The barkeeper at the Whiskey Bar talks about minimum wages. There are many ways to look at the statistics I guess – here´s room to do so.
Back to Main
July 22, 2004
Billmon: Minimum Wage
Comments
Near this topic, Stephen Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley, today has an OpEd in the NYT More Jobs, Worse Work It is a shorter form of the essay talked about in the July 10, thread here “What are we going to do about it?”.
In short, jobs are growing at both ends of the spectrum, but the low-paying jobs are growing much more quickly. The contribution of low-end industries to the recent pick-up in hiring has been almost double the share attributable to high-end industries.
Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 22 2004 8:19 utc | 1
God, but this economic stuff is scary. I’m tempted to not get out of bed. With homes being more and more leveraged, an economic downturn could result in a wave of foreclosures and, thus, a worsening of the whole situation. Some folks may even lose the very bed they are sleeping in. Shades of the Great Depression but if history is not repeating herself.
Posted by: Dongi | Jul 22 2004 14:59 utc | 2
The great credit bubble – we are living on borrowed cash. This coupled with massive defense spending should worry anybody. Add to it the fact that interest rates can’t stay this low forever. Now figure that in to Billmon’s state of the economy for those not in the top 10% or so.
Posted by: x | Jul 22 2004 15:11 utc | 4
Now figure that in to Billmon’s state of the economy for those not in the top 10% or so.
Then factor in that Energy not only drives automobiles, but everything that moves or is produced – me, you, food production, housing… and our yearly growing GNP as well.
When still growing world oil production turns forever on the downward slope, what effect will that have on our economy and way of life, not to mention the majority of the other 6 billion people on earth?
The last known major oil reserve on the planet (apprx. 400 Billion barrels, 200 B which have yet to be tapped) is in Iraq. Most of the rest of the world seems to have peaked, maybe even Saudi Arabia.
Dick Cheney understands this very well.
Posted by: Juannie | Jul 22 2004 17:47 utc | 5
In short, jobs are growing at both ends of the spectrum, but the low-paying jobs are growing much more quickly.
All part of the neocon plan to turn the clock back to the days of Coolidge — or further, to the 1890’s — or even further, to the rule of the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs… Do we really have to go through all that again? Couldn’t we just get out the guillotine right now from the museum and show it to them — as a gentle reminder, so our (grand)children won’t have to be using it in 50 years?
What’s amazing to me and continues to be so, is how effective the McCarthyist putsch of the 50’s was in destroying the US Left — not only by suicide, expatriation, demoralisation, intimidation and the like, not merely by a propaganda campaign the like of which the modern West had never seen before (read Red Scared for a reminder), but by turning the culture of the Left into a broken, paranoid, revanchist cult of survivors, with all the weirdness that entails.
I am thinking of the connection with what someone (X?) said a day or two ago about refugee expat cultures being more “patriotic,” more nationalistic or fundie in a very unrealistic, desperate way than those who stayed home and lived through the various crises, etc. — x was referring to US Zionist Jews vs Israeli Jews, and how the hardline Likudism and intolerance for dissent in the US community is not really mirrored in Israel where there is more variety of public discourse and room for dissent, protest, and seeking some kind of different future.
In some ways it seems like the US Left (the die hards) have never progressed emotionally, intellectually, or historically beyond the twin disasters of the 50’s — the revelation of Stalinist abuses in the USSR, which shook the CP to its foundations, and the McCarthyite persecutions. They/we got “stuck”, like Miami Cubans, US Zionists, and many other refugee communities (the White Russians in London and Paris after the Revolution). Some tossed away their national/ethnic identity in bitterness and resolved to assimilate at any cost, others clung grimly to an ironbound fantasy of a lost homeland, and responded with irrational rage to any attempt to update or compromise that vision. By analogy what we ended up with was a lot of people with broken hearts, totally disillusioned by the failure of the USSR (and then the revelations of Red Guard excesses and abuses under Mao which pretty much cast the Maoists into despair); and a lot of raving fundies (ANSWER and their ilk) who considered it all merely a test of ideological faith and purity, and are still worshiping Trotsky. I’m oversimplifying of course. But I think the parallel is there and it explains something about the US today.
It seems to me in my half-assed autodidactic pseudo-scholarship, that this cataclysmic break in the history of the US Left crippled the whole country in some way — intellectually, morally — for dealing honestly with issues of class, wealth, and power. The Left in the US was never allowed to progress to being a Social Democratic party in a proportional system, acting as the people’s tribune, preventing the excesses of the Right. I fear it is this lack of a necessary counterbalance that has left us vulnerable to the long rightward drift (now more like a skid) and rule by the Bush Mafia (or the Boston Brahmin Mafia, whatever, but they’re all millionaires). In the US we are not allowed to talk about class. Even to talk about it is to be accused of “class warfare” by the victorious class warriors of the wealthy Right or their paid propagandists — somewhat similar in atmosphere to the days when any woman raising a feminist issue was immediately accused of being a lesbian man-hater (now that should shut her right up!)… bizarrely it appears that over the last few decades the kneejerk homophobia and misogyny and racism of American mainstream culture has been softened a bit, I won’t say reformed, but mitigated; but the tabu on discussing class and wealth and inequality remains as strong as ever.
Forget the FCC and their issues with nasty language on the air — the real forbidden obscenity in US public discourse is the word “class”, or any suggestion that the unlimited accumulation of wealth by the few at the expense of the polity is not such a good thing. If we can’t get past that self-censorship and censorship from on high, then we’re never going to be able to figure out such basic, Democracy 1A things as a living wage, childcare, affordable housing, public transit and the like — amenities that people in the other wealthy nations take for granted.
Going on too long as usual, I’ll shut up now.
Some people say, Stephen Roach is a red-rat commie who only furthers that socialist Morgan Stalin political agenda. I don’t know. He looks very French to me.
I have him under observation for some time now. His doomsaying is well documented:
He single-handedly wished the US Dollar into a decline. Twice. “A Dysfunctional World” ? What kind of investment report title is that? He stole the jobs with his evil-wishing eye, “debating the Jobless Recovery”!
Together with his friend Brad “Marxist” DeLong they talked the global recovery to death: “(Economic) Doom Is at Hand”. Who would invest in such a gloomy environment? How is a tax cut going to work if your investment advisor begins his talk with the words “It’s a nightmare scenario, even for me.” ? Where is the much needed optimism?
It’s clear that Steven Roach is a commie-loving Pinko. And why does he hate America so much?
