January 31, 2012
Even though the data on income show the top 1 percent of the population pulling away from everyone else, New York Times columnist David Brooks tells us that focusing on the 1 percent is a “distraction.” He bases this assertion on, well absolutely nothing.
Brooks goes to tell readers that:
“the truth is, members of the upper tribe have made themselves phenomenally productive.”
This is striking for two reasons. Since his upper tribe is the whole top 20 percent, much of this group that has become phenomenally productive has seen little benefit from their productivity. Wages for the second decile have risen over the last three decades, but not by very much.
The other part of the story is that this group has made itself phenomenally productive largely through its control of the political process. For example, it has used the political process to get an implicit government guarantee for too big to fail banks that can pay its top executives phenomenal amounts of money. It maintains protectionist barriers for doctors, lawyers and other highly educated professionals that allow their pay to soar relative to workers who must compete in the international economy. And it has garnered ever stronger patent protection that has shifted income from ordinary workers to those able to earn patent rents.
It was control over the political process that has allowed the 1 percent to profit at everyone else’s expense. Their productivity, whether phenomenal or not, was secondary.
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