Why do better living standards of one group of workers always need to be lowered instead of those of another raised?
Auto workers in Detroit were living better than auto workers in Tennessee. Why do their living standards need to be brought down to the level of the Southern workers instead of the Southern workers brought up to the Detroit level? An argument is that the Northern wages are too high to compete. Somehow good benefits such as paid health insurance, pensions, freedom from abuse by management and good wags have been painted as unpatriotic. Workers in the “real American” part of the country would not expect such unreasonable terms.
Why do worker’s wages and not executive’s need to be reduced to stay competitive?
I saw an interview a couple of years ago where the guy heading up new product development for GM was bragging about the fact that beside him having a helicopter, his wife has one also. And by the way, they have a jet (though I think it is one for the both of them). Why are the costs for the sake of competition not taken from the salaries of the top executives and why are good benefits for workers wrong and great benefits for executives not? (I am not begrudging them their wages or the ability to spend them as they will, I question squeezing those at the bottom when times get tough. When our company was on the brink of collapse as the “dot com bubble” was bursting, we froze wages for everyone and cut wages for the executives with those with the highest wages getting the largest percentage cuts. And by the way, the difference between the CEO and floor sweeper was no more than a factor of 10, not 500.) The argument is that they have these great skills and if not paid huge sums they will not work. GM did not do so great under their leadership. Many Wall Street bankers did an even worse job and not only have retained their wages but have received increases.
Why is only labor and not businesses and investors asked to contribute to reducing the deficit?
Conservative governors vilify the sellers of labor (in this case public workers, particularly teachers) but don’t ask the buyers of labor (businesses) or investors to do their share. Yes; deficits can be remedied by cutting costs but they can also be eliminated by raising revenues. The argument is that if taxes are raised on businesses, they will leave the states and investors will change their investing strategies, thus eliminating jobs. Almost a decade of tax cuts introduced under the previous administration did not create jobs so one might expect raising them to the level before the cuts might not reduce jobs. Certainly reduced estate and gift taxes can’t be argued on the basis of job creation and are essentially a means of further concentration of wealth in the hands of the already wealthy.
Why is a union threatening to strike any different than a business threatening to leave or an investor to not invest in a way that benefits society?
In the case of Wisconsin, not only did the unions not threaten to strike but agreed to reductions in compensation while businesses and investors were not even asked to do their share, but received tax breaks increasing the deficit. The excuse for this was that businesses would leave and thus a loss of jobs so they were not asked or expected to share the burden.
Why is distribution of wealth bad and consolidation good?
In the last several decades there has been a major redistribution of wealth from the working poor and middle class to the wealthy. The “supply side” argument is that wealth “trickles down” and the rich are the creators of wealth. That being the case we need to make sure they can stay wealthy for our own good and further more they are the hard workers building our great nation so they should get the greater piece of the pie. (2/3 of the US GDP is personal consumption with less than 1/5 government spending. Spending is what creates jobs. Factories are holding on to cash because they don’t see customers. Investors invest in businesses that can show them customers. Customers come first then investors. The recent boom was caused by the consumer borrowing and buying, encouraged by investors making money from each transaction). The irony is that a significant portion of people working for wages supports this notion. They have been convinced that entrepreneurship is noble and our American identity while working for wages is coarse and somewhat foreign. Wealth is accessible to everyone if only they make a strong effort. Though technically true (I am an example of this) there are only so many openings for pro athletes, inventors and CEOs. As more wealth is concentrated in the hands of a smaller portion of the population, their advantage grows and opportunities for others shrink.
Friday, March 25, 2011
I Wonder Why?
Posted by PoliticAli at 11:39 AM
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5 comments:
Hi Politicali, yet another great post.
