BILL MOYERS: Income inequality has soared to the highest level since the Great Depression...Left unanswered, where does this vast inequality take America? CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Well, I think to a very bad place. And I see two real and present dangers. One is that you see an increase of the political capture. BILL MOYERS: Of what? CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Of the political capture. So of the people at the very, very top, capturing the political system. And most crucially, I think something that an economist, a guy called Willem Buiter, whos the chief economist at Citigroup, he calls it cognitive capture. Where he says, look, its not like this vast conspiracy. Its not as if, you know, everyone is on the payroll of the plutocrats. And this guy, okay, he is now the chief economist of Citigroup. He wrote this when he was an academic economist. But so its, hes hardly, you know, some kind of Marxist on the barricades. His argument was that part of the reason the financial crisis happened is the entire intellectual establishment, not just people inside investment banks, but regulators, academic economists, financial journalists, had all been captured by the financial sectors vision of how the economy should work. And in particular, light touch regulation. And I think there is a broader cognitive capture of, you know, you might call it the intellectual class, the public intellectuals, around maybe the inevitability of plutocracy. You know, as Matt [Taibbi] was saying, this notion that if youre poor, its your own fault. Youre part of this dependent 47 percent. Unions are very bad. All of that sort of stuff. So I think that that cognitive capture increases. And I think what you see increasingly is, you know, elites like to think of themselves as acting in the collective interest, even as they act in their personal vested interest. And so what I think youll end up seeing is social mobility, which is already decreasing in the United States, being increasingly squeezed. You see particularly powerful sectors, finance, oil. I would say the technology sector is going to be next in line, getting lots of government subsidies. And meanwhile, I think you see much less money spent on the things that the middle class and the poor need. Thats why have this, you know, full bore attack on entitlements, right? Why is the plutocracy so enthusiastic about cutting entitlement spending? Because they dont need it. But theyre very worried about their tax dollars funding it. — Moyers & Company
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:26:23 +0000
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