Rising global income inequality is not inevitable in the future
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Real-World Economics Review
WEA Books

follow this blog on Twitter
Top Posts- last 48 hours
- Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Irrational Exuberance — Robert Shiller’s modern classic
- India’s central bank launches new campaign against cash
- In Thrall to the Infallible Hand
- Economic methodology — Lawson, Mäki, and Syll
- The Religion of Economics
- Comments on rwer issue no 93
- CO2 since the start of the Industrial Revolution
- The Keynes-Tinbergen debate on econometrics
- We can do better with a thousand years
Regular Contributors
Real World Economics Review
The RWER is a free open-access journal, but with access to the current issue restricted to its 25,952 subscribers (07/12/16). Subscriptions are free. Over one million full-text copies of RWER papers are downloaded per year.
WEA online conference: Trade Wars after Coronavirus
Comments on recent RWER issues
————– WEA Paperbacks ————– ———– available at low prices ———– ————- on most Amazons ————-
WEA Periodicals
----- World Economics Association ----- founded 2011 – today 13,800 members
Recent Comments
- Ikonoclast on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Asad Zaman on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- George H. Blackford on Economic methodology — Lawson, Mäki, and Syll
- Ikonoclast on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Ikonoclast on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Steven Klees on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Asad Zaman on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Ikonoclast on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Asad Zaman on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Gerald Holtham on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Steven Klees on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Gerald Holtham on Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics
- Gerald Holtham on Economic methodology — Lawson, Mäki, and Syll
- Meta Capitalism on The Religion of Economics
- Meta Capitalism on In Thrall to the Infallible Hand
Comments on issue 74 - repaired
Comments on RWER issues
WEA Online Conferences
—- More WEA Paperbacks —-
———— Armando Ochangco ———-

