Winner Take All Politics
Comment #1:
…Which is why all this concern over widening wealth gaps is mostly nonsense — its an unavoidable consequence of economic growth…
Reply:
…Perhaps I can demonstrate the shortcomings in this “argument” with the following parallel statement:
Which is why all this concern over traumatic brain injury to servicemen is mostly nonsense — it’s an unavoidable consequence of modern combat.
My statement — like the one defending growing wealth gaps — contains a self-evident statement about the relationship between a consequence and its cause. But neither statement does anything to advance the argument that the concern in question is “nonsense.”
Reply to “..traumatic brain injury…”:
Except that Bill Gates being rich doesn’t harm me in any appreciable way. Also, my neighbor has a better house than me, but that doesn’t hurt either. Well unless envy = harm nowadays.
Reply to “Except that Bill Gates…”:
I believe you’ve misconstrued the issue. It isn’t the effects of people like Bill Gates beingrich. It the effect of people like Bill Gates being profoundly richer than the vast majority of Americans.
And that distinction is consequential.
For instance, when the United States Supreme Court has declared the expenditure of money to be equal to speech, one can see how such a vast disparity of wealth, and the subsequent disparity of political power, could be recognized as appreciable harm.
…from a book review of Winner Take All Politics on the excellent BoingBoing.net blog.
All I’ll say is this is a book everyone should read. Don’t jump off into the talking points of a few of the comments on this post. Read the book. It’s numbers objective. And infuriating.
12/04/2010