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Re:Crises of Elite Competition in the East and West by eru on Monday November 29, 2021 @10:34PM (#29388654)
> How can an article about "elite competition" not mention anything about how, during a few decades in the 20th Century, labor's share of profits increased, and since 1980 has flatlined, with all rewards accruing to capital?

As far as I can tell, the share accruing to land increased. The share accruing to capital stayed roughly flat.

In any case, the labour share didn't drop all that much. A few percentage points.

The bigger deal is perhaps the change in distribution of that labour share amongst workers.

Re:Crises of Elite Competition in the East and West by pfkurtz on Monday November 29, 2021 @10:42PM (#29388693)
Here's McKinsey in 2019:

"Labor’s share of national income—that is, the amount of GDP paid out in wages, salaries, and benefits—has been declining in developed and, to a lesser extent, emerging economies since the 1980s."

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-gr...

This divergence since 1980 is the subject of Picketty's Capital in the 21st Century.

Re:Crises of Elite Competition in the East and West by eru on Monday November 29, 2021 @11:02PM (#29388808)
Yes, the labour share of income has slightly declined. I agreed with that?

But the extra has gone to land, not capital.

Piketty fails to make that distinction. See eg https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2015/07/22/piketty-... or https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/deciphering-the-fall...

Re:Crises of Elite Competition in the East and West by pfkurtz on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @12:22AM (#29389225)
Interesting. There seems to be some debate among the critics, but putting that aside...

If it's all gone to land, the situation seems worse as far as inequality goes. The top 1% of households own 40% of land in the US as of 2017. The next 9 percent own 42%.

So maybe it's inexact to call it "capital" vs. "labor", but... a class of people is dominating.

Re:Crises of Elite Competition in the East and West by eru on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @09:48AM (#29392673)
> So maybe it's inexact to call it "capital" vs. "labor", but... a class of people is dominating.

Not sure about 'class'.

But the policy implications are quite different:

Land value taxation can capture all that extra rent going to land without hurting the economy one bit. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

By contrast, taxing capital is a really bad idea. Eg capital gains taxes hamper productivity growth.

Re:Crises of Elite Competition in the East and West by pfkurtz on Monday November 29, 2021 @11:07PM (#29388842)
I was not aware of this paper, I will read it and see what further work has said, thanks (it's from 2015 there's gotta be something).