EVEN THOUGH REGULAR READERS OF THIS COLUMN will know that I’m a Democrat and a liberal on most issues, I am actually pretty discouraged about the prospects for social progress in the United States in the near future.
Looking at the economic situation faced by Americans, I see a recipe for social unrest. While plenty of attention has been focused on the top 1 percent of the income scale versus the bottom 99 percent, I look at the bottom 80 percent of the pile and see that 80 percent of the country hasn’t had a raise in 40 years, 80 percent of the country has gotten the short end of every free trade deal in the last 40 years — and 80 percent sees too many of their children sinking deeper into poverty, neither party lifting a finger to help them. With the decline of unions, 80 percent of the country has no one to fight for their interests when companies decide how much of their profits go to helipads for the owners’ yachts, and how much goes to increasing the living standards of their workers.
Thomas Frank, author of “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” and other books, pointed out 10 years ago that Republicans have been using cultural populism to get working-class people (particularly white working-class people) to vote them into office. Democrats have had a chance to answer that cultural populism with economic populism by running on policies that are designed specifically to help the bottom 80 percent of the population — but too often they have been collaborators in disempowering the most vulnerable Americans.
It was Democratic President Bill Clinton, remember, who took it upon himself to “end welfare as we know it,” and it was he who declared that the “era of big government is over.” It was Clinton who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which further undermined American manufacturing companies (and those companies’ workers) that were already struggling.
Here, then, is the core problem for progressives: the Democratic Party has become the de facto policy arm of a certain slice of the upper middle class that thinks of itself as “liberal” based mostly on a certain strain of social libertarianism, but that blanches at any effort to make the core of the party’s agenda things like steeply progressive tax rates, passing the Employee Free Choice Act and repealing Taft-Hartley — i.e., true, traditional progressive priorities.
I’ve posted articles on various lefty websites calling to restore the tax structure to what it was under that notorious Leninist, Dwight Eisenhower, so that the top marginal rate on income over about $2.5 million would be 91 percent, and gotten a consistent response: “Why, that’s just madness! Two and a half mil a year might go pretty far in Des Moines, but in Manhattan that’s barely enough to get by!”
The thing is, if you can’t get by on over two million dollars in income, maybe there’s a structural problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe the growing gap in incomes is not so much between Harlem and the Upper East Side, but between New York City and, say, Montgomery, Alabama.
Let me put this in bold, so there is no question about it: I acknowledge that places like Manhattan and the Bay Area are always going to be more expensive than Montgomery. Both the Bay Area and New York City are premier cities in the world, they are major port cities, in some respects (and in slightly different ways) they are roughly equivalent to the economic “Romes” of the current era, and so on. I get it.
But if a single New York schoolteacher needs to commute to work from 50 miles away because that’s the closest affordable place, maybe that’s an indication that your real estate market (and wage structure) is structurally unjust. Maybe a new approach is needed — one that refuses to accept as axiomatic that government interference in the economy is always a bad idea. (Even speculating along those lines seems, in today’s politically corrupt, way-drifted-right political climate, to be a radical act.)
Obama’s big “progressive” victories are that he passed Mitt Romney’s health care plan, and gays can now serve openly in the Imperial Forces. We elected a moderate Republican who knows how to talk like a progressive.
I’m convinced that if a new, truly progressive era is ever to dawn, then it really is up to each of us, building an unlikely coalition that includes everyone in the bottom 80 percent of the income scale — blacks, working-class whites, Hispanics, the remnants of the labor movement, and so on. In other words, everyone who doesn’t get a manager’s bonus once or twice a year.
And make no mistake: We will build such a movement, or else become slaves to the oligarchy.
We will face ferocious headwinds when selling that agenda, of course. The people who have benefited most from the concentration of wealth and power for the last 40 years — and who now use that wealth to finance the campaigns of both parties — will respond with all the means at their disposal to stop it.
The only way to respond effectively to the tsunami of propaganda that will roar toward us is by building, from the ground up, a movement of people who are immune to saturation advertising because they have been convinced to ignore it — to see it for what it is — by people in their lives who they know and trust. As Dr. Martin Luther King used to say, “You cannot ride a man’s back unless it is already bent.”
There are more of us than there are of them. It is time they heard from us.
I can’t run no more with that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up a thundercloud
And they’re going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
You can add up the parts, you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march, there is no drum
Every heart, every heart to love will come
But like a refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
— Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.
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Always good to read your take on the planet. –pb
I share the authors concerns but I am sure I disagree with his solutions. Big government won’t solve the problems.
We need to direct the power of Capitalism towards the most needy areas. We need a leader who will challenge the people to better their own lives through responsibility, education, and hard work.
We cannot apply the Social Democratic methods of Europe to the USA. Our economy is larger and more diverse. We fund a defense department that protects the world. Our demographics are multi-cultural and unique. These are our strengths.
