Brooks confuses "quasi-" with "pseudo-".
On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 12:16 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > (David Brooks: "When it comes to cultural analysis, I, like Piketty, am > quasi-Marxist." What a fucking joke.) > > The Piketty Phenomenon > by David Brooks > > Many people join the political left driven by a concern for the poor. > But, over the past several years, the Democratic Party has talked much > more about the middle class than the poor. Meanwhile, progressive > political movements like Occupy Wall Street directed their fervor at the > top 1 percent. Progressive movies and books have focused their attention > on conspiracy and oligarchy at the top, not “Grapes of Wrath” or “How > the Other Half Lives” stories at the bottom. > > This is natural. The modern left is led by smart professionals — > academics, activists, people in the news media, the arts and so on — who > tend to live in and around coastal cities. > > If you are a young professional in a major city, you experience > inequality firsthand. But the inequality you experience most acutely is > not inequality down, toward the poor; it’s inequality up, toward the rich. > > You go to fund-raisers or school functions and there are always hedge > fund managers and private equity people around. You get more attention > than them at parties, but your whole apartment could fit in their dining > room. You struggle with tuition, but their kids go off on ski weekends. > You wait in line at the post office, but they have staff to do it for them. > > You see firsthand the explosion of wealth at the tippy-top. It really > doesn’t help that you have to spend your days kissing up to the > oligarchs and their foundations to finance your research, exhibition or > favorite cause. > > The situation is ripe for the sort of class conflict the French > sociologist Pierre Bourdieu used to describe: pitting those who are rich > in cultural capital against those who are rich in financial capital. > > And into this fray wanders Thomas Piketty. His book “Capital in the > Twenty-First Century” argues that the real driver of inequality is not > primarily differences in human capital. It’s differences in financial > capital. Inequality is not driven by young hip professionals who arm > their kids with every advantage and get them into competitive colleges; > it’s driven by hedge fund oligarchs. Well, of course, this book is going > to set off a fervor that some have likened to Beatlemania. > > The book is very good and interesting, but it has pretty obvious > weaknesses. Though economists are really not good at predicting the > future, Piketty makes a series of educated guesses about the next century. > > Piketty predicts that growth will be low for a century, though there > seems to be a lot of innovation around. He predicts that the return on > capital will be high, though there could be diminishing returns as the > supply increases. He predicts that family fortunes will concentrate, > though big ones in the past have tended to dissipate and families like > the Gateses give a lot away. Human beings are generally treated in > aggregate terms, without much discussion of individual choice. > > But those self-acknowledged weaknesses are overlooked. And his policy > agenda is perfectly suited to his market audience. The problem with > those who stress financial capital inequality over human capital > inequality is that up until now they have described a big problem but > they have no big proposal to address it. Now they do: a global wealth > tax. Piketty proposes that all the governments in the world, or at least > the big ones, get together, find all the major wealth in the world and > then tax capital progressively. > > Piketty wouldn’t raise taxes on income, which thriving professionals > have a lot of; he would tax investment capital, which they don’t have > enough of. Think of what would happen to the Manhattan or Bay Area real > estate markets if the financiers had to sell their stray apartments in > order to get liquid assets to pay the tax bill. Think of how much more > affordable fine art would be. Think of how much more equal the upper > class would be. > > Politically, the global wealth tax is utopian, as even Piketty > understands. If the left takes it up, they are marching onto a bridge to > nowhere. But, in the current mania, it is being embraced. > > This is a moment when progressives have found their worldview and their > agenda. This move opens up a huge opportunity for the rest of us in the > center and on the right. First, acknowledge that the concentration of > wealth is a concern with a beefed up inheritance tax. > > Second, emphasize a contrasting agenda that will reward growth, saving > and investment, not punish these things, the way Piketty would. Support > progressive consumption taxes not a tax on capital. Third, emphasize > that the historically proven way to reduce inequality is lifting people > from the bottom with human capital reform, not pushing down the top. In > short, counter angry progressivism with unifying uplift. > > The reaction to Piketty is an amazing cultural phenomenon. But it says > more about class rivalry within the educated classes than it does about > how to really