Shimshon Bichler / Jonathan Nitzan

————— Herman Daly —————-

————— Asad Zaman —————

—————– C. T. Kurien —————

————— Robert Locke —————-

Guidelines for Comments
• This blog is renowned for its high level of comment discussion. These guidelines exist to further that reputation.
• Engage with the arguments of the post and of your fellow discussants.
• Try not to flood discussion threads with only your comments.
• Do not post slight variations of the same comment under multiple posts.
• Show your fellow discussants the same courtesy you would if you were sitting around a table with them.
Most downloaded RWER papers
- Debunking the theory of the firm—a chronology (Steve Keen and Russell Standish)
- New thinking on poverty (Paul Shaffer)
- Trade and inequality: The role of economists (Dean Baker)
- Green capitalism: the god that failed (Richard Smith)
- Global finance in crisis (Jacques Sapir)
- What Is Neoclassical Economics? (Christian Arnsperger and Yanis Varoufakis)
- Why some countries are poor and some rich: a non-Eurocentric view (Deniz Kellecioglu)
- The housing bubble and the financial crisis (Dean Baker)
- The state of China’s economy 2009 (James Angresano)
Family Links
Contact
follow this blog on Twitter
RWER Board of Editors
Nicola Acocella (Italy, University of Rome) Robert Costanza (USA, Portland State University) Wolfgang Drechsler ( Estonia, Tallinn University of Technology) Kevin Gallagher (USA, Boston University) Jo Marie Griesgraber (USA, New Rules for Global Finance Coalition) Bernard Guerrien (France, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Michael Hudson (USA, University of Missouri at Kansas City) Frederic S. Lee (USA, University of Missouri at Kansas City) Anne Mayhew (USA, University of Tennessee) Gustavo Marqués (Argentina, Universidad de Buenos Aires) Julie A. Nelson (USA, University of Massachusetts, Boston) Paul Ormerod (UK, Volterra Consulting) Richard Parker (USA, Harvard University) Ann Pettifor (UK, Policy Research in Macroeconomics) Alicia Puyana (Mexico, Latin American School of Social Sciences) Jacques Sapir (France, École des hautes études en sciences socials) Peter Söderbaum (Sweden, School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology) Peter Radford (USA, The Radford Free Press) David Ruccio (USA, Notre Dame University) Immanuel Wallerstein (USA, Yale University)
Another indicator that the US, despite the propaganda has not fostered income and wealth fairness for about 40 years. Historically, that’s been the case for well over half the life of the nation. The question: how do we change the long- and short-term trends for the US?
By We The People demanding it Period
According to the polling ‘we the people’ have demanded it since the 1970s. And I remember protests, letters to legislators, and hundreds of petitions over the last 50 years demanding it. Yet US voters keep returning to office legislators and presidents who ignore these demands. It’s time ‘we the people’ become a lot tougher with its demands and the force they exert on politicians. Do they have the courage and strength to do this?
The people don’t see a simple, workable and transformational solution that is decidedly in their self interests, that’s why. That’s what the 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale awakens them to. MLK’s freeing civil rights movement awakened self interested purpose in people, and the freeing effects of the new monetary paradigm will awaken us all and give us the purpose of ending monetary, financial and economic slavery.
Some pessimists affirm that war is the only great leveler. Or, somewhat more rationally, we could say that extreme inequality leads to war — external aggression defuses the internal tensions caused by inequality. War induces/requires internal cohesion, which induces/requires reduced inequality. However, modern (e.g. nuclear) war is not at all “labor-intensive”, and would not “solve the problem” either.
Jorge, war today may not be labor intensive, but up to and including the war in Vietnam, war is very labor intensive. In the US, even today many poor young people or young people with few job prospects join the military. That was even more the case during previous wars. And while WWII decreased both economic inequality and class distinctions, World War I had only slight effect on both of these. The Great Depression effected both more than did WWI. And seldom, in my view does the chaos of war defuse the internal struggles in a nation before the war. The compressed violence, blood, and terror of war mostly just adds the additional problems of mental health and caring for the wounded. I’ve participated in three wars and studied them for most of my life. They seldom cure anything.
Ken Zimmerman
The macroeconomic Profit Law Q=Yd+(I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M) tells one that government deficit-spending/money-creation is the main driver of profit. Thus the Oligarchy’s financial wealth and public debt grow in lockstep. For details see cross-references Profit/Distribution.
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2015/03/profit-cross-references.html
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
My idea and warning were that if nothing is done to rampant inequality, the consequence might in the end be global war(s). An absolute evil, of course.
Jorge, sorry about my misunderstanding. I agree about war being one of the very likely results of “rampaging” economic inequality.
Egmont, I suggest we eliminate both profit and government debt from all economists’ equations. Both were invented for nefarious purposes.
Ken Zimmerman
You say: “Another indicator that the US, despite the propaganda has not fostered income and wealth fairness for about 40 years. Historically, that’s been the case for well over half the life of the nation. The question: how do we change the long- and short-term trends for the US?”
You say also: “Egmont, I suggest we eliminate both profit and government debt from all economists’ equations.”
No, because the macroeconomic Profit Law shows us how to effectively “change the long- and short-term trends for the US.”#1
You say: “It’s time ‘we the people’ become a lot tougher with its demands and the force they exert on politicians.” Toughness, though, does not help much. In order to improve the economy, one must know precisely how the machinery works. If one wants to get a plane/rocket off the ground one needs scientific knowledge, wishful thinking or “tough demands” do NOT help. It is the same with economic policy.#2
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 The surefire way to abolish billionaires
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-surefire-way-to-abolish-billionaires.html
#2 Right policy depends on true theory
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/07/right-policy-depends-on-true-theory.html
Egmont, there are no laws (in the universal, everywhere “sciencee” sense) in human societies and cultures. There are rules that people create to explain themselves and the events they perceive around them, guide their actions. And since humans create all the physical sciences, as well the same can be said for physical laws. What humans take as fixed and universal, as laws is usually the result of limited humans perspectives. For example, most physicists are now certain that the speed of light is not fixed. It seems fixed due to these limitations. It seems unlikely, in light of the remarks above that any equation or group of equations can change any trends, economic or otherwise. In most instances we don’t have that kind of control. Sometimes, no control at all. Social scientists, the honest ones, have hit the government, the wealthy, and their fellow scientists with scientific facts for decades. The result, moves toward authoritarianism grow stronger and economic inequality gets bigger and bigger. This is a political fight, and a dirty one.