No way out
from Shimshon Bichler & Jonathan Nitzan
For much of the 20th and early 21st centuries, U.S. unemployment and incarceration went hand in hand. This is how the rulers disciplined their subjects. But during the Great Depression and Great Recession, the link broke, if only temporarily. The following figure shows these patterns.
Part of the rational for this two-pronged discipline is illustrated in the next figure: since the Second World War, the income share of the top 10% of the U.S. population has been tightly correlated with the country’s correctional population, although this correlation seems to have broken recently.
For more, see our 2004 paper ‘No Way Out’ bnarchives.yorku.ca/391/
Leave a comment 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
- Lost opportunities?
- The problem with electric vehicles
- Weekend read - A STIGLITZ ERROR?
- Comments on RWER issue no. 69
- With a modest financial transactions tax, Jim Simons would not have been superrich
- Dystopia and economics
- Economics — a dismal and harmful science
- Reflections on the “Inside Job”
- Water Flowing Upwards: Net financial flows from developing countries
- Piketty’s response to Mankiw et al.: "and some consume academics.”
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein
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
- David Harold Chester on Weekend read – A STIGLITZ ERROR?
- David Harold Chester on Weekend read – A STIGLITZ ERROR?
- sackergeoff on With a modest financial transactions tax, Jim Simons would not have been superrich
- CBASILOVECCHIO on Weekend read – A STIGLITZ ERROR?
- David Harold Chester on Weekend read – A STIGLITZ ERROR?
- pfeffertag on Weekend read – A STIGLITZ ERROR?
- CBASILOVECCHIO on Weekend read – A STIGLITZ ERROR?
- Arbo on Economics — a dismal and harmful science
- spamletblog on Economics — a dismal and harmful science
- bckcdb on Economics — a dismal and harmful science
- David Harold Chester on Real-world economists take note!
- Patrick Newman on Real-world economists take note!
- deshoebox on Real-world economists take note!
- felipefrs on The non-existence of economic laws
- Seeker on The non-existence of economic laws
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
- The state of China’s economy 2009 (James Angresano)
- Why some countries are poor and some rich: a non-Eurocentric view (Deniz Kellecioglu)
- What Is Neoclassical Economics? (Christian Arnsperger and Yanis Varoufakis)
- The housing bubble and the financial crisis (Dean Baker)
- Global finance in crisis (Jacques Sapir)
- Green capitalism: the god that failed (Richard Smith)
- New thinking on poverty (Paul Shaffer)
- Debunking the theory of the firm—a chronology (Steve Keen and Russell Standish)
- Trade and inequality: The role of economists (Dean Baker)
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)
(No way out) of here, said the joker to the thief…. Remember Bob Dylan? But then De Tocqueville made similar observations in the 19th century, way before this very interesting graph starts.
But serious, the connection between inequality, or rather concentration of wealth and imprisonment remains an associative one only. That sort of thing requires anthropologists raster then economists, even those of the evolutionary kind.. The inequality issue in the USA has been studied by a generation of social scientists, such as Marvin Harris, culminating in the massive report on the “An American Dilemma: the Negro Problem and Modern Democracy” made by many first rate social scientists and led by Gunnar Myrdal. Read it!
Maybe then you can share with your reader what you really mean by fielding these graphs.
For more, see our 2004 paper ‘No Way Out’ bnarchives.yorku.ca/391/
Correction: 2014 paper, ‘No Way Out’, http://bnarchives.yorku.ca
Historically societies that are unequal in one dimension (e.g., economic) often tend to be unequal in other dimensions (e.g., punishment, education, access to health care). We find this tendency generally in societies with systemic and tightly controlled stratification arrangements that stretch back many generations that disadvantage specific and well identified subgroups within the society. The US is one such society.
Seems logical that in depressions more effort is made to make provisions for the unfortunates left with no means of support. Outside these periods, people are expected to have money, and many have to obtain it illegally.
CoViD unemployment recently, was offset with social measures, plus incarceration may have been limited in the attempt to reduce viral spread in institutions.
No need to look at share of national wealth figures to explain this.