A marvel of the modern world
Breaking news from The Onion: “Gap Between Rich And Poor Named 8th Wonder Of The World.”
“Of all the epic structures the human race has devised, none is more staggering or imposing than the Gap Between Rich and Poor,” committee chairman Henri Jean-Baptiste said. “It is a tremendous, millennia-old expanse that fills us with both wonder and humility.”
…
Its official recognition as the Eighth Wonder of the World marks the culmination of a dramatic turnaround from just 50 years ago, when popular movements called for the gap’s closure. However, due to a small group of dedicated politicians and industry leaders, vigorous preservation efforts were begun around 1980 to restore—and greatly expand—the age-old structure.
Read the whole story for more rueful laughs.
Seems like the rich are doing their part, but the poor are slacking off and falling behind. Or must we always blame the rich for the gap?
Yes.
I second Abe. “The rich” — meaning masters, lords, capitalists — are the ones who’ve always controlled the means of production. They’re also the ones who’ve been enormously successful in stigmatizing the rest of us, and especially the poor, as — choose your cliche from the following menu — lazy, improvident, uneducated, or (Calvinists cover your eyes) predestined. Indeed, it’s falling for the mythology of the rich that’s so crucial for their continued authority. As long as we ask, “must we always blame the rich for the gap,” the rich we will always have with us.
Here’s the part I don’t get. As Catholics, we’re not supposed to think less of those who have less wealth. Yet when we rail about the “gap”, don’t we stigmatize the poor? Aren’t we saying there’s something wrong or bad about being poor? Don’t we implicitly conclude that your true worth is commensurate with your net worth? Doesn’t that go against everything we believe? Who cares if people are poor, if their reward in heaven is great. Isn’t that what really matters? Or do we just pay lip service to all that malarchy?
I’m not thinking less about people with less wealth, I’m thinking less about people with more wealth!
Mark ==
Oh come on, there are loads of bad things about being poor, including being hungry, being cold, being under=educated, being sick, etc., etc. In most cases this has little or nothing to do with moral failure.
In my long years I have seen the rich getting rich mostly by luck. Real estate is the biggest cause of wealth but also the biggest cause of bankruptcies. The real estate mantra is location, location, location,, All locations are based on future luck . [personal revelation ..I've been lucky] Rich luck is Not that much different than lottery winners. It amazing that the Cons have made and need a ‘theology’ that claims that exceptional effort is the only way for getting rich. Their new push is to eliminate the inheritance tax that they call the ‘ death tax’ .There is an Exception… lobbyists don’t wait for luck to strike. They use somebody elses envelopes stuffed in the right pockets.
Mark
As Catholics, wealth, or private property is not an absolute. It is ordered to the community or the common good or “commonweal”.
Ann–
I agree, so why add insult to injury with this obsession on the gap, which stigmatizes the poor as lesser. The “gap” is a red herring. If every rich person took a million dollars out of the bank and burnt the cash, the gap would decrease, and the far left would rejoice, but how are the poor helped? If a rich man invests gives a poor man a job, increasing the rich man’s worth by 1% and the poor man’s worth by 100%, the gap increases and far left cries foul. Make any sense to you?
“Aren’t we saying there’s something wrong or bad about being poor?”
I think we’re saying there is something wrong or bad with the rest of us for allowing the poor to exist; Lazarus outside our door.
Mark Proska, would you say more from a Catholic perspective about how you view the rich and poor, wealth and poverty?
Mark,
About your thought experiment: If every multimillionaire took a million dollars in cash out of the bank and burnt it, the poor might not be better off, but the multimillionaires would be. Of course, if the multimillionaires instead distributed the cash to those who most needed it, all involved would be better off — and, more to your point, the gap would close more than if the rich just burnt their cash.
And, yes, the gap does matter. A recent study of studies titled The Spirit Level shows that, among developed countries, the distribution of GDP has at least as great an effect on health, crime rates, education, and most indices of well-being as the size of GDP. Pronounced material inequality does measurable harm to a society. There are various theories about why this should be so, but that it is so is a fact established by social science (even if there are still disputes among social scientists about the degree to which it’s so).
Now about your paradoxical interpretation of the Beatitudes (blessed are the poor, so the poor are better off remaining poor): Not only does this make nonsense of much of the rest of the gospels, as Irene’s comment suggests, it also doesn’t jive with your own trickle-down economics. If the poor are really better off poor, because the reward they’ll receive in heaven is commensurate with their poverty in this life, then the promise that greater wealth for the rich will translate into greater wealth for the poor is another argument against greater wealth for the rich. If the rich man increases the poor man’s worth by 100 percent by giving him a job, then he ought not to give him a job, lest he injure the poor man’s soul. Etc. Either you can argue that poverty is a blessing, or you can argue that capitalism is a good thing because it makes everyone richer. But you can’t argue both.
Former Rhodes Scholar Tom Smith of San Diego Law School:
http://rightcoast.typepad.com/rightcoast/2010/11/all-this-talk-of-wealth-inequality-is-stupid-tom-smith.html
The Onion: generator of the finest of economic discourse.
