If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it Id be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasnt that radical. It didnt break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states cant do to you. Says what the Federal government cant do to you, but doesnt say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasnt shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.
I would argue that there is lots of stealth redistribution of wealth in this country. And I am not just talking about programs like Foodstamps, Welfare, and Disability (though those are definitely part of the equation).
One of the biggest sources of wealth redistribution that almost no one brings up is the zero (or negative) interest rates. These make it possible for Government to borrow $$ for essentially no cost—and then redistribute it. This phenomenon makes the deficit affordable and the Entitlement state sustainable (in the short term).
And who pays for this? Why savers, of course, as they earn nearly zero interest on their $$. Or are forced into much riskier investments to get some meager return. The winners? Liberals, bureaucrats, and Wall Street. Businesses who cater to the EBT crowd, like Walmart, also win. I leave out the poor here as they are mostly losers too. People on disability don’t get riches, but once they become dependent, they will hang onto their entitlement tooth and nail.
Continuation of #43:
And the “brilliant” thing about this practice, from a political perspective, is it can be implemented with no laws and seemingly no one accountable. Just the Federal Reserve, which the vast majority of people don’t comprehend.
I have brilliant in quotes because I think, in the long term, this strategy will blow up in everyone’s face. It will take a while though and the Government (be it an R or D in charge) will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.