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The US Plutonomy and Its Effect on the Capitalist-Labor Relation

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The US Plutonomy and Its Effect on the Capitalist-Labor Relation “They can't possibly spend it," quipped the marketing expert, "although God knows they're trying, and we thank the good Lord for that."1 Master Thesis Tobias Arbogast: The US Plutonomy and its Effect on the Capitalist-Labor Relation Title: The US Plutonomy and its Effect on the Capitalist-Labor Relation Examination: Master Thesis for the MSc Political Science – Political Theory Student Name: Tobias Arbogast Student Number: 11252502 Research Project: Alternatives to Capitalism Teacher: Paul Raekstad Second reader: Michael Onyebuchi Eze Date: June 23rd 2017 Correspondence regarding this thesis should be sent to: [email protected] 1 Taken from Pizzigati, S. (2007). Selling to the plutonomy. Multinational Monitor, 28(2), 51-52. Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3 1.1. Why Study the Plutonomy? .......................................................................................................... 4 1.2. Brief Summary .............................................................................................................................. 5 2. Key Definitions ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2.1. Plutonomy ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2.2. The ‘Rich’ ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2.3. Capitalists and the Profit-motive ................................................................................................... 7 2.4. Labor ............................................................................................................................................. 8 3. Thesis .................................................................................................................................................... 8 3.1. Why the US? ................................................................................................................................. 9 4. The US is a Plutonomy ....................................................................................................................... 11 4.1. Kapur and Colleagues ................................................................................................................. 11 4.2. Plutonomy in the Literature ........................................................................................................ 12 4.3. Evidence on Wealth and Income Inequality in the US ............................................................... 14 4.3.1. Income Inequality in the US ............................................................................................... 14 4.3.2. Wealth Inequality in the US ................................................................................................ 18 4.4. Income and Wealth Inequality vs. Plutonomy ............................................................................ 20 4.5. Evidence on Consumption Inequality in the US ......................................................................... 21 4.6. Objection: ‘They Can’t Possibly Consume This’ ....................................................................... 24 4.7. Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 26 5. The Effects of the US Plutonomy on the Relationship between Capitalists and Labor ...................... 26 5.1. Demand Bifurcation .................................................................................................................... 27 5.2. Production Bifurcation ................................................................................................................ 31 5.2.1. Producer Hierarchy ............................................................................................................. 32 5.2.2. Luxury Production as Less Reliant on ‘Workers’ ............................................................... 34 5.3. Plutonomy and Automation ........................................................................................................ 36 5.4. Objection: ‘Democratization of Luxury’? ................................................................................... 37 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 38 7. Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 40 8. Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 41 9. Appendix ............................................................................................................................................. 47 1 Abstract This paper analyses the effect of increasing income and wealthy inequality in the US on the relationship between capital and labor. I propose the thesis that in the US, capitalists are decreasingly economically dependent on labor for their profit-making. In the first part, I examine the ‘plutonomy thesis’ that was put forward by a team of Citigroup analysts in 2005 to describe an economy where growth is largely powered by the wealthy. The plutonomy thesis will be linked to the economics literature on income and wealthy inequality as well as consumption inequality. In a second part, I investigate the consequences thereof for the relationship between capitalists and labor. I show that demand is increasingly divided up with the bulk of increase in demand coming from the consumption of luxury goods by the wealthy. I argue that production correspondingly shifts to cater to this group for profit-making. This in turn entails consequences for workers because luxury good production requires less typical workers than the production of generic goods. I conclude that in the US, capitalists are becoming less dependent on labor, in its capacity as consumer and as worker, for their profit-making. 2 1. Introduction “Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn't mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense - the idea that anyone can make it” The comment above by news anchor Fareed Zakaria (Zakaria, 2011) in the context of the famous slogan ‘We are the 99%’ by the Occupy Wall Street movement, illustrates the widespread acceptance, active or passive, of inequality in the US. The blatant inequality in the US seems at the same time incomprehensible as understandable in light of the country’s meritocratic ideals and culturally ingrained high tolerance towards social inequality1. The sheer extremeness of inequality along with recent advances in the research on (the history of) social inequality have led to renewed scholarly and public interest in the subject. Piketty’s unexpectedly popular book Capital in the Twenty-First Century provided a historically and empirically elaborate overview of the phenomenon. Not least the heightened publicity of the life- styles of the nouveau riches and the outrage provoked by hefty bonus payments to financial elites in the wake of the Great Recession have also contributed to a resurgence in the study of the upper end of the social stratum. Having the finger on the pulse, Forbes magazine updated the headlines made by Oxfam in 2014 by explaining that not 85 but 67 individuals own the same net worth as the poorest 3.5 billion people (Moreno, 2014). Of the tiny group of billionaires, 42% are from the US. This country is still the powerhouse of billionaires in the world although developing countries are quickly catching up. For example, even though the number of billionaires in the US shortly dropped after the financial crisis 2008 all-time-high of 470 billionaires, the number is back to the new ‘normal’ rate of increase with a total of 565 billionaires in 2017 (Forbes, 2012; see appendix). The Matthew effect of the rich getting richer (Merton, 1968) seems to be alive and kicking: “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath” (Matthew 25:29, King James Version). Partly instigated by the substantial amount of public attention, the current global politico-economic system as such is undergoing what has been described as a legitimation crisis of capitalism, or at least of democratic capitalism. The ‘forced marriage arranged between the two’ increasingly seems to come undone (Streeck, 2014, p. 22) and raises doubts to the very future of capitalism. Of course, skepticism about the future well-being of capitalism was never shared by all parties. This became apparent when in 2005 a team of private equity analysts at financial services corporation Citigroup spoke about the phenomenon of social inequality in a more optimistic fashion. In a report titled 1 On this point, see (Marger, 2002, pp. 231-254) 3 Plutonomy: buying luxury, explaining global imbalances that was not meant for the public but for investors, the authors talk about the topic in a very casual fashion (Kapur, Macleod, & Singh, 2005). Citigroup went
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