we're dealing with a capitalist economy, this is a very strange notion. Profit is the fuel that powers the capitalist system, but if working people get a bigger slice of the income pie, the slice left over as profit shrinks. It's already the case that a persistent fall in the rate of profit is a key underlying cause of the current economic instability and malaise. Slicing away profits even further wouldn't solve these problems; it would make them worse. Working people can definitely improve their situation by fighting for and winning concessions, but these concessions won't solve the economic problems that capitalism is facing. There's an inevitable contradiction between what's good for working people and what's good for the capitalist economy. The only way to transcend this dilemma is to transcend capitalism. Now, I've said that profits would take a hit if income were redistributed downward, but underconsumptionist theory says the opposite: profits would actually rise, because spending on goods and services would rise. Poorer people spend almost all of their income on goods and services, while richer people use a big chunk of their incomes to buy bonds, stocks, and other so forth, which aren't goods and services. That much is true; downward redistribution would boost consumption spending. The more nave underconsumptionist authors act as if this proves their case, but it simply doesn't. It ignores another important component of spending on goods and services, businesses' productive investment -- -- spending on equipment, construction of factories and office buildings,