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Jul 22 2004 19:53 utc | 7
Of all the disturbing facts in Billmon’s piece the one that is most jarring is the role that the increase of women in the workforce has had on the average wage. The basic flaw in a capitalist free market is revealed in all its horror. When women entered the workforce most people were glad that the other half of our species were going to have economic self determination at last. Yet what had been conceived as an option for many women quickly became a neccessity for most working families. The result has been social dislocation, increased reliance on institutions to provide parenting and increased strain on the glue that keeps families together, more single parent families and therefore more child poverty.
How did this happen? Put it down to Adam Smith’s invisible hand slapping us all down.
When the number of dual income families increased to the point where they became statistically significant the old ‘free market rules of supply and demand hit home hard. Housing is probably the best example since accomodation has always been a major cost for working families and exists in a free market that is pretty much unregulated as well as having constraints on supply. That is working families were able to afford better homes quicker, that meant that the demand for homes increased, the price went up and pretty soon any family that wanted to own it’s own domicile had to have two incomes. This in turn meant that families were suppying two breadwinners to the employment market out of neccessity not choice. The old free market hit hard there too. As the numbers of available workers increased, pressure on wages decreased and since many of these workers considered their employment a temporary neccessity they were reluctant to use industrial action to drive the bargaining process. The rest is history. What to do? Send women back to the kitchen? Well apart from being repressive it would also be pointless and ultimately unsuccessful. Certainly regulation of previously unregulated markets such as real estate would help, especially a capital gains tax on domestic dwellings (hey that got the blood up didn’t it?). The trouble is of course that regulation is introduced by politicians who are ponderous, dull and what they call pragmatic and the rest of us call corrupt. The other problem is the dreaded G word yep globalisation. Any increase in real wages in the US would send more jobs offshore.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this in the ’90s, whilst watching my once active and growing trade union shrink and shatter in a cacophony of caterwauling accusation and counter accusation. Everyone’s heard the story; the left Trotskyist faction claims we weren’t active enough, while the right so-called pragmatists claimed that if we had just stuck to simple wage and safety issues all would be well in the world. The average member just thought we were all a bunch of assholes. Anyway the only solution I could come up with was to try and beat the free marketeers at their own game. That is a system of uniform ‘social duties’ be placed on goods from exporting nations. For example if a society didn’t spend 15% of its GDP on public healthcare then a social duty of 15% be placed on its exports. So that governments wouldn’t be seen to be profiting from another country’s disadvantage that money would have to be spent on healthcare in the exporting nation. (Incidentally the numbers are off the top of the head stuff. Real stats would be negotiated) Every year all nations in GATT would be subjected to an independant audit on health, housing, education and public participation in their decision making process. Dictatorships are much cheaper to run, one of the many reasons corporations love em. The amount of social duty is assessed and then implemented. It would be relatively simple and much more of a level playing field than at the moment where ‘free trade’ is placing an unfair disadvantage on those countries that look after their citizens. Yes many consumer goods would cost more cause they would be priced at their real cost, not be subsidised by what some corporation managed to wring out of a corrupt leadership. This would have the benefit of reducing the insane demand on virgin resources and hopefully make reusing resources economically viable. Simple eh? Now if only we could think of a way to persuade our leaders of it.
Posted by: Debs in ’04 | Jul 22 2004 22:33 utc | 8
You know, it seems to me that it’s always an on-going struggle between the “haves” (the rich and powerful) and the “have nots” (the relatively poorer and weaker) over wealth and the “haves” generally win the battle. Sometimes the “have nots” rally (I think of Teddy Roosevelt’s trust-busting and FDR’s New Deal) and stave off the “haves” from taking over everything.
These days, the “haves” have to work harder and smarter to expand their wealth at the expense of the poor and powerless. It was easier in the old days when the “haves” could just use naked power to get their way. But the “haves” are persistent and eventually learn how to subvert the mechanisms the “have nots” put into place to prevent a complete rout. When ownership of wealth gets too far out of balance, the “have nots” (either as consumers or labor providers) eventually rebel and push back.
It seems to be that we’re in the phase of the cycle where the “haves” are starting to prevail again and things are getting out of balance. The “have nots” are beginning to notice that they are not as well as off (less wage growth, fewer jobs, more insecurity of employment, greater living costs, etc) but there’s no palpable sense yet the “haves” are picking their pockets in greater amounts.
As Thomas Frank points out in his “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” the “haves” are successfully distracting the “have nots” with cultural issues. It will be interesting to see how much longer the “haves” will be able to pull this off before the “have nots” decide the cultural issues are less threatening to their well-being than economic issues are.
Posted by: Mushinronsha | Jul 22 2004 22:51 utc | 9
@Debs in ’04
Just out of curiosity, are
you identifying with Eugene
Debs?
Posted by: possum | Jul 22 2004 22:51 utc | 10
Seems like many concepts that dare not speak their names floating about this thread this afternoon. But it might just be my “day off” delusions. 😉 Carry on!
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Jul 23 2004 0:10 utc | 11
sorry i was previewing my link and i hit post instead… a great little piece in the current newyorker, by the time i quote , oh its a good read, and while you’re at the new yprker you may want to check out the kerry piece and the pet goat approach.
Posted by: annie | Jul 23 2004 0:56 utc | 13
here’s that quote, the article is about the new bike cabs in new york
I>” The pedicab may merely suggest rather than entirely embody the new America of puller and pulled, but it is a sharp symbol of a new reality. It even evokes new metaphors. For instance, the thing about George W. Bush is not that he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. It is that he has been in a bicycle taxi all his life but has not yet bothered to notice that someone else is pedalling.”
Posted by: annie | Jul 23 2004 1:01 utc | 14
Debs numero uno, the feminist movement of the 60’s ,70’s had more to do w/ women entering the workforce than the ‘need’ altho their was a need, partly because the fabric of our society changed when women were acknowledged as being equal. as a child i remember divorce being rare, now its normal.therefore there is no’sending them back to the kitchen’. women have aspirations. period end of story. sure some of us would rather not work, but all in all most of us see ourselves as aspiring to something. whether that entails working or not it generally encompasses more than general homebodyness.
i also beg to differ w/ recinding the capital gain tax. as a real estate investor i have no problem w/ taxing on real estate as an investment, but ones home equity generally speaking usually encompasses the bulk of most middle classer’s wealth, wealth that they accumulated while paying taxes. for many, it’s their retirement.when you sell a home you’ve paid a mortgage on for 30 years, in one year, for that to be taxed as regular income, would be devastating. people retire on this.its called real estate because its REAL.its not a pork belly.it’s a way for the average american to get ahead. sure its outrageously expensive in lots of areas but its still incredibly cheap in others. it provides an incentive to stay put and add to ones community.
personally i think we should have a cap on personal wealth, and income that is not recycled back into the workforce. i’m not advocating across the board socialism but certainly it wouldn’t hurt THAT MANY, to tax the hell out of anyone making more than say, a million a year? even bill gates pours mega millions into eradication of deseases and education every year. basically if they don’t circulate it , we will. after all, its the very society that provides them with the opportunity that should also be rewarded with the benefits.
