Why capitalism needs fundamental reform
One of the most frequently occurring political themes of this blog is that we live in societies where income, wealth and power are distributed massively unevenly and unfairly and this creates poverty and unhappiness at the individual level and terrible social outcomes at the national and international level.
Therefore I was pleased to see a trenchant editorial in today’s “Observer” newspaper with the headline” “The growing wealth gap is unsustainable”.
A fact from the UK:
“Britain has more than 10 million adults living on between £12,000 and £30,000 gross, the majority in work..”
A fact from the USA:
“In the US, in 2008, 400 billionaires were ‘worth’ more than 150 million of the US population.”
The editorial asserts:
” .. an awareness is growing across the political spectrum, and on both sides of the Atlantic, that a radical recalibration of capitalism is essential, not least because the wealthiest and least productive are in danger of allowing their own avarice to sabotage the very system on which they have become so hideously bloated.”
The editorial explains that:
“‘Free’ markets with the rules written by the richest result in a shrinking public sector, deregulation, unemployment, low taxes for the most affluent and the threat of globalisation, depressing wages still further.”
The “Observer” quotes some of the remedies advocated by Robert Reich, professor of public policy at Harvard, in a new documentary “Inequality For All”:
“Reich’s agenda for positive change includes more jobs; greater investment in skills and higher education; a just taxation regime; strong unions; investment in public infrastructure; a living wage and a narrowing of the earnings gap.”
You can read the full editorial here and you can read about the documentary here.