What’s wealth got to do with it?

In a recent article in The Intercept, Jon Schwarz [ht: db] arrives at a perfectly reasonable conclusion—but, unfortunately, he makes a real hash of the data concerning changes in wealth ownership in the United States.

Schwarz starts with the fact that the total amount of wealth owned by the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population has doubled since the first quarter of 2020 (in other words, during the pandemic). He then takes issue with the idea that economic growth needs to be slowed (for example, by the Fed’s raising of interest-rates) in order to help the poorest who presumably have been most hurt by inflation. And his conclusion?

According to the actual numbers, these are good times for many, many Americans in the poorer 50 percent. That doesn’t mean that millions aren’t struggling, but the financial prospects for most were even worse in the past in a lower-inflation world, a situation that did not excite the warm concern of the corporate media. What we should concentrate on now is keeping the streak going, not bludgeoning the workforce into submission.

I agree, at least in part: what policymakers are attempting to do (in a move supported by mainstream economists, large corporations, and the top 1 percent) is to bludgeon workers into submission. And there’s no reason to do so, especially when other policies—such as regulating prices, raising taxes on the rich, and imposing windfall profits taxes on large corporations—exist.

As for the rest of Schwarz’s argument, there are serious problems.

Let’s start with the idea that, in his view, these are good times for many Americans in the poorest 50 percent. This is based entirely on recent data concerning the net worth of those at the bottom has risen.

As is evident in the chart above, Schwarz’s claim about the rising wealth of the bottom 50 percent (the blue line) is in fact correct. It has been going up in absolute terms for more than a decade (since 2011), and it has gone up particularly quickly in the past two years.

Here’s the problem: the rising net worth of the bottom 50 percent is almost entirely due to the increase in housing prices (which therefore raises the net worth of those who own houses). But that doesn’t say anything about how well-off they are. They don’t get any extra income from those higher-priced homes. They therefore can’t purchase more or better commodities. And they can’t sell their homes to buy other ones because the other ones will also have increased in price.

So, that part of Schwarz’s argument doesn’t hold water. An increase in net worth based on higher housing prices doesn’t improve the well-being of those in the bottom 50 percent.

There’s nothing to rest his case on in terms of the absolute amount of wealth. What about in relative terms?

As it turns out, the increase in the net worth of the bottom 50 percent (again, the blue line in the chart immediately above) does lead to an increase in its share of total net worth—but only by 1 percent point, from 1.8 percent to 2.8 percent. It’s still below the share it had two decades ago. It only looks like an improvement because the share had fallen so low (to 0.3 percent, in 2011).

And compared to the top 1 percent (the red line in the chart)? The gulf between their respective shares has actually risen in the past two years. As of the first quarter of 2022, the share of total worth of the top 1 percent was 31.9 percent compared to the tiny (2.8-percent) share of the bottom 50 percent.

So, the bottom 50 percent is no better off in terms of net worth either in absolute or relative terms. In fact, against what Schwarz argues, the last several years have in fact been an economic disaster for the bottom half of U.S. households. Whatever improvement they’ve seen in terms of net worth is a chimeric dream.

I want to make one final point about the issue of net worth, which is often treated synonymously with wealth (including by Schwarz). As I argued above, whatever tiny bit of wealth those at the bottom have is almost entirely in the form of their houses. They don’t own any real wealth—call it financial or business wealth—of the sort that would allow them to have any role in making decisions about their economy.*

The top 1 percent do in fact have such a role, because they are able to convert their share of the surplus into real wealth, which allows them both to get more distributions of the surplus (through, for example, their ownership of equity shares in businesses) and to make the decisions (through their positions within those businesses, the financing of political campaigns, and the like) that do determine the trajectory of the economy and economic policy-making.

I’m entirely on Schwarz’s side in terms of opposing the current bludgeoning of workers on behalf of the 1 percent. But the better argument, it seems to me, is not to say that things should continue as before because the poorest households in the United States were better off, but to show that American workers have increasingly been beaten down, in both absolute and relative terms, precisely because of the pandemic and the profoundly unequal terms of the economic recovery.

Enough is enough. We have to adopt alternative economic policies in the short term, policies that don’t transfer all the costs of inflation-fighting onto the backs of workers. And then imagine and create a radically different form of economic organization moving forward.

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*As I showed back in 2018, the top 1 percent owned almost two thirds of the financial or business wealth, while the bottom 90 percent (not just the poorest 50 percent) had only six percent.

Inflation and the case of the missing profits

Everyone knows that inflation in the United States is increasing. Anyone who has read the news, or for that matter has gone shopping lately. Prices are rising at the fastest rate in decades. The Consumer Price Index rose 8.6 percent in March, which is the highest rate of increase since December 1981 (when it was 8.9 percent).

Clearly, inflation is hurting lots of people—especially the elderly living on fixed incomes and workers whose wages aren’t keeping up the price increases. No mystery there.

The only real mystery is, what’s causing the current inflation? That’s where things gets interesting.