Posted by: annie | Jul 23 2004 3:33 utc | 16
Just had an argument this morning with a Republican who argued that the ‘minimum wage isn’t a good idea.’ I angrily told this individual that I felt ridiculous having an argument over social policies that date back to 1937.
Yes, their agenda with the massive deficit IS INDEED to gut Social Security and create an America with 2% wealthy, 98% poor.
Posted by: mycateatsfood | Jul 23 2004 3:50 utc | 17
Quote:
Yes, their agenda with the massive deficit IS INDEED to gut Social Security and create an America with 2% wealthy, 98% poor.
***
They are well on the way to do it…and not just in America…
Posted by: vbo | Jul 23 2004 4:31 utc | 18
And yes I completely agree with Annie about Real Estate taxability.
About women in work…she is right too. All tho there are (as she mentioned) few negative aspects (family in ruins being one of them). But I would like to see women work not because they HAVE TO but because they WANT TO…Not every job is graceful and there are women who would rather spend their time and energy raising healthy kids for example and I don’t see anything wrong with this and do not consider them less worthy. I’ve been raised in a culture (socialism) where it was a “shame” for women NOT to work. I do find independency being ‘healthy’ for women self esteem but they never were “equal” . They added their work to their home responsibilities and had a hard time. It’s changing nowadays cause I must admit that modern men are more willing to share home responsibilities. There is no way back to what we were…
Posted by: vbo | Jul 23 2004 4:50 utc | 19
@ vbo
You can’t be looking forward to the Muslim conquest of the world then. Look on the bright sight, there won’t be any of that silly fashion competitiveness when you are all wearing your abayas. Wasn’t it an Irish-American industrialist who first said “Any color you like, as long as it’s black.”? There, you already have a precedent…
😉
Posted by: Nemo | Jul 23 2004 5:04 utc | 20
as woman started working more in WWII, the corporate world began to realize their value. eventually they discovered that it made more sense to have two family members working for what would eventually become the value of one paypacket.
what a coup! two workers for the price of one!
and, they can claim to be socially progressive at the same time. win-win for the rich guys.
the ordinary folks get slapped around with both spouses working and less morale and family support available for all. try to buy off the kids because they have no time for them, which, in turn creates materialistic immoral creeps. ack!!! what a mess.
the work stategies should be decided by the family as a unit with the total work needed to live comfortably should equal one full time job
thats my .02
rip it to pieces and teach me something. thx
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Jul 23 2004 5:19 utc | 21
But I would like to see women work not because they HAVE TO but because they WANT TO …
I guess I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, because truly I’m an ardent feminist who stayed at home with my kids while they were little and then went back into the work force.
But my question is … Why should women get the privilege of choosing whether to work or not when it’s assumed that men will have to?
I long for an ideal world where we all — men and women alike — find fulfilling, creative, varied work. But until that time comes, I’m not sure why women should be ideally exempt due to gender from having to work for pay.
Posted by: SusanG | Jul 23 2004 5:39 utc | 22
@annie
“personally i think we should have a cap on personal wealth, and income that is not recycled back into the workforce. i’m not advocating across the board socialism but certainly it wouldn’t hurt THAT MANY, to tax the hell out of anyone making more than say, a million a year?”
Why let them earn it in the first place, annie? Why not cut to the chase and set a cap on income and earnings? A maximum wage, say, to go with the minimum wage. Neither too little nor too much shall anyone make. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
But that wouldn’t work, would it? You need the rich to earn it before you can take it. And so the more they earn, the better. You don’t want to outlaw great wealth; you want to control it, after someone else has accumulated it. You want to spend it, after someone else has made it. The millionaire, or billionaire, is greedy, while you, who would dispose of his wealth, are selfless.
But what moral right do any of us have to the homes we live in and the cars we drive, when there are those among us who are homeless and who must rely on public transportation or get around on foot? What moral claim have I to a pricey piece of real estate in a quiet, leafy neighborhood, when some of my fellow citizens are crowded into tiny flats in ugly, crime-ridden inner cities, or into dilapidated shacks without running water on lonely back roads? Surely even the middle class does not really “need” all of the things to which it is accustomed. A man can live on, and with, so little, as the poor daily demonstrate.
Posted by: Pat | Jul 23 2004 6:01 utc | 23
the work stategies should be decided by the family as a unit with the total work needed to live comfortably should equal one full time job
I think you’ve got it about right Lenin’s Ghost.
SusanG. did you not think your time at home raising your children added value to your family? Just because you don’t get paid for raising your children doesn’t mean that
a) it’s not a job.
b) it’s not valuable.
c) it’s not important.
Posted by: sukabi | Jul 23 2004 6:04 utc | 24
Some of you gat me wrong.
Some of you gat me wrong.
Quote:
Why should women get the privilege of choosing whether to work or not when it’s assumed that men will have to?
***
My answer essentially is what Lenin’s ghost said:
“the work stategies should be decided by the family as a unit with the total work needed to live comfortably …”
————————-
Because it still is the case that women look after children and households mostly that would be one reason for them to stay home. But as I said modern men changed a lot so it’s not unusual for man today to stay home especially if woman has a better paid job. It’s for them to decide. And I am advocate of being reasonable in material life expectations cause if you are not you’ll always have something new to “buy”… your consumer appetite just grow as you get wealthier and it never stops. There’re more important things then material thingies. Then again you are right…someone needs to work for existence …and men are usually in those hard shoes.
Pat I don’t see why you are so sarcastic. I would like rich to pay TAX (which they avoid greatly) and not just any tax but Sweden’s tax and they can be wealthy as far as I am concerned…Most of them did not earn that kind of money LEGALY…Lot of them made/ (paid politicians to make) laws that suit THEM to make this far…I would like to see those in jail…for example…
Posted by: vbo | Jul 23 2004 6:48 utc | 25
@possum if you’re still out there. I wouldn’t say that I was identifying with Eugene Debs except that if he was running in 2004 and not 1904 he would be the one to vote for.
