You Take the Good, You Take the Bad: Trickle-Down Economics
It isn’t a fiscal policy: Trickle-down economics is a fact of life.
“Why is trickle-down economics still with us?” lamented Robert Reich for The Guardian last week: “This gonzo economic theory continues to live on, notwithstanding its repeated failures.”
Under “failures”, see “inflation and the worsening economy,” which is not, Reich argues, the fault of the Democratic Party but of that bad old Reaganesque fiscal policy.
Reich is right about one thing: The wealth gap is embarrassing. The haves have more than ever; the have-nots are getting more desperate by the day.
It’s even worse now than it was only two years ago. The world’s 10 wealthiest people doubled their wealth during COVID19, according to Oxfam. Since no mainstream media outlets seem eager to corroborate the assertion, we’ll all have to trust Oxfam.
But the wealth gap between the wealthiest members of a society and the most impoverished has been with humanity since the beginning.
There have always been tyrants, robber barons, organized crime, and other unscrupulous elements willing to exploit others to achieve their ends.
The exploitative dark side of human nature- and by extension, human systems like capitalism or communism- are…