Economic Surpluses, Social Classes, And Inequality
Through The Lens Of Marxism
The more history I read, the more I want to revisit the concept of inequality and where it comes from. I started thinking about this back in 2020 when the fiscal response to the COVID pandemic unleashed a growth in asset prices whose benefits skewed heavily towards the wealthy.
Also during that time, class divides became painfully obvious as society became split between those who could comfortably (and safely) work from home while enjoying rising pay and increasingly valuable company stock versus those who needed to show up physically to work while suffering relatively low pay (plus reduced hours) and crappy job security.
This added to the growing social discontent that had already produced, among other things, the Trump presidency plus a gridlocked Congress that could never get anything productive done.
It made me wonder — what is it intrinsically about the way societies work that time and time again produces this combustible mix of inequality, elitism, venom, and oppression?
I wasn’t happy with the explanations given by the media and talking heads who were way too biased and lacked the ability to see the forest for the trees. So I turned instead to history books written by respected historians.