@Annie I believe I say above that when women initially took up careers that was about choice but as we are now; many women have no choice but to stay in the workforce. Of course many women find fulfilment in their chosen careers and good on them but for every woman in that situation there must be at least a couple working in minimum wage non-union jobs that don’t even give them the fulfilment of economic independence.
As far as a capital gains tax on domestic dwellings goes, if it was spread across the period the person owned the house, the average home-owner would probably pay little if any tax but those making a ‘windfall’ on a sudden appreciation in property values would find themselves taxed on it like any other income. Fair enough I reckon, I have several acquaintances who make their living that way and not only do they not have to pay tax they are also contributing to the inflationary pressure which has caused the drop in real incomes Billmon was writing about.
Posted by: Debs in ’04 | Jul 23 2004 10:10 utc | 26
But my question is … Why should women get the privilege of choosing whether to work or not when it’s assumed that men will have to?
The way I see it, it is because women are necessary for the continuation of the species. It is the natural order of things for the male to woo and/or otherwise convince the female to carry his genes to the next generation. Since only females can do this, they have the upper hand and can demand certain things in return for this not so small favor such as a regular supply of food.
I also believe that the early feminists in the US may have done a disservice to all by denigrating and belittling the stay at home mom. Hopefully I will not get attacked for saying this but I can think of no job more important than that of raising children. I have had the good fortune to make enough so that my wife was not forced to work and could spend time with our children. It is only my observation and perhaps foolish pride, but I truly believe that my children are better off than most children whose parents both work full time.
So what about women who want to have full time jobs outside the home and raise children too? I don’t really understand why that is so important but I guess it is not right to take that possibility away either. I know of one couple where the wife has a very good professional career and the man stays at home and raises the children. It works very well though I was taken aback when one of the daughters hurt herself and ran to the dad instead of the mom for comfort, I just didn’t expect that.
Posted by: Dan of Steele | Jul 23 2004 10:23 utc | 27
Let me just cast this line out, and see who bites back:
Is the middle class really getting squeezed so much, in terms of their lifestyle, compared to what the middle class had 30 – 40 years ago? I wonder sometimes if it’s true economic pressure, or if it’s the pressure of higher expectations from our consumer-driven society. I look around in my neck of the woods, and what I see are huge tracts of new housing springing up, targeted to the middle class, with houses that are easily twice the size of a typical ‘development’ house 40 years ago. I see families owning 2, 3 and 4 cars — and much nicer ones at that – whereas my recollection of my youth is that 1 car was standard, 2 pretty luxurious, and 3 was outright unheard of. (How many tract houses were built with 3-car garages 40 years ago?) Not to mention things like TVs, etc (We have 5 TVs in this house! Unthinkable when I was a kid.) With rising consumer expectations, is it unrealistic to think that it would require two incomes to support it?
I’m not debating that for the working poor, life has not improved much. Maybe it’s worse, I don’t really know. I’m talking about your average middle class family.
Is our middle class standard of living in danger of falling, or are our lifestyle expectations rising unrealistically?
What do you folks think?
(OK, I’ll duck now….)
Posted by: semper ubi | Jul 23 2004 11:09 utc | 28
From “Envy Management,” in the commentary section of today’s Christian Science Monitor:
…It is one reason why primitive societies stayed primitive; no one was permitted to get ahead economically. “No one dares to show anything that might lead people to think he was better off,” writes Schoeck. “Innovations are unlikely. Agricultural methods remain traditional and primitive, to the detriment of the whole village, because every deviation from previous practice comes up against the limitations set by envy.”
Among the Mambwe, an African tribe, achieving success brought accusations of sorcery. Villagers were convinced that that if someone regularly produced a better crop than his neighbors, it was not the result of better cultivation methods, but of sorcery. Successful people were looked upon as sinister, supernatural, and dangerous.
Sound familiar? In our society, those who become rich through working hard and producing things of value are often suspected of getting where they are through devious means.
A comment by the actor Ethan Hawke, brought up by a “socially conscious” mother, is telling: “I was raised to have a general mistrust of anybody who was wealthy,” he told an interviewer.
Only in societies where enough people hold their envy in check can economic advancement take place. Ours is one such society. In fact, I would venture to guess that envy is less prevalent in the United States than in any other society, which is one reason why we’ve been so economically successful.
Of course, Americans are still subject to the same human emotions as everyone else, so one does not have to look hard to find manifestations of envy. Politicians exploit that emotion all the time. Notable was Al Gore’s “top 1 percent” mantra (referring to George Bush’s proposed tax cuts) during the 2000 presidential campaign. Today, we have it with vice-presidential candidate John Edwards and his “two Americas” rhetoric – “one privileged, the other burdened.”
One may ask, could Al Gore and John Edwards, who are wealthy themselves, be envious?
First, they may not be. But they may exploit the fact that plenty of other people are. Or, maybe it’s guilt. Many wealthy people engage in class-warfare-style thinking because they feel ashamed about their possessions, or don’t want to be the object of envy, according to Schoeck. Third, the rich can be envious of those who are even richer. A Fortune magazine cover last year playfully betrayed this sentiment. It featured business magnate Richard Branson with the sub-headline: “The Money. The Family. The Island. (Damn him.)”
The great conundrum is where did envy come from? “What adaptive value could envy have had in the prehistoric past?” asks author and psychiatrist Willard Gaylin. “None that I can imagine, for it never brings gratification.” Envy represents a vicious and hateful resentment of people, he writes, that is independent of their actual encroachment on one’s pleasures.
Thoughtfulness and reason can do much to counter the emotion of envy. It is useful to realize, for example, that rich people are the ones responsible for providing most of the rest of us with jobs, products, and (through their savings) loan money to buy a house or go to college.
Those feeling the pangs of envy coming on should ignore it. Laugh it off. Lie down until the feeling goes away. Recognize it as a useless emotion that never produces any benefits, and that causes untold woes.
Posted by: Pat | Jul 23 2004 14:02 utc | 29
Pat,
I personally believe the sources of envy are hard-wired into our reptilian brains as fear of scarcity. When one group of people (or an individual) begins to accumulate a corner on a market of goods, at subconscious level, the have-nots begin to fear there won’t be enough left over for their basic survival.
This, by the way, is to explain the pheonomenon, not to condone it.
One of the blessings of evolution, both on a level of individual and society, is that we do have higher brain functions (in the individual case) and corrections in place (on a societal level) to inhibit our most primal fears and motives.
