Economic inequality leads to democratic erosion, a new study finds.
Economic inequality leads to democratic erosion, a new study finds.
A new study digs into one of the possible driving forces behind the erosion of democratic norms and institutions: economic inequality.
These leaders do so by finding different targets to blame for the inequality. Left-wing, populist backsliders, for example, will blame corporations and economic leaders. Right-wing, ethno-nationalist backsliders might nurture grievances by blaming outsiders or immigrants.
The difference is one of those groups is using facts and logic to correctly identify the problem...
Like, I couldn't get over the cognitive dissonance of the author that those two were equally bad.
Who the fuck else should we blame beside corporations and economic leaders for economic inequality?
You want me to go yell at the tooth fairy that poor kids get less under their pillow?
Ideally they would have gotten into campaign finance deregulation allowing the wealthy to buy both parties...
“It probably comes as a result, to some degree, of a period of globalization and deregulation, of neoliberalism in the 1990s and even earlier developments that have changed party systems—in a lot of countries—in the post-war period,” she says.
But I guess that's close enough. It's like they knew the answer but were too scared to say it
Who the fuck else should we blame beside corporations and economic leaders for economic inequality?
It isn't who, it's what.
Democratic socialists make nearly the same (but opposite) mistake as reactionary conservatives do - rather than identifying the problem at the core of capitalist structures, they both attempt pinning blame on a select group of people who are corrupting a system that ought to work if only it were free from corrupt influences.
The problem with capitalism isn't a lack of sufficient regulation to keep things in check, it's that we allow capital to operate as if it isn't itself an expression of power. A democratic socialist economy can (some might argue will inevitably) lead to deregulation and austerity, because it still allows capital to exercise its influence over the democratic process. This isn't just a matter of campaign finance, either, since capital is still the main way in which important societal and economic organization happens even in democratic socialist economies. The recent re-alignment of social media with reactionary movements is a really good example (as well as legacy media since the cold war), because the mechanism of influence isn't necessarily monetary in nature, though is often accompanied by wealth due to the value of that influence. If Musk or Zuckerberg were personally very poor, they would still own and control a very large and influential platform that they could use to their personal benefit. Even if they were altruistic (hard to imagine, really), the power present in the thing that they own would still exist.
It is the private ownership of capital that is the source of worsening economic conditions, not a lack of regulation over it - as evidenced by the pattern of capital subsuming the democratic process once the level of inequality and popular discontent reaches a threshold that threatens it.
Who the fuck else should we blame beside corporations and economic leaders for economic inequality?
If you accept the existence of a capitalist system (and I'm not sure we have a better option at the moment), then it's fully expected that economic leaders and corporations will try to maximise inequality because, that's their entire purpose and yardstick of success. There's no point blaming them, they're not about to change. Rather, the leaders themselves should be to blame for not implementing proper guidelines and wealth-redistribution systems.
Buddy not everything is about the US. They studied multiple economies. Just because the US is devolving into a corporate hellscape doesn't mean other countries aren't devolving into an auth-right government hellscape.
It's not cognitive dissonance if they're discussing a situation other than your personal perspective and experience.
"A new study finds" what communists have been saying for over a century..
New palace construction drains royal treasuries, a new study finds
This was discussed in 16th century England by the Diggers. I'm not sure the researchers did much "studying" in school.
This seems... apparent.
I love a study that will go 2000 miles out of the way to avoid making a class analysis, very scientific
If you feed the rich, they will shit on your plate
Win win 🤡
Congrats, you've invented 'plop-down economics'.
And vice versa.
Does this study have any groundbreaking insights into the wetness of water?
No but this does.
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jn.00120.2014