On a previous post, Kathryn Fenner had the following to say (sort of taking off on something Phillip had said) about our economic and political systems:
Free market capitalisn is the best system going for creating wealth, but it is really poor at distributional equity. You have to redress it somehow, or the disenfranchised will reinstate a Hobbesian jungle, and kill the freedom of the market. In a really capitalist society, the capitalists drive around in bullet-proof limos and hide behind gated compounds while the rest of the society scraps and scrounges…many “developing” nations are like this.
In response to both, I wrote a series of comments, and for the sake of coherence, I will now edit them together as the rest of this post…
That’s not capitalism; that’s oligarchy. You find it in totalitarian systems (Stalinist Russia) with a small “Inner Party” with exclusive access to foreign goods, or in strongman-type dictatorships (such as with the Caudillos you see so much in Latin American history). And despite what Occupy Wall Street may think, that’s not what we have.
For capitalism to work, you need a thriving middle class (and NOT the bullet-proof oligarchs). Businesses need customers and skilled workers. There needs to be lots of unfettered economic activity.
This, by the way, is why all of those people turned out for that announcement Friday. Far from being just the “politicians” Doug universally despises, it was a cross-section. Yes, there were politicians of all stripes — and one of the wonderful things about an event like this is that Democrats and Republicans are happy to celebrate together, which is a good thing for the Republic.
But there were all sorts of representatives of business and academia. People I run into everywhere — Rotary, church, on Facebook, Twitter, etc. It was sort of like the last episodes of “Seinfeld,” when all these memorable characters from previous episodes crop up. Everywhere you turn, recognition. And they are people you don’t normally see together.
(At one point, Page Ivey — now with USC, formerly of the AP, formerly of The State — and I were standing near Bobby Hitt, and she remarked that it was like being in The State’s newsroom in the late 80s. I said something about The State having sent two writers, and she corrected me — yes, Jeff Wilkinson is still with The State, but Chuck Crumbo was with Columbia Regional Business Review. THAT publication had sent two — Chuck, and Jim Hammond, also formerly of The State. By the way, Chuck had also once worked at The Wichita Eagle, where I had been in the mid-80s. Memories of past lives, everywhere.)
Even Walid Hakim from OC fit into that category. He and I sit on the Community Relations Council board. He’s a nice guy and a very dedicated, helpful board member. I enjoy conversing with him. He, too, was attracted by the promise of new economic activity, if only to protest it.
It was particularly fitting that so many ex-newspaper types were there (and I didn’t name all of them I saw). A weakened newspaper, which is what The State and so many others were going into 2008, is like a canary in the coal mine for the local economy. If things slow down, or suddenly seize up the way they did in September of that year, the already-distressed newspaper keels over. Newspapers, relying almost entirely on advertising for life, are enormously dependent upon their communities thriving economically.
I’m acutely aware of it in the marketing game as well. As was pretty much everyone there. We can feel the fluctuations more easily than a lot of people with fixed salaries who have never seen volatility up close and personally. We all truly welcome the promise that a large new industry brings — especially one that pays a lot of people well — and how that can positively effect everyone in the community. And we have greater appreciation than my friends with The Nerve have for a community, as a community, taking on some small risk in order to encourage such growth — and an expanding industry can be one of the best kinds — in their midst.
Because for capitalism to work, everyone needs to thrive — blue collar, white collar, and yes, the Fat Cat investors. Lots of people able to buy cars and shop in the stores, and pay taxes so that we can pay for the governmental services that provide the framework for healthy economic activity — roads, parks, schools, laws that uphold private property rights.
One more point — for private and public to function together so that the whole community benefits, it is essential that people in the community have some faith in, and respect, those institutions. That is one reason why I so consistently denounce movements that are built upon the delegimization of such institutions. That includes the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, the Libertarian Party, the Sanfordistas in the Republican Party. Any movement that has its basis in lack of trust of these institutions.
Yes, by all means, point to problems with the system, as Nicholas Kristof did in that column that Phillip brought to my attention. Point to things we can fix, to make the system better.
But there is nothing worse than unfocused outcries against the system itself. Because a free and open republic in which capitalism can thrive to the benefit of all classes is the best hope mankind has yet come up with for mutual benefit in a community — or rather, in a complex web of communities, which is what we actually live in.
