.
After the demise of communism, the next economic overturn will be the U.S. capitalism of greed accompanied by the evangelicals for profit. There is no democracy in the US as one man, one vote has been replaced by one dollar, one vote. From Asia and Europe will rise capitalism with a social fiber for continuity of communal endeavor. In the BRIC countries, India may be replaced by Indonesia. Key in further economic development is approach of green energy and conservation. The investments will come from the future economic powers …
Some other thoughts, read:
- The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
- Shock therapy, Milton Friedman and neoliberalism in economics
- Reaganomics
- Bushes, Yale’s Skull & Bones and the order out of chaos principle
Neoliberalism and the New Gilded Age: The Wealth Pyramid in the US
(Sanhati, India) – An observer of US politics would be struck by the absurdity of the US Congress scuttling a proposal to let the Bush tax breaks expire for households with incomes over $250,000, as part of the deal for letting unemployment insurance be extended, at a time when most American people are still struggling with the disastrous impact of the most profound economic crisis since the Great Depression. Even more outrageous, is the unfolding farce of a potential budget crisis (which was definitely not eased by the tax breaks to the rich!) being cynically deployed to launch an aggressive assault not just on the earnings and benefits enjoyed by state employees (including teachers) but also on the hard worn rights of collectively bargaining across the country. Absurd or outrageous as these developments might be, they are not inexplicable. They reflect the stark reality of the structure of the US economic and political landscape – the growing concentration of power in the hands of an elite coterie and the widening chasm that separates this elite from the rest of the American people.
The growing inequality of income since the eighties is well documented[1]. About 24% of the national income of USA flows into the hands of the top one percent of American households. The neoliberal backlash, in the wake of the stagflationary crisis of the seventies, ushered in a period of the consolidation of the power of financial and corporate capital in the US alongside a concerted attack on labor. This “coup” fuelled the enrichment of the top elite at the expense of the working class. At the same time a new managerial revolution has reinforced the alliance between the executive-managerial class and financial and corporate capital[2]. While wages for the average worker have remained relatively stagnant compensation paid the upper end of the corporate hierarchy has grown over the past decades. The compensation paid to the average CEO increased from 40 times that paid to the average worker in 1980, to nearly 300 times in 2000, before declining slightly to 240 times in 2008[3].
The enrichment of the top 1%, however, is not simply through this skewed wage growth. A big chunk of the income earned by the top 1% of the income distribution in the US is earnings from financial capital – ownership of stocks, bonds and other financial assets.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
