Mr. Cheesto had interesting comments on the political philosophy expressed in the cat’s biography. If you haven’t yet read this, please do so. I have given others the first chance to respond to Mr. Chreesto. I have placed his manifesto on a stick and waved it high in the air so that my friends might use it for target practice. But they seem uninterested, so I’ll take up the challenge.
First, Mr. Chreesto, let me sincerely thank you. I asked for civil discourse—for comment that offered ideas--and you have responded abundantly. This is a brand new blog, and yours is the first response. I hope that others follow the example of civility that you have set.
Also, my great fear was that perhaps no one would ever read this blog except those who were already in general agreement, and that this would leave little to discuss. But you sir, have attacked every core belief I have ever held—and have thus provided me a splendid opportunity to defend every belief I’ve ever held. Again, I humbly thank you.
Now—to address the substance of your remarks: Yes, I too have noticed that we no longer have slavery, and that suffrage is now nearly universal. Of course, these improvements were brought about not by conservatives, but by liberals and radicals, over the passionate and well organized opposition of nearly every conservative on the planet. Some might find it hypocritical that you conservatives should now celebrate that which you tried to prevent. But I do not. Rather, I see it as a victory that after 150 years of liberal hectoring, we have finally converted you. (Ironically, the Republican Party, which claims to be the party of conservatism, still has to claim Abraham Lincoln, who was the most radical liberal ever elected to the presidency in the history of the Republic. The original Republican Party was formed entirely from disgruntled radical liberal elements from the two other parties. In the Lincoln–Douglas debates, Douglas was the conservative.)
As I understand it, your argument against liberal goals and policies attempts to make two points: First, that any kind of compulsory redistribution of wealth is unfair, and second, that it doesn’t really work. This is the standard conservative argument.
To elaborate: you conservatives try to claim that redistribution amounts to “compulsory philanthropy” and that this is unfair for two reasons:
One: My money is mine because I earned it fair and square; I played by the rules; I obeyed the laws.
Two: The opportunity was there for everyone. Anyone could have done what I did. If others have chosen not to use these opportunities, that’s their problem.
So far, Mr. Chreesto, would you say that I have fairly described your position? Have I not used the same rhetoric that conservatives themselves generally use to describe their position? Then let us continue. I might accept the characterization of liberal policies as compulsory philanthropy, depending on how we define philanthropy. Will Rogers defined a philanthropist as “a guy who’s giving away what he ought to be giving back.” Does “playing by the rules” really confer much legitimacy? When a southern slave owner worked a slave to death, or beat him to death, was he playing by the rules? Absolutely! In fact, most southern states had laws specifically indemnifying slave owners from prosecution for the death of slaves, even if they were deliberately beaten to death. How very convenient! So who passed those laws? Was it the slaves?
In any society, even societies with universal suffrage and freedom, not all groups have equal influence in causing laws to be passed. Claiming that you played by the rules doesn’t mean much if you made the rules. And in America today, those making most of the money are also making most of the rules.
If you doubt this, there’s an interesting article, “Too Big for Us to Fail,” in the April 26, 2010 issue of The American Prospect, by James Kwak, and IMF economist Simon Johnson. They say we should not expect any meaningful reform of the financial sector, because the fix is in.
The campaign cash from Wall Street sources, to both parties, exceeds the total from all other sources. There will be minor cosmetic changes, but the fundamental changes needed to curb the practices which caused our current meltdown will not happen because Wall Street does not want them to happen—and Congress will do what its masters tell it to do. Wall Street investment bankers will be subject to no regulation except those regulations which they happen to like. And since high-risk games with other people’s money are profitable, they will continue. By the way, Mr. Chreesto, how’s your 401k doing? Or by now, is it about a 201k? The reason crime doesn’t pay is that when it pays, we don’t call it crime. So much for, “I played by the rules.”
