Democratic capitalism has given us highly concentrated wealth (source: 2004 SCF, data here):
- the top 1% of us have 33.38% of the net worth (29.5% of the assets);
- the next 4% of us have 24.13% of the net worth (22.2% of the assets);
- the next 5% of us (the remainder of the top 10%) have 11.99% of the net worth (11.4% of the assets);
- the next 40% of us (the remainder of the top half) have 27.95% of the new worth (31.0% of the assets) -- offset by 48.6% of the debt;
- the bottom 50% of us have 2.54% of the net worth (5.8% of the assets -- offset by 24.2% of the debt.
and highly concentrated income (source: Piketty and Saez, 2006 data, Table A3 -- including capital gains)
- the top 1% of us have 22.90% of the income;
- the next 4% of us have 15.51% of the income;
- the next 5% of us (the remainder of the top 10%) have 11.27% of the income;
- the bottom 90% of us have 50.34% of the income.
And while the top 1% of wealth holders are not precisely the same people as the top 1% of income recipients, there is probably a fair amount of overlap in the top 5% groups. And, more important, it is quite likely that most of the people in the bottom 50% of the wealth distribution (who in aggregate 2.54% of the net worth) are also in the bottom 50% of the income distribution, which in aggregate likely has less than 10% of the nation's income. In other words, these low income people are not living off their wealth.
Tell me again about the virtues of Democratic Capitalism, please.
I'm in favor of democracy, and in favor of free market capitalism. But what we are experiencing is not free market capitalism. We permit some of us to treat valuable land and natural resources, and the economic value of these vital and scarce assets, as their own treasure, rather than as common treasure.
What we need is to end land monopoly capitalism.
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