Why Decry the Wealth Gap?

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Jan 25 08:36:22 PST 2000


Rakesh Bhandari wrote:


>Yet in the final analysis, no net movement out of wage labor has been
>demonstrated. So all this does not impact on the Marxian thesis. There is
>no net movement into the the bourgeoisie especially on a world scale. Quite
>the opposite, though the income share of the bourgeoisie, ever diminished
>in number, remains the same. Wealth is ever more concentrated.

I'd agree, but with a minor dissent: the creation of a new class of Third World plutocrats, like the 24 billionaires who emerged in Salinas' Mexico (many of whom enjoyed privileged access to privatized state properties), along with a broader stratum of their apologist intellectuals employed at places like the World Bank. Of course there have always been compradors, but this seems on a bit larger scale than before.

Doug



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