Finance Capitalism: Profits Without Production Increases Inequality

How do we live with the contradictory message that the stock market is doing well, but around us we see roads not being built, cities becoming gentrified and Americans working two and three jobs to stay even?

The answer is that the profits made on financialization do not produce real goods and services as they once did. The problem is that most of the American public has a picture of capitalism – profit made on production of goods and service – that is 50 years out of date with how capitalism works now. The image below shows the extent to which finance pays no attention to the provisioning expectations most people have from an economy.

Image from SlideServe

About Bruce Lerro

Bruce Lerro has taught for 25 years as an adjunct college professor of psychology at Golden Gate University, Dominican University and Diablo Valley College. He has applied a Vygotskian socio-historical perspective to his five books: "From Earth-Spirits to Sky-Gods: the Socio-ecological Origins of Monotheism, Individualism and Hyper-Abstract Reasoning", "Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World" (co-authored with Christopher Chase-Dunn), "Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present", "Lucifer's Labyrinth: Individualism, Hyper-Abstract Thinking and the Process of Becoming Civilized", and "The Magickal Enchantment of Materialism: Why Marxists Need Neopaganism". He is also a representational artist specializing in pen-and-ink drawings. Bruce is a libertarian communist and lives in Olympia, WA.

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