306
Top economists call for action on runaway global inequality
(www.theguardian.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
306 points (98.1% liked)
World News
38563 readers
2562 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Caveat Emptor: I have not read the article. I am immediately suspicious of most economists because, at least in the US, they have a decidedly conservative bias. Generally US-based economists side with the concerns of the wealthy and promote policies friendly to them which are often at the expense of the poor and working classes.
Bingo. Pretty much any non-Marxist economists will favor “the market” over workers. Neoliberalism, the predominant ideology in most western countries, is seen as an alternative to conservatism (very much so in the US), but they’re centrists at best, and conservative-lite at worst.
This is a case of "perfect is the enemy of good".
This thing was signed by a bunch of non-US economists like Thomas Picketty and people like Helen Clark, a left politician who used to run the UN Development Programme.
Economic neoliberal bias, sure, but what they are proposing is still an order of magnitude better than what we have now.
Edit: I can't see anything below this in this comment chain, not even my own comments!
Not sure if it's a kbin bug or if @hglman blocked me. (Is this the effect blocking has in the fediverse? Can you guys still see the rest of the chain?)
Helen Clark is left LOL
Yeah I know, not by some standards, really depends on your Overton window.
She led a majority government on centre-left policies in New Zealand so that still meant she was in charge of a Monetarist economy with all the neoliberal economics that implies, but she also presided over a massive tax revenue transfer to working class families that is still going on today.
Pointing out how it can be better is not the enemy of the good; your concern trolling is.
Huh? This isn't reddit. I'm not a "concern troll". I'm just an ordinary person who happens to disagree with you about something.
I'm not a fan of economic neoliberalism either, but I would rather an international group of economists demanded anti- inequality measures than nothing.
Exactly. Neo/liberalism is just right-wing feudalism with extra steps. If you allow (let alone encourage) the unmitigated consolidation of wealth (and therefore authority) you will ALWAYS move society rightward. Hence the term “Late-stage Capitalism”.
Economies require trade and incentive to thrive, but there must be limits to how much a person or entity can accrue.
Does that mean you believe society is now more right leaning then it was 40 years ago?
Just going to point out that "the market" is people's freedom of choice compounded across society.
It's almost like political parties are tied to the values of their voters.
Is Lemmy full of communists?
Is a federated community, run by community members, for the betterment of the community, communist?
Mhm
I am not one, won't speak for anyone else. Economists lie and I don't trust them.
The lemmy devs are.
That's a shame... I'll just try to block any community related to politics and live happier.
https://i.makeagif.com/media/6-05-2017/BoUMTR.gif
I don't quite see how a reduction in global poverty would hurt poor people though.
In economic terms inequality actually hurts everyone. Recessions last longer, there is more stagnation, more unrest, and interestingly there are effects like worse health outcomes even for the rich in a highly unequal society.
Because in the long term, their interest is to give up as little as possible to maintain the status quo. They're not actually interested in the harm that economic inequality causes to poor people, only in walking back from the harm a mass unrest event would potentially cause them.
Well, Thomas Piketty is one of the signatories, so...
The thing is though that there has been a massive shift in the last decade from the old "Establishment" having power, to the phenomenon of Disaster Capitalism.
Disaster capitalists thrive on things like mass unrest. They will do everything in their power to continue down this track. And right now they have the upper hand.
Yeah, I'm not an accelerationist, but it seems to me like there's no way out. We've squeezed our way into a very tight spot where we can't back up but going forward would have a huge cost in human life.
I guess instead of going backwards we need to swerve to the side somehow.
If we're needlessly overthinking, I must point out that by rejecting a call to reduce global inequality because you suspect it doesn't go far enough...you're siding with / helping the people who DON'T want to reduce global inequality.
That's a fair criticism. I don't really have a better answer to the situation at hand. I think it's just important to keep in mind that this is why were in this situation to begin with.