This article is an attempt to deal ideologically with the increasing inequality that has become so apparent in the USA. Because it is in a publication that scientists read, it represents an attempt to keep upper-middle class scientists, who are indispensable for the operation of the capitalist system, loyal to the US capitalist ruling class and supporting its policies. He assures the scientists that nothing is basically wrong with the "American system" (he never mentions capitalism) that can't be fixed by increasing regulations on corporations and other measures. Along the way he manages to dispose rather casually the study by Thomas Piketty, a prominent French sociologist, who discovered (which most conscious people were already aware of) ...
... that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future.This was embarrassing to all capitalist ideologues, and attempts have been made to cover this dirty secret from spreading throughout the advanced capitalist countries. What particularly amazed me is that Stiglitz acknowledges the correlation of economic power with that of political power.
Political scientists have documented the ways in which money influences politics in certain political systems, converting higher economic inequality into greater political inequality. Political inequality, in its turn, gives rise to more economic inequality as the rich use their political power to shape the rules of the game in ways that favor them—for instance, by softening antitrust laws and weakening unions.Somehow he manages to convince himself while trying to convince others that this can be solved within the capitalist system (which he never mentions). He assures us and the scientists that we can somehow fix this through a "democratic political awakening" and progressive legislation. He acknowledges that "chief executives [he never mentions financiers who stash their hoarded wealth in off-shore, secret bank accounts] in the U.S. ... compensate themselves 361 times more than the average worker", but somehow workers can overcome this power discrepancy. He provides a list of unrealistic progressive legislation that we can support to overcome this slide to gross inequality. It all seems like he is whistling in the dark to ward off the doubts and fears about where this country and people are headed.