While the income gap has been widening in recent years, what I find most troubling is the great increase in child poverty. It as at 21% now, up from 16% or so a decade ago. I would guess that most Americans would agree that we have some collective responsibility for our nation’s children. I think this is a very shameful statistic for a developed country.
Mark’s attempt to wrap in the mantle of virtue his argument that shining a light on the causes of poverty simply stigmatizes the poor is nothing short of Swiftian brilliance. One of the funniest things I’ve read all week. Thanks, Mark!
On a more serious note, Chris Hedges, probably not a popular figure to many on this blog, was on NPR talking about his book “The Death of the Liberal Class.” After doing the requisite yammering against Obama’s speech (centrist = capitulation), he reiterated a distinction among types of capitalism that I think people need to think about more, and one that addresses a possible reason for the gap between rich and poor.
That distinction lies between smaller, localized business people hire provide jobs, sit on local boards, pay taxes, and, generally, offer a good deal of value to their communities; and multi-national corporations that go have no loyalty whatever to the nations in which they operate and are the ones quickest to off-shore jobs.
Decades ago, when I worked for Dow Chemical, the president of the company gave a speech extolling that happy day when multinationals could operate unfettered by nationality, and employees would be “citizens” of the company.
That day has arrived, and, ironically, the biggest companies with the least commitment to the national commonweal are the ones deemed too big to fail, yet, they get the lion’s share of the tax breaks, the bailouts, and other forms of corporate welfare.
In my town of 1,700, our machine shops, seed producers, milk processing plant, and other local businesses have fallen on hard times and have had to let cut workers and slash benefits, leaving more people here at the poverty line. Yet the taxes these businesses pay go to support the multi-nationals without any “trickle down” for us.
Something’s very wrong with this picture.
Wow, Stuart. A Rhodes Scholar said that?
Mark, I am glad to see that I am not the only person on this blog concerned with the plight of the rich. All reasonable people agree that it is the rich through their investments who are the drivers of the economy. And where would we be if they decided to stop investing in a quasi-socialist America and started putting their money someplace else, say, like China?
The gap between rich and poor is increasing, but this is only half the story. In the last 30 years American productivity has improved year after year, at a much faster rate than we see in any other industrialized country. The American economy continues to grow. Yet middle class salaries have remained basically flat during that period while the salary spread between what the average CEO and the average worker working for the average CEO makes has increased something like ten-fold. The picture here is clear, but liberals are too gutless and biased to look at it. The fact is that CEOs are working about 10 times harder than they did in 1980, while workers are just futzing along working no harder than they did 30 years ago. I happened to know a number of CEOs in 1980 and I can tell you that each and every one of them must have been working 60 or 70 hours a week or more. Now they must be working 600 or 700 hours a week; a pace that has to be hazardous to their health. And yet it is the lazy American worker who thinks that he or she should be reaping the fruits from all of this expanded productivity. Oh, I know that some amateur economists and naysayers out there will say that with the advent of computers CEOs can now multi-task and do two or three or even four things at once. So it follows that they can’t really be working 700 hours a week. But even if we cut this down to 500 hours a week (which I think is more than a generous concession to the naysayer’s “argument”) 500 hours is still a long work week by any standard. Yet do the rich get thanked by the rest of us? No. We whine about the so-called “gap” and all the rich get for their hard work and sacrifice is more money.
I say that if the American worker is just going to breeze into the office or plant and expect the CEO to do all the work, then the American worker should learn to adjust his or her lifestyle to a salary which I think is already pretty damn generous, since they get to make and spend that salary in the United States.
“the plight of the rich”
Sounds like one of them good problems. I’ll trade places!
Be careful what you wish for, Abe. You might not get it.
Life imitates art: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE70Q0QJ20110127
Luke–
I view them as accidents, in a Catholic way of speaking (not a Mr. gleason way of speaking).
“but the multimillionaires would be”
Matthew–
Is that a typo, or did you really mean to say that? If so, why would people be better off, as a rule, if they had less money? And where does one draw the line between who is better of with more, and who is better off with less?
As for the study you cite, though I’m not familiar with it, I would bet that the case is not nearly as clear cut as you suggest. Such studies often reflect the biases of their authors. So many factors impact health, crime rates and education, that sifting out everything but the impact of GDP distribution is suspect.
Rereading my previous comment, I see that I was not clear. I do not think the poor are better off than the rich (though there’s biblical support for that, I suppose), I meant to say that the rich are not better off, in the things that matter, than the poor. Hence the obsession with the gap in material goods is misplaced, and wasteful. If an action would increase the wealth of the rich by 20%, and increase the wealth of the poor by 10%, shouldn’t we all get behind that? If not, aren’t we more motivated by envy of the rich than care for the poor?
How about some due props for unagidon – that may be one of the finest satiric pieces I’ve read, and I’m serious. Did you just make that up off the top of your head?
I don’t dismiss the gap out of hand – it may well be a symptom of lots of worrisome things, economically, socially and spiritually.
What about this, though? Suppose the widening of the gap is bad. Then closing the gap – somehow – is good, right? Let’s say we diminish the gap by 10%. That’s better than before. But if 10% is good, then 20% would be even better. But why stop there? Why not 50%? 75%? Taking this logic to its conclusion, the best of all is to eliminate the gap completely, such that everyone’s income, or wealth, or whatever it is that we’re measuring, is completely even – precisely identical.