To listen to or read mainstream economists the answer to the whodunnit is workers’ wages. They’re going up too fast, because the level of unemployment is too low and their employers are forced to pay them higher wages. As a result, corporations are compelled to raise their prices. Therefore, something has to be done (like increasing interest rates) to slow down the economy and force more workers into the Reserve Army of the Underemployed and Unemployed.*

That’s exactly how Paul Krugman sees things:

The U.S. economy still looks overheated. Rising wages are a good thing, but right now they’re rising at an unsustainable pace. . .

This excess wage growth probably won’t recede until the demand for workers falls back into line with the available supply, which probably — I hate to say this — means that we need to see unemployment tick up at least a bit.

The amazing thing about Krugman’s story, and that of most mainstream economists, is there’s not a single word about profits. Corporate profits are entirely missing from their story. Inflation is only caused by workers’ wages, not the surplus raked in by U.S. corporations. Which is pretty amazing, given the numbers.

A quick look at the chart at the top of the post shows what’s been going on in the U.S. economy. Workers’ wages (the red line in the chart, the hourly wages of production and nonsupervisory workers) rose during 2021 at an annual average rate of less than 5 percent (ranging from 2.8 percent in the second quarter to 6.4 percent in the final quarter).

And profits? Well, they’ve been growing at astounding rates, magnitudes more than wages. Corporate profits (the light green line) rose during 2021 at an average rate of 40 percent, and the profits of nonfinancial corporations (the dark green line) expanded by even more: 69 percent!

Hmmm. . .

The fact that profits are entirely missing from the mainstream story about inflation reveals a fundamental problem within mainstream economic theories. On one hand, in their macroeconomics, wages and not profits are always the culprit. That’s because they only have a labor market, and not a capital market (much less a profit rate or, for that matter, a rate of surplus-value), when they analyze fluctuations in prices and output. It’s as if corporate profits are only a residual—what is left over in the difference between wages and wage-driven prices. On the other hand, in their microeconomics, profits represent the return to capital, and thus a key component of commodity prices as well as the driver of economic growth.

Such “capital fetishism” means that profits as the return to a thing, capital, play an important role in the mainstream theory of value but then disappear entirely in the macroeconomic story about inflation.

It’s therefore a problem in the basic theories of mainstream economics. And it’s a problem when it comes to their economic policies: anything and everything must be done to keep workers’ wages in check, and (without ever mentioning them) to safeguard corporate profits.

The fact is, once we solve the mystery of the missing profits we can actually tackle the problem of inflation. But neither mainstream economists nor the leaders of corporate America are going to like what we come up with.

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*The Federal Reserve is suggesting that it can raise interest rates to get prices down “without causing a recession.” In fact, according to research from the investment bank Piper Sandler, the Fed raised rates to combat inflation nine different times during the past 60 years, and on eight of those occasions a recession occurred not long after.

Class conflict and economics

A funny thing happened on the way to the recovery from the Pandemic Depression: class conflict is back at the core of economics.

At least, that’s what Martin Sandau (ht: bn) thinks. I beg to differ. But more on that anon. First, let us give Sandau his due. His argument is that the current labor shortages have shifted the balance of power toward workers (an issue I discussed a couple of weeks ago). As a result, economic analysis is starting to change:

What this looks like is the return of something that was exiled from centrist policy debate and mainstream economic analysis for decades: class conflict and its economic consequences. To be precise, we may be witnessing the manifestation of two outmoded ideas: that the relative power of economic classes alters macroeconomic outcomes; and that macroeconomic policy tilts that relative power.

For Sandau, that means a return to the work of Michal Kalecki, especially his theory of the “political aspects of full employment.” Kalecki was a contemporary of John Maynard Keynes but, in contrast to Keynes, Kalecki was well versed in Marxian theory and spent considerable time investigating the relationship between macroeconomics and class conflict. As I explained back in 2010, Kalecki developed a cogent analysis of business opposition to measures designed to achieve full employment:

The reasons for the opposition of the ‘industrial leaders’ to full employment achieved by government spending may be subdivided into three categories: (i) dislike of government interference in the problem of employment as such; (ii) dislike of the direction of government spending (public investment and subsidizing consumption); (iii) dislike of the social and political changes resulting from the maintenance of full employment. . .

Under a regime of permanent full employment, the ‘sack’ would cease to play its role as a disciplinary measure. The social position of the boss would be undermined, and the self-assurance and class-consciousness of the working class would grow. Strikes for wage increases and improvements in conditions of work would create political tension. It is true that profits would be higher under a regime of full employment than they are on the average under laissez-faire; and even the rise in wage rates resulting from the stronger bargaining power of the workers is less likely to reduce profits than to increase prices, and thus adversely affects only the rentier interests. But ‘discipline in the factories’ and ‘political stability’ are more appreciated than profits by business leaders. Their class instinct tells them that lasting full employment is unsound from their point of view, and that unemployment is an integral part of the ‘normal’ capitalist system.

