Side nirvana was actually taught at Universities.

And yes the Supply Side shocks that caused the hyper-inflation of the 1970s are pretty much agreed to be the OPEC Oil Crisis & the Vietnam War. And we all know it wasn't the Texas Oil barons or the military-industrial complex (Eisenhower’s words) that paid in the recession (Supply-Side correction) of the 1980s. That in and of itself is a transfer of wealth to the already rich (Industry benefited from the problem and the worker pays the price).

Like anything - Supply-Side information should have been taken as "one of many tools available to human beings" instead of as some Utopian goal. Like any market tool - they were created to help human beings as a whole.

I do not think the rich understand the class warfare they have started with their irresponsibility. I also do not think the rich fully understand the culture of the corporations. I mean if you empathize with a corporation it is a slave. Every year its full profits and given to stockholders leaving the thing on the verge of death and about to starve if it does not desperately 'make a profit' again the next year. There is no reflexion time for a corporation that even the smallest amount of middle class wealth allows human beings. It will always be desperate and hungry. It will always be looking for new ways to make money. It will always look for new ways of obliterating its competition & "its masters". It turns on the democracy & the regulators, the workers, the consumers, but it also turns on its masters and attacks the decency in human beings, the integrity of human beings, and the human-ness in human beings in order to survive. It cannot attack the 'stock-holding' structure itself because then the corporation no longer exists. But it squeezes the compassion out of the values out of the managers & the stock-holders (by encouraging blind spots too) in order to have more resources and fewer barriers to profit-making. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the remuneration at the top of the corporation (and down the far enough in the ranks to as protect itself). And the corporations get together and metastasize.

A revolt is what human beings are up against. Will it be put down like Nat Turner was? If we don't put down the corporations - how will the corporation treat us when it is king? And so strange that this all takes place on the backs of the voting power in the South. Don't get me wrong. I don't have sympathy for corporations - I just think we need to understand the battle we are in.