Michael Hudson talks maintream economics
Mainstream Economics become the celebration of the wealthy rentier class
To paraphrase Mark Twain, everyone complains about inequality, but nobody does anything about it.
What they do is to use “inequality” as a takeoff point to project their own views on how to make society more prosperous and at the same time more equal. These views largely depend on whether they view the One Percent as innovative, smart and creative, making wealth by helping the rest of society – or whether, as the great classical economists wrote, the wealthiest layer of the population consist of rentiers, making their income and wealth off the 99 Percent as idle landlords, monopolists and predatory bankers.
False choice. There’s no either/or heare. Many are innovative, smart and creative, but they are just using political power to grab too much of the revenue others help them generate. I have yet to see any proposals suggesting that the 1%’s wealth should be confiscated. They do say to take more of the marginal dollar in taxes — usually proposing relatively modest increases to 42% or 45% or even 50% on incomes above $1 million or so — and propose various ways of increasing the bargaining power of workers.
Then again, those born on 3rd base and living off their wealth — whether they think they hit a triple or know they were just lucky — are rentiers.