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  • Income Distribution in the US
    How is our income distributed? Well, it is pretty concentrated. How concentrated? Take a look.
  • Progress and Poverty, by Henry George
    Here are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience!
  • Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: Bottom 90%, Next 9% and Top 1%
    Aggregated data by net worth quantile, for various kinds of wealth. With calculations you won't find anywhere else!
  • Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: 50-40-5-4-1
    These tables show how concentrated the ownership of various kinds of assets are. With calculations you won't find anywhere else! This version is less aggregated: Bottom 50%, Next 40%, Next 5%, Next 4% and Top 1%.

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  • Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The Remedy
    This is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy.
  • Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!
    This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

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« William Jennings Bryan, on liberty and future generations | Main | NRDC: Ranking States’ Oil Vulnerability and Solutions for Change »

August 05, 2009

Conservatism

"Cardinal Newman says that a conservative is a man who is at the top of the tree, and knows it, and means never to come down."

Quoted in "The Public" October 31, 1903, a few days before election day.

To that might I add that some of today's conservatives aren't at the top of the tree, but have high hopes that they will get there, and want the privilege of being held up should they somehow managed to get there.

I seem to recall reading that 19% of us consider ourselves to be in the top 1%.  And if that is so, how many more think that they will actually make it into the top 1%?? 

Lottery ticket sales and gambling revenues suggest that many of us think our best chance lies in that department, rather than in labor, saving and investment.

Posted on August 05, 2009 at 06:11 PM in conservatism, cui bono?, natural resource revenues, playing by the rules, poverty machine, privilege |

Tags: conservatism, conservative, poverty's cause, privilege

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