Re: Taxing the Rich is Not Enough (fwd)

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

Well, let's hope the billionaires tax passes in Ca to make people
realize who the real enemies are.

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2026 08:41:43 -0700 (PDT)
 >
 >  > Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:05:39 +0000
 >  > From: Dollars & Sense <http://www.ghost.io/~dollarsandsense>
 >  > 
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/29567ef7?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6bc592
 >  > 
 >  > Dollars & Sense [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/777a1eb7?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6bc592
 >  > 
 >  > Taxing the Rich is Not Enough [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/0ee9e8c9?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6bc592
 >  > 
 >  > To reduce inequality, we must change how markets work.
 >  > 
 >  > By Arthur MacEwan • 4 Aug 2026
 >  > 
 >  > View in browser [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/b104b065?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6bc592
 >  > 
 >  > View in browser [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/a23347a0?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6bc592
 >  > 
 >  > Economic inequality in the United States has risen dramatically over the 
 >  > last 60 years. Indeed, the degree of inequality today is probably greater 
 >  > than at any point [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/7a60c9cd?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6b
 >  > c592] in the country’s history. This severe inequality is a severe social 
 >  > malady. So, what should we do about it?
 >  > 
 >  > Consider the following analogy. Suppose that, in response to the high rate 
 >  > of fatalities from automobile accidents, the United States had undertaken 
 >  > major investments in hospital trauma centers, improving the medical system’
 >  > s means of caring for people who had been injured in such accidents. These 
 >  > investments would have included funds for the extensive training of doctors 
 >  > and for emergency room equipment. 
 >  > 
 >  > In fact, over the last several decades, there has been a dramatic decline [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/99b42316?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6b
 >  > c592] in fatalities from automobile accidents. Perhaps some of the decline 
 >  > has come from improved trauma care. However, the really important changes [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/d41784eb?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6b
 >  > c592] that account for this decline have been seat belts and airbags (and 
 >  > most recently, safety technology built into cars), improved road design and 
 >  > traffic control, and campaigns (and laws) against drunk driving.
 >  > 
 >  > In other words, the reduction in car accident deaths has been due to changes 
 >  > that have reduced the number, or at least the severity, of accidents, not 
 >  > from the treatment of people who have been seriously injured in accidents. 
 >  > As a society, we have intervened in causes of car accident deaths rather 
 >  > than just trying to fix up the injured people after the accidents have 
 >  > happened. We might learn from this experience and apply the same approach to 
 >  > severe inequality in the United States. 
 >  > 
 >  > Fixing the Causes or After-the-Fact Fixes?
 >  > 
 >  > Like fixing up people after automobile accidents, higher taxes on the rich 
 >  > are an after-the-fact fix-up to the problem of great economic inequality. 
 >  > And like helping people recover after automobile accidents, higher taxes on 
 >  > the rich are certainly desirable. (A good place to start would be making tax 
 >  > rates on capital gains as high as tax rates on labor income.) But in both 
 >  > cases, these treatments do not address the origins of the problems—the 
 >  > high rate of severe injuries from car accidents and the rising share of 
 >  > income going to the very rich. 
 >  > 
 >  > And there is an added problem. A policy of focusing on repairing the injured 
 >  > people after the accidents can draw attention away from eliminating or 
 >  > reducing the cause of the damage. Likewise, a policy of focusing on taxing 
 >  > the rich after they have become exorbitantly wealthy can draw attention away 
 >  > from the causes of our great inequality and perhaps imply that there is 
 >  > nothing we can do about those causes. 
 >  > 
 >  > At the same time as we tax the rich, there are things we can do about the 
 >  > causes of great inequality. The severe inequality we face is not simply the 
 >  > result of the way “free markets” operate. Indeed, there is really no 
 >  > such thing as “free markets.” Markets are not simply the “natural” 
 >  > order of things, existing beyond human control. Markets are social creations,
 >  >  constructed by governments and by people with social power. They are not 
 >  > set in stone. Perhaps a few examples will clarify the point.
 >  > 
 >  > Constructed Markets
 >  > 
 >  > Consider, for starters, the labor market. In 2022, the U.S. Department of 
 >  > the Treasury issued a report [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/38ef3b29?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6b
 >  > c592] stating, “The American labor market is characterized by high levels 
 >  > of employer power…A careful review of credible academic studies places the 
 >  > decrease in wages at roughly 20% relative to the level [they would be] in a 
 >  > fully competitive market.” Among the factors that generate this result are 
