"The founders of the discipline of economics, almost to a man - and they were only men - thought that the problem of distribution between classes - they used the word classes - was the key to understanding why nations grew or not," Bowles says. What Bowles sees as the essence of his profession [is] problems of wealth distribution... Isn't inequality merely the price of America being No. 1? "That's almost certainly false," Bowles tells SFR. "Prior to about 20 years ago, most economists thought that inequality just greased the wheels of progress. Overwhelmingly now, people who study it empirically think that it's sand in the wheels." ... Bowles offers a key reason why this is so. "Inequality breeds conflict, and conflict breeds wasted resources," he says. In short, in a very unequal society, the people at the top have to spend a lot of time and energy keeping the lower classes obedient and productive.
Isn't inequality merely the price of America being No. 1?
"That's almost certainly false," Bowles tells SFR. "Prior to about 20 years ago, most economists thought that inequality just greased the wheels of progress. Overwhelmingly now, people who study it empirically think that it's sand in the wheels." ... Bowles offers a key reason why this is so. "Inequality breeds conflict, and conflict breeds wasted resources," he says.
In short, in a very unequal society, the people at the top have to spend a lot of time and energy keeping the lower classes obedient and productive.
Samuel Bowles is out of the mainstream on two counts: he takes into consideration history and economic history and he considers history of economic thought, as it used to be called.
Guess there's no helping some people, eh?