Man is a social animal. He does not thrive in isolation. And he interacts through institutions, from the family to the federal government, from Mom and Pop shops to large corporations. The idea is to work together to keep those institutions healthy and functioning as they should for the benefit of all, not to try to tear them down or make them pariahs or shrink them until they’re small enough to drown in a bathtub.
The movements or philosophies that would do those things are the enemies of our communities, and therefore the enemies of every one of us. And I stand against them.
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I commented in the earlier post on some of this. Let me just challenge a couple of your statements here that I didn’t address elsewhere:
1)”For capitalism to work, you need a thriving middle class.” In recent years, we have seen that this may not necessarily be true. The top 20% are actually fueled an astonishing amount of the consumer spending that took place SINCE the beginning of this economic crisis in 2008. Everywhere you look you see the signs…sales of luxury items have RISEN since 2008. How much of the boom in the financial “industries” was fueled by the top slice of the income bracket? Enormous, enormous sums of money can be made strictly within the upper quartile or so of the income distribution curve. The idea of the “jobless recovery” is the ultimate expression of this idea.
2) Your vision of capitalism such as you describe above is of course a healthier one, more akin to what we had around mid-century. And you say that what Kathryn described is “oligarchy” not capitalism, and that that is not what we have here. Well, not quite yet, but can there be any mistaking that the fundamental GOP goal is to create that oligarchy? Every policy, every plank of their economic platform is designed to cut more breaks for those in the upper 10%, and to place a higher burden on the rest of us, trying to hoodwink just enough voters to endorse these ideas. The enthusiasm with which they greeted the SCOTUS decision on corporate campaign financing is the telltale sign. The desire to remove regulation, not only to return to the conditions that led to the economic crisis, but to DOUBLE DOWN on them, should tell you all you need to know about what lies ahead if we continue down that road.
So no oligarchy here? No, not yet, but not for lack of trying.
Alas, it seems to fall to me to say this, but I must, though it ruin my reputation.
Yes, I blast the parties as destructive beasts carrying burdens of nonsense. I hold to that position.
But… I think you do the GOP an injustice. I believe they truly believe in the things they say. They truly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats — and so do I, just not in the same way they do.
When you have a few rich people high above the water, well, that’s just houses built on stilts; it’s not a rising tide. And it’s a precarious construction technique. The foundation upon they rest is not sound, and certainly not solid.
What we need is an ACTUAL rising tide. It’s what everyone wants. All the folks who turned out for the Nephron announcement want it, and welcomed that news as a sign that it is coming.
Democrats believe that you get the water to rise one way, Republicans another. I truly think both are sincere, however wrongheaded both may occasionally be. Take a look at the most fervent believers in market forces and opponents of government. They are not wealthy, even though they may aspire to wealth. They believe in the virtues of being a hard-working, doughty entrepreneur, however dimly they perceive how one succeeds on that path.
It’s not a conspiracy. If it is, it is as incoherent, as inchoate, as the OWS protests.
Armies staggering about in the night; that’s what we have. But most of them are good soldiers, believers in their respective causes.
I have no doubt the GOP leaders truly believe what they say. Why else would they be so scary? There’s no conspiracy. Their plans and proposed policies are out there in broad daylight, for all to see. I have no doubt Rick Perry believes everything he says. I have no doubt Michele Bachmann believes everything she says. Obviously Newt Gingrich believes everything he says. The fact that they are sincere makes them no less radical, no less extremist in their politics.
I must say, however, that I rather doubt Mitt Romney really completely believes everything he says, which gives me a small glimmer of hope in case he should win.
…oh and I should quickly acknowledge that Huntsman seems sincere, and the only GOP candidate who seems to bear any link to the mainstream rational conservatism of the GOP’s heritage through much of the twentieth century (the version of the GOP I believe you were trying to describe in the response to my first comment)…and consequently he’s got a snowball’s chance in you-know-where of attaining the Presidency in today’s GOP. We didn’t end up with a disappearing middle class, stagnant socio-economic mobility, and extreme inequality of wealth distribution solely because of insincerity on the part of politicians. We ended up there because of BAD, misguided policies, put in place by people WE voted for.
