There's a whole range of options. We can make the state stronger without going full planned economy.
To pick a few things we could do:
-> criminal liability for white collar crime
-> muscular antitrust
-> roll back citizen's united
-> public option for health insurance
-> taxes on real estate as investment
I don't understand why people think this is all or nothing. Plenty of countries are doing much better than the US on these fronts.
Right, max/median net worth is about 1000000:1, there is lots of room between 1000000:1 and 1:1.
The problem is that for the people on the 1000000 end of the spectrum, the same mechanics that encourage investment in productive activities also encourage investment in corruption, as they make no distinction between the two. With hundreds of billions in present-value-of-future-cash-flows at stake, almost any expenditure is justified. The laws of economics say that for you lobbying is a hobby, but for them it's a job with ROI (a whole office full of jobs, in fact). That's a steep advantage to overcome, but we've done it before and we'll do it again.
Can you cite some countries that haven't seen any wage stagnation and have actually seen wages grow linearly with productivity? I certainly can't think of any. Wage stagnation is endemic in the western world at least.
To pick a few things we could do: -> criminal liability for white collar crime -> muscular antitrust -> roll back citizen's united -> public option for health insurance -> taxes on real estate as investment
I don't understand why people think this is all or nothing. Plenty of countries are doing much better than the US on these fronts.