> On May 14, 2016, at 10:53 AM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
>
> On May 14, 2016, at 1:11 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> "widening inequality which is politically destabilizing"
>>
>> =======
>>
>> Accounts of 19th-c England suggest that this alleged "instability" is rather easily contained.
>
> "Political instability" means only instability *within* the state apparatus. The greater the inequality the greater the privileges of members of that apparatus (from prison guards at the bottom to Presidents at the top). Hence, the greater the inequality the greater the political stability, whose sole measure is the ability of the state to repress effectively.
Greater inequality hasn’t led to greater stability. It’s resulted in the appearance and growth of parties to the left and right of the traditional governing parties of the centre and of challenges to the existing leaderships within them, particularly since the financial crisis. While these new movements are far from revolutionary and can be contained in their present form, there is concern if not outright alarm within the ruling class about what the rise of Sanders and Corbyn on the left and Trump and Le Pen on the right portend, even if it only to the degree it impairs the neoliberal agenda of austerity, structural “reform” aimed at working class rights and benefits, and free trade agreements.