Of the 1%, for the 1%, and by the 1% by Joseph Stiglitz

[Windpower]

"Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called "self-interest properly understood." The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what's good for me right now! Self-interest "properly understood" is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else's self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one's own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn't just good for the soul—it's good for business.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late."

more here

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105?currentPage=all

[bayview]

   That's capitalism at work . . .

/.

[John Raabe]

You bring up a very good point Windpower.

I wonder if it is perhaps harder now than in de Tocqueville's time for us to make this larger connection. Our representative democracy worked well in the horse powered village and small city life of the late 1700's.

Even 100 years later Henry Ford understood the idea of paying his wage earners enough to allow them to purchase the product they were making.

While it is true that paying attention to everyone's self-interest is still very much how general prosperity advances, in our outsourced world that means including in that circle of relationship all the workers in China and Chile that make your socks and blueberries. Compassion, empathy and the other connecting emotions are greater now than they were 200 years ago - but the pace of human evolution is not equal to the pace of technology.

That is perhaps part of the reason why so many people feel disconnected and abandoned by their larger society.

[Native_NM]

Most Americas can buy two Fords and a big screen.

[rwanders]

Without embarking on a detailed dissection of the well-written article, i will say many of the authors points are supported by the realities of life at this time. Some of the conclusions may be less defensible.

The essential question is how do we, as a society with less and less control of the economic and political forces in the world, change the landscape? Utopian Socialism and it's most extreme version, Marxism/Leninism, failed miserably. We have edged closer to those systems with similar results. Simplistic efforts such as taxing the "rich" and letting government distribute it by the political process has just built large classes dependent on it----and that includes much more than the welfare-dependent persons. It also includes the many businesses dependent on those transfer payments and subsidies. Once started, they are almost impossible to stop and indeed their growth, needed or not is, is perpetuated by the "political class". We don't allow them to buy votes directly a la the old big city "machines" such as the Daley machine in Chicago. We do allow them to buy votes through government "programs". When almost 50% of us pay no income tax and many receive direct subsidies like "earned income credits" (strange use of the term "earned"), what do you expect to happen?

I don't have the answer----the left seems to advocate only more of the same. The right clings to the hope that somehow that 50% can be weaned from their addiction but offers no way for their rehabilitation. More and more it seems that we will just keep on keeping on like lemmings until some extreme crisis finally results in some cataclysmic failure. The history of those in the world is not pretty, resulting usually in civil revolutions, the rise of even more extreme demagogues who quickly transform into authoritarian regimes, wars of aggression to justify their actions ( paradoxically resulting in temporary economic gains like WW II did to end the depression of the 30's). That depression was NOT brought to an end by Roosevelt's New Deal until the truly massive spending of the war effort brought about a seller's market for labor of all kind and the removal of millions of human resources into the military and out of that labor market.  After WW II the overheated war economy was kept warm by the Cold War and return of millions of rapacious new consumers as the military downsized. The puny little wars since the end of the cold war have not contributed very much to the economy

Sounds like we need WW III but new technology has so reduced the manpower needs of the military that even that may be insufficient to soak up our unemployed and underemployed. In WW II even those with little education or skills were in high demand---it is unlikely we will see those days again.

One day we, will most likely, find ourselves enthralled by a bigger and better demagogue who will seem to have all the answers. (Barack had a good start but has failed to achieve critical mass) It is a tragic hallmark of the human condition. I am old enough that I will probably not see it but, perhaps our children will.

I don't expect our "empire" will come anywhere close to the longevity of the Roman one. It too, depended on their wars to support a population dependent on the government---sound familiar? We are even more dependent on our government now for our versions of the "free grain" that the Roman Senate used to buy the support of the Roman citizens. Farm subsidies anyone? Cash for Clunkers? Ethanol subsidies? The list is endless--our politicians are very clever and our appetite for government "help" is apparently limitless.

Sorry for verbosity. I do get carried away sometimes--ok, lots of times.

RW

[Native_NM]

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night". -Edgar Allan Poe.