NY Times: Everything you need to know about Piketty vs. the FT

Marxism is now mainstream political thought in America.

Trouble is brewing.   Serious trouble.  Honest-to-God trouble. 

The catalyst is Thomas Piketty’s book, “Capital,” originally published in France last year and in the USA in March. The gist of the book is that income inequality between the classes is becoming so compelling that the only solution is a global wealth tax and more government intervention.  The book has soared to the top of the best seller’s list and stayed there.

Conservative media (the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times) have challenged the rigor of the author’s data analysis, and further have challenged some simplifying assumptions he made in compiling and synthesizing the data.  Those squabbles will play out over the next couple weeks and maybe the dust will settle on how much they affect the book’s conclusions.

What is at issue are basic assumptions underlying our way of life: 

·         is the free enterprise system a good organizing construct for a well-ordered society? 

·         should the affluent be able to bequeath their lifetime wealth to their chosen heirs?

·         should the income and consequent wealth of our economy be allocated according to one’s productivity (work and investment); according to one’s need (poverty); or according to purchased political access (graft)?

Why do I think this is so huge? 

·         Income-tax payers are a political minority.  In the past 100 years, affluent people have limited family size.  Those in deep poverty have such a deprived life that the only readily available source of pleasure and momentary solace is reproduction or eating.  As such, our demographics have changed to the point that more low income people are being produced and obesity is endemic; consequently, the vote is heavily tilting to low income people.  Mitt Romney (oafishly) pointed out that 47% of the electorate pays no income tax (yes many do remit payroll tax, but that is not income tax.)

·         Bad things happen when politicians “soak the rich”.  When I got married (1981) the top income tax rate was 70% and the natural result of this was that the wealthy hid their cash in Swiss bank accounts or they created tax shelters.  This is a moral hazard and it made the convoluted US tax code even more tortuously complex.  The uber rich will have their way by some means, and it undermines the already-diminished moral fabric to corrupt them even more with confiscatory taxes.  The more some privileged few play by their own rules, the more the wider society thinks it is necessary to game the system.  This is how Mexico came to have such corruption in law enforcement.

·         Socialism has already been tried and it was a mess to clean up.  The Russian Revolution (1917) was about income inequality.  The French Revolution (1789) was the same.  Latin America has been plagued by wars and political unrest stemming from income inequality (lack of a functioning middle class.)

·         Confiscatory taxes corrupt society.  Regardless of morality, productive people flee to societies where they are allowed to keep the fruits of their labors.  Now that the United States is also becoming socialist, there is nowhere else to go.  So, productive people will look for means to hide their wealth from the tax man . . . moral hazard and corruption.  This is the political economy of Russia – a kleptocracy with 40% alcoholism (despair) among the people.

There will always be class conflict.  The masses (low income) can be soldiers and the affluent can buy guns, planes, and tanks.  This was the story of the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949.  This is the story of the Middle Eastern conflict today.  We have a way to mediate this conflict in our society:  three branches of government with a balance of powers.

However, there is now effectively a fourth branch:  the parasites – the career politicians and the lobbyists that purchase their votes.  After Congressional service, any Senator or Representative can “monetize” their service by becoming a lobbyist and garnering millions. (See “This Town” by Mark Lebovich, 2013, Blue Rider Press.) 

The Parasite Branch exists to manipulate us for their political gain.  There is no party ideology, no patriotism, no commonweal.  There is only their posturing before the media and within the Parasite Branch to strengthen their influence.

If we want to let our Constitutional government function as designed, we have to root out the Parasite Branch.  This is only possible with campaign finance reform, term limits, tax code simplification, and a balanced budget.  Then we can allow a citizen government to mediate the difficult choices inherent in apportioning resources wisely.

Do not succumb to the illusion that there are Republicans and Democrats.  There is only one party that operates and it is the OPE party:  Opportunist Political Entrepreneur – those who seek to entrench themselves by espousing whatever notions happen to be in the wind. 

The foundation of conservatism is that a well-ordered society steeped in its traditions promotes the public welfare better than other alternatives.  The root of this philosophy is that each individual, by and large, must be self-supporting.

The traditional foundation of progressive thought is that change is immutable and that we must embrace its consequences in order to survive.  The root of this philosophy is that each individual’s creative thought is the locus of adaptation and thus all individuals deserve full inclusion and accommodation.  The creative impulse is the spark of life.

These two ideologies need each other, and they must be in a healthy tension for our society to flourish.  Regrettably, prolonged prosperity has allowed us to deteriorate to the point that our public discourse has become nothing more than demeaning opponents by claiming moral superiority as the ultimate weapon of political suasion.   

Conservatives fire up their base with gun rights, tax limits, and religious choice.  Progressives fire up their base with social prerogatives and government as the benevolent agent to combat the evil plutocrats.  Firing up the base is a whole lotta manipulation, a wagon-load of self-serving emotional skullduggery.

Are we this pathetic?  Can we govern ourselves no better than this?  If we do not insert some rational overlays into our discourse, we will have our own revolution well before our 300^th birthday. 

Uproot the Parasite Branch.  Install a citizen government.  Take congressional votes off the auctioneer’s table.   Act like there are consequences to our choices, and balance the freaking budget. 

How long will we operate with the delusion that there will be no day of reckoning for the fact that we replaced irresponsible household debt with irresponsible national debt? 

In 1844, Karl Marx wrote that “religion . . . is the opiate of the people.”  In the intervening 170 years, some new opiate has taken hold.   It is probably all the entertainment choice we have that merrily blunts our sense of reality, severs our connection to any sense of urgency.  We the torpid, led by the Parasitic, shall go hurtling off the cliff.  Let’s hope the real estate between here and the edge of the cliff is total nirvana.