> Well now you're conflating extreme poverty with poverty. There are millions of people living in poverty in the united states. And you don't really need someone to be in complete poverty to exploit them.
After extreme poverty ends, you get poverty to uplift and so on.
> Also, the direction currently is towards stagnating wages and growing wealth inequality.
The problem with such nice catchphrases that are repeated over and over by interest groups is that they are inaccurate, and often end up advocating for even higher inequality.
> The problem with such nice catchphrases that are repeated over and over by interest groups is that they are inaccurate, and often end up advocating for even higher inequality.
What specifically is an "inaccurate catchphrase" in what I've said?
Stagnant wages are the cause of multiple effects, many of them that are extremely localized. The US has had this effect, but the world has had it go extremely upwards in the last 5 decades. And along lower wages, have come increased value. The internet, for example, is super cheap and might not count as much into the budget of a person todaY: but tv and entertainment was a much higher cost between cable, newspapers, etc etc.
Smartphones, safer cars, cheaper travelling. Have to be very careful to look only at nominal bills to make economic judgement.
And maybe the most problematic and expensive things americans suffer generationally, housing and healthcare, are the defacto most intervened and regulated markets of all. It is the state, in its magnificent regulatory capture, that its pushing poverty unto people.
Also inequality has always been a topic of conversation, what is new is income inequality, and its still an open problem, not something there is economic consensus about. There are other things that have economic consensus, for example, getting rid of corporate taxes. But you dont hear that coming from "high inequality and stagnant wages" guys.
So "stagnant wages" was what you called an inaccurate catchphrase?
>housing and healthcare, are the defacto most intervened and regulated markets of all. It is the state, in its magnificent regulatory capture, that its pushing poverty unto people.
I won't defend much of anything about the state of housing or healthcare in the US. The government is certainly a huge part of the problem, I have no issue accepting that.
Here's the thing: I don't think that all government programs are good. Some are designed to push poverty unto people like you said. But the solution isn't to get rid of all regulation or the idea that government can be used as a tool for the masses.
We need to have a government that is much more aligned with the interests of the people than the interests of large corporations and capital. To me the way to do that is to expand the limits of democracy to include how the economy is run, how natural resources are used, and what the relationship between capital and workers should be.
Expand the limits of democracy as a way to vote expropiation?
When democracy is used to plunder, there is no way back. It will be living for the purpose of robbing others, and the poor have never fared well in such systems.
We live in a world with relative freedom but still very constrained. Look at the US spending 25% of its GDP through the state. And european countries reach 40 and even 50%!
Half of every thing produced consumed by the state. The State is the enemy. It really is.
The most positive effect I can imagine is people being stroung enough to resist the powers of states and pit them against each other. The most scary future I see is the collaboration of countries. Concentration of capital is bad, but concentration of power is the true danger. And the State garners its concentration with the power of might.
After extreme poverty ends, you get poverty to uplift and so on.
> Also, the direction currently is towards stagnating wages and growing wealth inequality.
The problem with such nice catchphrases that are repeated over and over by interest groups is that they are inaccurate, and often end up advocating for even higher inequality.