Is Redistribution the Solution?
Toward the end of a very interesting and worthwhile conversation about how right-wing “populism” co-opts righteous anger at established institutions, Vincent Bevins asked Naomi Klein how she would counter that co-optation. Her answer was to advocate a “real left that has a political program that is actually redistributive,” which sounds good until you realize that the capitalist economy is already massively redistributive so “redistributing the redistribution” would end up building a doppelganger of capitalism, to use Naomi Klein’s own term.
Throughout his mature critique of political economy work from the Grundrisse to Capital to his work with the First International, Marx consistently advocated shorter working time as the prerequisite for the “blossoming of the realm of freedom.” He didn’t make those proclamations because he was kidding or drunk or couldn’t think of anything else to say. He said it because disposable time and its expropriation in the form of surplus labour time was at the core of his analysis.
The tragedy of 20th century socialism was that it went off on the untheoretical detour of “redistribution.” So-called Communist regimes even had to beef up their industrial production so that they would have (barely) enough to redistribute. To repeat such a “program of redistribution” in the 21st century would not be a joke. It would be a farce. Such programs were already advocated in the 19th century by Proudhon and Sismondi — and refuted by Marx.
Redistribution makes sense if one assumes the main problem with capitalism is the private ownership of property. In The Manifesto of the Communist Party, published in1848, Marx and Engels appeared to take such a position. That was before Marx began his decade-long study of English political economy. His magnum opus, Capital, is a notoriously difficult read that was made easier to understand by interpreting it through the lens of the Manifesto. But surplus value, the big new idea in Capital, was something Marx only discovered in the 1850s.
The political economy of the 20th century has largely consisted of attempts to refute or vindicate Marx’s doppelganger, the guy who wrote an agitational pamphlet as the guide to an unfinished critique of political economy that he would write 20 years later. Some of the brilliance of the “unknown Marx” managed to shine through his imposter’s facade and it is highly improbable we would anything about the former if it weren’t for the fame — and infamy — of the latter. Marx, of course, had other policy ideas than shorter working time but my point is simply that repeatedly Marx emphasized the reduction of working time as a precondition for emancipation and not as some pie-in-the-sky for workers in the sweet by and by.
Nice post! Thanks!
Lower hours and higher pay system will be an epic fail. Millions of the 70+ seniors worked much longer hours to make ends meet. Many have debilitating arthritis pain from being worn out. The same seniors are, along with combat injured veterans, neglected and abused daily with the current special interests Obama healthcare system. It’s near impossible to enjoy a full life. Voters need to press political candidates what their plans are for the out of control healthcare special interest money.
@olddog,
We already know what the GOP candidate plans are–abolish the ACA and replace it with nothing.
Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay olddog?
olddog:
Do people have to work long hours to make ends meet or is it one of those cost-saves companies do to lower costs when in reality there are other saves which have a greater impact to costs? The issue is not labor which is typically the lowest cost. It is the other costs that are tagged on to labor. Shorter hours and more people working as a result, at a higher wage, would satisfy many issues including being worn out.
Don’t get discouraged with the answers you are getting. My whole life was supply chain, throughput, and how to improve each. I retired at 70.
Thanks Bill,
I was looking more for a rebuttal healthcare is not loaded with special interest money. Staying on article topic, I guess the new capitalist economy is tax payer money. Wait until global warming costs get factored in. I wonder why there’s no science published Venus and Mars temperatures are going up in lockstep with this rock. I enjoyed the movie Back to the Future one of my favs, wish I could go back 60 years when we had free markets.
@olddog,
“I wonder why there’s no science published Venus and Mars temperatures are going up in lockstep with this rock.”
There isn’t if you don’t look. There is if you bother to look. Google is your friend. I found this within 15 seconds, but there’s lots more out there:
https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars-intermediate.htm
olddog:
Be safe during the holidays. As I said, I did not delete you.
What the decline in union strength has meant:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ns5D
January 30, 2018
Labor Share of Nonfarm Business Income and Real After-Tax Corporate Profits, 1980-2023
(Indexed to 1980)
Decline in labor share of income:
88.5 – 100 = – 11.5%
Increase in real profits:
460.2 – 100 = 360.2%
As for Naomi Klein; she has been especially subject to disdain by prominent American economists, to the extent that her work has been subject to profanity by Brad DeLong. Klein has written in opposition to the “free market” determinism of Milton Friedman.
As for economic growth or development; China has been subject to repeated economic development attacks by America since the passing of the Wolf Amendment in May 2011. China, acting for other developing countries, has a number of times introduced a proposal to the United Nations to make economic development a fundamental human right. America has stopped the adoption of a right to development by the UN.
Correcting:
The Wolf Amendment, meant to undermine or limit the development of a space exploration by China was passed in April 2011 –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
A lot depends on what one means by redistribution.
I retired almost over 25 years ago, and, to my surprise, I discovered that I can spend as much as I want on an extremely comfortable lifestyle and wind up with more money than I started with year over year. If this isn’t some form of redistribution, I can’t imagine what it is. I do nothing, but each year I can command more goods and services.
Most people live in a different regime. They have to watch their spending carefully, and, year over year, they are lucky to break even. Every year, the nation produces more goods and services, but, even accounting for population growth, an hour of labor has yielded a smaller and smaller share of that production over the past 40 years. Again, this looks like redistribution. The fruits of most people’s labors don’t go to the producers but to people like me.
Not surprisingly, we know what to do about it. Marginal tax rates are way too low. When they were much higher, we didn’t have this level of redistribution. We had a strengthening consumer economy that drove much higher economic growth than more recently.