You are right that there is some 'foreign' feeling for Americans to the concept of limiting mgmt pay to some reasonable ratio of 'worker' pay. My feeling is that this is simply a function of our culture, which when compared to something like a western european one, is to reward thinking about oneself to the exclusion of thinking about society. There was a recent article about the Finnish education system (Time?) and why it is so successful. I was pleasantly surprised to see the admission that perhaps such a system cannot simply be exported to another culture. In my opinion, one of the things that makes such a system work is the level of trust put into other members of society. I think this is a direct function of the extent to which the culture is one of community as opposed to individualism. I think our focus on accountability is a symptom of our lack of trust. To be clear, I'm not sure it can be any other way. We expect people to look out for themselves, its the way we operate, thus when we ask them to do something for society (eg public workers) we cant really trust them to not do that. Its a shame.
Adding to your last sentence, one of my biggest concerns in the way wealth is being more extremely distributed is the fact that as the rich gain a larger and larger percentage of their wealth, this essentially provides the infinitely more freedom in both where to live, and where their responsibilities lie. If we ever get to the point of asking them to shoulder too much of the burden, they could simply 'skip town' and take much of their wealth with them. That would be a very dangerous thing, and becomes more likely as the wealth gap increases.
That is not to say they should not shoulder more of the burden (in fact most of the rich people I know pay little to zero taxes), but we need to be clear that there is more than just the moral argument when it comes to arguing for a more equal distribution of wealth.
Hi Navigio; Good to hear from you.
I do agree that our culture leans more toward the individual than society. This is fine and has held us in good stead. But there needs to be some balance maintained for a society to succeed. You make an interesting point with the notion of “trust”. I will need to sleep on this for a while. As to the greater sense of community in Finland leading to their success in education, the Scandinavian countries in particular devote a larger portion of their assets to the well being of their poor. Finland has a poverty level of two point something percent while we have one of about 16+ percent. I think one of the reasons it is easier to form a sense of community there is that Finland is comprised of Fins whereas we have a large diversity of peoples with a segment of which having been propagandized as made up of “free riders”. In fact as immigration to Scandinavia from third world countries has increased in recent years, there has been an increase in conservatism and a cry to reduce “handouts” and immigration reform.
One of the things I have been thinking about recently is a popular believe at the turn of the 20th century, namely Social Darwinism. The principle is relatively simple. The rich are rich because they are “better” and thus deserve to be rich while the poor are poor because they are inferior and thus deserve to be poor. I need to think about this some more but it may be part of the answer to the reemergence of the radical right. There has to be more to it because so many of the “poor” have bought into this. Maybe it is because they imagine themselves to be only temporarily poor.
As to the fear of a potential calamity that may arise if the rich decide to move out of the US, I don’t share the concern. I think that the number of wealthy that would entertain the notion of leaving will be very small and they are probably already living internationally with multiple passports. Many rich would have no qualms about contributing a bit more anyway if asked to. Investments can be made from anywhere in the world and I don’t believe are influenced at all by the residence. If they are not paying taxes anyway, what loss is their absence? As to their consumption, I believe the largest part of it is international anyway and their numbers are sufficiently small so that the reduction of their spending on groceries will not be noticed. I believe if they stop paying taxes and move, they should give up their citizenship, the privilege of living in this great country and pay a huge penalty if they change their mind. By the way, you mentioned that some of your wealthy acquaintances don’t pay any taxes. “free-riders”? Hmmmm!
I was reading a post relating to this general topic that also discussed the issue of a culture of individualism. I think you will find this interesting. I first ran across this organization when I read the "Left Hand of God" written by Michael Lerner a progressive Rabi from San Farancisco.
George Lakoff on What Conservatives Really Want
Yes, I've read Lakoff's book on this issue. He's been trying to get this point across for a very long time. I do agree conceptually with that distinction, however, I think its possible for people to have these moral stances for themselves while having the opposite one for others (ie from a political policy standpoint). While this doesnt discount the reason decisions happen, I do think it introduces some abstraction that makes it a bit more difficult to simply 'label' people wholesale one way or the other.
I do agree, however, that policy discussions go right by each other because of a fundamental difference of priorities, and I believe thats exactly what Lakoff is saying.
My main reason for pointing out Kakoff's comment was that he supported your insight into the cultural aspect of individualism and its implications.
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