 >  > “non-compete agreements,” which prevent employees from taking jobs with 
 >  > other competing firms, and labor laws that tend to favor employers. When the 
 >  > laws themselves don’t favor employers, the administration and lack of 
 >  > enforcement of the laws often serve that function.
 >  > 
 >  > Then there are international markets. For millennia, governments have been 
 >  > involved in commerce around the globe, setting the rules for who could trade 
 >  > in what, protecting ships at sea, building and maintaining seaports and 
 >  > airports and roads, restricting and taxing trade in many commodities, and 
 >  > establishing trade arrangements among countries. In the current era, it has 
 >  > become especially clear that trade agreements tend to favor the interests of 
 >  > powerful businesses, while placing workers in various countries in 
 >  > competition with one another. One of the interesting—and perverse—
 >  > aspects of U.S. trade agreements in recent decades is that they are often 
 >  > called “free trade agreements”; in fact, they generally extend monopoly� >  > �powerby including extensions of U.S. patent and copyright laws. 
 >  > 
 >  > Monopoly power is not confined to international commerce. It has also been 
 >  > increasing within the United States [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/253de4d3?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6b
 >  > c592], and has provided a basis for rising corporate profits. There are, of 
 >  > course, laws in place to restrict monopolies; these laws are themselves 
 >  > examples of government involvement in the operation of markets. Yet, in 
 >  > recent decades (with a brief exception during the Biden administration), 
 >  > these laws have not been effectively enforced. Here, one might say, it was 
 >  > not the anti-monopoly laws that constructed the market, but the government’
 >  > s choice to ignore those laws. And, as is the case internationally, patent 
 >  > and copyright laws support monopoly power within the United [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/e0c9c3ac?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6b
 >  > c592] States.
 >  > 
 >  > There are other important examples of government’s role in shaping markets 
 >  > in ways that impact economic inequality. Long-existing subsidies to fossil 
 >  > fuel firms and operating school systems that continually recreate social 
 >  > inequality are important examples.
 >  > 
 >  > And connecting all the markets for goods and services is the financial 
 >  > system, which, through deregulation, has become detached from its 
 >  > traditional role of allocating funds to enterprises—a useful function in a 
 >  > market economy. According to Oren Cass, the chief economist at the American 
 >  > Compass, which The New York Times describes as “a conservative economic 
 >  > think tank,” the “finance industry is a grift” [
 >  > https://www.dollarsandsense.org/r/9415501c?m=011d21bb-7b2d-4778-83fd-16070d6b
 >  > c592] (i.e., a fraudulent scheme, scam, or con designed to trick people out 
 >  > of their money or property.) Cass points out that the industry has generated 
 >  > “financialization,” which he describes as follows: 
 >  > 
 >  > >  …the term for making financial markets and transactions ends unto 
 >  > > themselves, disconnected from—and often at the expense of—the societal 
 >  > > benefits that support human flourishing and are capitalism’s proper 
 >  > > purpose. Chief among those benefits are good jobs that support families, 
 >  > > and products and services that improve people’s lives.
 >  > 
 >  > > Financialization has made American businesses less resilient, less 
 >  > > innovative and less competitive. It has been a major cause of slow wage 
 >  > > growth and rising inequality. It has fueled the loss of manufacturing jobs 
 >  > > across the heartland. 
 >  > 
 >  > And financialization has been very profitable for a small group of people 
 >  > and thus an important generator of rising inequality!
 >  > 
 >  > The lesson of all this—this brief account of how markets are structured in 
 >  > ways that generate extreme inequality in the United States—is that we had 
 >  > better focus some attention on the way markets are constructed and undertake 
 >  > some restructuring.
 >  > 
 >  > Something More?
 >  > 
 >  > One might argue that reconstructing markets is not enough. It would, of 
 >  > course, be good to make labor markets more worker-friendly, to disrupt 
 >  > monopoly power in many markets, and to organize global trade to undermine 
 >  > its exacerbation of inequality—to say nothing of reining in 
 >  > financialization. Yet, beyond focusing on these broad markets, we could 
 >  > benefit from a systemic approach through a general extension of social 
 >  > control of economic activity and a reduction in the heavy reliance on 
 >  > markets as the foundation of economic relations. Similarly, returning to 
 >  > automobile deaths, we might argue that the real solution lies in a much more 
 >  > extensive public transportation system, rather than simply safer cars and 
 >  > driving conditions. 
 >  > 
 >  > These would be reasonable arguments and well worth considering. But neither 
 >  > social control of the economy nor widespread effective public transportation 
 >  > will come into being overnight. In the meantime, we need to do what we can 
 >  > to make society, including transportation, work as well as possible. This 
 >  > will not solve all our economic ills, but it would move things in the right 
 >  > direction.
 >  > 
 >  > Arthur MacEwan is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of 
 >  > Ma Boston.