The topic we have been discussing class this week is the UN state of cities. One of the concepts I found to hit me the hardest was the idea of wealth disparity. Its incredible how the as the net worth of a capita increases they belong to an increasingly smaller social class but control increasingly more assets. It all makes perfect sense but it can still be a difficult concept to truly wrap one's head around.
At the bottom of this post is an article which puts some of this data as it applies to citizens of the United States into graphical form. The interesting part from looking this over is how it shows what people want the distribution to be and what they think it is against the reality. Its incredible how extreme the realities are and how inaccurately people perceive them.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
Very limited post and link was not clickable.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people need to realize the implications of a true capitalism government: Money lies in the hands of the few. So, I sit here laughing when people refer to our government as a system run on the concepts of capitalism. For example, people complain "Corporations have too much of a role in our Capitalistic society." When there are corporations that have more money than our government, they better have a say in our government. That's one of the problems with capitalism- corporations get a say in the government because most of the money is left in the hands of few. So, one cant ask the question "Do Corporations have to much say in the American Government" and then refer to our government as "Capitalism" because the question asked is a direct effect of capitalism. Now, rather, if we referred to our government as it really was - some sort of mix of capitalism and socialism, then one could make the point that corporations do have too much of a say in our government.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, when you look over in other countries you see that our government protects the wishes of these corporations, so essentially these corporations and our government are one in the same. For example, in 1951, the CIA ran a covert operation to unseat Arbenz, the newly elected Guatemalan leader, simply because the United Fruit Company petitioned to the government in an appealing way. The UFCO did this because Arbenz wanted to redistribute land that the UFCO owned. Sorry I went off on that rant but you really didn't give me much to work with up there ^.
Merriam-Webster defines Capitalism as: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.
DeleteSo yes, corporations should have a say in what goes on, because in the end they are the ones who ultimately control money flow within the economy (if you want to talk about private banks). Our government isn't supposed to be in pure control of the economy (private interests should drive the markets). Government isn't a creator, but simply a redirector.
Wealth Disparity is a major concern in the United States and all across the world. Poverty has rapidly increased in the past decade and rich just keep getting richer. Since upper and middle class families own the majority of the "money" that flows within our economy, they control the majority of assets. Those who are less fortunate, however, are the lower class and those facing poverty. In the link that you posted, the graph shows how 90% of all people are making less than 10% of what middle and upper class families earn annually.
ReplyDelete