New York Times columnist David Brooks, who’s been called the “bard of the 1 percent” for his writings in defense of the economic elite, is at it again–telling people not to worry about the concentration of wealth at the very top of the income scale. Brooks writes in his January 31 column that the claim that “America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources” is a “distraction.” Brooks argues:
The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness.
Brooks’ claim, then, is that inequality is really a matter of the top one-fifth, not the 1 percent. Well, that’s not what the Congressional Budget Office (10/11) says.
It’s true that what you might call the upper middle class has done better than the middle class and poor over the past three decades or so–their income has grown by 65 percent, vs. 40 percent for the middle class and only 18 percent for the poor. But over the same time period, the income of the richest 1 percent has soared–by 275 percent. That’s close to quadrupling.
So while the share of income claimed by the upper middle class has stayed about the same since 1979, the poor and middle class have gotten substantially less while the piece of the pie taken by the 1 percent has more than doubled in size. As it turns out, the real driver of inequality and unfairness–is the financial elite who hog society resources.
Score one for Occupy Wall Street–zero for David Brooks.
I’ve never been comfortable with the 99/1 paradigm, because while it’s true that Brooks is engaging in transparent sophistry, the reality is that exploitation occurs beyond the rarified air of million dollar incomes.
There are plenty of persons who make less than that who are screwing those who make substantially less than they do, and positing income inequality as exclusively the work of the one percent is indeed letting others who would be included in any rational definition of “wealthy” off the hook.
This is about the exploited and the exploiters. Subjective divisions, no matter how memorable, don’t serve the cause of justice.
Brooks is truly an abomination. His misrepresentations have been documented here and on other serious blogs again and again and again. It is a reflection on us all that such an incompetent pundit maintains a twice-weekly column in our third-largest daily circulation newspaper and a weekly commentary on public television and is often called upon to participate in discussions on other broadcast media outlets as well.
He is an all-media troll, diverting the national discourse from serious matters to his sociological nonsense embellished with flat-out lies, all in support of the 1 percent.
Double Aught for BR00K$!
What is more important to look at is changes in Worth the assets controlled that COULD be sold to generate capital gains. That is where the true hoarding is taking place. If, for example 1% of the people own 40% of the assets (primarily productive – businesses assets) and the value of their assets doubles while everyone else who, if they own anything, own primarily passive assets (their homes) that have seen very little or no appreciation over a comparable time period then they would own 57% of all assets and if the value of their assets again doubled in value over some time period while the remainder of us continued to share in the same value, the disparity would rise to the 1% having a 73% share of our “ownership society” while the remainder shared only a shrinking 27% of that society. It will only get worse as long as we refuse to have business policies that favor only a few boats instead of all boats, that favor the accumulation of equity over the distribution of income.
Bill Moyer is worth more than a hundred Davis Brooks types.
You should have included the .01% in that graph, as Paul Krugman does. It’s even more enlightening.
Thanks, Mr. Naureckas, for pointing out that little detail that the top 1% has seen their income soar by 275% over the past three decades.
But it goes beyond this. Republicans (mostly, with help from some Dems) backed by the biggest corporations in the world, aren’t happy with just making billions of dollars. They want total control of the American people. They want to abolish Social Security, Medicare, environmental standards, a 40 hour work week, over time pay, child labor laws, consumer protections, worker protections, oversight, etc. Welcome to the plutocracy.
Naureckas quotes Brooks : “The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness.”
Yet this is mostly true, not false as Naureckas seems to want to indicate. The American middle class has been given every unearned, inherited privilege of imperial plunder and weighted social advantage, though just not to the degree of the super rich, so whether it is relatively stagnant compared to the obscene mafiaso uber-predators is a minor detail. A simple-minded, immoral branding lie like “We are the 99%” is just as obnoxious and stupefying as any corporate ad campaing like “Just do It,” but we can come here to get the neo-liberal defense from Naurcekas.
When the 99% get a 275% increase in income, then we can talk about our role in driving economic unfairness and inequality.
When Republicans end their goal of destroying Medicare, privatizing (or ending) Social Security, ending collective bargaining rights, ending a minimum wage, ending child labor laws, ending the carried interest loophole, ending corporate welfare, ending tax breaks for companies that outsource American jobs, ending endless attacks on the environment, on consumer protections, on any sort of oversight (except the kind of which they might approve), attacks on workers, ending tax breaks for the very rich and their corporate buddies, then we can talk about everybody’s role in driving economic unfairness and inequality.
