From his perch in Silicon Valley, cub economist Marc Andreessen offers a brilliant new argument in favor of income inequality:
You see, it’s ok to give raises to the wealthy, because the wealthy don’t produce the “things” that “lower-income consumers” need to buy. But you shouldn’t increase the wages of lower-income workers involved in the production of “things,” since they’re going to spend most of their money on those “things.” In other words: Pay the poor less, and they’ll feel richer. Sweet!
Students of neoliberalism often point out that the ideology behind it emphasizes consumer interests over, or to the exclusion of, everything else. Never mind what matters to us a producers, citizens, family members, lovers, or ethical human beings. Our status as buyers is what counts. If we’re getting fast service from Amazon Prime, who cares what kind of speedups are taking place at their warehouses to make that happen or what the mental and emotional toll is on the people who work there.
Those same observers of neoliberalism also remind us that the digital utopians of Silicon Valley are among the foremost neoliberals. So this fits.
Does anyone really think that a venture capitalist worth $700,000,000 or thereabouts such as Andreessen disapprove of certain economic arrangements because it hurts lower-income people? Andreessen and his ilk don’t want lower-income people getting paid better because they are part of the modern day aristocratic class. And aristocrats lose when working people get paid better.
ahhh, if I only thought the true non story I’d love to relate as a Sly Con Valley dweller for the most part of the last forty years. regarding a CFO in the circle that Andreeseen rose to his pedastool in (a CFO who would have definately done years time if he hadn’t been connected …nothing I could do about that, that’s the way the legal “system” generally works – against those who attempt to do least harm, those not at all interested in being robber barons) wouldn’t come back and cripple my life even further than it already has in attempting to do the right thing, in my apparently feeble (though it never felt feeble) attempt to follow those ‘stated’ ethics of that seeming least evil profession I clearly made a mistake of entering into.
That was a conscience tweet. All those dollars weighing on his mind. All those envious eyes ogling his tweet storms for a clue to the magic.
If they paid staff a better wage they would have more to spend , that would help retail business who could afford to pay more starting a positive loop rather than the negative one currently holding back the economy.
Future Marc Andreessen-toinette tweet: “The poor don’t have enough leisure time for family? Let them buy robots!”
We can argue all day about the efficacy (and ethics) of hyper-capitalism, but that’s what we’ve got and probably will continue having for the foreseeable future.
And like Mike, I would agree that it makes no sense in that consumer-driven capitalist society to keep depressing wages and driving down aggregate demand.
The kind of progressive taxation that America had post-WWII before the top marginal rates started coming down also benefited the overall society and helped ensure that bridges, roads, and other necessary infrastructure didn’t collapse. But, that’s a whole other can of worms.