Is Inequality in America Irreversible? by Chuck Collins

Author:Chuck Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509522545
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2018-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

4

Reducing the Concentration of Wealth

Reversing inequality requires policies that raise the floor and level the playing field. But we cannot ignore the rigged rules that are exacerbating the concentration of wealth.

Politically popular policies aimed at reducing inequality through “expanded opportunity” – such as investing in education – are insufficient to address the systemic drivers of inequality. The focus by some on “persistent poverty” is important, but often serves as a reframing and deflection away from the dangers of persistent imbalances of power and wealth.

Reversing inequality requires dealing with the economic and political distortions caused by concentrated wealth and power. Any policy solution, no matter how carefully crafted, will be undermined by these extraordinary imbalances in wealth and political power. And democracy will constantly be under siege in an oligarchic political system. This requires an acknowledgment that “under conditions of extreme economic stratification, there is also an oligarchic realm of power and politics that engages different power resources and merits separate theorization,” according to Jeffrey Winters. “This separate realm of minority power and politics involving concentrated wealth is usually resistant to remedies based on widening participation.”1 For example, wealthy donors seem to find ways to subvert campaign finance laws aimed at reducing their influence. Concentrated wealth is like water hurdling down a hill. It cannot stop itself from influencing the political system. The only way to protect democracy and fix the system is to break up these aggregations of power.

Policies that address these accretions of wealth and power include restoration of progressive income and wealth taxes, anti-trust laws aimed at reducing concentrated corporate power, and disincentives for corporations to pay CEOs hundreds of times more than ordinary workers.

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