Our country should blow up the tax and regulation environment. Taxes should be based on consumption. Income taxes should be flat and simple. Tax incentives should be applied to poor neighborhoods and eliminated for corporations. Local services and schools can be funded by states with the help of federal levels but with no strings attached … Send the money but let local authorities act with authority!
We need to accept the fact that the poor are poor due to much of their own doing … Not because someone else got rich. Free people need to find hope and see the real incentives to improve. Capitalism is the best hope. But we need to stop tinkering with it and let it work.
excellent comment. thanks
“We need to accept the fact that the poor are poor due to much of their own doing.”
No we don’t, because it is an appalling simplification of a complex problem.
True..it is an over simplification, but I only have a few short paragraphs.
Primarily, I hold to my statement. Poverty is largely created and maintained through non-productive habits of individuals. It is not the result of someone else getting rich. We need to direct capital and the resulting hope to poor areas. The best method for this directed capital flow is Capitalism … Not government programs. A properly incentivised private market system will invest in impoverished areas. It will create revenues for police protection, schools, and infrastructure.
But the people involved will have to do the work. Government cannot replace human initiative.
BTW – my statements closely mirror those of JFK. Think about it.
Finally some intelligent comments in these online pages. Usually it’s tripe and demeaning, pompous arrogance, a spitting contest amidst boobs and idiots, myself included.
I believe the individual needs to get off his dead, perhaps lazy ass, and apply him or herself. But likewise, leadership in the form of an intelligent, wise and just government must provide the laws and guidelines in which to operate. Private businesses and corporations unleashed will only collapse the economy, pollute every river and shore, and leave coal ash ponds to infect the land and us, the breathing masses. A quibbling, trivial government of mediocre minds and it’s questionable Supreme Court will allow a Citizens United to infect the very idea of democracy with excess dollar flow. Capitalism may be our best model, but it too is not without its abusers. No, Bob Livesay, I am not a Socialist, but part Democrat, part Independent, part Progressive and part Republican too. We are all of the same species, every one of us, despite wolves in their caves and a history of idiots and saints preceding us through history. Peter Bray, Benicia, CA
Agreed we need levels of control on many things to make sure they don’t get out of control. But sometimes those controlling forces can go too far too. Here is an oversimplified example. A friend of mine used to be a mechanic at one of the local Chevrolet dealerships several years ago. He specialized in emissions. Over the years with all of the controls put on auto emissions, he said the cars are running so clean that if a person wanted to commit suicide using the old garden hose in the tail pipe routine, it would be tough because the emissions of the car were not what they used to be. That outcome comes from the EPA and various other governing bodies. Is that a bad thing? Certainly not, but is that enough? There are some that would say sure, yet there is constantly more control being pushed over on everyday citizens and it all comes at a cost.
We need reasonably constrained capitalism, less government oversight and less taxation in order to get this economy moving again and let the private sector create jobs and get people back to work. There are already tons of constraints in capitalism, I would argue too many. Let businesses be and let them create.
Personally I am trying to start a business in Benicia that will create tax revenue and between the city of Benicia and the State of California, it is like pulling teeth out of a lion trying to get anything done. All I have encountered were unreasonable constraints and obstacles, in my humble opinion. No where in the process have I run into anyone with a “Can-Do” attitude, except for one Benicia City official, who was amazing. He should be in charge of the city if it were up to me.
Matter stated: But the people involved will have to do the work. Government cannot replace human initiative.
Absolutely correct!!
and: BTW – my statements closely mirror those of JFK. Think about it.
JFK’s most quoted line: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”
Is a line that would not find a home in the political left in today’s world (although his next line certainly would have). I often think JFK would not have a home their either, but instead would be much closer to the middle of the political spectrum. Joe Lieberman comes to mind.
You live in California, good luck to you.
We don’t need luck. We live in California, the best place on Earth.
There are so many problems with your proposed plan Matt it is hard to figure out where to begin. So one simple point is that if you take someone that earns $2.5 million dollars and tax him/her at 91% and ask them to live on a mere $225,000 of the $2.5 million they earned, they will soon stop working to produce that number because the cost outweighs the benefit. That really is the bottom line of socialism; there is no incentive to excel, to invent, to do better. Everything you do and create is shared around and pretty soon, people stop working so hard and you are left with an environment of mediocrity. It is the opposite of that which makes America great.
Matter is correct. Capitalism is the answer. When you remove the burden of big government and taxation from people, they create, they excel, they create jobs, they create wealth and bring others along with them and then give back. Let’s face it, there are NO poor people signing people’s pay checks. If you don’t like the systems that ACTUALLY work, then get the heck out of the way, while the rest of us go about carrying the water so you can drink it.
