Economic Apartheid

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.

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.

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)

Labor Struggles

Hola Everybody,
It is Labor Day -- people died so you could have this day off; for the right to bargain collectively, for the 40-hour week, and paid vacations.

If you have enjoyed my blog please consider supporting my efforts. Any sum would be appreciated. You can donate by clicking here.

Labor Struggles

In 2013, a ten-year-old boy in #Syria carries a mortar shell in a weapons factory

Fascism should be more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
 -- Giovanni Gentile

Happy Labor Day, and I hope that you have had an opportunity to gather with friends and family to observe the many men, women, and children that died in order to make fair wages, the 40-hour week hour week, and vacations a reality. We like to wave flags commemorating wars fought, not for our rights, but for corporate interests, but we have jack shit to say about the people who gave their lives so that we could be properly rewarded for our work. 

There has never been a middle class without strong unions. The reason for this is straightforward. More and better unions translate directly into higher pay and better benefits for everyone, including nonunion members.

Contrast that with the reality that both the GOP and the elites of the Democratic Party loathe unions. In fact, neoliberal policies such as those espoused by the Clintons have resulted in most of the wealth being seized by the those at the 1 percent -- the same people who fund their campaigns. Yet they also claim they want to build a strong middle class. This makes no sense.

Consider also that the U.S. is going in exactly the opposite direction. Unions, beginning with Reagan, have been under an unprecedented assault. As The Intercept notes, union membership...  

falling during that time from 24 percent to 11 percent. And even those numbers conceal the reality that union membership is now 35 percent in the public sector but just 6.7 percent in the private sector. That private sector percentage is now lower than it’s been in over 100 years.

At the same time, they add... 

 wealth inequality, which fell tremendously during the decades after World War II when the U.S. was most heavily unionized, has now soared back to the levels that have not been seen for 100 years. 

Why is this important? It is important because there is a wealth of research showing that there is a connection between inequality, violence, and heath.

If, as decades of studies show, unions lessen inequality, then its impacts far surpass the workplace. Inequality affects how you see those around you and your level of happiness. In more equal societies people live longer, are less likely to be mentally ill or obese and there are lower rates of infant mortality. Inequality increases property and violent crime. Unequal societies have less social mobility and lower scores in maths, reading and science. Less equal societies have less stable economies. High levels of income inequality are linked to economic instability, financial crisis, debt and inflation. 

The tragedy is that even by conservative calculations show that if wages had gone up in step with productivity, families with the median household income of around $52,000 per year would now be making about 25 percent more, or $65,000. 

Given all this, you would think that labor history would be a prominent feature of our education. Unfortunately it is not because the power elite would never allow a focus on such a history. No, I don’t blame you for forgetting about Labor and its impact on our lives. After all, there’s much more important stuff to think about. Stuff such as whatever Trump tweeted last night. Please note that inequality or the labor movements is almost never an issue discussed during election debates.

In fact, the history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on the history of Labor. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of us of a conservative orientation mouthing empty clichés about the “good ole days,” well, Bubba, they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of responsible overview in the workplace, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach Labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and others who would come after, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ horrific response to the Labor movement.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” The fact remains that the same mindset that is the cause of the problem can never be used to bring about a solution. Solutions require a change of mind, an evolution of the individual and collective consciousness.

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who had the fuckin’ cojones to lay down their lives for their convictions so that we could enjoy better lives.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…