Is that a good outcome? Having thought about it for about three and a quarter seconds, I have to say that it’s not self-evidently good, and there are some things about it that are probably not good.
But if perfectly even isn’t the optimal outcome – what is? What is the optimal size of the gap, and how do we know when we’ve reached it? And when it falls out of whack in one direction or the other, as inevitably it will, what do we do about it?
The Rhodes Scholar admits to occasional envy. My own feelings are of embarrassment. When I consider my 3 room rental, erratic heat, rusty hot water, closets stuffed with outdated clothing;
my SS income from which a chunk goes to Medicare-I’m embarrassed!
I have heat, indoor plumbing, clothing, steady income, health insurance.Why should I live in such downright comfort when a family lives in squalor, as in the foreground of the Onion photo?
To my fellow lurkers, there are some programs which promote fair-wage employment for the poor of the third world: The Heifer Project ( You can donate a few hen chicks), Fair Trade crafts (fun gifts!) from Catholic Relief Services “Work of Human Hands”, Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate from Equal Exchange. Google them. A few hundred bloggers and lurkers could help a few hundred families.
Yes, Mark, I really meant to say that. But saying multimillionaires would be better off if they unloaded a million is not the same as saying that “people” would be “better off, as a rule, if they had less money.” I find it strange that you would assume that what’s true of multimillionaires must be true of people in general. But if you insist on a broad rule, here’s one: People with much more money than they need would be better off if they gave some of it to people who have less money than they need. That’s a fairly straightforward version of a traditional Christian teaching. Now, I know your next question will be: And who are you or anyone else to say that someone has more — or less — money than he needs? What presumption! The border between having too much and having too little changes all the time and is determined by more things than we can enumerate here. But multimillionaires are nowhere near that border, wherever it is exactly.
In clarifying your position, you’ve gone from brandishing an unsupportable paradox (better, spiritually, to be poor) to dusting off a convenient cliche with no basis in the gospel (that one’s material situation has no bearing on the spiritual life). I preferred your paradox. Nothing our Lord said supports the idea that what we do with what we have in this life — how we get it, how much of it we keep, how much we give away — is morally trivial.
I’d laugh but Mark and the “distinguished” Rhodes scholar aren’t funny.
I wondered if Mr. Proska has read the social encyclicals; I really thought Mark’s post was the theology according to Gordon Gecko.
I thought of the GOP rebauttal by Congressman Ryan (an educated Catholic?) and agered with Mark Shields that his discussion of the “safety net” made me shiver.
All of this is the (if I may borrow a phrase) tedious GOP mantra of “limited govenment”, coupled with bleats about conservative generosity, even as the gap grows.
Dumb me: I thought that Mark’s initial out-of-the-post comment was meant to be tongue in cheek.
Thank you to a practical Jim Pauwels. Well done as usual.
Bob – yes, an educated Congressman Ryan – in realistic terms, he just does not think like most Commonweal bloggers.
Billionaires in the audience might want to heed Warren Buffett’s advice. He thought it wise to give away his money toward the end of his life.
Assuming that you are better than the average billionaire in creativity, efficiency, and productivity your investments will grow and the poor will have much more than if you give your money away when you reach, say, the 100 million mark. The Gini Index will register growing inequality in the meantime but that is irrelevant in the long run. I charge a mere 1% on the first billion for this advice and I will give away half of my earnings.
jim s . -thanks for the incisve “ad hominem” to the intellectuals at Commonmweal, including myself.
And as to the circularly “practical” Jim P., who though tabout it for three and a half seconds, tell it to the alarmingly amountof starving children in the US or the steadily increasing numbers in poverty, or, if you’ll pardon an ad hominem from me, I guess you’re doing OK and whys hould we close the gap : “am I my brother’s keeper?”
Bob – you directly questioned Ryan as an educated person because he does not believe what you believe – does that make him ill-educated? – I never ever question the intellectual capacity of Commonweal bloggers – I enjoy that – I do question their practicality in the real world and their interpretation of biblical quotes like “am I my brother’s keeper” as only applying to them.
Jim P., it’s not a matter of closing the gap so much as restoring what used to be there: the middle class.
Maybe unagidon could come up with a similar point-scoring system for the wealth gap issue. For example:
– If you personally sold your house and canceled your health insurance policy, moved into a trailer park, and then donated all the money you saved to helping people in Haiti or Somalia: 1500 points.
– Complaining that Bill Gates and hedge fund managers have too much money: 1/10 of a point.
And so forth.
“Maybe unagidon could come up with a similar point-scoring system for the wealth gap issue. For example:
– If you personally sold your house and canceled your health insurance policy, moved into a trailer park, and then donated all the money you saved to helping people in Haiti or Somalia: 1500 points.
– Complaining that Bill Gates and hedge fund managers have too much money: 1/10 of a point.
And so forth.”
Maybe. But I think the real issue, which is that a smaller number of people are syphoning off an ever greater share of a larger economic pie, is being obscured by an irrelevant pseudo-moral argument about the nature of money, wealth, and poverty.