When the top 20% of wage earners in America are paying 93% of all federal income taxes (according to the CBO), the bottom 50% are not paying any income taxes, I find it interesting that you say nothing is being done for the bottom 80%. Sure sounds to me like the wealthy are paying WAY more than their fair share. In fact, they are paying nearly all of it. The problem is the government bureaucracy that is in between the people creating the revenue and the people that are supposed to be receiving the benefits of that revenue. The programs created by government are so corrupt and so heavily weighted that very few of there pennies of every dollar are actually getting to the people that need it.
Then we have those that are sucking off the tit that could otherwise work. Our system is setup so that people are incentivized to be on welfare as opposed to working because they can make more money and not have to move a muscle, other than to go down to the office and collect their check. In California we have 12% of the nations population yet we have 34% of all of the welfare recipients in America. Why do suppose that is the case?
We need to do away with the IRS and move to (as Matter correctly stated) a consumption tax. I haver been saying this for years. It is the only way to have a fair tax. Every one pays and no one gets a free ride. If you consume a little, you pay little. If you consume a lot, you pay a lot. Even drug dealers pay revenue on their spoils because they haver to pay a tax on their fancy cars and boats. The people who don’t like this plan are those that pay NO taxes and prefer that I pay them instead in disproportionate fashion.
What I know for a fact, is that I don’t get to keep the first penny of my earnings until well into July. Does that seem fair to you? I have stood outside the welfare office in Vallejo and watched the people line up to pick up their checks. What I saw was a lot of cell phones, fancy fingernails jobs, smoking cigarettes, fancy bee hive hair dos and lots of obesity. None of the people I saw, looked at all like they were down on their luck in the slightest. Granted their are plenty of folks who are truly needy but the system is clearly broken and it is clear that the current administration is determined to make it even more broken rather than lifting a finger to improve it. They benefit from it being broken.
“it is clear that the current administration is determined to make it even more broken rather than lifting a finger to improve it.”
How is that clear?
Within the broad term of capitalism, there are different varieties which can have profoundly different outcomes. Unregulated capitalism will see greater problems associated with inequality, under-provision of public services and greater inequality. A primarily ‘capitalist’ society with some regulation on inequality, environment and monopoly power can create a very different outcome to a pure ‘capitalist’ society.
Yeah, when all the greedy monkeys feed in the same trough it ain’t pretty…pb
Mr. Petersen, I would agree with your general statement. But the devils are in the details.
There is a need for some level of regulation and responsibility imposed by government. I would argue it has gone too far and micro manages too much.
We need a structural change in the system. Capital flows best and creates wealth in the form of private markets, better than government. It needs to be properly incentivized. Tax free development areas in impoverished areas, consumption taxed, income and investment income burdens reduced and simplified. Welfare supply linked to work and/or productivity of the individual.
It is good that the left and right debate the answers. We should agree we want the same conclusions, but perhaps differ on the details. But if we can agree that Capitalism (in whatever form) is the best form of wealth creation among the whole population, this is a start.
Amen to that one!
pb
Something I found from the 90s by Peter Schuck, Yale Law School:
Justice Holmes said long ago
(When governments small kept taxes low)
Tax was civilization’s price
Purchasing what Holmes found nice
Tis true enough, but Holmes omits
To mention that those benefits
May cost us more than they repay
When politicians join the fray
They love to spend our hard-earned wealth
It buys them votes – but not by stealth
For we, like fish, respond to lures
The more one gleams, more it obscures
Those lures add up to deficit
And though it’s dropping bit by bit
Fiscal balance – O halcyon day
Is always several years away
We warm to politicians’ smile
Their promises do us beguile
We forget that bills com due
(I pray mine will be sent to you)
The problem’s ancient, I suppose
Yet simple answer I propose
The goal? Forge links ‘twixt choice and cost
Tightening discipline we have lost
How, you ask, can this be done?
Can deficit wars truly be won?
Can voters learn that what they buy
Is what on Tax Day makes them cry?
Reform our calendar – this I urge
It separates what we should merge
Election Day is too remote
We should pay tax just ‘ere we vote
Like hanging, as Sam Johnson said,
We’d focus on both hope and dread
As we elected in November
Just-paid taxes we’d remember
No six months lapse would dissipate
The pain we felt on payment date
No April songbirds, budding trees
Would salve that wound or suffering ease
A Tax Day on November first
Would regulate the voters’ thirst
By entering the polling booth
With tax in mind, we’d vote the truth
Memory on Election Day
Would limit wants for which we’ll pay
By sharpening our civic ways
We’d get the government we deserve.
Yale Law School
Very good. Taxes are agenda driven. I call thatrAgenda Driven Ideals . Very self serving in many ways and for sure political. Up the briidge toll to use the money for a transit pad that will have very little use. Not good.