So sincerity in and of itself doesn’t cut it. Whether Paul Ryan or Rick Perry think we’ll end up as an more-or-less undemocratic oligarchy or not, the policies they support will get us there regardless, eventually. All we need is for a bit higher percentage of Americans to “check out” of the political system in disgust and frustration than already have. For a party that believes that the less-privileged among us have already forfeited a moral claim to a voice at the table, will those leaders really mind if that’s where we end up? After all, they will still be in the positions they always were.
Once again, a rising tide drowns those too poor to have a boat. And the ability to buy that boat has remained flat or decreased for the middle class for the past 30 years or so.
The end stage of the unchecked distributional inequities of capitalism is oligarchy.
Brad–you do realize that your acquaintance circle of unlapsed Catholics, Rotarians and South Carolina political types is hardly a cross-section of humanity, and tends toward one end of the political spectrum.
That includes you, you know.
I assure you, I’m acquainted with all sorts.
By the way, at that Nephron announcement, the only outlier was Nikki Haley. She stood out, in terms of her political views and such.
At first, I thought, she just couldn’t stay away from anything this big — even if it reflected credit upon public higher education, something everyone else there believes in. (Is that the “one end of the political spectrum” to which you refer?)
But then, when the negative people started raising questions about her connections with the Kennedys, I thought, Wow, maybe Nikki actually had something to do with this thing that reflects well upon the University as a research institution and economic engine.
In other words, I see her apparent coziness with those folks as a good thing rather than something ominous the way OC and The Nerve and others would have it. Maybe being personally invested in this will tie her to the research university in ways that never came close to happening with Sanford — those year being dark ones for public higher ed.
I put that together with Trey Walker’s new role, and I thought maybe there’s something good happening here, beyond this one announcement.
That’s what I thought.
Kathyrn pretty much stole my thunder. Of course Brad’s circle is just an extremely tiny, and elitist, segment of our population. No pot smokers or video poker players there, although I’d wager more folks smoke pot than sip appletinis. Yet Brad can construe that tiny segment of society as a cross section then go on to rant about the wonders of coming together and the noble ideals of the GOP. Seriously, what a crock. Until we recognize the increasingly inequatable distribution of wealth, a distrubution that bears little resemblance to the creation of that wealth, then we do a great disservise to the cause of economic justice through a controlled form of capitalism. No amount of ribbon cutting with smiling elitists will change that dynamic.
Brad, since you mentioned E.J. Dionne and his upcoming speech here, did you see his excellent piece today in the WaPo? Key quote, about a speech to the Heritage Foundation by Paul Ryan: “Ryan would not have given this speech if the Republican Party were not so worried that it is losing control of the political narrative. In particular, growing inequalities of wealth and income — which should have been a central issue in American politics for at least a decade — are now finally at the heart of our discourse. We are, at last, discussing the social and economic costs of concentrating ever more resources in the hands of the top sliver of our society.”
If there is one central point to OWS, that is it: to insist that “at last” we have that national conversation.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that people will actually take my Tom Wolfean pose — the bow ties and all — very seriously.
Bud, there’s no way I can refute your mistaken impression about the people I know (people I know well, people I am close to) without telling things about them — their dope-smoking, the devastation visited on their families by video poker addiction — that I really have no right to tell.
You need to realize — everyone needs to realize — that one of the most dismissive things you can assume about another person is that that person has experienced no hardship or pain, and doesn’t know anyone who has.
The practice of doing that is one of the most unpleasant characteristics of many modern liberals.
Even if I had money, which I don’t, something everyone ought to realize is that money doesn’t buy happiness. Yep, I know that’s a cliche. But that’s because it’s so true.
And Phillip, as to having the conversation you described “at last”… what in the world do you mean?
That conversation — the one about increasing income and wealth disparity, all those charts showing the vastly increased ratios between workers’ and CEOs salaries — has been going on quite vociferously for at least 20 years.
We’ve had it over and over and over. And the end result is that some people (generally Democrats) are bothered by it, and some people (generally Republicans) are not.
And then we turn around and have it again.
I’ve always found it to be a very inconclusive exercise.
The answer is to grow jobs that provide portals to the middle class. Like the ones those “elitists” Bud decries were celebrating coming to our community.
Disagree Brad. We really haven’t had a serious discussion about wealth inequality in this country until the last few months. Sure there may have been a handful of accounts giving some information about the growing disparity between the haves and have nots but mostly the media has ignored the issue. The focus until very recently has been about the national debt, a problem that most unemployed folks really could care less about.
