Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Paul Krugman compares the U.S.' longtime recognition that concentrated wealth can do massive social harm to the Republicans' recent efforts to claim that raising any revenue from the rich is somehow un-American:
The
truth is that, in the early 20th century, many leading Americans warned
about the dangers of extreme wealth concentration, and urged that tax
policy be used to limit the growth of great fortunes. Here’s another
example: In 1919, the great economist Irving Fisher — whose
theory of “debt deflation,” by the way, is essential in understanding our current economic troubles — devoted
his presidential address to the American Economic Association
largely to warning against the effects of “an undemocratic distribution
of wealth.” And he spoke favorably of proposals to limit inherited
wealth through heavy taxation of estates.
Nor
was the notion of limiting the concentration of wealth, especially
inherited wealth, just talk. In his landmark book, “Capital in the
Twenty-First Century,”
the economist Thomas Piketty points out
that America, which introduced an income tax in 1913 and an inheritance
tax in 1916, led the way in the rise of progressive taxation, that it
was “far out in front” of Europe. Mr. Piketty goes so far as to say that
“confiscatory taxation of excessive incomes” — that is, taxation whose
goal was to reduce income and wealth disparities, rather than to raise
money — was an “American invention.”
And
this invention had deep historical roots in the Jeffersonian vision of
an egalitarian society of small farmers. Back when Teddy Roosevelt gave
his speech, many thoughtful Americans realized not just that extreme
inequality was making nonsense of that vision, but that America was in
danger of turning into a society dominated by hereditary wealth — that
the New World was at risk of turning into Old Europe. And they were
forthright in arguing that public policy should seek to limit inequality
for political as well as economic reasons, that great wealth posed a
danger to democracy.
...
We
aren’t yet a society with a hereditary aristocracy of wealth, but, if
nothing changes, we’ll become that kind of society over the next couple
of decades.
In
short, the demonization of anyone who talks about the dangers of
concentrated wealth is based on a misreading of both the past and the
present. Such talk isn’t un-American; it’s very much in the American
tradition. And it’s not at all irrelevant to the modern world. So who
will be this generation’s Teddy Roosevelt?
- And Thom Hartmann Shaw
points out the damaging effects of outsourcing and privatization in the U.S.
- Daniel Weinstock
laments the lack of a left-wing party with broad public appeal in Canada's most progressive province. And CK
makes the case for Quebec Solidaire as the best option among the parties actually contesting the current Quebec election.
- Carol Linnett
points to Jim Hoggan's discussion of our polluted public discourse. Joe Romm
highlights the latest IPCC report as showing the long-term costs of environmental negligence. And Jacques Leslie
writes that Canada is tarring its own reputation on the international stage by attacking sane climate policy at home and abroad:
(T)he
Harper government has shown its disdain for scientists and
environmental groups dealing with climate change and industrial
pollution. The government has either drastically cut or entirely
eliminated funding for many facilities conducting research in climate
change and air and water pollution. It has placed tight restrictions on
when its 23,000 scientists may speak publicly and has given power to
some department managers to block publication of peer-reviewed research.
It has closed or “consolidated” scientific libraries, sometimes
thoughtlessly destroying invaluable collections in the process. And it
has slashed funding for basic research, shifting allocations to applied
research with potential payoffs for private companies.
With
a deft Orwellian touch, Canada’s national health agency even accused a
doctor in Alberta, John O’Connor, of professional misconduct — raising
“undue alarm” and promoting “a sense of mistrust” in government
officials — after he reported in 2006 that an unusually high number of
rare, apparently tar-sands-related cancers were showing up among
residents of Fort Chipewyan, 150 miles downstream from the tar sands. A
government review released in 2009 cautiously supported Dr. O’Connor’s
claims, but officials have shown no interest in the residents’ health
since then.
...
The pressure on environmentalists has been even more intense. Two years
ago Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (who this month became finance
minister) declared that some environmentalists “use funding from
foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic
interest” and “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their
radical ideological agenda.” Canada’s National Energy Board, an
ostensibly independent regulatory agency, coordinated with the nation’s
intelligence service, police and oil companies to spy on environmentalists. And Canada’s tax-collecting agency recently introduced
rigorous audits of at least seven prominent environmental groups,
diverting the groups’ already strained resources from anti-tar-sands
activities.
...
The government could defuse much tar sands opposition simply by
advocating a more measured approach to its development, using the
proceeds to head the country away from fossil fuels and toward a
low-carbon, renewables-based future. That, in fact, was the policy
recommended by the National Round Table on the Environment and the
Economy, a nonpartisan, eminently moderate independent research group
founded by another right-leaning prime minister, Brian Mulroney, in
1988. The Harper government showed what it thought of the policy when it
disbanded the Round Table last year.
- Finally, Peter Loewen is the latest to
weigh in against the Unfair Elections Act, with a particular focus on the many types of voters who will be disenfranchised for nothing even faintly approaching a valid reason. And Democracy Watch
has some ideas as to how to change our electoral rules for the better - which are well worth some discussion even if they may not all be workable in practice.