When I was talking about abortion, what I was trying to say was that a smaller number of people were actively dealing with an ever greater social problem, while a larger number of people were being distracted by an irrelevant pseudo-moral arguments about the nature of human life relative to the merits of the Republican and Democratic parties.
Is Studebaker using code to call Unagidon trailer park t…h… It’s mobile home ..thank you!!
The Arab street is reacting right now to the most un-equal wealth distribution in the world.. Will all Cons join an International brigade to help restore the privileges of the Arab ruling class??. Or maybe fund mercenaries?
The rich-poor issue is one thing but what threatens the middle class is economic security. Imagine the prospect of being forced out of a lifelong career and onto the job market towards the end of one’s working life. My dad worked at a union job in Big Steel and ended up on the labor gang at the age of 60 when the company cut back on steel production. His father was forced to retire at age 65, before pensions, and ended up taking a job that broke him physically. In the recent past, a retiree who saw his pension vanish when the company went belly up simply blew his brains out.
I suggest that anyone who believes nostrums, such as ‘retraining for the jobs of the future’, or who blames the victim in some way ought to spend a few months in the unemployment office to find out what the world is like for everyone else.
Bob Nunz, you may want to substitute “hungry” for “starving”. From what I understand, there are very few deaths in the US from starvation (excepting from conditions such as anorexia).
Not so in the developing world: one number bandied about is that 15 million people die annually of starvation. (FWIW: my opinion is the developing world is where talk of “the gap” makes real, stark, everyday sense to folks who are on either side of the divide).
Back to the US: the USDA uses terms like ‘households of low food security’, which does, in my experience, give a more accurate idea of what it is like to be hungry in the US.
While we can always do better, and the need, unfortunately, seems to be getting greater each year, there are often ways for hungry people to get food in the US.
It’s difficult for me to think of a better charitable donation than to a local food bank.
jim s. -my point is that Ryan (and :realistic” you are quite short on Catholic social justice teaching in your trickle down minimal government world.
Matthew–
I hesitate to respond because the tone of your last post indicates an annoyance with this exchange. For example, I thought unhelpful your implication that I believe that what we do with what we have in this life, and how we get it in the first place, is morally trivial. I don’t see how that can be a fair reading of anything I’ve said, but perhaps I’ve been less than clear, or misunderstood your post.
Nevertheless, I’m still stuck on your apparent belief that multimillionaires would all be better off if they destroyed a million dollars of their money. You say “unloaded”, but my original point was destroy the cash (to reduce the “gap”), so I assume that’s what you’re agreeing with. I would find that fascinating, if a bit disheartening. If you feel that way, I’m sure many others do too. And if so, our disagreement is so fundamental I’m not surprised we’d disagree strongly on anything built upon it.
Bob–Thanks for putting my name and Rhodes scholar in the same sentence.
Jimmy–The first sentence was, the second was not.
“I think the real issue, which is that a smaller number of people are syphoning off an ever greater share of a larger economic pie”
I agree that this is an accurate description of what has been happening in the US for at least a couple of decades.
What needs more work, in my opinion, is relating our Gospel imperative to serve the poor to that situation.
Or, if that sounds like a waste of time, then let’s all serve the poor as best we can and leave the theorizing to others.
“Jim P., it’s not a matter of closing the gap so much as restoring what used to be there: the middle class.”
Jean, this is more along the line of how I view this topic: let’s make sure that those who lack basic needs (like food and health care) get them. I admit that probably aligns me with the camp that says, ‘who cares about the gap – who cares about the rich and how rich they get, so long as everyone has what they need and a fair shot at improving their lot in life?’ I’m not entirely comfortable with that, but an argument can be made that it is in line with the Gospels, and it always seems that there are substantial problems with going much farther than that.
Rich business people know they are syphoning off ever larger pieces of the economic pie. They even know that it is a potential political problem for them. They know that there is little or no fairness in how people are paid in the United States and that it is getting less fair all of the time. They talk about this stuff when the scotch comes out.
The people who think that people get what they deserve in America in particular and capitalism in general are small business people who may have a lot of money personally, but are not people in command of what Lenin would have called “the commanding heights of the economy”. So I have dinner with a couple of fat investors at Smith and Wollensky where they freely admit that it isn’t fair that they have been profiting off of the recession and then I come here and read people saying that Jesus likes poor people to suck it up. I have to laugh.
It seems sometimes that the people who argue that huge income disparity poses no moral concerns, these same people see all kinds of moral issues with government’s redistribution of wealth. So the inequality itself is not a moral problem, but an effort to address it would be?
Unagidon: the issue is the same in either case, isn’t it? In either case, you could (if you want) grant more moral legitimacy to people who put their own lives and livelihoods on the line, and less moral legitimacy to people who just want to gripe and point the finger at someone else.
Just to be clear: my assumption is that the inequality between every single reader of this site and the average person in Haiti is of immeasurably more real-world importance than the inequality between the same readers and Bill Gates.
Stuart said: “Unagidon: the issue is the same in either case, isn’t it? In either case, you could (if you want) grant more moral legitimacy to people who put their own lives and livelihoods on the line, and less moral legitimacy to people who just want to gripe and point the finger at someone else.”
