from truthdig:
It’s the Stupidity, StupidPosted on Oct 28, 2010
By David Sirota
Redistributionist—as epithets go, the moniker is so mild, so ... 2008. Today, we’re hammered by screeds against Democrats’ alleged socialism and President Barack Obama’s supposed Marxism. The class war is clearly on—the paranoids and royalists of the world have united, seizing the means of propaganda production in these waning days of this year’s election campaign.
The onslaught, of course, is predictable. After all, this is an election season—which inevitably evokes Red-baiting crusades by the plutocrats. Less predictable is this crusade’s traction. As Wall Street executives make bank off bailouts, as millions of Americans see paychecks slashed and as our economic Darwinism sends more wealth up the income ladder—it’s surprising that appeals to capitalist piggery carry more electoral agency than ever.
What could cause this intensifying politics of free-market fundamentalism at the very historical moment that proves the failure of such an ideology? Two new academic studies suggest all roads lead to ignorance.
The first, by Harvard’s Michael Norton and Duke’s Dan Ariely, finds that Americans grossly underestimate how much inequality our economy produces. Among the survey respondents, the vast majority said they believe the richest 20 percent own 59 percent of the wealth, when, in fact, that quintile owns 84 percent of the wealth. In other words, in spite of the data, many believe our system produces the moderate equality we desire, which means many see efforts to better spread wealth as a confiscatory overreach. ...........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/its_the_stupidity_stupid_20101028/