OK Elaine, the Republicans have those goals, understood.
Obama and the long line of DLC corproate Democrats have destroyed single payer, authored numerous Social Security raids like the Bowles-Simpson commision, denied living wage initiatives state by state, enforced schools as prisons, taken enormous bribes from transnational corporations to finance their campaigns, elected do-nothing “regulators”passing corporate-friendly bulwarks against environmental legislation, killed unions and the smallest union bills like card-check, and have become extremely rich in the process. These Democrats were elected by the sainted 99%, the same ones quick to put their dashed hopes in yet another fraud. Give me a break – the Democrats are as mobbed-up, corrupt, and fascistic as the Republicans. Good intentions and pony rides do not matter when it is drones killing far-away babies and toxic effluent seeping into poor villagers’ homes, no matter how much Naureckas might like to think he is absolved from any association with that dastardly 1%.
To respond to Mr. Latimer,
The 99% vs. 1% dichotomy isn’t “subjective” in the sense of “lacking empirical evidence”, but it might be arbitrary, in that it is only one of many ways to parse evidence of inequality. Rather than broadening the category of “exploiter”, however, I believe data supports a narrowing. All but the top 1/2 of the top 1% receive most of their income from “wages” as opposed to capital gains. One way to understand explotation is receiving the fruit of someone elses labor. It is the “idle rich” who receive the most benefit from the labor of others, while contributing little themselves.
Martin, I hear you. I, too, accept that we have two co-opted parties and, once again, my choice is between the lesser of two evils,unless, as some suggest we vote for a third party which will probably make it easier for Republicans to win. However, I believe it’s that 1% (for the most part) that buys those Congressional seats and demand policies that will work for them, not for the rest of us and that’s why, I believe, we now have the greatest concentration of wealth and the least social mobility among all other major democracies.
Money has corrupted politics to the point where just about every Congress person needs a lot of money to go up against the money and the attack ads on the other side and then they are beholden to the money that paid for that seat.
I also second Darren’s thoughts. The rich make their money off of investments (for the most part) which are taxed at 15%. This is a perfect example of how the 1% buys seats so that we have a tax policy which allows this. And, from what I read, Wall St. will fight to keep it this way as they are now throwing their money into Romney’s campaign.
Darren: To address that sliver of people at the very, very top–Sen. Barbara Boxer noted that the “top 400 earners in this country are worth more…than half of the American people. And since 1995, the top 400 wealthiest families have seen their incomes go up 400 percent and their tax rates go down 40 percent.”
Darren, my point is that many persons who make less than $1M a year in income, which I take to be the dividing line between the Ones and the 99ers, are just as determined to extract their wealth from the poor and the working and middle classes as those on the other side of that abitrary distinction.
(We can save the discussion over just what constitutes “middle class” for another day.)
I don’t see it as a statistical, but a class, division. Anyone who controls the lives of others is inherently engaged in exploitation. Whatever differences there may be among that grouping are ones of degree, and not kind.
A system in which one person works for another’s profit, rather than with others for mutual benefit, will always be exploitative. I wouldn’t put scared money on that change ever occurring on a universal scale, but I would bet the farm on it being the only way we will ever achieve a world in which each of us can live a life of dignity.
The responses of NYTimes’ readers in letters published on 2/2/12 is a satisfying antidote to Brooks’s latest stratospheric musings.
The empty cupboard of conservative ideas for addressing our nation’s ills has caused Brooks to embrace various harebrained social ideas in recent years. His writing skills still serve up enjoyable reading, but unfortunately, they lack for practical relevance.
As much as I have enjoyed the remarkably astute comments on this FAIR posting in particular, it is good to see Chris Black getting back to the subject at hand, David Brooks, although I for one do not find reading him enjoyable.
Your points are well-made, Elaine. I’d vote for you if I could.
Our left has been trying to make Doug Latimer’s point for decades now, but it never goes anywhere. The hypocrisies of the American 99% are just too great, as are those of our pre-eminent fraud speaker-types. Nader has accomplished nothing against the corporate supersystem in comparison, nor has FAIR, nor has the Sierra Club, yet they all have corporate foundation funding, they all have investments, you can’t just wish the corruption away.
