Market Democracies and Inequality

Mark Thoma reposts Basic institutions and democratic equality, by Dan Little at Market Democracies and Inequality.

The conclusion seems to be:

…market and electoral institutions both create and reproduce social inequalities even when they are working correctly; inequality is built into them at a very basic level. The institutions are tilted in favor of privileged groups, and it is no surprise when corporations wield substantial influence in Washington and Paris and tax policies are enacted that favor the richest percent of American income earners. These aren't abnormal anomalies; they are instead precisely what we should expect when we analyze the basic institutions carefully.

In other words, Capitalism creates inequality through the ongoing concentration of wealth just as Karl Marx said it would do.

These basic institutions are all part of the state apparatus. And the state exists to serve the interests of the ruling class.

It is only through the mystification of the burgeois state by Capitalist ideologues that we think of the state as a separate entity outside of the class war. The state is the fundamental tool of oppression of the working class.