expand opportunity. Of course, this perspective could just > be my own prejudice. When it comes to cultural analysis, I, like > Piketty, am quasi-Marxist. > > ---- > > The Piketty Panic > by Paul Krugman > > “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the new book by the French > economist Thomas Piketty, is a bona fide phenomenon. Other books on > economics have been best sellers, but Mr. Piketty’s contribution is > serious, discourse-changing scholarship in a way most best sellers > aren’t. And conservatives are terrified. Thus James Pethokoukis of the > American Enterprise Institute warns in National Review that Mr. > Piketty’s work must be refuted, because otherwise it “will spread among > the clerisy and reshape the political economic landscape on which all > future policy battles will be waged.” > > Well, good luck with that. The really striking thing about the debate so > far is that the right seems unable to mount any kind of substantive > counterattack to Mr. Piketty’s thesis. Instead, the response has been > all about name-calling — in particular, claims that Mr. Piketty is a > Marxist, and so is anyone who considers inequality of income and wealth > an important issue. > > I’ll come back to the name-calling in a moment. First, let’s talk about > why “Capital” is having such an impact. > > Mr. Piketty is hardly the first economist to point out that we are > experiencing a sharp rise in inequality, or even to emphasize the > contrast between slow income growth for most of the population and > soaring incomes at the top. It’s true that Mr. Piketty and his > colleagues have added a great deal of historical depth to our knowledge, > demonstrating that we really are living in a new Gilded Age. But we’ve > known that for a while. > > No, what’s really new about “Capital” is the way it demolishes that most > cherished of conservative myths, the insistence that we’re living in a > meritocracy in which great wealth is earned and deserved. > > For the past couple of decades, the conservative response to attempts to > make soaring incomes at the top into a political issue has involved two > lines of defense: first, denial that the rich are actually doing as well > and the rest as badly as they are, but when denial fails, claims that > those soaring incomes at the top are a justified reward for services > rendered. Don’t call them the 1 percent, or the wealthy; call them “job > creators.” > > But how do you make that defense if the rich derive much of their income > not from the work they do but from the assets they own? And what if > great wealth comes increasingly not from enterprise but from inheritance? > > What Mr. Piketty shows is that these are not idle questions. Western > societies before World War I were indeed dominated by an oligarchy of > inherited wealth — and his book makes a compelling case that we’re well > on our way back toward that state. > > So what’s a conservative, fearing that this diagnosis might be used to > justify higher taxes on the wealthy, to do? He could try to refute Mr. > Piketty in a substantive way, but, so far, I’ve seen no sign of that > happening. Instead, as I said, it has been all about name-calling. > > I guess this shouldn’t be surprising. I’ve been involved in debates over > inequality for more than two decades, and have yet to see conservative > “experts” manage to dispute the numbers without tripping over their own > intellectual shoelaces. Why, it’s almost as if the facts are > fundamentally not on their side. At the same time, red-baiting anyone > who questions any aspect of free-market dogma has been standard > right-wing operating procedure ever since the likes of William F. > Buckley tried to block the teaching of Keynesian economics, not by > showing that it was wrong, but by denouncing it as “collectivist.” > > Still, it has been amazing to watch conservatives, one after another, > denounce Mr. Piketty as a Marxist. Even Mr. Pethokoukis, who is more > sophisticated than the rest, calls “Capital” a work of “soft Marxism,” > which only makes sense if the mere mention of unequal wealth makes you a > Marxist. (And maybe that’s how they see it: recently former Senator Rick > Santorum denounced the term “middle class” as “Marxism talk,” because, > you see, we don’t have classes in America.) > > And The Wall Street Journal’s review, predictably, goes the whole > distance, somehow segueing from Mr. Piketty’s call for progressive > taxation as a way to limit the concentration of wealth — a remedy as > American as apple pie, once advocated not just by leading economists but > by mainstream politicians, up to and including Teddy Roosevelt — to the > evils of Stalinism. Is that really the best The Journal can do? The > answer, apparently, is yes. > > Now, the fact that apologists for America’s oligarchs are evidently at a > loss for coherent arguments doesn’t mean that they are on the run > politically. Money still talks — indeed, thanks in part to the Roberts > court, it talks louder than ever. Still, ideas matter too, shaping both > how we talk about society and, eventually, what we do. And the Piketty > panic shows that the right has run out of ideas. > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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