And Naureckas just won’t respond here to being called out – too far above the madding crowd. Easy to criticize the fish in the barrel – hard to respond to criticism that places the critic in the barrel.
Why not just do what the pusillanimous, fraudulent conservative types like Common Dreams and Mrzine.org do – ban my comments. Or act all peeved and unresponsive like all self-anointed martyrs like Chris Hedges and Paul Street and Doug Henwood. Freedom of speech, duties of intellectual engagement – who needs such minor trifles on the fraudulent left?
While I’m certainly not a fan of Mr. Brooks, and even though I realize that the 1% have made huge increases in wealth over the past 20 years, I do agree with him that the issue is not the 99% against the 1% as much as it is the 80% against the 20%.
20% of Americans earn in excess of $100,000 while only 3% of the remaining 80% don’t live from paycheck to paycheck. A study in January of 2012 by CareerBuilder found that 77% of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
The point being that 20% of Americans are not doing that badly under the system. True, they are not doing as great as the 1%, but the hope of “the American Dream” has not died for them as it has for millions of other Americans. Thus this 20% are more likely to vote for its continuation than not. Furthermore, this 20% are more likely to be politically active and also to donate to political causes that support their viewpoint.
This is a large and powerful group who are not on the side of the majority.
Two things.One ,during Obamas 3 years and Bushes last year(the crash) the upper tier lost a great deal of their wealth.The middle class a far lower percentage.The lower class very little(we will call their wealth standard of living).A stat you seldom here.Number two…the real divide is between college grads and everybody else.
Elaine you seem a sweet heart ,but I wont be voting for you.You say the upper tier have made more(good for them )and paid 40% less in taxes?Well lets add 40% to the average rich persons tax rate.Real numbers would be between 30-50% now;not counting taxes on everything you look at,breath in,or buy.So you have finally answered the question asked of libs so often…HOW HIGH WILL YOU GO?That number seems to range between 70-90%(not counting every other tax.)Am I wrong or isn’t that what we on the right call government dispersal of the wealth.And that leads me to my next point…… investments.The tax rate on investments are set to encourage investment.Beyond that you have nothing but government.Or as i like to call it…the rat whole.The Big chief at facebook just gave himself 1 dollar in pay per year.He will live off his investments taxed at 15%.Remember the scam that “some pay less in taxes than their secretary’s”.Here is the rub…….when he moves his Face book ownership he may pay 38 BILLION!!!!!What secretary is paying that at the back end?And stop stop stop saying wealthiest FAMILIES.Class warfare 101.It is not the Bill Gates FAMILY.Or the George Sorros FAMILY.Or the Obama family.Or even those jews(an oldie but a goodie).And a new poll indicates only 2% are actually mad at the so called 1%.It is simply un American to hate anyone who has succeeded beyond even their wildest Dreams.Or to tax success and subsidize failure.Although it is a great way to start a political dynasty based on class warfare,and negativism resulting in an all empowered Fed and political class controlling the bread lines.
That was fun, Michael E. – you’be obviously been called, rightfully, Nazi scum here before, and you are just not going to give up, are you? What was that about the “jews”? And are you trying that ol’ fascist dodge about the travails of the filthy rich? It’s always nice to read the confessions of morons – pure Freudian poetry.
Martin usually I follow you.This time it came out a bit scrambled.Are you saying i have been called Nazi scum?Or that I called someone Nazi scum?
My point about Jews is they have often been used as the scape goat.Not it is the so called 1%.Isn’t is interesting that if Libs got every tax raise they want on their wish list without dissent,it would only pay for 8% of Obamas proposed new spending.That is proof this is a witless ploy.Class warfare using Jews or the rich is the same thing.Not a dimes worth of difference between them.And away with that old line tying constitutional conservatism to fascism.It is just empty words.
Confessions of a moron?Confessions?And isn’t it politically incorrect for libs to say moron?Thanx for saying it was Freudian Poetry.He was a hell of a poet wasn’t he?
Misprint………….”NOW it is the so called 1%
Fair enough, Michael E- – you are not Nazi scum, and most likely were not called so, but you are the loyal opposition here, which will invite a tirade now and then, because you are truly a dedicated fascist. I am no liberal, though, and enjoy using some strong words from the safety of this little keyboard.
Enjoy your “consitutional conservativism,” whatever that is (pro-slavery? pro-genocide? pro-oligarchy?), as you toast the misfortune of all the others who do not support the severely undertaxed, horrifically over-fed, generally corrupt rich.