Unfortunately, it’s often easier to live the non-examined life and let these fears rule the day (such as the “fear of different-looking people” in which the hysterical woman’s account of the scary Syrian musicians on the airliner have been plastered all over the news), than it is to take responsibility for one’s self and one’s beliefs by using that often-neglected tool, reason.
Posted by: SusanG | Jul 23 2004 14:24 utc | 30
my – Pat – is that serious?
A society that does not distibute productivity (innovation) gains throughout the society is indeed primitive.
It is usefull to realize that rich people provide us with loan money to go to college?
This is stupid – Why does one have to pay for college in the first place? It is in the interest of the society (and the rich) that anybody who has the talent goes to college. The society should pay them to do it (as it does in many NOT primitive countries). Now it is expected that US americans be thankful to get a loan from the rich?
Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 23 2004 14:30 utc | 31
vbo,
I knew when I posted there was a possibility you’d think I was not in agreement with your argument (I am! I am!); that’s why I tried to point out that I had made the decision (and a luxury it was, at that) to stay at home with my kids.
I just wanted to point out the pheonomenon of “choosing” to work or not is usually only extended to women. Of course, new family arrangementes are experimented with all the time. I’ve heard of families where the woman works, the man stays home; where both work part-time and one parent is always home with the children; one parent works full-time for a full six-month stint, then alternates with the other parent, etc.
I was just trying to point out that the discussion regarding “choosing to work” often overlooks the fact that it is generally assumed that men will work — family or no. I would venture to guess that there are more men in soul-killing, money-making positions in this country than there are women … if for no other reason than that wage discrepancy between the genders for the same job means the man has a better chance of bringing home more bacon and thus is consigned by circumstance to the major bread-winner role.
And for the record, yeah, I think the years I spent home with my kids when they were small were the best of my life, both for them and me. Certainly when I re-entered the job market, I had a new appreciation for adult company and the fact that showing up from 9 to 5 is a heck of a lot easier than being on call for kids 24/7, even though I adore my little monsters.
Posted by: SusanG | Jul 23 2004 14:35 utc | 32
A collegue of Stephen Roach, Richard Berner, writes about wage distribution today. He does see a more rosy picture in wages rising, though not for the 80% who would really need it.
The Wage Quality Debate
The growing wage gap between high- and low-paying jobs highlighted in different wage measures is a real phenomenon, reflecting the mismatch in our labor force between skills available and skills needed. It thus reflects one of America’s major long-term challenges: How to improve educational outcomes for a more complex society and to reflect the new skills demanded in ever-changing labor markets.
And that gap also represents a challenge to retailers catering to lower-income consumers.
Now combined back to article Pat posted:
The rich should pay less tax, so they can save more, so they can give more loans to the not-rich, so that they can go to college, so they get the new skills they need for the labor market to earn enough to buy at WalMart again?!
Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 23 2004 14:38 utc | 33
sember ubi,
To a large extent I agree with your analysis that the middle-class “squeeze” may be largely induced by the growth of expectations (and the redefinition of “necessities”) in the middle class.
I think the middle class can feel “squeezed” if they have to do with two instead of three cars; has to drop a gym membership; has to limit itself to dining out once a week instead of twice a week; has to make a decision on whether to pay for DSL instead of cable TV, etc.
Part of this is a matter of taking responsibility for one’s own economic “needs” and expectations and scaling them downward. This is difficult, however. Aside from the fact that once you have something, it feels like deprivation to give it up, there is a constant drumbeat in society to get more, experience more, spend more. It takes a huge amount of individual intention to resist this and, I would argue, the luxury of some internal time for solitude to sort through what is a true priority and what is one that we’ve been conditioned to believe is a priority.
Ironically, in the “squeezed” middle class, time is probably the biggest scarcity around. Hours spent in self-examination means one is neither directly producing or consuming during that period, and that’s a very difficult treadmill to get off of once you’re on.
Posted by: SusanG | Jul 23 2004 14:45 utc | 34
“A society that does not distribute productivity (innovation) gains throughout the society is indeed primitive.”
Productivity gains ARE distributed throughout our society, Bernhard. I do not see an America that is less well off than the one I grew up in. I see an America that is more prosperous than the one I knew. More prosperous AND far more populous. Where did all that new wealth come from?
Posted by: Pat | Jul 23 2004 14:47 utc | 35
I’m curious, Bernhard. What percentages of the population attend university in those countries where university is “free?”
Posted by: Pat | Jul 23 2004 14:57 utc | 36
In my particular case I can only say that for 39 years I lived in socialism and I hated it just because of that simple reason that : “no one was permitted to get ahead economically.”
It was a kind of shame to be better off then others. This has been spread trough propaganda for us little people while “political class” enjoyed luxuries as they were billionaires and Tito, our great leader, lived like a tsar.
But for 10 years now, living in “western society”, I have seen the other side of the medal. And it’s as ugly as the first one and also in a big way SIMILAR…Propaganda is a little bit different ( in words) but the effect is practically the same. There are haves and have-nots and haves are using all tactics to manipulate have-nots and keep the distance…
So you (Pat) say : “It is useful to realize, for example, that rich people are the ones responsible for providing most of the rest of us with jobs, products, and (through their savings) loan money to buy a house or go to college.”
Samaritans , ha? Do you really believe this propaganda? I don’t think I ‘ll bother to elaborate on this…I suppose it’s your right to believe what ever you want…just allow others to think differently…
Posted by: vbo | Jul 23 2004 14:59 utc | 37
an excellent book that puts the “mothering” contribution into perspective, “The Price of Motherhood,” by Ann Crittenden. i should have read it before the reality of what i’m going through now. anyway, she has a nice prose-tic way of relating the hard numbers to the social situation and evolution of the family.
i’m not a bra-waving feminist by any means, but did you people know that during early census taking mothers were often referred to as “ornamental…?”
Posted by: esme | Jul 23 2004 15:23 utc | 38
Productivity gains ARE distributed throughout our society, Bernhard. I do not see an America that is less well off than the one I grew up in. I see an America that is more prosperous than the one I knew.
You really need to get out of your own neighborhood more often Pat. Take a trip into some of the less affluent parts of town now and then. Take a trip to some of the small towns around. Visit some of the schools in the poorer sections of your city. Sit outside your local foodbank and tell me there aren’t more people in line.
What I would say about the distribution of wealth between when I grew up and now is we are better at hiding the “have nots”.
Posted by: sukabi | Jul 23 2004 15:35 utc | 39
esme,
LOL! Yes, I always felt most ornamental while cleaning up baby puke and changing diapers.
