Ideology, politics and the concentration of capital

John Roemer

Yildiz Social Science Review, 2015, vol. 1, issue 1, 37-44

Abstract: The concentration of wealth in the United States has reached its highest level ever, equal to what it was on the eve of World War I. The wealthy maintain their wealth - sheltering it from con fiscation via taxation - mainly through ideological means. Influencing politics directly through campaign financing and lobbying are important, but probably less important than the creation of pro-capitalist ideology among voters, which occurs through myriad means. The polarization in the US Congress has followed closely, over the past 200 years, the polarization of wealth. As the top 1% become ever wealthier, they expend more resources attempting to prevent Congress from con fiscating their wealth, which probably explains the ever-rightward movement of the US Republican Party.

Keywords: Income distribution; politics; capitalJournal: Yildiz Social Science Review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F00 F30 G00 G10 K00 K20 M00 M20 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://yssr.yildiz.edu.tr/storage/upload/pdfs/1656072780-en.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aye:journl:v:1:y:2015:i:1:p:37-44

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Yildiz Social Science Review from Yildiz Technical University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Murat DONDURAN ().