I will always grant more to people like that. I’m just saying that this is not relevant to this conversation.
Stuart said: “Just to be clear: my assumption is that the inequality between every single reader of this site and the average person in Haiti is of immeasurably more real-world importance than the inequality between the same readers and Bill Gates.”
Years ago when I was a young college student working the night shift produce department at Jewel, I got to know an old cop who was moonlighting as the night security guard. One night over our shoplifted dinner (we were bad boys in those days) he told me that he had finally picked up a snatch-and-grab artist (a guy who stole necklaces off people on the street) who had been coming to his precinct for some weeks. He took him down to the station and went into an interrogation room to “have a talk”. The talk consisted of my friend the cop sticking his pistol into the crook’s mouth, through his front teeth (which broke), cocking it, and telling him that if he caught him in the precinct again he would kill him. I was no hippie in those days (although I looked like one) and I had learned that the best stories come to he who keeps his mouth shut. But for this one I raised an objection. “Screw it” said the cop. “If this was (he said South America but let’s pretend he said Haiti) I would have taken him out into the alley and shot him in the back of the head.”
Yes it’s true that almost everyone in Haiti except for the people who live in the big houses on the hill is poorer than almost any American. But the fact still remains that the rich in the United States have been taking a larger share of the economic pie over time and they know that it isn’t just. Saying to the middle class, which is the class getting screwed now (the poor have always been getting screwed) that “It could be worse; it could be Haiti” doesn’t seem to me to be a productive way of addressing the problem. Unless of course one’s productive way of dealing with the problem is putting up smoke and mirrors to distract people from what is really going on.
Yes, God forbid we low-wage earners should gripe, because, after all, we don’t live in Haiti.
That sounds mostly like an excuse to ignore what living as a low-income wage earner in this country is really like.
Certainly one is grateful for the safety nets, though there is a good deal of anxiety about whether they’ll last as long as you might need them as well as an exquisite sense of shame that goes with being on assistance in the first place (thanks to people who like to point out that you should be grateful because you don’t live in Haiti).
In my view, the gap created by the shrinking middle class is a threat to the nation because it provides a certain stability in attitude and values. They are not so far removed from the poor that they see them as deadbeats. The staunchest defenders of the poor in this country, if you use personal charitable giving as a measure, are the middle and working classes.
Clarification: the gap created by the shrinking middle class is a threat to the nation because it [the middle class] provides certain stability in attitude and values.
Bob – Please spare me the lecture on Catholic social justice as if liberals own that issue – Congressman Ryan and I both believe that you should not spend money you do not have – is it social justice to bankrupt the country and leave our children in debt? – if people are so interested in Catholic social justice, the first priority should be the prohibition of government gambling like lotteries which “realistically” teases, tempts, and soaks the poor and middle class – try to buy gas with cash and you’ll wait till the cows come home as the lottery machines roll.
The big problem is not that 1 percent owns 20 percent of the wealth. The big problem is the direction the ownership is taking: the wealth of the very rich has snow-balled and continues to do so. It has meant that not only are the poor still poor but that the middle-class is becoming poor — it can no longer comfortably send its children to good high schools and colleges, and a large portion of it can no longer afford decent health care.
It is outrageous that so very manysuper-hard-working Americans are in such financial straits, especially since Wall Street and global investment is still doing super- fine, thank you, while the rest of the economy still stinks. When those of us in the middle of the middle class don’t realize that, we have lost the American dream.. If this continues we’ll end up with a few pharaohs and mostly slaves.
Marx will have been right about a lot more than capitalist American wants to admit. As he saw the development of capitalism, first the small business would be eaten up by the not-so-small ones. We call them “mergers”.f The the not-so-small would be devoured by the larger ones , and so on until there will be left only a few capitalists who own everything who will slug it out for total ownership. By then the masses will catch on that they’ve been had, and there will be a revolution.
I have never been one to think that Communism died with the Soviets. Marx understood unregulated capitalism, if he didn’t understand socialism.
“If an action would increase the wealth of the rich by 20%, and increase the wealth of the poor by 10%, shouldn’t we all get behind that? If not, aren’t we more motivated by envy of the rich than care for the poor?”
Mark —
Too simple. Things would improve for both initially, but the percentage of the total wealth of the nation owned by the very rich would increase. Ownership gives control, and that includes control over the future operations of the economy. I think this is where most liberals — and non-rich conservatives — are mistaken. They don’t see that control over decisions in the future (like who eventually get how much in dividends) when left to the very rich eventually works against the interests of the non-very-rich.
Isabelle ==
You mention “fair wage”". Economists have given up trying to define what a “fair wage” is. They tend to define everything in terms of what is measurable, and, of course, to define “fair wage”, since wages are usually money, there would have to be some way to quantify the relative value of each job category to the company — e.g., the mechanics’ are worth so much per hour, the secretary’s so much, the CEO’s so much. The biggest problem, however, is to define the value of the use of the owner’s capital by the company. In other words, what percentage of the income of the company has been due to the risk of their capital that the owners took? Theoretically anyway, this determines who should get what income at the end (dividends).