Posted by: SusanG | Jul 23 2004 15:40 utc | 40
I have believed for a long time that there are fews things as dangerous as people who believe in an economic ideology. Ecomomics should, to my way of thinking at least, be about how we achieve whatever economic aims our society has.
To be clear: unfettered free market capitalism is more-or-less guaranteed to lead, in the long run, to a situation where 95%+ of the wealth is owned by a very small number of people while the rest of the population lives at what they consider a subsistence wage, or thereabouts. Now, if this is your aim, then free market capitalism is a wonderful thing. However, if your aim is a little more compassionate than that then the free market isn’t so great and needs to be tamed and softened by some sort of wealth redistribution. But the free market is a tool, not law handed down from on high. It is not something one should believe in any more than one believes in hammers. It has no moral value, it is not right or wrong.
Of course, a centrally planned economy is also pretty much doomed since it concentrates power in the centre and is horribly inefficient.
The question is, what sort of society do we want, and how do we get there? Don’t invest the tools we use with more importance than they deserve. Economics describes human practices, not laws of nature.
Posted by: Colman | Jul 23 2004 15:56 utc | 41
Colman
imho the nub of the issue in both scenarios is “centralise” and “concentrate”. both communism and extreme laissez-faire capitalism contain the seeds of self-contradiction: communism, allegedly liberating the huddled masses from the bosses, results in the establishment of a New Boss Class of professional planners who run everyone’s lives with the same intrusive, authoritarian, domineering power that the old boss class exercised. unregulated capitalism, allegedly promoting competition, innovation, and individual liberty, leads to the concentration of unearned wealth via inheritance, the consolidation of corporate power via mergers and cartels, and eventually the creation of huge “planned economies” (giant corporations), price fixing, manipulation of the government by the gravitational force of ultra-dense wealth, and thus to… authoritarianism and domination by an elite class of managers and bosses.
imho the roots of error in both systems are the temptation to gigantism and Taylorism (intimately related), and the resulting suppression of the small and the individual (the essence of freedom, diversity, and that much-abused word “choice”).
imho Pat’s defence of the ruling class could have been lifted almost word for word from any tract in earlier eras defending absolute monarchy or the cult of priest-kings. the ruling class always asserts as an ideological given, that all blessings and benefits flow downward from it to the peasants, and that the peasants should therefore be grateful to be ruled. this is a fundamental tenet of the defence of the divine right of kings.
the bottom line is that all wealth on this ball of rock is created by/from existing mineral content and solar energy input, plus the dynamics of the planetary weather system (the water cycle which permits plant and animal life to flourish). most of what we humans call “wealth” is the creation of plant and insect activity. human labour extracts or processes this wealth. the owner or ruler class contributes nothing to the process except (sometimes) the gift for organising or bullying that human labour into a more (apparently) productive force, as the priest-kings did in ancient Sumeria, S America, and all over the world.
when I look at America, having lived here for the last 45 years, I see a lot more poverty than I did 30 years ago, a lot less hope of social mobility for most people, a decline in quality in most goods and services — particularly in really important goods and services like food, housing, and medical care. I see a staggering, accelerating liquidation of natural resources, on which all wealth is ultimately based. I see more people medicated and imprisoned than 30 years ago — a lot of those poor people we don’t see are in prison.
I see that when my outfit advertises a job we used to get a handful of applications. now we get a stack of 200 or more. I see more drunkenness in public, worse public manners, “college students” who can neither read nor write their own language let alone any other. I see that the streets of my town are full of unrepaired potholes and our libraries are hardly open any more. and the bus services is a ghost of what it was 20 years ago. and in general a slow decline towards the look and feel of any other banana republic. somehow cheap computers and big-screen TVs don’t compensate me for all this.
unlike Pat — w/whom I obviously have serious philosophical differences despite my respect for her perspective and experience — I tend to think that these trends are directly attributable to the other quality of a banana republic — the concentration of more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. when I compare Sweden and Colombia, I know which place I would rather live; when I look at the US today it appears to be slithering quietly but steadily towards Colombia, and away from even the most distant approach to Sweden.
I also know more American friends today than ever before — even during Viet Nam war — who are talking about leaving the country. this is another characteristic of a banana republic: people feel that there is no hope or future for them in a rigged system where the oligarchs hold the levers, so they dream of leaving for someplace with more freedom. this is at present a minority phenomenon, and my friends are a self-selected bunch and not representative. but I think it’s a straw in the wind.
sorry, obviously got up on a rant here. I think I’ve had one drink too many and will leave the bar and walk unsteadily home to sleep it off.
Pat: There’s a fairly important distinction to be made between ‘envy’ and ‘anger about injustice’.
I don’t envy my brother-in-law’s McMansion and gated community and Mercedes convertible and his serious tax cut — I am pissed off that only a few miles away are people who can’t afford to see a doctor, much less send their children to college . The lack of public spending on goods that should be available to everyone has a direct connection with the tax-cut, ‘small government’ ideology. (Which I’d be readier to listen to if anyone pushing it were seriously talking about cutting a military budget that’s the size of the next nine countries combined.)
Posted by: Nell Lancaster | Jul 23 2004 20:14 utc | 44
I’d be readier to listen…if anyone pushing (tax-cut, ‘small government ideology’) were seriously talking about cutting a military budget that’s the size of the next nine countries combined.)
Posted by: Nell Lancaster | July 23, 2004 04:14 PM
The military budget isn’t going to be significantly reduced until there is an influential and comprehensive movement demanding a fundamental overhaul of our foriegn and defense policies. Fifty years past due and nowhere in sight.
The well-established, long-term trends are toward greater defense and domestic program spending –
with a greater scale and scope of US government activity both at home and abroad. No one is in danger of ‘small government’ from either major political party.
Posted by: Pat | Jul 23 2004 21:13 utc | 45
Isn’t it possible that a minimum wage hurts most the demographic it is intended to help? Is a man who cannot get hired at the current minimum wage really better off than one who could, and would, be hired for less?
Posted by: Pat | Jul 23 2004 21:40 utc | 46
No Pad, he may be better off working for less than minimum wage. It´s not a principal question. It´s a question of balance between social security income and income working for a minimum wage, which can be measured and set against each other, if money is available to do so. This again is determind by available money in the society and the will of that society to keep a balance of life equality.
In the end it may come down to security for the rich: Am I willing to insure myself to guaranteed future decent, even if poor, living by sharing my current wealth? Am I willing to do so even if the chance to use that insurance is low? Am I compassionate?
Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 23 2004 22:13 utc | 47
Attention webmasters, politicians, businessmen and women and paupers:
Might a discovery about the connectivity of the internet have relevance to power and wealth disparities in the world?…
”…The UN issued a report a few years ago saying the net worth of the world’s three richest families – the Gateses, the Sultan of Brunei and the Waltons, of Wal-Mart – exceeded the GDP of the 43 poorest nations. The pattern holds within countries too. The ratio of remuneration of a US firm’s chief to that of the average employee is at an all-time high of about 500.
Not only is there a strong tendency for the rich to get richer, but also for the healthy to get healthier. Contrast the money, energy and advertising that go into treatments for wrinkles, impotence, baldness and obesity with that for malaria, diarrhoea or tuberculosis. This disproportion is reflected in media, politics and the military. Disparities are no doubt necessary for complex societies to function, but they needn’t be as extreme as they often are. A worrisome speculation is that market volatility, the shape of the internet and increasingly unipolar geopolitical power are indicators of even greater social disparities to come.
The formula for ‘success’
Posted by: Nemo | Jul 23 2004 22:59 utc | 48
Body and Soul has a couple of pieces on poverty that are relevant to this thread.
Posted by: sukabi | Jul 24 2004 0:20 utc | 49
IN ORDER TO DO DEFICIT SPENDING YOU HAVE TO SHOW YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO MAKE THE PAYMENTS. TAKE AWAY CONSUMER CREDIT AND YOU LOOK LIKE ANY ISLAMIC NATION.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 24 2004 0:50 utc | 50
pat
“You need the rich to earn it before you can take it. And so the more they earn, the better. You don’t want to outlaw great wealth; you want to control it, after someone else has accumulated it. You want to spend it, after someone else has made it. The millionaire, or billionaire, is greedy, while you, who would dispose of his wealth, are selfless. ”
no pat, thats not what i proposed. the rich could keep their money(yearly, over a million) as long as they invested it, recycled it, hired people, etc. they would still have a lot of power and control, and that million year after year could add up. what i have a problem with is people HOARDING their money, taking it out of circulation, which is what a lot of the rich have done w/ these lastest tax breaks. so your trickle down theory isn’t working. even bill gates said he’s only leaving his kids 10 million a piece. its the lack of a decent death tax( which gates foundation has lobbied for) and no reprecussion for hoarding of wealth, wealth that wouldn’t be possible w/out this society feeding into it that allows people not only to buy politicians and form policy detrimental to our well being but is allowed to be passed on to future generations which creates a class welfare situation that is dangerous. why should a guy work for you for dirt cheap and not have their children educated because you don’t want to let go of your millions. how much can one person/family really use, over a million a year? so, they get to keep it to develope their company, invent new shit, build a wing onto the university, any which way, they don’t have to turn it over for the masses to decide unless they want to just accumulate.
“Thoughtfulness and reason can do much to counter the emotion of envy. It is useful to realize, for example, that rich people are the ones responsible for providing most of the rest of us with jobs, products, and (through their savings) loan money to buy a house or go to college.”
wanting to own your own home , educate your kids, and go to the doctor is hardly about envy. its natural one would want to provide these things if they work 40 hr weeks.
Posted by: Debs in ’04 | July 23, 2004 06:10 AM
As far as a capital gains tax on domestic dwellings goes, if it was spread across the period the person owned the house, the average home-owner would probably pay little if any tax but those making a ‘windfall’ on a sudden appreciation in property values would find themselves taxed on it like any other income. Fair enough I reckon, I have several acquaintances who make their living that way and not only do they not have to pay tax they are also contributing to the inflationary pressure which has caused the drop in real incomes Billmon was writing about.
for a house to qualify at this exemption one would have to live in it for 2 of the last 5 years, one would have to move around a lot and a jump in price once it occurs usually exists in many areas. i don’t know that many people who do this and chances are if you stay in the same place over a ten year period your gains will be similar to having stayed put. but yes, this is an exception.all in all tho i still think capital gains is a tax that unfairly hits a person/family that has their life savings in a home and wants to cash out for their retirement. i could be wrong.
Posted by: annie | Jul 24 2004 3:00 utc | 51
“how much can one person/family really use, over a million a year?”
What do millionaires commonly do with their “excess” earnings, annie?
Posted by: Pat | Jul 24 2004 3:38 utc | 52
As I recall Andrew Carnegie, a very rich man indeed, said that he was going to give $10,000 to each of his children and that was all. (It was rather a lot of money in those days, but small compared to his immense fortune.) He felt that large amounts of inherited wealth destroyed the character of those who inherited it, and undermined the society. I think he was right — hey, I agree with a rich person about something!
What a lot of millionaires seem to be doing with their excess earnings, these days, is moving them offshore — real estate in Bermuda, whole islands off Belize…
What a lot of millionaires seem to be doing with their excess earnings, these days, is moving them offshore — real estate in Bermuda, whole islands off Belize…
Posted by: DeAnander | July 24, 2004 12:00 AM
Why do some do that?
Posted by: Pat | Jul 24 2004 4:09 utc | 54
Why do some do that?
very Socratic, Pat 🙂
I guess your answer would be, “to escape an unfair, oppressive tax burden,” and my answer would be, “to weasel out of paying their fair share of taxes.”
it’s all a matter of POV…
but I think the final proof of theory is practise — as in outcomes. the US is currently practising low taxation and policies favouring the concentration of wealth — a rollback of the t&c of the New Deal — and the US is slipping in the UN index of quality of life, public health, etc. I don’t think these two trends are coincidental or can be decoupled.
I predict that if the US continues to shelter accumulated wealth from taxation and otherwise encourage the formation of grossly unequal hereditary classes, the general standard of living will continue to slip until it is comparable to that of Third World nations. could be wrong, but that’s my reading based on comparative history etc.
I can’t think of a period or nation in which the unrestrained concentration of wealth in the hands of a small elite has produced general prosperity and civil order. the 19-teens and 20’s were a strained, violent, insecure time for most people in the US.
but then, I don’t believe that rich people “create” jobs, any more than they “create” wealth. again it’s a matter of POV. mostly what concentrated wealth does is try to define what a “job” is and control access to it, and to enclose and suppress independent commerce and subsistence until no options are left for making a living other than the “jobs” being offered. the business plan of Walmart and the like is to destroy Mom&Pop stores — it is not just an unintended side effect. the Enclosures served very neatly to create a starving class of displaced persons who were not about to quibble about minimum wages. whether they should have felt “grateful” for being offered “created” jobs after being deprived of their traditional livelihood and made homeless, hardly seems to me a sensible question.
