Show threadMartin Nutty5d ago

8) We need an #ExtremeWealthLine if we are to lift more people above the #PovertyLine

If we believe #SocialMobility is good then a #WealthTax becomes a necessity

If we believe our #Politics is increasingly been bought by the #UltraWealthy then failure to address gross #inequality will lead to a decline in western #democracy

@ingridrobeyns
Lays it out clearly in this piece 👇

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/17/is-it-bad-that-elon-musk-has-a-trillion-dollars-yes-and-heres-why

Is it bad that Elon Musk has a trillion dollars? Yes, and here’s why

Just as the ‘poverty line’ determines what’s required for basic living, we need a ‘wealth line’ to show when extreme wealth becomes harmful, says economist and philosopher Ingrid Robeyns

The Guardian
Show threadMartin Nutty5d ago

@ReggieHere

Amusing to watch #billionaires scrambling. No doubt they’re frustrated their billions doesn’t entitle them to a bigger number of votes. Could be that’s why they are on a never ending quest to undermine any effort to make a more equitable society

Not all billionaire types want to pull up the ladder and decrease #SocialMobility, but its clear that an influential set have managed to decrease their tax burden with each passing year leaving us #NPC types with no social safety net

Project Syndicate5d ago
In our latest PS #Insiderinterview, Philippe Aghion and @[email protected] discuss how AI-driven disruption could trigger political backlash if workers are left behind. Watch or read for free at the link below: bit.ly/4oikmEp #Populism #AI #EconomicSecurity #LaborMarket #SocialMobility
Emeritus Prof. Christopher MayJun 12

As a political idea, social mobility is based on an acceptance of hierarchical depiction of society.... which builds into its politics almost inevitable resistance.

In a hierarchy, for people to move up (upwards social mobility), others must by definition move down (relative downwards social mobility) to make 'room' for those rising.

People & families have always moved downwards in such hierarchies, but resistance to an accelerated (forced) fall can hardly be unexpected!

#SocialMobility

BellingenNSWJun 3

* The Great Global Transformation
The United States, China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order, Branko Milanovic >>
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo269830239.html

* The U.S., China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order
"After unprecedented economic growth during the 20th century, is the U.S. losing its place as a world power? How have China’s economic rise and its growing class of uber-wealthy elites shaken up its society? How are the seismic changes to both countries reshuffling the global economic order?" >>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr1zscNHeYI
#geopolitics #USChinaRelations #WorldEconomicOrder #SeismicShifts #US #China #growth #elites #UberWealthy #plutocracy #nationalism #NationalMarketLiberalism #degeneration #protectionism #inequality #SocialMobility #homoploutia #book

The Great Global Transformation

From the essential chronicler of the world economy, a portrait of the Great Powers in transition. The world’s two great economic powers are on opposite trajectories. In the United States, decades of neoliberal policies produced a small class of rich elites and gutted the middle class. In China, the same global forces have created a massive new upper class. The result is the greatest reshuffling of global incomes since the Industrial Revolution—a dramatic shakeup of each country’s political order. As the two powers retreat from one another, the implications for their futures, and for the world economy, are uncertain. In The Great Global Transformation, acclaimed economist Branko Milanovic draws on original research to chart how these seismic shifts will shape the next century of the global economy. As both the US and China retreat into protectionism, Milanovic shows how a new and multipolar world order will follow—and how rising nationalism will have dramatically different effects on the two countries. And he shows us the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations, driving populist discontent to the breaking point. A worthy successor to Capitalism, Alone and his other landmark works, Milanovic’s new book announces the arrival of a new era he terms “national market liberalism,” in which liberalism survives in domestic economies, but not necessarily in the social arena. The Great Global Transformation is Milanovic’s indispensable account of the new twenty-first century now underway.  

University of Chicago Press
Show threadPepperberryJun 2

You were not stupid for believing the promise. But the promise may have been false. An essay on hard work, broken systems, and the devastating moment when both personal and institutional maps collapse.

Read Essay 👇
https://reviewsrantsandraves.substack.com/p/the-double-bind-personal-category

#TheDoubleBind
#StructuralBetrayal
#SystemicFailure
#PersonalFailure
#MiddleClassCollapse
#MeritocracyMyth
#CredentialInflation
#Precarity
#HousingCrisis
#Immigration
#SocialMobility
#InstitutionalTrust
#PoliticalEconomy
#SystemsThinking
#Longform

The Double Bind: Personal Category Errors, Systemic Delusions, and the Compounding of Collapse

Why do people who work hard, follow the rules, and trust institutions still end up dispossessed? This essay examines the double bind between personal misdirection and systemic betrayal.

Reviews, Rants & Raves
Centre for Population ChangeMay 18
📄 The programme for the upcoming CPC-CG Symposium at the #UniversityofStAndrews is now available!

On 23-24 June, the symposium will bring together researchers from the #UK, #Europe, and beyond to explore #intergenerational change and support across a range of themes, including:

• #Household and #housing
• #Migration and #socialmobility
• #Community, #segregation, and #socialcohesion
• #Family and #fertility
• #Intergenerationalexchange

More info: https://www.cpc.ac.uk/activities/event_calendar/1002/Centre_for_Population_Change__Connecting_Generations_Symposium_on_Intergenerational_Change_and_Support
World news | The GuardianMay 16
A third of Britons believe they have changed social class, survey finds https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2026/may/16/social-class-working-upper-changed-attest-survey-uk #ClassIssues #SocialMobility #Inequality #Society #UkNews #HealthWellbeing #Politics
A third of Britons believe they have changed social class, survey finds

‘Polyclass’ of 6 million people consider themselves to belong to more than one social category, researchers say

The Guardian
World news | The GuardianMay 14
Privately educated CEOs seen as ‘safer bet’ by investors, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/may/14/privately-educated-ceos-safer-bet-investors-class-bias-study #PrivateSchools #Education #Schools #Business #Ftse #FinancialSector #StockMarkets #SecondarySchools #Sociology #SocialMobility #Inequality #Society #UkNews #UsNews #WorldNews #ClassIssues
Privately educated CEOs seen as ‘safer bet’ by investors, study finds

Privilege being mistaken for competence as study reveals no evidence to suggest companies run by state-educated peers underperform

The Guardian
Show threadGary HallMay 12

2/4 These are fields - media and cultural studies and cultural theory - that are increasingly being framed as problematic, both ideologically and instrumentally. Yet they have played an important role in challenging the elitist tendencies of the mainstream, including those surrounding #socialmobility. If only either Seddon or Rajan had attended one of these institutions instead of having the disadvantage of studying for an undergraduate degree at #Oxford and #cambridge.

Still, we shouldn’t be surprised. This is, after all, a conversation on the #BBC between two Oxbridge-educated figures – albeit one is from South London the other West Yorkshire – taking about how social mobility might be used to include more people from #workingclass backgrounds in the system as it currently exists. It’s a social and educational system that was constructed in advance, although not by working-class people themselves, of course. A system that has in fact historically exploited and marginalised them.