Second question: Is opportunity really equally available for all? Well, it would be if this country was really a meritocracy—but it isn’t! If hard work and frugal living were the ingredients of success, then migrant fruit pickers would all be millionaires. But they aren’t. They do the hardest work, and are the most impoverished people in the country. While it’s true that people who start somewhere near the bottom, through a lifetime of hard toil, sacrifice, and luck can often make it to a notch or two above where they started, the people at the very top, where the real wealth and power is, are mostly people who were born there. Most of the people who brag about hitting a home run were born on third base. And the main concentration of wealth resides with families who haven’t worked at all for two or three generations, and who couldn’t even tell you which kind of industry (or kind of treachery) allowed great-grandfather to amass the family fortune. Yet they fund the PR campaigns aimed at convincing us that conservative economics has something to do with allowing hard-working folks to keep more of their earnings. And you, Mr. Chreesto, who have probably worked hard all your life, have been suckered into helping them pull off this snow job. Do you ever get the feeling that someone up there is laughing at you?
Occasionally, a few people who start from working class beginnings do make it all the way to the top--people like Joe Kennedy Sr., George Soros, Warren Buffett, or Andrew Carnegie. But these people seldom take your side of the argument. The Kennedys are all liberal Democrats, Soros funds causes even farther to the left than I am, Buffet says that the trouble with this country is that rich people don’t pay enough taxes, and Carnegie wanted a 100% inheritance tax!
Yet the question remains; do liberal policies work in the real world? Yes, they seem to be working quite well in a dozen countries in Europe. The right-wing press tries to portray Europe as the weak old man of the world, whose economy is stagnant. Actually, Europe’s economy is now the largest in the world, almost as large as the U.S. and China combined. And Europe is doing much better in this crisis than we are. Their unemployment is slightly lower; fewer loans are in default, and fewer industries collapsing. And remember, they would have no economic crisis at all if we hadn’t given them one. “He who sets fire to his neighbor’s house should not complain about the smoke.” (A wise old cat once said that.) On the European Continent today, especially Germany, France, and Scandinavia, people receive much higher wages, are better educated, healthier, live longer, and have a lower infant mortality rate than we do. And their main industries are stronger, partly because of the “co-determination” laws which require worker participation (in effect, union participation) in all major decisions.
The overwhelming majority of the CEOs of Europe’s most successful industrial corporations say that co-determination has been a positive factor. (See Nation magazine, May 10, 2010, page 23, “Europe’s Answer to Wall Street.”) When difficult decisions are made, if workers are involved in those choices from the beginning, they usually find creative ways to make sure those decisions succeed. And they are also more willing to accept their share of the pain whenever things don’t succeed. In America, workers are always invited to be involved in the crash-landing, but are never invited to the take-off.
I see you took the obligatory swipe at unions, suggesting that they were only needed to keep 12-year-olds out of dangerous industrial jobs—but that we don’t have that problem anymore. Oh really? At this moment, in Black Hawk County Iowa, the ex-CEO of a meat-packing company is being tried for 83 counts of child labor law violation. Keep in mind, meat-packing is now the most dangerous industrial job around, since it involves workers packed together cheek by jowl weilding industrial sized electric knives and saws. Think of it as a “line dance” where each of the dancers is swinging a chain saw. One witness testified that when he was first hired, he was 12 years old. Another testified that there were so many kids working there that it “looked like a junior high school.” (For details, see Rubashkin trial, the Waterloo Courier, starting about May 10.)
Unions have indeed lost power and influence in this country, and with that loss we are now beginning to see a return to the industrial horrors of the pre-union era. And why wouldn’t we? Thanks again for your comments, and good luck with the ’67 Corvette. By the way, I’m not a Marxist. But then, in his later years, Karl Marx often explained that he wasn’t a Marxist either. One final point: You complained, rather dismissively, that my ideas are more suited to a Bohemian café in 1960s San Francisco. If my memory is correct, you’re quite wrong. It happens that I was actually part of the San Francisco coffee house scene in the early 1960s—too bad you weren’t—you might have learned something. But my San Francisco coffee house year, probably the best year of my life, was not where I learned the communitarian values that have oriented me toward progressive politics. I already had those values—I learned them growing up in Iowa.
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