There hasn’t been a great economist yet who has come up with good answers. Yet we workers, I think, are all convinced there is such a thing as an unfair wage, if there isn’t such a thing as a fair one.
Complexity, complexity.
“Congressman Ryan and I both believe that you should not spend money you do not have”
Tell that to the successful small businessmen. And to the successful big businessmen.
Tell that too people who borrow to buy a house or to send their kids to college. If business owners believed this there would be no economic expansion.
There are times when borrowing money makes great good economic sense, times when it doesn’t. (You needn’t tell me government has spent too much. I’ve known that for 50 years. But the biggest problem is what is sometimes spends money on.)
Congressman Ryan needs to learn some economics. Same is true of the whole Tea Party movement, which would move us straight down into an economic pit if left to their own devices.
“Yes, God forbid we low-wage earners should gripe, because, after all, we don’t live in Haiti.
That sounds mostly like an excuse to ignore what living as a low-income wage earner in this country is really like.”
I am not sure how you are defining “low-wage” but to the extent it is something materially greater than $1.00 USD per day, it seems to me those people would be considered rich relative to the approximately 1 billion people in the world (986 million as of 2004 I believe) who live on $1 USD per day or less.
Report: Unemployment High Because People Keep Blowing Their Job Interviews
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-unemployment-high-because-people-keep-blowi,17803/
The GOP cult continues to amaze. This week the official meme disseminated was that the phrase “investing in the future” is creeping communism because investing means spending money and spending is bad. This is a worshipful relationship with mammon.
Pharoh, the GOP, and Heaven’s Gate cultists: possible target demos for “death tax” rhetoric.
I think Ann’s point about the trending is important. The gap was narrowing for many. many years then, in recent years it turned around, and started widening again. I’m a little surprised that some here don’t see that as a cause for at least a little bit of concern.
RE: figuring out a fair wage. Maybe it stymies the economists, but I betcha working people could come up with a decent calculus. In NYC, people would need to have two and a half full time minimum wage jobs to afford the rent on a market rate apartment. So, how about we establish a minimum wage where two full-time wage earners for a family of four (that’s one full-time job per adult) make enough combined that they can afford rent, health care , daycare (if needed ) , and basic living expenses. And, gee, here’s a really radical idea, how about if people on welfare get enough assistance to afford all of those luxuries, too?
When you see Karl Marx, tell him from me he’s an ass.
FWIW – here is the 2010 Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. My take is that there are folks on the list who support the the-rich-are-gobbling-up-all-the-pie thesis (Sam Walton’s relatives, Carl Icahn); and folks who seem to absolutely refute it – have set up and managed organizations that have, collectively, enabled millions of people to prosper and thrive (the Microsoft guys, the Google guys, Larry Ellison, et al). And folks whose business and economic activities don’t have much of a discernible impact on the poor one way or the other (Michael Bloomberg, George Soros).
http://www.forbes.com/wealth/forbes-400#p_1_s_arank_-1_
“I am not sure how you are defining ‘low-wage’ but to the extent it is something materially greater than $1.00 USD per day, it seems to me those people would be considered rich relative to the approximately 1 billion people in the world (986 million as of 2004 I believe) who live on $1 USD per day or less.”
If I lived in Haiti I would certainly be rich. In fact, Raber and I are looking at retirement in Mexico or similar where our Social Security will stretch further–savings was used up years ago to help pay the bills and keep us off the dole.
But the problems in Haiti–political instability, lack of education, and lack of diversity in the economy to name a few–are not the same problems besieging the middle class here in the United States. Frozen wages, lay-offs of older workers, stagnant job markets– all of these factors threaten to push those in the middle class into the ranks of those who need assistance to meet basic needs.
Our own experience shows that it takes just one job loss or a health insurance policy change by an employer to push someone out of the middle class and into the ranks of the needy.
Should we give to Haiti? Of course! We managed to squeeze out a few bucks after the earthquake, though, like many others, we’re wondering why all those millions in donations seemed to do so little good.
But scoffing at those who have fallen out of the middle class and into the ranks of the low-income simply because they are not living in Haiti strikes me as a way to block out lesser but nonetheless real misery here at home.
Jim, I don’t WANT to be a recipient of some rich guy’s largesse, a poster child for the do-gooders at Google or Microsoft. I want a damn job so I can pay my own damn bills.
Jean – you seem to have misunderstood me – I wasn’t referring to largesse. Microsoft and Google are creating the damn jobs.
Sorry, Jim.
Makes me mite tetchy to be struggling and then get hammered for not being more grateful that I don’t live in Haiti, and being tetchy made me misconstrue your post.
Agree there’s nothing evil in wealth; it’s what you do with it (or fail to do with it) that matters.
“Congressman Ryan needs to learn some economics”.
Ann – Congressman Ryan has a degree in economics. He does not believe in your economics which is what – is it that everyone should wake up every morning with the same amount in their checking account and the same meal on the table no matter the actions or behavior on the part of the individual – that we should all think alike too – yesterday I offered to intervene and offer someone a job – the young woman told me that she cannot take the job as she would lose her food stamps – what else can I do for her economically? She is on food stamps because she is unwed with two children – she is four months behind on her rent – my heart still hurts especially after I met her daughter – she is however taking courses at the university and I will continue to encourage her – how does economics in Washington impact her? A job has been offered and she has government grants for her education – how much more?
