[lbo-talk] Radical Left Critique Of Nation Article

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Tue Nov 25 22:49:50 PST 2003


If this was a radical left critique...aaaagh....

I'm making my way steadily through Doug's book. I dog-eared the passage below before it had been explained to me that Doug is no marxist and therefore his book is a worthless rehash...

"The amount of money it would take to bring all officially poor households up to the poverty line is amazingly small: .5% of GDP, or just over 3% of the income of the richest fifth of households. It would take a bit more money to bring the poor up to a civilized standard, but not that much. Doubling the incomes of the poorest 20% of households -- from an average of $10,136 (in 2001) to $20,272, which is still less than half the median--by taxing the richest 20% would require the affluent fifth to sacrifice less than 7% of their income, bringing it down from an average of $145,970 to a mere 135,834. That would reduce their share of the national pie to late-1980's levels, hardly a period when the upper orders were suffering. But clearly it's much more important that the affluent be able to buy Hummers than to accomplish this bleeding-heart goal." (p. 111)

Why do I never see stuff like this in radical papers? No one can bother to crunch the numbers? Anything short of total revolution is useless? What? I found this little calculation shocking and illuminating. It is often suggested that because of the great number of poor and the small number of the rich, re-distributing wealth would amount to miniscule gains for the poor -- Henry Ford is often quoted in illustration "Here's your nickel!" The facts show something very different. So thanks Doug for doing your homework and writing a book that is readable and an excellent source of basic data about the wonders of the new economy.

Joanna



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