This is the old boiling frog analogy. In the 70s there wasn’t a wealth inequality issue to any great extent. CEOs made perhaps 40 times what a good union job paid and all was well. Then along came Reagan and things began to change. The wealth gap gradually crept up and few people noticed. Unions were busted and marginalized and CEO salaries soared. Now that same gap is perhaps 400-1. And it really didn’t matter how well companies performed. Eventually union jobs gave way to lower-paying non-union jobs that paid less for comparable work. But as the frog slowly boiled no one was paying attention.
Finally within the last few months, largely because of the Occupy movement, the too-late-to-the-party MSM finally began to notice. Predictably the plutocrats cried “class warfare” in an elitist attempt to maintain or even extend the status quo. Trickle down was the order of the day, regardless of the growing wealth of evidence that it has failed miserably.
Sadly the GOP can only look at the world through the prism of the rich. Mitt Romney says just foreclose. Ron Paul says let the uninsured die. Michelle Bachmann says let the churches help folks deal with healthcare issues. To them it’s all about the rich getting a bit richer. And the rest of us be damned.
If you look at the chart of the wealth inequality gap, the biggest spike is during the internet boom years. Seem to recall there being a Democrat in the White House and the Congress under Democrat control at the time.
The wealth gap is a result of longstanding quid-pro-quo relationships between politicians and business. The wealth gap is a result of tax policy and spending bills implemented by politicians working with/for lobbyists for their own benefit.
One could also make the case that the wealth gap is a result of policies that have created more dependence on the government for support. When people feel they can get enough to get by without putting in effort, their upside potential is diminished.
This is why we need term limits, a balance budgest amendment, a flat, tax, elimination of the IRS, and large cuts in government spending to limit the amount that can be stolen. We don’t need more efforts to try to rig the system to take from A to give to B.
… I think you do the GOP an injustice. I believe they truly believe in the things they say.
-Brad
Obviously I don’t. I think they know they’re in if for the wealthy only. Anyone making less than a million is pretty much a throwaway group to the GOP elites. They only need to either trick them into believing their nonsense or disenfranchise them to achieve their diabolical goals.
From Andrew Sullivan:
“Financial services professionals (a.k.a. “Wall Street”) average $311k/year — so they technically don’t make it into the top 1% if you look at the mean. … The biggest chunk of the “top 1%” are executives and managers outside of financial services at 31%; medical professionals make up 16%; financial services professionals make up 14%; 9% lawyers.”
So are we supposed to hate the doctors and lawyers (and athletes and movie stars and the heads of the largest non-profits) who are in the 1%? Or just the 14% of the 1%?
Vincent Sheheen is a member of the 1% based on income. What is he doing to rectify this injustice?
I hadn’t noticed Vincent talking about 99 percenters and 1 percenters. Perhaps he has and I missed it, but mainly I see that towering presumption on the signs of the people on the streets.
But everything he pushes in the Legislature, from what I’ve seen, has been about helping people, including our neediest, climb up to having better lives.
@Brad
Examples, please. What has the de facto head of the Democratic Party pushed? He has been silent since he lost as far as I can tell.
I haven’t been following him around. I guess he’s out there working and earning a living like anyone.
He makes low-key appearances among the party faithful, such as this one, and keeps his options open.
Basically, he’s been a conscientious senator doing what he can to be a responsible steward to our state. Last time I talked with him back during the session, he had just gone through the budget and put up objections to non-germane provisos.
To you, that might sound like nothing, like something far to esoteric to care about. It would certainly never make a bumper-sticker slogan, such as Nikki Haley’s “Transparency (for everybody but me)” tagline.
But here’s why it’s important — those nongermane provisos have long been a favorite way that law has been surreptitiously brought about in South Carolina, without scrutiny. People tag a new law onto the budget, knowing it will pass, without it having to face any debate at all. That’s how video poker became legal and unregulated in South Carolina, for instance. Without debate. Without the public, or most of the Legislature, even being aware.
It’s a favorite way for people to get special favors from government, and do it quietly. For instance, as I recall, one of the things Vincent got tossed out this time was a day care operator who wanted a special exemption from DHEC regulations so that he wouldn’t have to have hot water in his facility. Vincent got that taken out.
