I have problems with the word extreme. It's a label I find uncomfortable applying to anyone and anything.
But if I was a US citizen (and I admit I'm glad I'm not) I'd be thinking along the lines of a new working group on Extreme Inequality, led by the AFL-CIO, Institute for Policy Studies, Essential Action and the Center for Corporate Policy, and which TJN-USA supports and is participating in. In this case the word 'extreme' is, I think, justified.
They have together put together this powerful powerpoint. They make their point well. Not least that it's well known that:
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
Plutarch said that in Greece about 2,000 years ago. Isn't it time we learned? Because that's the threat we're facing.
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Sorry to split hairs, but it is not a Powerpoint file, it is a PDF (which is good, as PDF is a much better format for distribution).
Page 36 of the aformentioned powerpoint presentation is definatly worth looking at. The twentieth century peak which is at the same time of the great depression, and the new century peak is getting close, so we may be heading for another great depression.
Extreme earned inequality is difficult to avoid in a free market economy. It can be moderated by progressive taxation on incomes and lifetime capital gains to the extent that this does not seriously affect incentives to earn or create wealth……
Extreme unearned inequality, on the other hand, from capital gifted or inherited, that receipients have done nothing to earn, create, save or make, is another thing altogether. Arguments about incentives apply with far less force….
Extreme inequality of starting wealth can and must be tackled urgently by judicious redistribution at the point of transfer from each generation to the next. A radical reform of the taxation of such wealth is urgently required, to bring about greater equality of opportunity and the wider spread of the private ownership of wealth…
The average wealth of every adult and child in the country is about £90,000. See http://www.universal-inheritance.org for the essential proposal – British Universal Inheritance – a negative (£10,000) and progressive (10% upwards) Lifetime Capital Receipts Tax on lifetime receipts of capital that is neither created, earned, made nor saved by recipients. To be introduced in tandem with the present so-called ‘Inheritance Tax’ on lifetime giving and bequeathing with the rate dropped from 40% to 10% and all the scandalous asset-linked exemptions abolished. Tax paid by donors would be deducted from tax due by beneficiaries…
‘Inheritance for All’ would lead to Popular Capitalism in contrast with unbridled Dynastic Capitalism. The trouble is that neither socialists nor elitist capitalists are interested in the idea of everyone owning capital. But liberals are. The Liberal Party (not the EU-fanatic Lib Dems) have already adopted it as party policy.