Martin(actually my “real”first name as well as my fathers)I just read the complete definition of fascist to see if there is anything that could apply to my belief system.There is not.I am not pro slavery or any of the other things mentioned.I bemoan the misfortune of others .But I don’t blame the ” severely under taxed ,horrifically over-fed,generally corrupt rich” for it, because primarily I don’t believe that delusion.I suppose in a land where the so called rich pay 88% of all federal taxes while the bottom 50% pays nothing we could shoot for them paying 100%.My guess is if they do so, and still make a good coin, they would still be enemy numero uno for the left.This is not a fairness game.This is who controls the wealth.The government or private citizens.Constitutional conservatism says the private citizen. Adherence to the constitution. Individual rights over the collective.Less government intrusion into our lives.Smaller fed.I could go on but we all know the drill.Simple American values.I do not trust the government to do almost any job as well as the private sector.We just spent more money than all the presidents from Washington to Bush and arguably did not create a single job.Today another company of Obamas(he invested 1 billion tax dollars into it)called fisker-hood went belly up.They were to make green cars.Bidens soyndra like wise died.Im a Reagan conservative.Remove government intrusion, and let the explosion of entrepreneurial spirt begin.Let all the safety nets of society be fully funded.Create jobs that will shrink welfare roles so that more can become paying members of society instead of users.Martin we on the right do not hang our heads in defeat.Accepting a smaller ,less America.We await the chance to allow for a bigger and better America.We DO NOT accept this mess as the new status quo as Obama seems to.
Michael E, thanks for hanging in there! I don’t really communicate with people like you, especially not the ones in my birth family, so this has been something of a treat for me – like hearing how your jailer or hanging judge thinks, up close and personal.
Your “Reagan conservaism” is pure fascism – diffused yet totalized corporate control of all social insitututions. How else would a dim-witted fraud like that old snitch ever have gotten elected, except for the military-industrial-academic-legal-whatever complex supplying the wind beneath his vile racist propaganda? Why else did America and Germany get along so swimmingly after World War II, with US corporations swapping profits with their German counterparties before, during, and after the war, except for the truth that US trans-national corporations are fascist operations? Modern Fascism takes your earnest simplicity and transmutes it into more and more profit for the rich, who have you dancing their simple-minded tune of them paying some big tax share, when they are laughing all the way to the Cayman Islands and the African oil fields.
The ones who are responsible for not “creating the jobs” are the off-shoring corporations and the idiot chorus in Congress that does their bidding, yet you defend them with simpleton lines about “entreprenurial spirit” – didn’t you see how the collapse of 2008, where all that claptrap resulted in obscene bailouts for your precious corporate criminals, showed the death of that laissez faire Ponzi scheme?
I will say that in your last paragraph, you say things (“fully funded safety net,” “create jobs”) that make me think you are actually a decent, humane thinker, just terribly brainwashed by all the exceptionalist mythos that you give evidence of knowing is over. The America of the 1950s will never return – just take a look around at all the Dollar Left stores outside your door. It’s over, johnny.
You played fair, here – to your credit. Being a fascist is nothing to be ashamed about – that’s the winning side, at least in power dimensions.
Ok Martin now I see how I tie in with your fascist tag.It is corporations that are the ones taking over our rights instead of the classic government road to fascism..And yes it is true that everyone i know who owns a business is incorporated right down to a girl i know who does cheese sandwich T shirts for the homeless fund.Yes i do support them -so if that makes me a fascist so be it.I am not a believer in skull and bones,or shadowy corporations, or the evil 1%.That is just smoke and mirrors to the easy truth that government yearns for all the power.
The collapse…..Well yesterday Obama gave money back to those victimized by the evil banks.Funny.The banks are forced by government to make loans people cant repay.Then government shakes them down to pay for the stupid practice that ignited the sub prime disaster in the first place.Funny funny funny.Classic liberal magic show.Misdirection.
You say America of 1950s will never return.If your lot was around it never would of been in the first place.You don’t see a new beginning because you have been beaten down by libspeak.So be it
You hate Reagan and rehash the same arguments that he trod into the ground in his overwhelming elections.Didn’t work then and looks worse in retrospect.
Fox just won again as the most watched and libs nash their teeth at the STUPIDITY.Think of the elitism in that thought process.