That was written about in the Free Times at the time. I don’t think any other of the provisos got written about.
I see Vincent DID put a link to that on his website. But mostly he serves fairly quietly, providing service that isn’t dramatic, but which is of value to the people of our state. He’s like the cop walking a beat who prevents crimes just by being there and checking to make sure doors are locked and such. You don’t get any medals for it, but the public is served.
We need 169 more like Sheheen in the State House.
“But mostly he serves fairly quietly, providing service that isn’t dramatic”
Sounds a lot like his campaign for governor.
Like it or not, a governor has to be comfortable being out in front… he certainly hasn’t been what you’d call an instrument of change (unless that instrument was a piccolo).
People tag a new law onto the budget, knowing it will pass, without it having to face any debate at all. That’s how video poker became legal and unregulated in South Carolina, for instance. Without debate. Without the public, or most of the Legislature, even being aware.
-Brad
Sounds like we need more of that.
Again we have an argument based on form and not substance. Just because video poker is evil incarnate in Brad world it can be held up as an example that “proves” how poor our general assembly operates. But what if something really good had come to pass, like restructuring, under the same process? Would the tagging approach a good thing?
No, bud. This is not about form. It’s about a very bad way that REAL laws are made in this state.
Yes, I know you thought video poker was wonderful. A lot of other people did, too. A lot of them were addicts, since studies showed that it was the most addictive form of gambling yet devised.
And to correct your memory with some facts…
The State actually was for leaving video poker alone, before it proved (to anyone paying attention) how dangerous it was. After it became secretly legal (secret to everyone but the video poker barons), lawmakers tried to rectify that by having a referendum. The State said voters should vote “yes” to allow the machines, as long as they were regulated and paid taxes.
But they were NOT regulated.
How were they getting away with that? By fighting the regulations in court, successfully, and thoroughly intimidating lawmakers to keep them from tightening the regulations. Video poker was bringing in $3 billion a year, which meant South Carolinians were spending more on that than, to give but one example, on gasoline. That meant that they could afford the best trial lawyers, and the best lobbyists. They ran roughshod over our judicial and legislative systems. And then, when the executive branch (under David Beasley) wouldn’t play ball, they took down the governor.
And THAT, more than the lobbyists, was where video poker had its worst effect. Like the “school choice” movement more recently, VP targeted lawmakers in their primaries. And they were terrified of all that money going up against them. Therefore, they were inclined to do whatever video poker wanted.
And THAT is why it had to go. It had corrupted our system like nothing I had seen before or have seen since. That was kind of the problem with Al Capone in Chicago, too — although he used Tommy Guns rather than campaign contributions.
I don’t know why people don’t remember all that. We certainly wrote enough about it at the time. And video poker went down. Good riddance.
No, bud. This is not about form. It’s about a very bad way that REAL laws are made in this state.
-Brad
Quack, quack, quack. Seriously, just read that and see if it doesn’t say this.
This is not about form. It’s about form.
I’m not so much defending video poker here; I’ll save that for another time. What I’m suggesting is that it’s not a valid argument to suggest a bad law passed therefore the way in which our laws are passed are also bad. IF a good law had passed using exactly the same tactics would those tactics then become GOOD tactics?
Rather than focusing on HOW laws are passed, which is of NO importance to me, isn’t it better to focus on WHAT laws are passed and make good voting decisions based on that? Seems like it’s a distraction to focus on the method instead of the outcome.
HOW laws pass affect WHAT laws pass.
So you’re saying you don’t care when laws are passed without your having a chance to know what’s happening ahead of time — really?
Because THAT’S what we’re talking about here. Quackety-quack.
Are you talking me personally or our general assembly members? Shouldn’t a member of the general assembly know what they’re voting on? If not then they should vote no until they find out more. If a law can become a law without a vote in the general assembly then that would be a bad thing. Not sure that’s what you’re saying here though.
@brad
And who is passing all these laws that are tagged onto the budget? Who is initiating them – newly elected legislators or the ones who have been in office for decades? And why isn’t Bobby Harrell stopping the process? He could if he wanted to, right?
I’m hoping someday you have a Alec Guiness-esque “Bridge Over The River Kwai” moment where you realize that you’ve ignored the true cause of the problems in our government while focusing on easy targets like Nikki Haley and Mark Sanford.