Mark,
You wrote: “I meant to say that the rich are not better off, in the things that matter, than the poor. Hence the obsession with the gap in material goods is misplaced, and wasteful.” These two sentences together seem to mean one of two things: (1) The poor are better off spiritually and therefore any effort to make them richer is misplaced, or (2) material wealth and poverty are a matter of spiritual indifference and therefore not worth worrying about. Now, you’ve said you don’t mean (1). That leaves us with (2). And I think (2), with a little analysis, turns out to mean “what we do with what we have in this life — how we get it, how much of it we keep, how much we give away — is morally trivial.” But you now say you don’t mean that either.
Perhaps you mean that the gap between rich and poor doesn’t matter only as long as the poor have a basic sufficiency. If Lazarus had not been suffering from thirst and hunger, the fact that he had much less than Dives would not have mattered sub specie aeternitatis. This might be an answer to those, like me, who think income inequality is an important problem in the United States. But, as our conservative commentors have pointed out on this thread, extreme poverty — the poverty of those who don’t have enough to eat or drink — remains an important global problem. A rich man could give all of his surplus away and still not put an end to it.
To get back to the cash-burning multimillionaire, we are really talking about two different things here: avarice, which is subjective; and injustice, which is objective. Obviously, burning a million dollars could never correct an injustice, which is the real subject of this thread. For that reason, I am tempted to say, Forget my wayward remark — let’s focus on the distribution of wealth, not its destruction.
But since you find my remark fascinating and inexplicable, let me try to explain it, and maybe qualify it in a way that will reassure you. If attachment to wealth is an impediment to salvation, and if the rich are likely to suffer from such an attachment, then, for their own sake, the rich (a category that includes multimillionaires) would likely be better off getting rid of some of their wealth — and they would be better off regardless of how they got rid of it. This has nothing to do with distributive justice or charity; it has to do with serving two masters.
A non-Christian could reply that the rich are not more likely than the poor to be excessively attached to their possessions. After all, doesn’t the principle of marginal utility suggest that the poor widow is much more likely to be attached to her one mite than Croesus to his pots of gold? But Christians have to reckon with Christ’s words on the subject: It is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Whatever historical gloss you give that judgment, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Jesus thought being rich was an impediment to salvation. When Jesus urges the rich young man to go sell his possessions and give the money to the poor, the young man goes away sad — not because he wants the poor to have less than he does but because he doesn’t want to lose what he has: he’s attached to it. He needs to disembarrass himself of a burden. Even if there were no one who needed his wealth, he would still be better off getting rid of it — giving it to his rich siblings, perhaps, or burying it or, yes, burning it.
Across the Middle East, people are crying out to live deecent ordinary lives where the gap has become so horrible they take to the streets and risk tear gas and worse.
Here we have lovely spin to keep people “in their place.”
The Ryan spin of “limited government” or Ms. Palin’s ignorant rant on Sputnik and the Russian economy.
I think everyone knows the days of wine and roses are over in this country.
Adjustments must be made and even though we had a bipartisan commission on why the economy went down the tubes, the report was divided on partisan (read party) lines.
Geithner at the World Econmic sSmmit acknowledge the horrible oversight during the time leading up to tyhe crash, but the GOP offers us smaller government and regulation to stimulate jobs.
I”m sure the Koch brothers et al love that; the National Chamber of Commerce seems to thnink some investment is good.
And what’s the Catholic posture here? Is it what one beleives ideologically/politically?
There’s an excellent article in America by ND profesor Goode(hope I spelled that corectly) on Immigration theology -where he urges us to understand that we need to move past the politicaxtion of theology today. (Inceidentally, NCR recently has a piece on the joint US Bishops Mexican Bishops participation in a conference on immigrants -but that’s probably too much of a hot button issue for the poltical theologogs here to handle.)
I agree with Jean that thee’s nothing wrong per se with being wealthy, but remember Lazarus and Dives, etc. and the command to store up ( the real) treasures in the heavenly kingdom.
Just want to add this:
Five or six years ago, at our conference on aging in the State, AARP presented a sensible plan that would involve some sacrifice to put social security on a firm footing.
The GWB administration wanted to prvatize.
Boy, how that would have looked when the market went into the tank.
For a number of years, good governmen tgroups have backed a state plan here for universal health care and had it shot down by the big money insurance lobbies.
Now our friends at the minimal government GOP want Medicare privatized.
SOS perscription ,it strikes me.
Unfortunately, the sacred cow for the GOP and its minimal government adherents willl not be the common good but bringing down the adminisdtrationm over the next two years.
JIm P. –
Did you know that even the highly conservative economists recognize Karl Marx as one of the greatest economists ever? The reason is that he was the first to explain the function of money in an economy — how capitalism works. Even Adam Smith didn’t know that.
Dismissing a thinker because there is reason to think he is terribly wrong about some things is no reason to dismiss everything he says. (Knee-jerk conservatives rarely seem to understand that.)
