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posted by FatPhil on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the Philosophers-Stone dept.

"Although today high levels of inequality in the United States remain a pressing concern for a large swath of the population, monetary policy and credit expansion are rarely mentioned as a likely source of rising wealth and income inequality. [...]

The rise in income inequality over the past 30 years has to a significant extent been the product of monetary policies fueling a series of asset price bubbles. Whenever the market booms, the share of income going to those at the very top increases.[...]

[F]inancial institutions benefit disproportionately from money creation, since they can purchase more goods, services, and assets for still relatively low prices. This conclusion is backed by numerous empirical illustrations. For instance, the financial sector contributed massively to the growth of billionaire's wealth"

Source: https://mises.org/library/how-central-banking-increased-inequality

I'll leave my comments as comments, but note that The Mises Institute is proudly, one might say almost by definition, Austrian School. Both the Institute and the School have had their fair share of criticism. Which of course doesn't mean that individual author is wrong on this particular matter. -- Ed.(FP)


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:53AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:53AM (#557793) Journal

    Capitalism operates on the principle of maximizing profits by means of buying low and selling high; whether they are buying raw materials or labor, capitalists will seek to pay the least amount possible.

    So what? If the mere act of wanting something is enough to get it, then clearly you don't want to change this situation hard enough. I find it interesting how so much criticism of capitalism comes to the motives rather than the consequences. Show me the society where people with such base motives help their societies better than they do in a capitalist society.

    Nowhere in their tenets is community building or ameliorating society’s ills. The world has bought into Hayek’s postulate that all human activity is economic activity and that everything therefore has a price in the market.

    Yet another indication that you've never figured out that intent != outcome. There's a reason for the saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

    A great symphony, painting or sculpture has no inherent value as an object of beauty; it simply has a price. Thus we have fallen into the trap of thinking that moral values, not having a market price, are worthless.

    I quite disagree. That's not a trap since moral values can have profoundly negative value even as morals. For example, the Communists of the 20th century thought that forcing people into their scheme was a moral positive. But you have to have a pretty twisted view of reality to think that creating a billion slaves is a good idea.

    Further, capitalist societies have never had trouble creating objects of beauty. They have by far been the best at it.

  • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:26AM (1 child)

    by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:26AM (#557828) Journal

    Show me the society where people with such base motives help their societies better than they do in a capitalist society.

    Most European countries, because they do not practice crony capitalism (as in Russia) or savage capitalism (as in the US).

    Yet another indication that you've never figured out that intent != outcome. There's a reason for the saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

    So intent is irrelevant? Google mens rea and educate yourself a bit

    That's not a trap since moral values can have profoundly negative value even as morals. For example, the Communists of the 20th century thought that forcing people into their scheme was a moral positive. But you have to have a pretty twisted view of reality to think that creating a billion slaves is a good idea.

    You mean like British, American, Spanish and Portuguese created millions of slaves for profit? Or do you mean like Christians imposing their faith on millions of Native Americans against their will or Western countries imposing ‘statehood’ on tribal lands in Africa and the Middle East? Or do you mean like selling opium at gun-point in China?

    Further, capitalist societies have never had trouble creating objects of beauty. They have by far been the best at it.

    Your economic education is lacking. Michelangelo, Da Vinci (Renaissance), Bach (Baroque) and many others belong to a feudal economic system, not capitalism. In your mind anything other than socialism/communism is capitalism, sorry but no, capitalism is fairly recent invention.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 23 2017, @05:09AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 23 2017, @05:09AM (#557846) Journal

      Most European countries, because they do not practice crony capitalism (as in Russia) or savage capitalism (as in the US)

      Huh, contrary to your assertion most European countries practice some degree of crony capitalism, for example, UK, Germany, France, the PIGS, and the former Eastern Bloc, to name a few.

      So intent is irrelevant? Google mens rea and educate yourself a bit

      We're not speaking of crime, so yes, intent is irrelevant.

      You mean like British, American, Spanish and Portuguese created millions of slaves for profit? Or do you mean like Christians imposing their faith on millions of Native Americans against their will or Western countries imposing ‘statehood’ on tribal lands in Africa and the Middle East? Or do you mean like selling opium at gun-point in China?

      Why yes. It's almost like you get it. The only difference is the Communism did it on a bigger scale and collapsed before it could harm people for centuries rather than a few generations.

      Your economic education is lacking. Michelangelo, Da Vinci (Renaissance), Bach (Baroque) and many others belong to a feudal economic system, not capitalism. In your mind anything other than socialism/communism is capitalism, sorry but no, capitalism is fairly recent invention.

      And Pink Floyd, Van Gogh, and Frank Lloyd Wright "belonged" to a capitalist system. Capitalism is just private ownership of capital and the necessarily systems (such as markets to trade said capital and laws to protect private ownership of capital) which support the concept. Sure, there were good artists before there was capitalism, but there's been vastly more good artists since.

      For example, there's probably tens of thousands of people in the world who can do amazing things with guitars. They didn't happen just because some political/economic elite decided to support a handful of performing artists for the prestige. The distributed nature of capitalism means that one doesn't have to be connected to political or economic elites in order to learn to play the guitar at a world-class level or to make a living from playing the guitar. And capitalism has helped in other ways. A remarkable thing about such music is that there is an immense variety of music as compared to older systems of musical expression which tend to follow various traditions and formulas. Capitalism isn't the sole cause of this - democracy has played a huge part - but the ability to fund unusual forms of music with unusual business models or funding sources means that art can be expressed today which would have never existed in the past, even discounting the advanced technology available to us today.