Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Henning Meyer interviews Tony Atkinson about the readily-available options to combat inequality - with the first step being to make sure people actually have a voice in the decisions which define how wealth and power are allocated:

So, if you dive into the potential solutions you seem to suggest institutional changes. You mentioned that public policy should aim at a proper balance of power amongst stakeholders; what exactly do you mean by this?

Well I think I should say first of all that my aim in writing the book was to try and dispel the sort of sense of inevitability about high inequality and therefore I was putting forward various ways of seeking to understand why it comes about and therefore how we can moderate it. And I think one of the things that has certainly happened is that institutions, like for example corporate institutions, companies, which used to have a broader view of their responsibilities, that they recognised that they had a responsibility in addition to that to their shareholders – also to their workers and to their consumers and their customers.

And I think it’s this broader notion of the social obligations of institutions and of course of individuals as well that we have responsibilities beyond both our own personal economic gains and losses. So I think that it’s part of a reaction that I have had to what seems to be a narrowing to a very much individual based self-interest which has come to emerge in the last two or three decades.

Okay, and then new ideas like Michael Porter’s shared value capitalism, they try to sort of, not revive the old dichotomy between shareholder and stakeholder models but try to align public and private interest in addressing some of the most pressing social and economic needs. Could that be one way of addressing these considerations?

Yes, I think in a sense part of the issues arise because we had in the post-war period some kind of balance of power between on the one side employers and the other side often trade unions or workers’ representatives. And that of course has shifted in quite a number of countries as a result of a number of things including, for example, the effect of privatisation resulting in reducing the power of trade unions to influence the behaviour of those institutions. So, I think we’ve seen a shift of power definitely away from workers towards capital, those who run firms.

So I think a number of proposals were designed to try and at least make sure that those interests of workers and indeed consumers should be represented. And a good example is provided by the negotiations with regard to trade agreements which seem to involve only one side as it were of that equation.

- And Van Jones writes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade deals are set up to block action against climate change.

- CUPE points out the leakage of massive amounts of revenue to tax havens and avoidance as a crucial factor in austerity politics. And Craig Wong reports on the latest increase in Canadian consumer debt as people borrow to try to make up for the lack of advancement in wages.

- Susan Ochs discusses Wells Fargo's widespread fraud as yet another example of workers and consumers being punished for the misdeeds of high-ranking executives.

- Alia Dharssi continues her reporting on migrant workers in Canada by highlighting how recruitment agencies exploit workers who can't stand up for themselves. And Chris Buckley argues that labour and employment laws in general need to be updated, particularly to protect people stuck with precarious work.

- Finally, APTN reports on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's latest order requiring the federal government to stop discriminating against First Nations children - though the fact that two previous orders haven't led to the government complying signals that the Libs' in following through may be rather less than advertised.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Tony Atkinson offers reason for hope that it's more than possible to rein in inequality and ensure a more fair distribution of resources if we're willing to put in the work to make it happen:

(T)he present levels of inequality are not inevitable; we are not simply at the mercy of forces beyond our control. If we want to reduce inequality, and that is a big “if”, then there are steps that we can take. They are not necessarily easy and they have costs. We would have to discard economic and political orthodoxies. If our leaders are serious about tackling inequality, then they have to move outside their comfort zone and to consider a wider agenda. But there are concrete measures that can be tried if we are serious about tackling inequality.

At the same time, I should emphasize at the outset that, while I make far-reaching proposals, I am not seeking to go to the opposite extreme: from dystopia to utopia. Rather, I am concerned with a reduction in inequality below its current level — that is with the direction of movement, not the ultimate destination. My reading of the current state of opinion is that many people feel that present inequality is excessive, while having different views about how much they would like to see it reduced. My book is directed at this broad coalition, allowing the reader to choose how far they wish to go along the road described.
...
Reviewers have accused me of being nostalgic for a bygone-era that never will be repeated. But much of the book is concerned with how the world has changed and how it will change in the future. I devote considerable space to the role of technology and robotisation; I stress how the labour market is changing so that we can no longer focus on “jobs”; I discuss the shifting relation between the ownership of wealth and the control of capital. These developments potentially have profound distributional implications. But they are not necessarily grounds for pessimism. The citizens of OECD countries today enjoy a standard of living that is much higher than that of their great-grand-parents. The achievement of a less unequal society in the period of the Second World War and subsequent post-war decades has not been fully overthrown. At a global level, the great divergence between countries associated with the Industrial Revolution is closing. It is true that since 1980 we have seen an “Inequality Turn” and that the 21st century brings challenges that I have not discussed — such as population ageing and climate change. But the solutions to these problems lie in our own hands. If we are willing to use today’s greater wealth to address these challenges, and — crucially — to accept that resources should be shared less unequally, there are indeed grounds for optimism.

- David Dayen argues that we need to revive the use of antitrust law to rein in corporate abuses. And CBC exposes another galling example of pharmaceutical profiteering, as an off-patent drug needed to treat childhood epilepsy on an urgent basis saw its price rocket from $33 per vial to $680 after a multinational purchased its previous manufacturer.

- But David Schneiderman points out that the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other corporate control agreements are instead designed to tie government hands - and makes the case that we need a serious public debate before signing on.