(I’m still constantly amazed at how many men seem to crave intellectual heroes and villains — how they either accept a thinker in toto or reject him in toto. I suspect that inclination is biological, having its roots their pack mentality (Follow our leader — only our leader!), an urge that is not found to nearly the same extent in women.)
Also, you have shoveled words in my mouth — I don’t think that everyone should have equal amounts of the material goods of this world. You need to learn to read your opponents more carefully if you are ever to improve your economic thinking:-)
Do read that Skidelsky article — one of his main points is that socialism reduces the choice which is necessary to make a system work. YOu’d like that. Here’s the link again:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/skidelsky37/English
It is Jim S. not Jim P. – last week I needed a class on vocabulary (the word “slur”) – this week Congressman Ryan needs a class on economics – now we have the psychology of women and men and what is wrong with men – nothing was shoveled – my post read (in the form of a question) “is it that everyone should wake every morning with the same amount in their checking account and the same meal on the table no matter the actions or behavior of the individual” – what is it that you want – how much more does this government need to spend
When you post, you make many inferences and accusations – your “knee-jerk” (your word) reaction is that everyone who disagrees needs improvement intellectually – and the problem always seems to be the “conservatives” as they are always wrong
You are not my opponent – you may see me as your opponent – I want to know what you clearly think in practical terms
Ann, nobody who is interested in studying economics with a view to solving contemporary issues would read Marx profitably – save the pressing need to proceed with the eradication of Marxism. As a purveyor of political philosophy and economic philosophy, his signal accomplishment is that no mortal has done more to harm the human race.
“…material wealth and poverty are a matter of spiritual indifference and therefore not worth worrying about. “
Matthew—
The second part of that sentence was gratuitous and better left unsaid. As for the first part of the sentence, it’s not clear to me what you mean by “spiritual indifference.” If you mean that the non-rich are just as likely to be spiritually wholesome, are just as likely to get to heaven, then yes, I believe that wealth and poverty are a matter of spiritual indifference. If you mean that we have no obligation to the poor, then, surprise, I disagree with you. The far left believes that lack of concern with the “gap” is equivalent to lack of concern for the poor. Similarly, they believe that concern about the “gap” evinces concern for the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth.
On the bright side, despite our differences, I think there are some important things we agree on:
1) Destroying material goods to punish the rich is not helpful;
2) For some, but not in and of itself, wealth can be an impediment to salvation. In such cases, like a part of the body that leads us to sin, it’s best discarded;
3) The poor have a claim on each and everyone of us; and
4) It’s good to learn Latin.
Happy to give you the last word, if you’d like.
“your “knee-jerk” (your word) reaction is that everyone who disagrees needs improvement intellectually –”
Jim S. –
(Sorry about the P.)
Indeed, I most certainly do think that. That is much better, I think, that assuming that the other fellow needs to be more honest or is guilty of some other sort of moral failure. We all need to learn more.
Jim P. –
Even if Marx has done more harm than anyone ever (how in the world can you know that?), that does not imply that he isn’t also a great economist who has offered a great deal of value that even conservative economists admit.
(You guys really do seem to need heroes and villains. It’s all or nothing: you want perfect leaders or thoroughly evil enemies. Sigh.)
Jim S. –
Today Paul Krugman has an article about Rep. Ryan — how ignorant he is of economics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/opinion/28krugman.html?src=me&ref=homepage
Yes. it’s necessary to be practical if one is to do good. But here are some words of wisdom about that: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” == Karl Marx.
Please on Krugman – first one out of the box regarding the Arizona event to place the blame on others who do not think like he does – again, Krugman, an intellectual with no practicality – have met many a PHD who were useless in getting real events right and exercised poor judgment in decision-making – they refuse to think twice as they are always right the first time – I side with Ryan any day.
“Even if Marx has done more harm than anyone ever (how in the world can you know that?), that does not imply that he isn’t also a great economist who has offered a great deal of value that even conservative economists admit.”
He was certainly rated as a premier economist in the 19th century. If by “great” you mean “unparalleled influence, for good or evil”, he ranks at or near the top. I’d think a century of unmitigated failure and unimaginable human misery should have some bearing on his stature today.
You are right that his insights should be taken on their own merits.
Jim P. ==
I’m certainly not widely read in economics, but I have read a few books on the subject. Try the introductory classic “The Worldly Philosophers” of Robert HEilbroner for an explanation of why Marx is so highly regarded in some fundamental ways. For instance, he was the one who finally understood the function of money in an economic system, an understanding without which there would be no theory of capitalism either.
Ya see, you, being a male, need intellectual heroes and villains too. So you’re incapable of being objective about someone you loathe.
By the way, the first person I ever heard say anything good about Karl Marx was Msgr. John K. Ryan, Dean of the School of Philosophy at C. U. He likened Marx to one of the Old Testament prophets because of Marx’s powerful denunciation of those who take advantage of the poor. For Marx it was a moral matter, if not a religious one. Had Msgr. been a junior faculty member at a state institution at the time he could have been fired for what he said. That’s how bad the total prejudice against Marx was in those days. Obviously, it continues in some people. Too bad. You’d think the recession we’re suffering would have taught the country not to trust capitalists as the guys in the white hats. But, again, heroes and villains. Americans can’t get enough of them.