What is your source for 1968 as the year of greatest income equality in the US? LIS? Most of the sources that I have seen suggest that both the quintile ratio and the official poverty rate reached their lowest points a couple of years after 1970, although the Gini coefficient or the Atkinson index or some other measure may well behave differently. Even at its lowest, the US poverty rate never got below 11%.
It is worthwhile remembering that both overall economic growth and the extension of income redistribution programs extended through Richard Nixon's first term. He makes Clinton look like a reactionary (which he is, arguably).
But then you are Mr. Data and I stand prepared to be corrected, :-). Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 11:27 AM Subject: Re: bourgeosie at thought
>Juan Jose Barrios wrote:
>
>>(snip). Summers:
>>
>>> Thoughtful people in the middle of the
>>> political spectrum, including those charged with developing policies to
>>> resolve economic and financial crises in developing countries, had
>>> considerably more trouble effecting a resolution. They faced a complex
set
>>> of trade-offs rather than clear precedents and had to make difficult
>>> judgments without either adequate background information or much time
for
>>> reflection.
>>
>>What does this mean? I believe "Thoughtful people" may represent the vast
>>majority of the people. So, what Summers is suggesting is that the
majority of
>>the world (developing) population is confused, have not had time "for
>>reflection" or is just missinformed", and that we should turn either to
the
>>illuminating right/left?? Oh my...
>
>No, thoughtful people are ones who agree with Summers!
>
>>Does this represent a turn to a some type of keynesian thought? It is not
>>clear
>>from the IMF publication how would he go about instrumenting those
>>"institutional arrangements". Maybe a "Global Central Bank" to obtain
>>liquidity
>>from surplus countries and transfer that to countries with BOP deficits? I
am
>>dreaming. am I not?
>
>Stiglitz might be thinking something like this, but I doubt Summers is -
>especially now that he has to prove his soundness to Wall Street.
>
>>How about Safety Nets? Globalization tends to destroy safety nets. How can
he
>>(or we) argue for a more global economy and at the same time aim to
stronger
>>safety nets.
>
>Oh the World Bank, and to a lesser extent the IMF, have been promoting
>safety nets over the last several years. The rationale is that without
>safety nets, brutal restructurings are less politically palatable. Asian
>firms, for example, might be more willing to fire people en masse if they
>have unemployment checks to fall back on than if there's no unemployment
>benefit system.
>
>>Again the long run view....Lets just look at Argentina, Brazil, etc. High
>>rates
>>of GDP growth and increasing inequality. I guess I will have to go on
reading
>>and reading and researching to find out where on earth has this type of
law
>>actually succeded under classical assumptions/policies. It did happen b/w
>>1950-1973 on the keynesian era in the US, did it not?
>
>U.S. inequality declined from the early-1930s until around 1968, and then
>started rising again.
>
>>Am I so wrong to think that there is a strong contradiction b/w the
policies
>>they (Summers, Stiglitz, etc.) and the objective they pursue? if I am
right,
>>why then? Is it just ideology, or what?
>
>Brad De Long & others argue that in his heart of hearts, if there is such a
>place, Summers really does care about poverty & the environment - but the
>same was said of Rubin. Lisa Endlich, author of that newish book on Goldman
>Sachs, told me that Rubin has a deep ideological belief in the beauty and
>justice of free markets, so that over the long term, Americanization will
>be good for everyone. Bob Fitch once calculated that Rubin's income in his
>last year at Goldman Sachs was equal to that of the poorest 10,000
>households in Brooklyn. Apparently Rubin thinks that deregulating finance
>is good for the world's poor. Summers may be less of an ideologue, but I
>doubt his policies will be any different from Rubin's. Stiglitz, though,
>appears to be something of a social democrat - no revolutionary, but more
>critical of the austerity & deregulation agenda. I don't know how things
>are now, but last year, Summers was extremely nervous about Stiglitz'
>positions and tried to have him fired.
>
>Doug
>