Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we’d want to get involved. – Bill Gates
[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]While the GOP pats itself on the back for trotting out a young unknown to neutralize the Democrats’ own young-but-no-longer-unknown, the young unknown from Alaska firmly established her credentials to be McCain’s running mate: ignorance about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the willingness to let the State pay her a per diem allowance for working at home (while she and her husband have six-figure salaries) It’s an appropriate match between a woman whose appeal to social regressives masks questionable fiscal knowledge and the man who openly admitted to being ignorant of economics. And it’s not surprising, either: ignorance and Republican economics go together like flies and…rotten fruit. At the heart of it all, of course, is the GOP’s greatest phobia: the fear of – brace yourself – “wealth redistribution.” Siding with the Sheriff of Nottingham against the “villainous” Robin Hood, Republicans fear, above all, that Democrats will just take money from the rich and give it to everyone else.
Underlying the fear is a model of wealth that sees people going off into the desert, working really hard, and coming back with riches to face the unwashed masses’ thievery. Where does the money come from? The sky, apparently. But wealth doesn’t occur in the vacuum as the result of a single person’s labour. In fact, wealth is a social phenomena. It is, indeed, the very definition of redistribution: from the many to the few. Consider these examples:
• An indie film star will work just as long and hard as a Hollywood movie star yet not command millions of dollars in salary. The reason: Hollywood movies are exposed to larger audiences whose combined ticket-buying power brings in more revenue than art-house movies. With a film bringing in more money, actors can demand a greater slice of the pie.
• A major league ballplayer can also command millions of dollars in salary, but he doesn’t play harder than a minor league player or an Olympic baseball player. Yet, the major league pro can get more money because major league fans, combined, spend much more money on tickets.
• A musician plays for 2 solid hours in front of an audience of 30 in a small venue. Is that less work than the musician who plays for 2 solid hours at the Staples Center? No, it isn’t.
The key point is that the amount of money for actors, sports figures, musicians, has as much to do with how large their audience is and how much money they spend as it does with how hard they work. Another quick-and-dirty example:
• Stock investors buy low, sell high, and make money in the process. Lots of money. Socially approved gambling, to some extent. And the tax code, not to mention all those complicated investment mechanisms, help create novel ways of making money. Do stock millionaires really work harder than anyone else – enough to justify their millions? Can stock investment even be considered work? Similar questions could be asked of real estate moguls.
How about a more traditional scenario, that of the service- or product-oriented corporation. Why is it that only owners and upper management of a company get a shot at wealth? The serfs work at the pleasure – and benefit – of the lord managers, whose rule entitles them to the fruit of their labour and that of their employees. This aristocrative mindset is blatantly self-serving – selfish, really – as it actively denies workplace reality. For a company to function, it takes both management and employees. Remove either, and the company doesn’t work so well. So however much company owners work hard for their wealth, the hard work of their employees is just as vital in bringing wealth to the company. Management shouldn’t be seen as “above” employees, but in partnership with them.
Republican Elitism – Commoners Be Gone!
I suspect this sort of egalitarian view would offend the Republican elitism recently expressed in a piece by Ari Noonan. Taking aim at – who else? – Obama, Mr. Noonan complains that Democratic tax plans amount to “Old-fashioned wealth redistribution, moving great gobs of perspiringly earned income from the Hardworking to the Hardly Working.” I have to ask, though: who, exactly, are these hardly working middle class people? I don’t know who they are. I’ve never seen them – all the middle class people I’ve met in my life have held jobs and worked hard to get where they are – and I doubt Republicans have either. Like the lazy and stupid people who apparently make up the poor (in the Republican mindset), the myth of the hardly working middle class is a convenient fiction for Republicans – it allows them to dismiss the suffering and struggles of others. Even acknowledging Mr. Noonan’s statistics that the small wealthy minority pay a disproportionately large share of taxes, how many tears can we shed for folks who can afford these and still not have to work a day in their lives?
The point isn’t to vilify success – success is a good thing, obviously – or to declare open season on the upper classes’ bank accounts, but to acknowledge that there’s more to success than an individual’s hard work. The entertainer/performer owes his wealth to his audience. The merchant owes her wealth to her customers. To ask that they give something back – in proportion – to the society that gave so much to them isn’t unreasonable.
Postscript: As news comes in of more financial meltdowns, of a severe drop in industrial output, and other troubles, whatever faults the Democrats have, it’s elitism that makes Republicans singularly unable to understand, let alone address, the country’s economic woes. It certainly won’t be Sen. John “I don’t remember how many homes I own” McCain who will relate to middle- and lower-class worries.
Discuss this and other articles at Frédérik’s blog (frederik-sisa.blogspot.com).
