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More Phillip Blond

Oh dear, this Phillip Blond really doesn\’t know what he\’s talking about, does he?

But the real story of neo-liberal success is not the extension of assets to all, but the huge and disproportionate share of wealth attained by the very rich. In the United States, between 1979 and 2004 the wealthiest 1 percent saw an increase in their share of national income of 78 percent, whereas 80 percent of the population saw an overall decrease in their income share by 15 percent. That\’s a wealth transfer from the large majority to a tiny minority of some $664 billion.

Confusing wealth, a stock, with income, a flow, like that is a very naughty thing to do. Or, if you prefer, a sign of ignorance.

Further, there has been no such transfer. Wealth has increased over the period and yes, it\’s true that those already wealthy have been getting the lion\’s share of that increased wealth. But that isn\’t a transfer of pre-existent wealth. That\’s an unequal allocation of newly created wealth.

Both Left and Right seem incapable of challenging monopoly capitalism.

Tee Hee.

 

 

6 thoughts on “More Phillip Blond”

  1. “Both Left and Right seem incapable of challenging monopoly capitalism.”

    How about the Third Way?

    Von Stackelberg, an internationally renown German economist of the 1920s and 1930s, argued that competition between large corporations could lead to inherently unstable outcomes as each competitor strove to become the dominant player in contended markets:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stackelberg_competition

    As a result, Von Stackelberg concluded that a powerful state was needed to impose economic stability and so he joined the Nazis in 1931.

    Mussolini’s advisors seem to have reached similar conclusions. In Martin Clark’s history of: Modern Italy 1871-1995 (Longman 2nd ed. (1996)), where he writes about the policies of Mussolini’s fascist government: “They seemed to offer ‘a third way’, between capitalism and Bolshevism, which looked attractive in the Depression. …” [p.250]

  2. I am a U.S. citizen who is not suprised by the statistics. The number of poorly educated unskilled workers is increasing in the United States. Among the rapidly growing Hispanic population, for example, only about 50% graduate from high school. So 50% of U.S. Hispanics aren’t qualified for higher education.

    Unskilled labor is abundant here. Prisons are grossly overcrowded. The United States has about 200,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about 2,400,000 male inmates in county, state, and federal prisons. We have 12 times as many males in prison as soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Methamphetamine use is at an all time high in the United States.

  3. Phillip Blond does have a field of expertise: theology.

    ‘Nuff said.

    He may not be aware of it, but his basic position is neoluddite-ish.

    A well-meaning and sincere man, for sure. Nevertheless I wouldn’t look to him for expert advice on economics, finance, or the organization of institutions and society.

    I wish him no harm — just as long as he doesn’t cause too much harm himself.

    k.

  4. I knew Blond at Cambridge. He was an opportunistic, intellectually underpowered, dick-head then, and seems not to have improved any with age.

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