"Many would argue that inequality is unimportant."
That this essay contains no new ideas is not the fault of its author; the one per cent have run out of ideas (since they have ruled out sharing their toys) and thus the ruling bloc is now at odds with itself (see the GOP-Tea Party War) and is losing its purchase on hegemony, the ability to pro-ject into the future (as Gramsci taught us). Ideas above their station there may be none, but this essay does include an astonishing sentence that I am, as they say, taking out of context: "Many would argue that inequality is unimportant."
That is a sentence that will stop a reader in his tracks.
"Many would argue that inequality is unimportant." Who? Why? What on earth? The author is in fact making a very slightly progressive point. While "many" (and I do not doubt that he is right) would argue that inequality is someone else's problem (while they are buying foreclosed properties, firing workers, and awaiting the next upswing), Wolf argues that they are wrong for two reasons. Firstly, inequality is "politically salient". Secondly, it has "a strong bearing on equality of opportunity". Wolf goes on to make a number of policy proposals, including stronger corporate governance, closing tax loop holes, restricting the power of lobbyists, and public funding of elections in order to take market relations out of the political process.
Capitalism, according to Martin Wolf, is a marvelous way of organizing things. It just needs to be "fixed". It is not that unemployment is written into the unwritten constitution of capitalism, just that sometimes there is a bit too much of it. How much joblessness is too much? Why, when things get "politically salient" of course. It is not that there are social, economic and cultural inequalities that reflect systemic problems; it is just that we need to close some loop holes and make rich people pay taxes. Why would we do that? Because it is "politically salient". Having a political system as we do here in the United States that is bought and sold by corporations is not a reflection of the fundamental inequalities of ownership, control and distribution of networks of goods and services. It is just that things have got a bit out of hand and now we need to tell the lobbyists to start playing by some rules, so that democracy may continue to thrive. Massive global corporations themselves are not the issue; however, we do need to regulate these institutions. Somehow.
One imagines that the reason to do this would be that it is "politically salient".
What does the word salient mean? Highly relevant and very important not to not notice, would be my first stab at it. This comes from the web:
sa·li·ent/ˈsālyənt/
| Adjective: |
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| Noun: |
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| Synonyms: |
adjective. prominent - outstanding - protruding
noun. salience - projection - protrusion
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Inequality is salient then, politically, because if something is not done the people will start an uprising and that could turn into a revolution. Financial Times readers know that this is what Martin Wolf means, but understandably enough, they prefer to read between the lines rather than have it spelled out. As the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson did for the ruling classes in the 1960s, when he said that if we do not give "them" reformation, "they" will give us revolution. It is the same with equality of opportunity. This is very salient, because if the children of the rich run everything there could be problems, as some of them may not be all that bright. You need bright kids, bright kids from all backgrounds but especially the working-class as it is the largest group. You need to give these bright kids equal career opportunities so that the system works at its optimal level when they become bankers, politicians and so forth. Op ed writers maybe.
Karl Marx and others have argued that upswings and downturns operate almost like human psychology in a market run by and for capitalists. It is not so much that some days are better than others -- you follow the FTSE for that information. It is that what goes up, must come down. You need to have a job at the World Bank, to be thinking about that, the long waves of violent change that capitalism seems to bring in its wake until we find that we are drowning in crises.
In the meantime, we know this much. The folks who read the Financial Times (and the Wall Street Journal -- a newspaper that in my view should be illegal, because it is reporting on itself) believe that capitalism, however bad the crisis, is here to stay. It will remain forever our only means of using markets to make our lives nicer. And as far as democracy goes, there will be enough provided, along with equality of opportunity, to ensure that not too many people decide that it is the system not its flaws that are the crisis. And, thus, an occupytunity.
It is all going swimmingly well for Martin Wolf until he hits globalization and realizes that if you feel the need to introduce world government into the picture (something I personally favour) in order to regulate corporations that hold every passport in the world, you have made a proposal that is completely Utopian and unreal. Like all capitalist dreams, it is a mirage. Faced with global capitalism, all we get is this:
"What are the answers? The long-term one is likely to be more global governance. Will that be feasible? Not in the near future, in many areas."
Wolf believes in fairies, in other words. He also thinks that capitalism is one of humanity's "most brilliant inventions". Funny, I do not recall anyone asking me -- nor anyone I have ever known, for that matter -- about this thing we apparently invented that does not work.
Towards the end of the article, Martin Wolf reminds us of an old saying that I especially treasure: "A crisis, it has been said, is a terrible thing to waste." This crisis will be used, then, to give shareholders a bit more of a voice, make people with loads of money pay a bit more tax and tinker with the political system while the global economy runs out of control because it cannot be regulated or governed by anything, because it is bigger than the things that try to govern it.
If that is the view of someone who thinks that capitalism is a work of glory and here to stay, imagine what the doubters are thinking.
