Nancy Folbre is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Wall Street is not literally a castle, and the small green space of Zuccotti Park claimed by Occupy Wall Street may soon be emptied. But an upstart movement has spray-painted a new slogan onto the ramparts of the economic establishment.
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“We Are the 99 Percent” effectively publicizes a message consistent with research on the distribution of income and wealth: the top 1 percent of households in the United States represents an economic aristocracy.
Over the last 30 years, it has consolidated and amplified its privileged position, making strategic political investments in policies ranging from financial deregulation to cuts in top marginal tax rates.
It took home 21 percent of the nation’s pretax income in 2008, up from 9 percent in 1976. It controlled 36 percent of the nation’s private wealth in 2009.
Some economists argue that inequality has no downside — a view critically dissected by Timothy Noah in a terrific essay, “The United States of Inequality.”
As a poster I admired at the park last Wednesday succinctly put it: “We want democracy, not plutocracy.”
The protesters don’t necessarily demonize the top 1 percent or suggest that taxing them at a higher rate will balance the budget. What brings them together is the conviction that this group exercises disproportionate control over our economic and political life.
Republicans seem to confirm this view when they assert that higher taxes on millionaires would stunt employment growth – as though a small reduction in disposable income would demoralize otherwise mighty job creators.
The very rich are depicted as champions of the people who would graciously repay further tax cuts with economic growth. Yet Republican tax cuts dug much of the budget hole we live in.
A quarter of the millionaires in the United States pay lower tax rates than some middle-class households, vindicating concerns expressed by Warren E. Buffett, the investor king of Omaha now widely considered a traitor to his class.
The posters I saw didn’t propose class war, but they did express class rage. “I paid for your bailout” said one, “and I want a refund.” “Health care, not wealth care,” said another. Several said simply, “I need a job.”
The protestors I heard didn’t pretend to offer a political program. One held up a sign saying, “We’re Here, We’re Unclear, Get Used to It.” He genially described his participation in a week’s worth of workshops and discussions as a “think tank of democracy.”
Another, more discursive poster described the ideals of the “solidarity economy,” starting with: “I don’t have a boss. I’m a worker-owner in a cooperative business,” and ending with, “I joined a credit union so my money stays in the community.”
What seems to be emerging is what the historian Gar Alperowitz described as a process of “evolutionary reconstruction.” It might start by making capitalism more distinct from feudalism.
This idea came to me while reading about a great new product that just hit the market: a $6,400 toilet with its own remote control for water spray and drying fan. Marie Antoinette would have loved it for Versailles.
Whether the ramparts are breached or not, I predict a long and fascinating siege.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c8290b17ffcde31ce673348ce346aad9
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