I fear we’re doomed to irreconcilable disagreement on this issue — but I can heartily endorse your earlier statement that there will be no end to the perpetual-motion engine of the military-industrial complex until there is a fundamental change in foreign policy, a really basic paradigm shift. here we are on firm, unEnclosed common ground.
“What do millionaires commonly do with their “excess” earnings, annie?”
i don’t know pat, what can they do? they can invest it in their business, they can start a new business in the US, they can hire five personal maids, they ca buy 5 US cars , they can build a new library, they can open a homeless shelter, they can make loans to small businesses, they can finance 1st home buyers, they can send their kids to college, they can pay the mortgages on their vacation homes,they can donate to their favorite political party,………………..and they could stash an extra mil, here’s what they couldn’t do beyond that mil , nothing, hoard it, what they don’t invest, spend in this country, the country that made them rich, we could figure it out for them.talk about incentive?
keep in mind i’m not talking about your everyday millionaire, i’m talking about people making over a mil PROFIT,that they don’t invest, here. ok make it 5 mil, what would make you happy? how much can one person own that will satisfy them? at what point does it just become numbers on a piece of paper?how much could you give me to replace my garden? how can one person enjoy their millions knowing they are causing people to truly struggle? and if they can’t feel that pain, at what point do we step in? ever? what’s reasonable? 10 mil a year? 100 mil a year? whats so horrible about asking people to recirculate their bucks? because i’m not talking about your average joe. i’m referring to the ultra rich. and i’m not asking that we tax the hell out of their earnings, i’m asking that we tax what they don’t circulate.
Posted by: annie | Jul 24 2004 6:52 utc | 56
Annie, why do you want to take money over a million? What are you going to do with it. What is wrong with the current system?
Pat, why is the current system the best possible? Why is any suggestion of wealth distribution automatically wrong? What do you believe should be the aim of an economic system?
Posted by: Colman | Jul 24 2004 8:23 utc | 57
as i scanned through the comments here a little echo in my brain brought to fore something that my mother works on – a local Living Wage campaign. so i did my duty – googled – and below is an excerpt of the first thing i came across.
Today, more than 71 living wage campaigns are underway in cities, counties, states, and college campuses across the country. Taken collectively, these impressive instances of local grassroots organizing is now rightfully dubbed the national living wage movement, which syndicated columnist Robert Kuttner has described as “the most interesting (and underreported) grassroots enterprise to emerge since the civil rights movement … signaling a resurgence of local activism around pocketbook issues.”
In short, living wage campaigns seek to pass local ordinances requiring private businesses that benefit from public money to pay their workers a living wage. Commonly, the ordinances cover employers who hold large city or county service contracts or receive substantial financial assistance from the city in the form of grants, loans, bond financing, tax abatements, or other economic development subsidies.
thought this could be of interest to some who want to get active about things locally.
quick story about mom. a few years ago i went back home to help mom in her campaign for a state houe seat. she has a masters in public health and was working at a large hospital in the thankless position of creating outreach programs for the uninsured (to name one of her functions) and it wasn’t the benefactors of the programs who weren’t thankful if you get my drift. long story short – not only did my mom subsequently drop out of the race due to lack of support by her employer – a staunch republican leaning organization (as in you bend over, etc. etc.) – but after some internal job description hankey pankey she was fired… with abuot 5 or 7 years to go before retirement.
Anyone remember where my mother lives??
FLORIDA!!!
Posted by: esme | Jul 24 2004 8:26 utc | 58
One far reaching consequence of small wages:
From Fannie Mae Second Quarter 2004 Earnings Conference Call
A record percentage of ARM originations in the first quarter were interest-only hybrids. And an increasing proportion of these interest-only hybrids are being made to borrowers with blemished credit. In addition, so-called “sub-prime” mortgage debt grew at an annualized rate of nearly 23 percent in the first quarter, nearly double the growth rate for conventional prime. And at the end of the quarter, the sub-prime share of residential mortgage debt reached an all-time high of 9.3 percent.
We believe that interest-only loans, when used appropriately, are a valuable tool to help homeowners qualify for mortgages. But we view the combination of these factors with some concern, because adjustable rate, interest only loans leave consumers vulnerable to severe payment shock in a rising rate environment. Our analyses indicate that in some instances, as rates rise homeowners could see payment increases of up to 150 percent.
Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 24 2004 13:53 utc | 59
DeAnander, I don’t think liberalism or “the left” is broken. There has always been an independent left tradition. George Orwell, Irving Howe, Dwight Macdonald, et al. were flexible-minded figures whose thought wasn’t either brittle doctrinaire Trotskyism or reactive ex-lefty neoconservatism. If you go back to the independent left writers of the ’40s and ’50s it’s possible to follow a tradition from there that never really did crack, and never gave up on the underdog. I’d say Tom Frank, Thomas Geoghegan, and George Packer are part of it. (Yes, I know, Packer supports the war. But he’s an egalitarian at home, and he supports the war for idealistic reasons that say more about his own good faith than about the people who made the war.) There are good and inspiring writers out there now who haven’t lost their moral balance: John Leonard, Patricia Williams, Barbara Ehrenreich… there are so many. Don’t give up too easily.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam | Jul 25 2004 7:42 utc | 60
Bernhard, thank you for this thread! We Americans are not often allowed to discuss class, and with all due respect to Pat with whom I must disagree on this issue, we are always told we are envious if we start the discussion. No mention is ever made of the desire to create envy, which also exists – the feeling of narcissistic entitlement. Like Nell Lancaster, I have a sibling who lives several tiers above me, and she is not the hardest working nor most talented member of our family but the most successful socially. I grieve over it mostly because it betrays our father’s social justice/union organizing/survival of unemployment during the Depression. I am most sad that working Americans are so obedient. They seem to know nothing of the traditions of dissent in this country or in Europe of their ancestors, who wanted to be free of feudal domination. The media play a large role in this obedience. I read a survey of the elite in Canada which stated that they felt that investing in a social safety net was to their benefit – I wish for such an enlightened elite …
Posted by: francoise | Jul 26 2004 16:28 utc | 61
Attitudes towards wealth
…An enduring paradox in the literature on human happiness is that although the rich are significantly happier than the poor within any country at any moment, average happiness levels change very little as people’s incomes rise in tandem over time. Richard Easterlin and others have interpreted these observations to mean that happiness depends on relative rather than absolute income….
How not to buy happiness
Posted by: Nemo | Jul 27 2004 6:34 utc | 62