by Indy! on February 26, 2025 9:09 am
Somthing the MAGAts will not understand, but spells it out. Well worth the time...
Oligarchy Is Destroying Our Society and the Planet
Oligarchs abuse the environment and erode the mutual trust society needs to function well, says James Boyce.
(a small taste...)
Let me start with growth. Whenever we talk about this, we need to ask: Growth of what? Conventional economists use the term to mean growth of GDP, gross domestic product, the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in the economy that carry a price tag. Yet we know that GDP is a hodgepodge of things that are good, bad and useless. It not only includes good things, like food and housing and music, but also bad things, like the costs resulting from wars, prisons and environmental disasters. GDP also includes some useless things, like one-upmanship spending for what Thorstein Veblen called “conspicuous consumption,” the aim of which is merely to attain a higher position in the social pecking order, spending that does not add to a society’s well-being since one person’s gain is just another’s loss. The only thing that all the items counted in GDP have in common is that they carry a market price tag.
truthout.org
by Indy! on February 26, 2025 9:10 am
Oligarchy erodes the mutual trust and affection without which a society cannot function happily or well.
Historically, the political left has seen oligarchy as an outcome of unfettered markets, while the political right has seen it as an outcome of an unfettered state. In truth, however, the defining feature of oligarchy is not the balance between the market and the state. Its defining feature is the highly unequal distribution of wealth and power. If purchasing power and political power are concentrated in the hands of a few, it doesn’t matter whether we have a “free-market” economy or a state-run economy: the result will be unhappy outcomes for most of the people and for the planet, too.