And I don’t mind speaking to you.I have members (sisters) who are libs.We conservatives do not take it personal.We don’t dislike you because we disagree.Just the opposite.I respect you for your passion as I think it is based on caring for others.
Nice try, Martin, but the FAIR troll just keeps dancing all around and never touching down. He fails to see that the American democracy began coming apart under our first fully bought-and-paid-for president, Reagan, and that is now completely gone. He thinks the discussion on this site is all about conservatives versus liberals and is unaware that individual voters now have no influence over the government whatever.
Maynard I will grant you that the birth of lib speak began around that time and actually convinced a lot of people of the stupid notions you just quoted.Positivity will soon return, so be ready to stand aside my little Debbie downers.”Individual voters now have no influence over government whatever”????My friend if a few measley hundred college kids -would of gotten out of bed in Florida and actually voted for Gore ,Bush would of lost ,and history would be different.How dare you make such a calculated ,unmitigated,bold faced lie on these blogs. It will never be proven again as well ,I would think, that every vote counts.If I may restate your last words…..The bigger and more powerful government gets the less will be the say of the individual.To quote Reagan…..”Government IS the problem.”
I also noticed you started your critique with an insult(troll).I did not start mine by calling you-all “fiscal pedifiles” or any such terms.Again we see the difference between right and left.I have been on the left and I now believe the conservative ideal is the best way forward for this country.You should learn to respect other viewpoints from your own.In November you will see many people feel as I do.
michael e – wow, FOXNews has occupied your brain! You have become – FOXNEWS talking-point Man!
1. You say you are not a “believer” in “Skull and Bones, shadowy corporations” – but that is a strange, nonsensical term. You know, as well as anyone, that they exist – they are in effect, they operate. Close your eyes, you may not see them, but they are around you. What they do is more subject to “interpretation,” but not belief.
2. “Governemnt yearns for all power” – ok, fine, I yearn for it to, you yearn for it, we all yearn for sparkleponies, but only trans-national corporations and their alliant sub-systems actually HAVE it – power, that is, not the ponies.
3. America of the 1950s was a horrible, sexist, racist, MCarthyite culture – if I had been around then, it would still have been in effect, because I am one lone vote against it, versus millions of brainwashed Foxtards who are descended from those know-nothing Birchites.
4. The government did not cause the Great Collapse of 2008 – anyone that tries to propagate that lie is a fascist of the highest order. Any ten thousand experts could tell you that it was deregulation, laissez faire crime initiatives by hedge fund profiteers that bundled fraudulent mortgages into derivatives.
5. Keep up that love for our foremost Alzheimer’s snitch President – hope his airport gets condemned.
6. Lastly, please don’t associate Obama with the word “liberal” – he is not. You will have a wonderful election come November, two of your cherished fascist war-mongering criminals to choose from.
The US Defense Department blows the crap out of large numbers of people who happen to find themselves purposefully or inadvertently in the the proximity to dangerous terrorists killing everyone involved because presumably the danger to the world justifies the “collateral” damage.
So since quite a few years ago terrorist trying to stay in large groups of innocent people, blending in and hiding among the innocent.
So it is with the dangerous .001% of our country, the small group that stays hidden, has curtains and rooms in the back like the wizard of Oz so they never get named or seen, or rarely, and only be people to pay close attention â┚¬Ã‚¦
The elite who run this country have the whole country dancing to their tune while they make scores of millions or dollars a year, as much as a billion in some cases of derivatives traders or hedge fund operators, and they hide among the innocent people who work honest and hard jobs making less than 1 million a year â┚¬Ã‚¦ just like those terrorists .. and they do a lot more to muck about with the American people for the most part â┚¬Ã‚¦ at least as much, as Al Qaeda does, and some people think they controlled Al Qaeda.
Since the people of the United States I’m sure would not want to send predatory drones down on the elite of American society â┚¬Ã‚¦ what is really the only other alternative we have to find a way to fix our country â┚¬Ã‚¦ I think it is to set up a virtual maximum wage â┚¬Ã‚¦ maybe between 10-20 million a year â┚¬Ã‚¦ taxes at higher marginal rates with more brackets up at the top with a top rate of between 75-90% in order to prevent huge fortunes from doing exactly what they have done in the last 30 years â┚¬Ã‚¦ create an international elite that has ruined the country of America.
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