Economists talk about the “middle income trap”, a level of economic development which is hard for a nation to move past. Not surprisingly, the political factors limiting growth are similar in poorer nations and richer ones. Wealthier citizens threaten the economic structure by enabling the rise of new elites. To maintain power, economic growth needs to be limited. How? By redistribution. We saw this happen in the West in the 1980s and we’re seeing it happen in China and Korea now.
Ending or limiting this kind of redistribution is usually denounced as “redistribution”, though the complaint seems to be primarily about the direction of the flow, not the process in and of itself.
Labor content in manufacturing is lower when machines are used to make stuff.
Not to mention robots.
The ‘bosses’ don’t mind buying robots to assemble stuff, when they don’t have to pay workers. But the use of semi-conductors & micro-processors in various products has simplified design & assembly enormously,
They are going to need robots that also buy stuff.
Labor unions squeeze the max pay their product can command out of the paying customers (raising wages until more is lost than gained by raising). If you don’t have labor unions you will get paid much less than customers are willing to fork over. Period; full stop. Get unions or get F***.
Labor has an advantage in raising their wages — labor is only a fraction of the price of the product (ranging from 7% labor costs at Walmart to 25% labor costs at Burger King) — a sort of “multiplier effect.
Labor could take over this country tomorrow. Somebody just has to start pushing for mandatory cert/recert/decert elections at every private workplace. The proposal will sell itself — spread like a wild fire across political fabric. About half the people I talk about this proposal too get real hopeful that I might be talking ab0ut something that is actually in the works.
Automatically win back our misguided MAGA voters. Sure demolition of the Donald. Think about how the Republicans could possibly oppose the proposal.
“[P]inning Mrs. Clinton’s loss on low black turnout would probably be a mistake. Mr. Obama would have easily won both his elections with this level of black turnout and support. (He would have won Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin each time even if Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee had been severed from their states and cast adrift into the Great Lakes.)”
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html
Welcome back to the Democratic Party, working America.
‘Natural’ human greed seems to preclude implementation of redistributuion for the most part.
‘What’s mine is mine.’
Just go ahead and be as charitable as you can.
Notable exceptions exist, but they still fly around in private jets I bet.
A ‘Mirror World’ Where Leftist Disdain Feeds Right-Wing Paranoia
NY Times – Sep 7
In her latest book, “Doppelganger,” Naomi Klein investigates an online underworld of conspiracies and misinformation, showing how its rise has inadvertently been fueled by political progressives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/books/review/doppelganger-naomi-klein.html
September 7, 2023
A ‘Mirror World’ Where Leftist Disdain Feeds Right-Wing Paranoia
In her latest book, “Doppelganger,” Naomi Klein investigates an online underworld of conspiracies and misinformation, showing how its rise has inadvertently been fueled by political progressives.
By Katie Roiphe
DOPPELGANGER: A Trip Into the Mirror World, by Naomi Klein
Hi Tom!
Short answer to your headline is: Yes!
https://wealtheconomics.substack.com/p/how-redistribution-makes-us-all-richer
> the capitalist economy is already massively redistributive
If you accept wealth concentration/distribution as the end-game measure of all previous redistribution (in accounting terms, it is), it’s massively redistributive upward.
https://wealtheconomics.substack.com/p/total-income-and-the-collapse-of
Seize the wealth and income.
Hi Steve:
It has been a bit. Hope all is well by you.
And yes to your comment. What did you have in mind for redistribution? Perhaps, free healthcare?
Bill (run75441)
All well, and hoping the same for you. Thanks and cheers.
Multiple redist forms needed: direct $ xfers, targeted as-needed in-kind provision, broad public goods provision, you know the story. But universal income is abs necc. (CTC is a nice step that way…)
> Redistribution makes sense if one assumes the main problem with capitalism is the private ownership of property.
I don’t. IMO the main problem is (wildly, increasingly) *concentrated* private ownership, aka wealth.
Steve:
Money at the top and nicely invested by them.
I like the healthcare idea as it is so spartan today in nature if one does not have the funds to pay for supplemental, dental, and vision at an elderly level. Shelter is another expense which forces people into dire circumstance such as bad neighborhoods or distances from jobs. Both remove an impediment to be able to work if one can find a job worth working. Another, is no greater embarrassment than using food stamps in front of someone waiting in line.
One lady in front of us on a scooter said she would not buy the guacamole as her bill was too high. Then the card she received from the state would not work. I looked at my wife, she nodded her head, and I told the cashier we would pay for it including the guacamoles. An extra $60 just before Thanksgiving. Then we checked out and left.
We are on fixed income monthly, no more six-digit salary. If needed we can draw from some funds which are not even close to a million. $340 a month for Plan N, $125 a month for dental, $25 a month for eyes, $348 a month for Medicare. We went to a new plan for Part D as the old plan went up 60%. That is why I said healthcare for those younger than I. Our prices are controlled.
Housing is outrageous and discrimination rampant.
Reversing the 2017 tax breaks for the upper 20% would be about 25.4 million tax people at 7.1 thousand a piece. That would be about $180.3 billion. Tax Policy Center Table T22-0144 and my calculations. If the ones struggling became more productive than as you said, the results would pay the balance of the left of the $2 trillion deficit created by this tax break passed under Reconciliation. That is my $.02
> Money at the top and nicely invested by them.
Not clear what you’re saying with that. ? People holding some index-fund ETFs for decades are not “investing” in economic parlance. Likewise owning/living in a home for decades.
Investment spending means “paying other economic units to purchase/produce new long-lived (productive) goods, which will not be consumed within the accounting period.”
I find the widespread conflation of “wealthholders” with “‘innovative’ investors” to be a big confusion.
If wealth were broadly distributed vs highly concentrated, would there be less and/or worse investment spending? I’d say quite the opposite.
Steve:
It is actually a poorly made complaint.
The rest is what I believe would help the eighty percent of the population.