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Showing posts from March, 2014

Patrimonial Capitalism

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This notion has been stewing in me for quite a while, and yesterday Paul Krugman wrote an article about this topic of Patrimonial Capitalism . " ...the political spectrum now instinctively accords much more respect to capital than to labor, at a time when capital income is growing ever more concentrated in a few hands — and is surely on its way to being concentrated largely in the hands of people who inherited their wealth." This is somewhat related to my earlier post of how I wish things were - with a balance between owners, employees and customers - called Capitalism and the Three Legged Stool . In Krugman's article, the basic premise is that since wealth and income are concentrated increasingly in fewer people's hands, the society at large is dependent on the patrimony, or direction, of the 1% (or maybe the .1%).  Decisions like Citizens United help to reconfirm this, as those with large wealth can now invest to shape the government. These topics have b