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Is it inequality which gives rise to populism and extremism or is it the press, politicians and other agitators?

Jochim 927 days ago

Inequality is like an infection, weakening the immune system and allowing owners of the press, politicians, and agitators to spread populist ideas that would otherwise be laughed off.

Inequality makes possible our current situation, where the owning class encourage and exploit immigrant labour, only to disseminate "news" aimed at making the working class hate those immigrants.

There's definitely a factor of diverting the anger from the class issue to race and cultural wars. But happy, well off people wouldn't be angry in the first place.

Same story as in plantation times: Make the white servants feel superior to black slaves by virtue of skin color; manipulate poor whites into believing that any perceived gains by blacks had come at their expense.

Our material wealth in the US is way way higher than it was in 1900 but people aren't happier. I don't think I agree that well of people would stop being happy. Unless you want to define well off in relative instead of absolute terms.

Look, you might start getting the inequality concept.

Although the absolute wealth of poor might have improved since 1900, people can still be angry that someone is extracting disproportionate amount from the system while their situation is stagnating. See flatlined real wages since 1970s

robertlagrant 927 days ago

The problem is also that people want class warfare. Not just that it sometimes sublimates into other tribalisms. And all of this is regularly taught in universities, so I don't think it just arises due to "inequality".

antifa 926 days ago

Class warfare is already here, what people don't like is being on the defense for decades of class warefar.

My point was that this anger itself seems rooted in media and agitation / political movements. Anger (= news headlines) sells news subscriptions, anger sells votes (or something).

Like many pointed out here, this "43%" was nothing special this year if, for example, you are mid-career and have moderately aggressive stock market participation. It's an example of headline entirely cooked up for agitation.

Jochim 927 days ago

You're in your own bubble if you think 43% is close to normal for the majority of the population.

> majority of the population

You are right, it's not the majority of the population. The fine article was trying to raise indignation at the wealth increase of "the 25 richest families in the world", using seemingly gross numbers that they militarized without even noticing that these numbers were completely unremarkable. Or perhaps in bad faith altogether.

For another counterpoint, I'm certainly angry about things. You are welcome to count me as angry. But do NOT count me as angry because of inequality. Inequality is a distraction and cause celebre useful to distract people. Rather it's the gross inefficiency and ludicrous aims of the current system (= two parties and press and government) which make me angry. And that has nothing to do with inequalities.

Your making a pretty broad claim with no evidence. Can you provide some evidence?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/economic-inequali...

webdood90 927 days ago

This is pretty well accepted information.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/06/how-r...

https://time.com/6267552/falling-american-inequality/

Just because it's widely accepted doesn't mean it's correct.

Paywall link Paywall link Makes a slight case but mostly just assumes inequality is bad.

I know US history education isn't greatest but you might have heard about French revolution, rise of Nazism or various communism uprisings, Mexican revolution in 1910s.

With better outcomes for society: labor movement at the turn of century and in 30s.

More recently: Arab spring, Chile 2019

French revolution for one was not about income inequality per se. It doesn't seem the idea itself was in people's mind - and too many other issues instead.

p3rls 926 days ago

"Per se" is doing a lot of work there.

If the French revolution wasn't about income inequality then there has never been a conflict about inequality... Read the Rosseau and Voltaire of the period leading up to the crises. You can feel their passion when they talk about inequality.

Here's just one event from the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_March_on_Versailles

"The rioters had already availed themselves of the stores of the Hôtel de Ville, but they remained unsatisfied: they wanted not just one meal but the assurance that bread would once again be plentiful and cheap. Famine was a real and ever-present dread for the lower strata of the Third Estate, and rumors of an "aristocrats' plot" to starve the poor were rampant and readily believed.[2]"

Not about income equality per se, but you know, not wanting to starve in the streets. Lol what the fuck.

creer 926 days ago

You negate your own critique: "assurance that bread would once again be plentiful and cheap".

So like I say "inequality" doesn't even enter the broad collective mind. And the intellectuals that try to run "what's next" do talk about "égalité" but again that's not what they mean.

This is not what anyone means by "inequality" now. Not killing the economy with random wars, yes. Welfare, yes. Price controls even, sure. Better planning (because we are talking about famines here in this specific case - not even taxes.) Even when "Egalité" and "Fraternité" make it into foundational texts, soon after, this is not what they are about.

I think it's a big stretch to point to all of those and say wealth inequality is the main reason all of those happen. For example, people were starving around the French revolution. With Germany I believe it was just as much (if not more) general depression and national embarrassment rather than wealth inequality. With Arab Spring you can point to poor leadership as opposed to innate wealth inequality. I'm not convinced wealth inequality is the underlying reason.

Just open Wikipedia man. It has citations to primary sources.

"Although the 18th century was a period of increasing prosperity, the benefits were distributed unevenly across regions and social groups. Those whose income derived from agriculture, rents, interest and trade in goods from France's slave colonies benefited most, while the living standards of wage labourers and farmers on rented land fell."

Same for Arab spring, it's like second sentence on the wiki. It's also heavily about corruption, but guess what, those two go hand in hand. Open maps for corruption and Gini index and you will see strong correlation.

Of course there are more reasons. Society is complex.