Social Justice Now: James K. Galbraith- 'Inequality and Instability: What's Ahead For The World Economy'

Source:Social Justice Now- Texas LBJ School Professor James K. Gabbraith.

"James K. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a professorship in government at The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Galbraith was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress in the early 1980s. He chaired the board of Economists for Peace and Security (1996–2016) and directs the University of Texas Inequality Project. He is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics." 

From the Texas LBJ School 

"Economist James K. Galbraith (Texas LBJ School) one of the country's leading analysts of the financial crisis, speaks on the link between the growing inequality and economic instability. Galbraith, a professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, will focus on the argument in his new book, Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just before the Great Crisis... 

From Social Justice Now

I really don't like the term income inequality because that simply doesn't exist in an economy where the amount of money and ability for people to be successful in life, depends on how much you know and how qualified you are to work and then what you do with the skills that you have. In other words: how productive you are in the economy that you operate in. Which is the case in all capitalist economic systems, whether it's in America, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, wherever it is in the developed world. 

People with good educations who apply those skills well are simply going to do better economically than people who don't, it's that simple. So income inequality simply doesn't exist. I'm sure there are people who believe it does which is what the so-called Progressive Social Justice movement (Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists, in actuality) is about. But the fact is that income inequality simply doesn't exist anywhere in the developed world.

A problem that the United States has as it relates to the rest of the developed world is not income inequality, but the fact that are economic scale is kinda tilted towards the bottom. That is we have roughly 1-5 Americans who live in poverty or collect some type of public assistance. That they have to have in order to pay their bills and then we have about ten percent of the country whose doing very well economically. 

And then roughly seventy percent of the country thats doing well but not great, good education, owns a home or paying off a mortgage, cars, some money in the bank, but then a certain percentage of that seventy percent (perhaps 1-5 out) of those people who aren't officially poor, but perhaps a paycheck away of living on public assistance or being in poverty themselves. Who have the skills to get them to the point that they are now, but not enough skills to advance beyond that.

The solution to this economic problem that America has is not tell the wealthy that they are doing too well. So that government is going to take a chunk of your wealth to take care of the people who aren't doing very well indefinitely. But the solution is to create more wealth and have a better economy that benefits more people where poverty and unemployment aren't as high. 

Income equality is simply people getting out of society what they put into it. That might sound unfair or harsh, but it's not. It's simply the cold-hearted truth. So to have more people who are able to contribute a lot of society and then be able to enjoy the benefits of their production, we simply need a better education and job training system to produce a better skilled workforce in this country.