
Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America - ehudla
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
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bovermyer
Conspiracy theory? Check.

Very few sources, and none of them independently confirmed? Check.

Call to action with a sense of urgency? Check.

The only thing that this article inspires is a rolling of the eyes.

I'm very much a liberal and it would be easy for me to accept some of the
things described here, but it just trips way too many red flags as far as
empirical reporting is concerned.

~~~
justaman
The article is very Marxist, using popular terms that attempt to stoke a
recollection of occupy wall street and similar movements failed movements.

If a true oligarchy were to come into power it would be likely to be
overthrown in the west now more than ever. I posit that the best interest of
the 1% is not to position itself in this manner. If the 1% truly is based in
the objectivist-selfish philosophy then this would be very obvious. Without a
middle class, the upper class has no buffer between itself and the poorest
class. I think history states that this would be a society primed for
revolution.

~~~
arcticbull
I disagree about the swift overthrow; it’s easy to say that when you go from
pure democracy to pure oligarchy with no transition, but by boiling the frog,
and one day the change could seem natural or even welcome. It’s not easy to
see the pieces of the puzzle for what it is until it’s fully assembled.

Your argument re middle class disappearing is addressed in the write up; the
argue by strengthening law enforcement and government that they can hold the
populace at bay by force. There are many past and present examples of
authoritarians retaining control by force, but it’s not as elegant a solution
as convincing people it’s what they wanted all along imo.

------
rayiner
> “Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves,” he wrote in his 1975
> book, The Limits of Liberty.

> Does that sound like your kindergarten teacher? It did to Buchanan.

My primary recollection of K-6 was teachers shrieking "Just Say No!" Or
policing what we said, what we did off school time, what we wore, implementing
zero tolerance policies that punished victims, etc. Teachers don't have much
power over adults, so it's easy to forget, but its a field that attracts power
tripping authoritarians and conformists.

~~~
brightball
> “Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves,” he wrote in his 1975
> book, The Limits of Liberty.

"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender." \-
Proverbs 22:7

You look at society today and various debt levels across the board...there's a
lot of truth to it. The requirement to continue making payments on various
debts is one of the biggest factors that forces people into jobs that they may
not want.

Lots of wisdom there.

~~~
arcticbull
Debt is by no means a clear cut evil; it’s referenced in the article at the
federal level as a good, which allows governments to meet the civic needs of
the people in times of hardship. At the individual level, it allows people to
have what they want when they want it; you needn’t save 3 years to purchase a
car, buy it now and save over the next 3 years. Or 30 years for a house. Debt
is a tool - it’s good or bad depending on how it’s used. The temptation is
that people often want to live beyond their means, and it’s that instinct that
drives many negative outcomes, but also it’s tempered at least in the US by
bankruptcy laws.

~~~
candiodari
Except the government massively expands it's own debt ... constantly. I mean,
here is an article with a lot of figures:

[https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-
an...](https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-
percent-3306296)

Good times or bad, times of plenty, times of hardship, war or peace, ...
government goes deeper in debt. When there is a tiny bit of debt relief, it's
... essentially accidental ... (nevertheless great respect for Bill Clinton,
who proposed the budget made it happen, however it was not his intention. He
could have spent the money though, and he didn't. Which is more than can be
said of many others. On net however, Bill Clinton was like every other
president: the government spent way more than it brought in)

~~~
arcticbull
Thing is it seems like it doesn’t matter. The government isn’t required to
balance is checkbooks at the end of the year and is in control of the money
supply. Government debt isn’t really slavery as they have many more options.
The US has actually defaulted on its debt obligations 6 times [1,2,3,4] so
far, most recently in 1979 [1]. Seems like so long as it doesn’t happen too
often, it might be a non-issue, I’m not sure what to make of it personally.

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/267205/](https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/267205/)

[2]
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/id/43140915](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/id/43140915)

[3] [https://mises.org/library/short-history-us-credit-
defaults](https://mises.org/library/short-history-us-credit-defaults)

[4]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crise...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crises)

------
justaman
I tend to disagree when someone speaks of the 1% as being money driven. After
a certain point, you can buy basically anything and more money won't change
that. Influence may be the next level for these people.