- Anne Farries discusses how ill-advised austerity has affected basic public protections such as firefighting - and the problem extends well beyond Farries' focus on rural Cape Breton.

- Finally, Andrew Potter nicely sums up the Harper Cons' philosophy as setting up provincial firewalls from the federal level - rather than allowing for the exchange of money and knowledge necessary for a federal system to function.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Miles Corak writes about the spread of economic inequality in Canada:

Companies like ATS epitomize the underlying tide driving jobs and incomes when the computer revolution meets global markets. This tide never went away, even if until a year or so ago a swift current of oil made it easier for some of us to paddle in the opposite direction. It’s a tide offering prosperity to a lucky few, creating proportionately fewer jobs than Canadians need, and leaving many hanging on tight to whatever jetsam floats within reach.

But this tide was always there, even when it looked like we were richer than others. And it will continue to leave many Canadians standing still, waiting, and hoping for the promise of prosperity.

- Paul Mason examines the costs of disposable labour and theorizes that a new era of better treatment for workers might be approaching. But Tony Atkinson argues that we'll need a major shift in public policy as well to share in any future economic gains - and offers a few policy prescriptions to reverse the trend.

- Josh Zumbrun discusses Gabriel Zucman's work in determining how much wealth has been siphoned into tax havens.

- Kaylie Tiessen points out that we can learn from past child care programs while developing a national model.

- Finally, Neil Macdonald rightly argues that Stephen Harper's cynical attacks on women who wear niqabs represents a repudiation of the very concept of individual rights. And Richard Gwyn highlights Thomas Mulcair's courage and honesty in fighting back against the Cons' bigotry rather than playing along for political gain.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ezra Klein talks to Bernie Sanders about how to build a more fair economy in the U.S. and around the globe. And Lynn Parramore interviews Tony Atkinson about the options available to rein in economic inequality - and why we should be working on putting them in place:

LP: Some of the possible prescriptions you discuss, such as a basic income for all citizens, may sound radical, but you point out that they are actually already implemented as policy in many countries in various ways. Are ideas like basic income getting more attention and traction now?

TA: Definitely. A lot of people I’ve talked to about the book, in different places, say, “Oh! I never knew we could do that kind of thing.” It’s a tragedy, in a way, that our political system has become very narrowly focused and not willing to at least debate these ideas.

The basic income is very close to the idea Thomas Paine put forward in the 1790s. (Paine’s proposal, by the way, is on the website of the U.S. Social Security Administration). That proposal is something that I and many others think is really interesting, which is that everyone, on reaching the age of 18 or so, should receive a capital payment. It would be like a negative capital tax. That idea was also proposed years ago in America by Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law at Yale.

A capital payment, or capital grant, would contribute to solving the problem of the intergenerational distribution of income, which is something I stress in the book. That is a serious problem, which I found, for example, in discussions with Korean journalists and economists. They are very worried about generational divide — concerned that the older people have benefitted from growth and the younger people are struggling to find jobs and so on. Some of the measures I propose are designed to take money away from my generation and give it to younger generations. The capital grant certainly would do that.

LP: You’ve been a strong critic of claims that we can’t afford to do much about inequality. How do you react to such claims?

TA: I think that the question about whether we can afford it has two dimensions. One is the extent to which addressing inequality involves redistribution —whether in involves some people, like myself, paying higher taxes to finance a more effective system of social protection, for example. On the other hand, it’s a question about how far these measures and other measures would tend to reduce the size of the cake, to put it in a rather hackneyed metaphor.

The second argument is the one I spend more time discussing, which is to say that in the kinds of economies in which we live, there are a number of directions in which we can both make the distribution fairer and contribute to making our economies more efficient and more productive for everyone. That’s very much within the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s way of looking at the world because I’m really saying that the economic model we’ve had to think about is one in which intervention tends to reduce the size of the cake. Yet if you think about a different economic model, you have to allow for the fact that there are corporations with monopoly power. You have to allow for the fact that we have workers who have very little countervailing power, and so on. There are, in fact, ways in which the current situation is inefficient.

- Thomas Mulcair tells Christopher Majka why he's committed to combating inequality in Canada:

For the first time in our history, the current generation is going to have less than their parents and their grandparents. That's never happened before in the history of Canada. We're far too wealthy to just stand by and watch that happen -- there's no reason for it. There's no reason for having 800,000 kids going to school hungry in the morning in Canada. That's a shame that we don't have to put up with. There's no way we have to put up with third world conditions on Canada's First Nations reserves. And I for one do not consider it inevitable that the seniors who built this country should wind up living in deep poverty. We're going to change that. My job, as a social democrat, has always been to decrease inequality in our society. That's our priority.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Harper offers his own idea of how the economy should operate - involving increasing individual debt which is rebranded as "consumer confidence" rather than an unfortunate necessity.

- Finally, Dana Nuccitelli writes that contrary to the spin of climate change denialists, we're actually learning by the year just how accurate global warming projections have been. And Ethan Cox argues that instead of criticizing people for failing to go far out of their way to opt out of the dirty energy economy we're stuck with, we should be working collectively on a cleaner, fairer society for everybody.

[Edit: fixed typo.]