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[...] the decline in unionisation is the result of the bias in technical change towards skilled workers. Technological change biased towards skilled workers undermines the coalition between them and unskilled workers that provides the basis for union bargaining power, and the consequent decline in unionisation amplifies the rise in wage dispersion.
divide and conquer applied to the workforce on the part of management (as a proxy for capital)
One reason for there being no comparable unemployment target is that there is a degree of ambiguity about the goal itself. Indeed, we have to ask why the US Congress is seeking "maximum employment." Why is it better to increase the number of sixty-four-year-olds stacking supermarket shelves? To pursue this further, we have to distinguish between intrinsic and instrumental reasons for seeking to increase employment. The instrumental reason is that with which I began the chapter: that employment is the principal route for individuals and their families to escape poverty and for societies to return to lower levels of inequality. [...]
[...] the labour-market goal should be stated, not in terms of maximising employment but in terms of minimising involuntary employment [...]
he differentiates between people who choose to not work (because they want to look after their children, for instance) and those who are looking for more work
[...] When richer families have more children, inequality is reduced [...] "The average upper middle-class familiy is only two-thirds of the size of the average working-class family. Hence, in the absence of modifications introduced by marriage, fresh accumulations, and taxation, the distribution of property would be likely to become more and more unequal." [...] better-off families having fewer children and hence accentuating the tendency towards greater inequality.
But what exactly is the output of the financial services sector? [...] If one investment fund is outperforming another through picking the right shares, is not another fund losing on the other side of the equation? What makes it a positive-sum rather than a zero-sum business? [...] "Common sense suggests that if a closed circle of people continuously exchange bits of paper with each other, the total value of these bits of paper will not change much, if at all. If some members of that closed circle make extraordinary profits, these profits can only be made at the expense of other members of the same circle." [...]
In 1797 Thomas Paine, the philosopher and revolutionary, set out in his Agrarian Justice a scheme "to create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterlin, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property."
In my view, we should be focusing on the overall net worth of the state, not just the national debt. The proper objective of fiscal policy should be a return to a situation where the state has a significant positive net worth. Of course the reduction of the national debt would contribute to this end, but it is only one side of the equation. The other side is the accumulation of state assets. By holding capital and by sharing in the fruits of technological developments, the state can use the resulting revenue to promote a less unequal society. This is all the more important, given the earlier analysis of the economic forces driving the distribution of income. To the question, who owns the robots? the answer should be that, in part, they belong to us all.
this resonates with the idea of "welcomed nationalisation" that Toby brought up - that you should innovate with the hope of eventually having your creation nationalised, with the profits going to everyone and not just yourself; that it should be something you celebrate and strive towards, because what is a more worthy goal than actually making the world (or at least your subdivision of it) a better place?
[...] people are taxed on the amount received rather than the amount left, as happens under the current system. [...] With a progressive rate structure, this switch would provide a direct incentive to spread wealth more widely. People could pass on their wealth tax free if it were transferred to people who have received little so far in lifetime receipts. In this way, it could contribute to reducing both gender inequality and inequality across generations. More important, the new tax would be patently directed at seeking to secure a more level playing field and thus contributing to reducing inequality of opportunity [...]
a proposal for a fairer inheritance tax that would decrease inequality
[...] in the case of valuable properties there should be provision for payment in the form of equity participation in the value of the house. Such a provision would help, for example, pensioners living in a valuable house who have a relatively small cash income. [...]
in a paragraph proposing property tax be more proportional (right now it's not at all)
I mostly like the idea because it's more patalable than my significantly more radical version (basically, throw these people out of their houses) but it's a step in the same direction.
In the past, the impact of high marginal tax rates lower down the scale was dismissed on the grounds that many people had little discretion about their working hours or intensity of work. However, even if that were true in the past, it has become less so in a labour market where there is greater fluidity. [...]
for someone working (say) forty hours a week, high marginal tax rates are created by the withdrawing of income-tested benefits (entitlement to tax credits), so they can face marginal tax rates of ~70%
There is, moreover, a second crucial difference between the two types of scheme: the Child Benefit strategy would continue to make transfers to families with children at all income levels. This means that we have to consider issues of equity, not just between rich and poor, but also between those with and without children. We have to examine the way in which families with and without children are valued in our society--an issue not discussed in the standard economic analysis. Should we, other things equal, attach a higher value to £1 received by the person with a child than to a person with no children? Some people would say "no," arguing that having children today is a "lifestyle choice" and that the parent should be treated no differently than if he or she made a different choice. For those making such a judgment, the withdrawal of Child Benefit from those with higher incomes would indeed be the distributionally preferred policy, since income woul dbe taken from those who on average were better off. Such a "lifestyle choice" view, however, attaches no weight to the welfare of the child. Many people would regard this as unacceptable. A single person with a child should be counted as two people. The lifestyle choice view runs counter to the widely adopted practice in distributional analyses of adjusting household income for differences in family composition, as discussed in Chapter 1. Children are here today and should count today--as well as being an important part of the future. This is further reinforced by the demands of intergenerational equity. Taken together, these considerations mean that there should be transfers to families with children at all income levels.
good argument here, definitely convinced me despite my anti-child stance