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#and i know you canr seperate the economy entirely from social aspects of politics
i-am-dulaman · 1 year
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Okay I'm riled up about this rn so time for a history of economics lesson (rant) from me, a stranger on the internet
I'm a communist, I hate capitlism, so lemme just put that out there. But capitlism had its moments. Even marx had some praise for parts of capitlism.
And by far the most successful form of capitlism was Keynesian economics, as evident by the enormous increase in living standards in those countries which adopted it between the 1930s and 1970s.
What's Keynesian economics? The idea that capitlism can't survive on its own, and must be supported by government spending at the poorest ends of society and taxes at the richest ends of society (essentially the opposite of trickle down economics) as well as strong regulations on certain industries like banking.
It basically started in 1936 with President Roosevelt who was a personal friend of John Keynes (who the theory is named after).
Roosevelt implemented Keynesian economics to great effect; he raised the top tax rate to 94% (he actually wanted a 100% tax rate on the highest incomes, essentially creating a maximum wage, but the senate negotiated down to 94%) and similarly high corporate tax rates, he created the first ever minimum wage, created the first ever unemployment benefit, created social security in America, pension funds, and increased public spending on things like public utilities and infrastructure, national parks, etc. Which created about 15 million public sector jobs.
This ended the great depression and eventually lead to America winning world War 2, after which many countries followed suit in implementing similar policies, including UK, Australia, and NZ (apologies for the anglosphere-centric list here but they're the countries I'm personally most familiar with so bare with me)
Over the next 40 years these countries had unprecedented growth in living standards and incomes, and either decreasing or stable wealth inequality, and housing prices increasing in line with inflation. Virtually every household bought a car and a TV, rates of higher education increased dramatically, america put a man on the moon, and so on.
Then it all abruptly ended in the 80s and the answer is plain and obvious. 1979 thatcher became UK prime minister. 1981 reagan became US president. 1983 the wage accords were signed in aus. 1984 was the start of rogernomics in NZ (Someone link that Twitter thread of the guy who posts graphs of economic trends and points out where reagan became president)
(Also worth noting those last two in NZ and Aus were both implemented by 'left' leaning governments, but they are both heavily associated with right wing policies.)
This marked the beginning of trickle down economics: tax cuts, privatization of publicly owned assets, reduction in public spending, and deregulation of the finance sector. The top tax rates are down to the low 30s in most of these countries, down from the 80s/90s it was prior. Now THATS a tax cut.
And what happened next?
Wages stagnated. Housing prices skyrocketed. Bankers got away with gambling on the economy. Public infrastruce and utilies degraded. And wealth inequality now exceeds France in 1791.
I don't know how anyone can deny the evidence if they see it, but there's so much propaganda and false information that a lot of people just don't see the evidence.
Literally all the evidence supports going back to Keynesian economics but now that the rich have accumulated so much wealth it's virtually impossible to democratically dethrone them when they have most of the politicians on both the right and the left in their pocket.
Unfortunately it was the great depression and ww2 that gave politicians the political power to implement these policies the first time around. Some thought the 2008 crash would spur movement back towards Keynesianism (which it actually did in Iceland, congrats to them), I hoped covid would force governments to now, but nope.
All these recent crises' seem to have just pushed politics further and further right, with more austerity and tax cuts.
I don't really have a message or statement to end on other than shits fucked yo.
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