The answers are generally found at the level of the individual – a bit more philanthropy from the rich, a bit more aspiration from the poor, chuck in some technological innovation (could we build an app to tell Bangladeshi fishermen where the fish have moved since the typhoon? Let’s get on it, folks! Iterate!) and the task is in hand.
Silly girl. We’ve already done that, it’s the mobile phone.
Seriously, the Ur study of how mobiles create wealth is sardine fishermen off Kerala.
Sigh.
Where that isn’t the case, any conversation that isn’t about wages – and therefore isn’t about unionisation, outsourcing, shareholder value maximisation, the distribution of profit between capital and labour, the gap between CEO and average pay, and actually, more as a coda, higher rate tax (wouldn’t it be novel if earnings at the top weren’t so high that their taxation could have a determining effect on the economy at large?) – is diversionary.
Because before you can slaughter the fattened calf and share out the meat, you have to have a fattened calf.
The Third World’s problem is not a lack of poor people, or politicians keen on higher taxes and sharing all sorts of stuff. It lacks wealth generation. Which is why sane people do not bother discussing skinning such people alive as a solution to their absence.
‘They are rarely confronted, internally, with the basic building blocks of equality: that before you embark on any programmes of micro-investment packages for shack entrepreneurs you have to consider whether wages are high enough for workers to feed themselves, and their families, and also pay rent. Where that isn’t the case, any conversation that isn’t about wages – and therefore isn’t about unionisation, outsourcing, shareholder value maximisation, the distribution of profit between capital and labour, the gap between CEO and average pay, and actually, more as a coda, higher rate tax (wouldn’t it be novel if earnings at the top weren’t so high that their taxation could have a determining effect on the economy at large?) – is diversionary.’
That should sufficiently prevent ANY action.
‘Yet something lingered that should unsettle Davos man: the unstoppable egalitarian language is meeting immovable forces. Whether in the shape of Trump, busting his way into acceptance, racism and all’
RACISM ?!?! WUT ???
To answer the question you pose, Tim – absolutely, unarguably amongst the ten most ignorant commentators extant in journalism today. Obviously hard to top Murphy or Owen Jones at the very top of the tree but she’s certainly a contender.
“It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”
― Ronald Reagan
Gamecock,
And despite what lefties like to think about Reagan, he was quite well read:
“Reagan grew up a Democrat, in the Irish tradition, before drifting to the right. Paying income tax at a marginal rate of around 90% in the 1950s was painful, but more important was what he learned about capitalism while working for General Electric (GE). As his film career faded, he was paid to host a television series sponsored by America’s biggest industrial firm and to give speeches at GE factories. As he toured the country by train, he read books about economics and history. Everywhere he went, people told him stories of government meddling and how it hurt their businesses. He incorporated these stories into his act, and eventually came to realise that he was a Republican.”
https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21650065-excellent-new-life-americas-40th-president-who-died-2004-great-storytellers
“And despite what lefties like to think about Reagan”
But BiND, the Lefties think all Republicans are idiots. Or evil.
Compare with Nietzshe’s view of culture:
‘I believe only in French culture and regard everything else in Europe which calls itself “culture” as a misunderstanding.’
Being a Lefty is The Way. Deviation not tolerated. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
The individual’s sudden ability to obtain and use information has led to unimaginable and unplanned improvements in efficiency, while commentators such as Zoe hand-wring about the economic bell curve, thankfully with little real traction.
Thus their only recourse is ridicule. Using the “Trump racism” canard is actually welcome, as it exposes this fact.
Gamecock writes, “the Lefties think all Republicans are idiots. Or evil.” I would have used “And.” Lefties will say anything that seems effective, inconsistency be damned. This is why Trump is a sloganeering rube – and simultaneously in Machiavellian collusion with the Rooskies.
Hmm . . . yes, good use of “and.”
Being a Lefty is The Way. Deviation not tolerated. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
They’ve even got the Vogon Poets to complete the image – Ken Loach, Morrissey, Lily Allen, etc, and all that drearily pretentious ‘avant garde’ theatre.
” (could we build an app to tell Bangladeshi fishermen where the fish have moved since the typhoon?”
Its like these people live in some weird world. Why an app on his freaking phone when he can just call up his mates and see who’s found the fish?
Because these people run on personal relationships in ways that Williams *should* understand – how else did she get that writing gig if not as a consolation prize from a ‘friend’.