Hola Everybody,
I’m going to do a series on what it’s like to be unemployed. I don’t think we really appreciate the negative effects of unemployment on health -- both physical and psychological. And it shouldn’t be this way. More on this starting tomorrow.
I’m going to do a series on what it’s like to be unemployed. I don’t think we really appreciate the negative effects of unemployment on health -- both physical and psychological. And it shouldn’t be this way. More on this starting tomorrow.
Working for a Living
Lots of people who are smart and work hard and play by the rules don't
have a fraction of what I have. I realize I don’t have my wealth because I’m so
brilliant. Luck has a lot to do with it.
-- Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Inc.
-- Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Inc.
Since the 1980s, income inequality
has risen to proportions never before seen in this country. The constant bray
of neocons is that if we continue to cut taxes for the rich, we will all be
better off.
In fact, the vast majority of the
working class in the US is worse off today than they were 20-30 years ago.
Today, most of us work far longer hours for less pay and less job security. In
addition, crucial government services such as health care and education have
suffered to the point that they are the laughing stock of the industrialized
world.
And yet, neoliberals continue to
clamor for more of the same economic policies that have created this
catastrophic economic displacement. As a percentage of wealth, you (if you’re
middle class) pay more in taxes than wealthy individuals. And this is a bipartisan
issue: as horrible as Trump seems, there’s very little difference between who
he will appoint run the economy and who Obama appointed and Hillary would’ve
appointed. In fact, some of you pay more in taxes than multinational
corporations. Neoliberalism is what is known in the con game as a “bait and
switch.” Meaning you may get a nominal windfall on your return, but you’re
paying out the ass for other crucial services such as college, oil, and other
“luxuries.”
In his 2004 report, I Didn't Do It Alone: Society's Contribution to Individual
Wealth and Success, Chuck Collins spotlights successful entrepreneurs and
concludes that the myth of self-made success is destructive to the economic
infrastructure that fosters wealth creation. Collins states, “How we think
about wealth creation is important since policies such as large tax cuts for
the wealthy often draw on the myth of the self-made man,” He adds, “Taxes are
portrayed as onerous, unfair redistribution of privately created wealth -- not
as reinvestment or giving back to society. Yet, where would many wealthy
entrepreneurs be today without taxpayer investment in the Internet,
transportation, public education, legal system, the human genome, and so on?”
When you actually ask successful
people, they tell a different story than the ones being sold in the corporate
media (remember that six corporations own the vast majority of US media). Some successful entrepreneurs
emphasized key factors such as the advantages of privilege, such as inheritance
and race. Others emphasized government-provided services, like subsidized
college tuition and government investments in technological research. And still
others noted good old-fashioned luck. Click here to read the full report.
Conventional neoliberal economic
superstition would have you believe the myths of the self-made person so that
they can continue to con you. If we’re lucky, history books will write about
this era as the greatest con ever.
On the other side of the ledger are
the vast majority of us who scrape by from paycheck to paycheck, year after
year, without much to show for it. When income just covers the basic cost of
living, building even a small amount of wealth becomes impossible.
As I alluded previously, income
inequality has grown since global neoliberalism has taken over economic policy.
Between 1983 and 2003, average income for households in the top 5% grew by
$108,987. The gains were far smaller for every other income group. In 2003, the
20% of households with the least earnings scraped by with an average income of
just $9,996, only $839 more in real dollars than what they had 20 years
earlier.
Income and wealth are related in
two ways. People with high incomes can accumulate wealth, and this wealth can
generate additional income. However, for the vast majority of people, income is
just a means of surviving.
So why should you care about
economic inequality? You might point out that many poor people in the US today
own cars and cell phones, luxuries that even millionaires didn’t have a not
that long ago. But yesterday’s luxuries are this year’s necessities. Let’s see
you find and keep a job without a car or telephone, for example (something I’m
currently attempting). Furthermore, human beings tend to define their standards
of living in relative, not absolute terms.
Extreme inequality (as found here
in the U.S.), reduces people’s sense of inclusion in the larger society. It
reduces the likelihood that they will be able to work together to solve social
problems or become engaged civically. If you want to better understand the lack
of electoral participation, look no further than inequality. It also
contributes to overt forms of social conflict, violence, and disease.
Studies of US states and Canadian
provinces show that higher income inequality is associated with higher rates of
homicide. In 1990, for instance, the homicide rate in the US was Louisiana.
That state also had the highest level of income inequality.
I hope to revisit all of this very
soon.
My name is Eddie and I’m in
recovery from civilization…
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References
Daly, M., & et al. (2000).
Income inequality and homicide rates in Canada and the United States. Canadian
Journal of Criminology, 43(2), 219-236. (click here)
Pickett K., Wilkinson, R. (2009). The
spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always do better. New York: Bloomsbury
Press. (click here)
Wilkinson, R. (2005). The impact of
inequality. New York: The New Press. (click here)
Landa, D., & Kapstein, E. B.
(2001). Inequality, growth, and democracy. World Politics, 53(2), 264-296. (click here)
Kawachi, I., Kennedy, B. P.,
Lochner, K., & Prothrow-Stith, D. (1997). Social capital, income inequality,
and mortality. American Journal of Public Health, 87(9), 1491-1498. (click here)