Inequality by Choice

A report at the Economic Policy Institute by Lawrence Mishel, Heidi Shierholz, and John Schmitt disputes the "skill-based technological change" (SBTC) model for growing wage inequality. Rather, policy decisions regarding issues such as minimum wage, unionization, and globalization have greater effect.  Other wealthy countries have institutions in place to lower inequality (note the horizontal axis doesn't start from zero):

Update (December 1):  Combating inequality takes an economic-rights movement.  Michael Lind argues that economic-rights progressivism versus libertarian conservatism is the central political battle of our time.

The mainstream right’s economic vision is libertarian, pure and simple: smaller government, lower taxes, free trade and deregulation. Add to this the goal of replacing universal, tax-financed social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare with means-tested vouchers to subsidize for-profit providers of retirement savings and medical insurance and medicine, and you have pretty much the whole right-wing economic program.

Only direct legislation can serve as a remedy to the evils of low wages and inadequate benefits. Through the government, America’s citizenry must insist that all businesses in the U.S. pay a living wage. And employer benefits should be gradually phased out and replaced by universal, generous social insurance — not only universal health care and an expanded Social Security system, but also a new federal system of family leave, paid for by payroll taxes.

Update (December 4):  In a speech sponsored by the Center for American Progress, President Obama called growing income inequality a "defining challenge of our time".

Update (December 10):  Growing inequality has made the United States a country "rich in name only".

Update (December 15):  Addressing inequality means more than just creating equality of opportunity at the expense of looking at equality of outcome.  As Sean McElwee demonstrates, outcome determines opportunity for the next generation.

Update (January 25, 2014):  Sean McElwee argues that a focus on upward mobility is not a substitute for addressing the immorality of inequality.

Update (January 29, 2014):  An interview with John Schmitt.

Update (January 30, 2014):  Eleven problems with inequality.

Update (March 16, 2014):  Thomas Frank writes about President Obama's pivot from "inequality" to "opportunity" and how Obama failed to bring meritocracy to Washington, DC.

A New Tyranny

As a new poll shows that an "unprecedented" number of Americans worry about losing their job, Pope Francis released an apostolic exhortation which, in part, addresses concerns about poverty and growing economic inequality.

As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems.  Inequality is the root of social ills.

Update (November 29):  Eugene Robinson reflects on the Pope's message.

Update (May 9, 2014):  Pope Francis calls for the redistribution of wealth to the poor.

Update (June 14, 2014):  In an interview, Pope Francis expresses concern about high youth unemployment and an economic system based on "the idolatry of money".

[W]e are discarding an entire generation to maintain an economic system that can’t hold up anymore, a system that to survive must make war, as the great empires have always done.

For an Eco-Socialist Future

Richard Smith of the Institute for Policy Research & Development gets straight to the point:

Capitalism is, overwhelmingly, the main driver of planetary ecological collapse.

It has become necessary to stop doing what we are doing (the over-consumption of everything), and yet any aspect of reform is essentially incompatible with capitalist motivations.  Smith argues there is no technical solution or market solution to prevent collapse.  Using "green" energy to promote more growth is not a solution.  Carbon taxes won't put a cap on emissions.  Energy companies are not going to voluntarily leave fossil fuels in the ground.  Ignoring the economic implications means we are deluding ourselves.

The solution requires greater democracy and basic economic equality.  Smith claims that by consuming less, everyone's basic necessities could be met, and that our lives would be richer without wasteful production and mindless shopping.

The question is:  will humanity stand by and let the world be destroyed to save the profit system?

Update (November 22):  Richard Heinberg takes on Paul Krugman regarding the end of growth.

Update (November 27):  A quote from Fawzi Ibrahim's book Capitalism versus Planet Earth, being used to promote Buy Nothing Day:

A stark choice faces humanity:  save the planet and ditch capitalism or save capitalism and ditch the planet.

Update (December 1):  Climate scientists Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows-Larkin call for a rethinking of the economic order in an interview with Amy Goodman.  Anderson says that avoiding 2 degrees Celsius of warming requires a "revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony".

Update (December 22):  David Suzuki explains why endless exponential growth is impossible.

Update (September 9, 2014):  Joe Todd laments the culture of consumption.

Update (June 26, 2018):  It is embarrassing that I'm just now made aware of An Ecosocialist Manifesto.

Ecosocialism will be international, and universal, or it will be nothing.

Update (July 14, 2019):  Rob Urie:

Given the trajectory of environmental decline, Western political economy will either be used to ring-fence rich from poor to leave the poor to their own devices, problems will be deemed unsolvable and decline will take its course, or capitalism will be overthrown and replaced with something workable.

Update (July 17, 2019):  Manuel Garcia asks, "do we work dutifully to the death, or till cast adrift as expendable, and do we willingly follow the leader to perdition if he is hellbound and determined for it; or do we rebel, overturn the structure of command, and lead ourselves even if such freedom entails a hard life?"

Remember that the biggest threat to humanity’s survival is anti-social human behavior; climate change alone can’t kill us.

Many will say that obviously climate change as competitive war game is the only realistic alternative because it requires no behavioral changes from our over 10,000 years of "civilized" human history, and because eco-socialism is pure utopianism and thus beyond all realistic actualization. And of course, eco-socialism is impossible in a world of Ahabs and fanatical Ahab followers. But all that is just an excuse to continue with bad behavior. There are no actual physical or biological constraints preventing people from choosing to associate in an eco-socialist manner. The current societal improbability for deeply cooperative behavior does not make future species-wide collective cooperation an impossibility. Responding to climate change could provide a framework on which to build such a species-wide socialist civilization.

Elusive Opportunity

The Emissions Gap Report 2013 from the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that the effort to limit carbon dioxide emissions will fall 8 to 12 billion tons short of a goal set in 2010. The "window of opportunity" to prevent a 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperature is closing.

Update (November 6):  The World Meteorological Organization reports that the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration averaged 393.1 ppm in 2012, a new record.  The increase from 2011 to 2012 was higher than the average increase over the previous ten years.

Update (November 15):  At the Warsaw climate talks, Japan announced a revised goal for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2020:  from 25 percent to 3.8 percent of 2005 levels due to the shutdown of their nuclear plants.

Update (November 25):  A study has found that US methane emissions have been underestimated. The revised estimate of 49 million tons for 2008 is 1.5 to 1.7 times as much as previous estimates.

Update (December 22, 2015):  A study says cold-season methane emissions from permafrost have been underestimated. Also, soil erosion in general increases carbon emissions.

Mean Income Up, Median Stagnant

From the Social Security Administration Wage Statistics for 2012, David Cay Johnston reports that only workers in the top half of compensation are experiencing any gains.  While the mean wage was $42,498, the median was $27,519.  Two-thirds of employees have incomes below the mean.