As readers can clearly see, not much has changed since Kalecki published that analysis back in 1943. Employers and their financial backers are still adamantly opposed to government measures designed to move capitalist economies toward full employment.

Sandau is correct in arguing that “conventional economic thinking has little room” for the possibilities outlined by Kalecki. Mainstream economists assume that, when the labor market is in equilibrium (at A), workers are paid a wage equal to their contribution to production. If workers manage to receive wages higher than the equilibrium rate, the result will be unemployment—that is, the improvement in the situation of some workers will come at the expense of other workers. So, there can’t be class conflict within conventional economic thinking.

And there isn’t any class conflict in Sandau’s analysis. That’s because, if workers’ wages rise, capital can respond by raising productivity. Therefore, in his view, “productivity incentives from greater worker power can boost profits as well.”

Problem solved! Except. . .

What Sandau fails to see is that, as productivity increases, the prices of wage goods fall, and capital therefore needs to advance less money to purchase workers’ ability to labor. Capitalist profits rise precisely because the value of labor power falls. Within the confines of capitalism, that’s precisely the option capitalists have, to extract more surplus-value from the workers they employ.

That’s the class conflict that remains missing in Sandau’s analysis as in the rest of conventional economics.

Consensual economics

Right now, mainstream economists are both congratulating themselves and bemoaning their fate.

Mainstream economists (such as Justin Wolfers and Paul Krugman) are congratulating themselves for having achieved a virtual consensus on the positive effects of fiscal stimulus. But they’re also complaining about the fact that the rest of the world (such as politicians, central bankers, and others) doesn’t seem to be listening to their expert advice.

Just two quick comments on this approach to consensual economics:

First, of course there’s a consensus among mainstream economics! That’s what their theories and models are supposed to do: produce and reproduce a consensus in terms of the basic analysis of macroeconomic events (although, of course, there can still be disagreements about particular aspects, such as the exact size of the fiscal multiplier and so on). And anyone who doesn’t use those models, and therefore reaches a different set of conclusions, is declared to be outside the mainstream, and therefore not worth reading or being listened to.

Second, how is it possible to declare—in the midst of the Second Great Depression—that mainstream economics has been an unqualified success? To arrive at such a conclusion would mean to overlook, at a minimum, the role that mainstream economics played in creating the conditions for the crash of 2007-08, in failing to include even the possibility of such a crash in their models, and in confining themselves to a package of monetary and fiscal policy measures—and not to even consider the possibility of larger, structural changes—as tens of millions of people lost their jobs, were stripped of their wealth, and were pushed further and further down the economic ladder.

Those engaged in consensual economics are, it seems, too busy congratulating themselves and bemoaning their fate to want to recognize the gorilla in the room.

Maximum wage—or, even better, no wages

One way of dealing with the problem of growing inequality is to establish a maximum wage. That’s what Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed back in the early 1940s—a 100 percent marginal tax rate on incomes over$25,000 a year (roughly $350,000 in today’s dollars)—in order to “provide for greater equality in contributing to the war effort.”

Infuriated conservatives saw red, literally. The “only logical stopping place for this movement,” fumed Princeton economist Harley Lutz, would be “a completely communistic equalization of incomes.”

Simon Wren-Lewis reports his own recent suggestion for a maximum wage was greeted in much the same manner.

Well, if mainstream economists are going to howl about tinkering with tax rates, why not make them howl about a real change in the system whereby incomes are distributed? Like Filip Spagnoli’s suggestion to get rid of wage-labor entirely.

Spagnoli’s proposal is to combine a universal basic income (“to cover the costs of the necessities of life”) with an outright prohibition on wage-labor (in order to promote more cooperative, democratic forms of economic organization).

Would a UBI not be sufficient to allow people to pursue their goals? Why also prohibit wage labor? A UBI indeed loosens us from the system of wage labor – it provides a financial cushion that removes the risks inherent in abandoning a job and pursuing our “true destiny” – but it doesn’t go far enough. It gives us the freedom to turn down unattractive work but the pursuit of life’s goals often requires cooperation. Only the prohibition on wage labor makes cooperative ventures more common. A UBI by itself only pushes us towards more satisfying jobs and leaves some of the drawbacks of wage labor intact.

Makes sense to me. Guarantee a basic income for everyone and then, on top of that, encourage the formation of new kinds of enterprises, based on the idea that those who work in the enterprises decide how they should be organized (including, of course, how much they should be paid, what should be done with the surplus, and so on).

One of Spagnoli’s concerns is, “If people can’t work for a wage, many of the ‘dirty jobs’ may not get done anymore.” The fact is, we already have Cooperative Home Care Associates in New York City, which is the largest worker-owned cooperative in the country. It’s relatively easy then to imagine a system of such cooperatives, in which democratically organized workers do everything from toilet cleaning, waste disposal, and mining to teaching, healthcare, and software design.

The time is ripe to open up the debate about proposals like establishing a maximum wage, guaranteeing a basic income, and prohibiting any and all forms of wage-labor. The only price of admission is to listen to the howling of mainstream economists.