The article mentions Scott Walker(I'm from Wisconsin. My grandfather was a
union worker, I am not). I am largely against anyone bank rolling a political
candidate. By eliminating the collective bargaining rights, Wisconsin became a
prime competitor for manufacturing in the midwest. Free market competition
allows for greater which in where one works. In the same way that we saw ping
pong tables at software companies, we are seeing more attractive manufacturers
pull ahead based on higher salaries that collective bargaining attempted to
offer.

The class-ist mindset of this article is not a good thing for anyone.
Elevating the 1% to the status of enemy will only sew further instability in
an already precarious time.

~~~
arcticbull
You’re conflating two things that just happened to occur at the same time:
elimination of unions and tightening of the labor market. Unions provide
consistency for when the market sours, and I guarantee you those salaries and
perks are going away as soon as the market for labor sours. Unions are the
only way labor can push back against capital. It may not seem that way because
times are good but they won’t aways be especially because:

Either way wanting humans involved in the manufacturing chain is backwards and
inefficient, and flies in the face of the inevitable automated future of
manufacture. We desperately need to stop trying to recreate the jobs of 50
years ago and retrain people for the jobs we want moving forward.
Manufacturing jobs just aren’t good jobs. If we can get people elsewhere to do
them, my god, what an opportunity to get ahead for everyone here.

------
brian_herman2
I don't think they were ever not in control? Maybe this guy just helped them
get more control???? I am sorry but american society has been money driven
since inception. I don't even want to click this link because by the title it
is clearly jailbait.

~~~
bbddg
Right? Very weird framing. You used to have to own land to even vote in this
country.

~~~
justaman
The idea was that you had a literal financial stake in the country. A
"producer".

~~~
bbddg
Who's more of a "producer," the person who owns the land or the person who
works the land?

------
jstewartmobile
_One remembers, for example, the trial, condemnation and execution of Prof.
Dr. Scott Nearing at the University of Pennsylvania, a seminary that is highly
typical, both in its staff and in its control. Nearing, I have no doubt, was
wrong in his notions--honestly, perhaps, but still wrong. In so far as I heard
them stated at the time, they seemed to me to be hollow and of no validity. He
has since discharged them from the chautauquan stump, and at the usual hinds.
They have been chiefly accepted and celebrated by men I regard as asses. But
Nearing was not thrown out of the University of Pennsylvania, angrily and
ignominiously, because he was honestly wrong, or because his errors made him
incompetent to prepare sophomores for their examinations; he was thrown out
because his efforts to get at the truth disturbed the security and equanimity
of the rich ignoranti who happened to control the university, and because the
academic slaves and satellites of these shopmen were restive under his
competition for the attention of the student body. In three words, he was
thrown out because he was not safe and sane and orthodox. Had his aberration
gone in the other direction, had he defended child labor as ardently as he
denounced it and denounced the minimum wage as ardently as he defended it,
then he would have been quite secure in his post, for all of his cavorting in
the newspapers, as Chancellor Day was at Syracuse.

Now consider the case of the professors of economics, near and far, who have
not been thrown out. Who will say that the lesson of the Nearing debacle has
been lost upon them? Who will say that the potency of the wealthy men who
command our universities--or most of them--has not stuck in their minds? And
who will say that, with this sticking remembered, their arguments against
Nearing's so-called ideas are as worthy of confidence and respect as they
would be if they were quite free to go over to Nearing's side without damage?
Who, indeed, will give them full credit, even when they are right, so long as
they are hamstrung, nose-ringed, and tied up in gilded pens?

It seems to me that these considerations are enough to cast a glow of
suspicion over the whole of American political economy, at least in so far as
it comes from college economists. And, in the main, it has that source, for,
barring a few brilliant journalists, all our economists of any repute are
professors. Many of them are able men, and most of them are undoubtedly honest
men, as honesty goes in the world, but over practically every one of them
there stands a board of trustees with its legs in the stock-market and its
eyes on the established order, and that board is ever alert for heresy in the
science of its being, and has ready means of punishing it, and a hearty
enthusiasm for the business. Not every professor, perhaps, may be sent
straight to the block, as Nearing was, but there are plenty of pillories and
guardhouses on the way, and every last pedagogue must be well aware of it._

From H.L. Mencken's 1922 essay, " _The Dismal Science_ " in "Prejudices, Third
Series."

------
WhompingWindows
Mirror? Site is down for me

~~~
dredmorbius
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the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america)

