TED
Published on Aug 12, 2014
Nick Hanauer is a rich guy, an unrepentant capitalist — and he has something to say to his fellow plutocrats: Wake up! Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France. Hear his argument about why a dramatic increase in minimum wage could grow the middle class, deliver economic prosperity … and prevent a revolution.
Watch more TED Talks on inequality: http://www.ted.com/topics/inequality
Well, no one paid attention. I remember seeing this and thought it well put forth. We are still in a downward spiral though.
Watched this last night. Some observations:
First: We once had a social/governmental system that was pretty close to what Hanauer advocates. This was called the New Deal.
Second: We used to call our economic system “free enterprise” rather than “capitalism”. Maybe it’s time to bring back that terminology?
Third: There is a French historian named Fernand Braudel, who clearly delineates the difference between what he calls a free market economy (ie, what we used to call free enterprise but now call capitalism) and capitalism (which we would call today “monopoly capitalism”, or “plutocracy”). If I can come up with a reasonably brief summary of his thinking along those lines, I’ll post it; meanwhile, however, for those who are interested, Braudel’s magnum opus is called Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century.