Thanks for that, Max. I’m also a moron who is curious about Marx and curious about how it plays in the 21st century.
But I have a notion and it’s this. If we do not succeed in removing wealthy oligarchs from politics , and this is after we have removed MAGA , we will have failed in any meaningful victory over MAGA or lessened its likely hood of it happening again. We can’t go back to the status quo and believe that “ good wealth “ will not corrupt democracy. The Democratic Party if it’s to survive will have to dig deep and change radically. Is there any chance?
I think all nations need to adopt wealth taxes, and we need to make those global by having them be part of trade deals or international law.
My meatball understanding of Thomas Piketty's 2013 unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) Capital in the 21st Century is that markets make investors richer than workers (AKA "the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of return from growth" or "r > g").
However, to grow the fortunes of the ultra-rich ( like Musk) by even 1% at some point requires it to come from other rich people, when 1% of Musk's wealth is more than 100% of all non-Rich people.
Taxing wealth is important more for political reasons, to curb the power of the rich. I've long thought for the sake of general well-being, bigger public sectors, not necessarily financed by taxing the rich, are better.
I think victories come in pieces, so erasing MAGA absent the oligarchs would still be a great thing. I have no idea about the prospects for the DP, except that to be in politics we have to keep trying.
This is incorrect: “where constructive reform was indeed possible, as in Germany and Austria prior to the first world war and after the second”. Red Vienna and the heyday of Austrian social democracy was between the wars where wonderful reforms were carried through. Including the new pedagogy and the “Karl Marx” workers housing that had kindergartens but also features for self-defense. All of this u see the leadership of Otto Bauer whose inspired idea of social democracy went beyond Bernstein.
I readily confess to know nothing about Austria, before or after any wars, except for one thing: there was no Bolsheviki revolution there, so any accomplishments you can allude to were due to social-democracy, rather than Leninism, which is my point.
Thanks for that, Max. I’m also a moron who is curious about Marx and curious about how it plays in the 21st century.
But I have a notion and it’s this. If we do not succeed in removing wealthy oligarchs from politics , and this is after we have removed MAGA , we will have failed in any meaningful victory over MAGA or lessened its likely hood of it happening again. We can’t go back to the status quo and believe that “ good wealth “ will not corrupt democracy. The Democratic Party if it’s to survive will have to dig deep and change radically. Is there any chance?
I think all nations need to adopt wealth taxes, and we need to make those global by having them be part of trade deals or international law.
My meatball understanding of Thomas Piketty's 2013 unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) Capital in the 21st Century is that markets make investors richer than workers (AKA "the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of return from growth" or "r > g").
However, to grow the fortunes of the ultra-rich ( like Musk) by even 1% at some point requires it to come from other rich people, when 1% of Musk's wealth is more than 100% of all non-Rich people.
Cory Doctorow has a really great summary here:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/18/pikettys-productivity/#reaganomics-revenge
I'm actually quite curious what Max's opinion of Thomas Piketty is (or if Cory's summary is sound).
Taxing wealth is important more for political reasons, to curb the power of the rich. I've long thought for the sake of general well-being, bigger public sectors, not necessarily financed by taxing the rich, are better.
I think victories come in pieces, so erasing MAGA absent the oligarchs would still be a great thing. I have no idea about the prospects for the DP, except that to be in politics we have to keep trying.
This is incorrect: “where constructive reform was indeed possible, as in Germany and Austria prior to the first world war and after the second”. Red Vienna and the heyday of Austrian social democracy was between the wars where wonderful reforms were carried through. Including the new pedagogy and the “Karl Marx” workers housing that had kindergartens but also features for self-defense. All of this u see the leadership of Otto Bauer whose inspired idea of social democracy went beyond Bernstein.
I readily confess to know nothing about Austria, before or after any wars, except for one thing: there was no Bolsheviki revolution there, so any accomplishments you can allude to were due to social-democracy, rather than Leninism, which is my point.