It’s Bernie’s turn. I
have, in the last series of postings, taken the occasion of Bernie Sanders’
candidacy for president to revisit a topic this blog addressed some time
ago. Since the candidate professes to be
a socialist – a democratic socialist – I thought it was timely to review our
history of how we have viewed equality.
Why? Because socialism is an
expression of one of those views and I think it is helpful to place its beliefs
alongside the other orientations we as Americans have held in relation to this
value. To date, I have re-described and
explained four of these orientations in the order in which they range from the
most elitist view to the most egalitarian view.
The first four are genetic elitism, earned elitism, equal condition, and
regulated condition. The fifth
orientation is the one Sanders ascribes to and is called equal results.
In order to give you an overall sense of what this
orientation believes, let me offer the following definition: a general belief orientation in which the
individual might hold some superior human assets, but that condition, in terms
of compensation, mostly entitles the person to limited, higher status. All monetary compensation should be based on
labor value determinations which in practice equates labor efforts with equal
monetary compensations. Also,
accumulation of monetary assets is highly restricted to avoid anyone from
attaining unequal advantages either financially or politically. Ideally, distributions of responsibilities
are to be based on merit, which includes faithfulness to the equal condition
doctrine. Of course, this is in its
purest form. All policies that would be
needed to apply this definition in its entirety would have to be legislated in
a democratic socialist system – which is what Sanders professes. In addition, it is still unclear how “pure”
Sanders is. Even with a long political
career, his exact stand on many issues lacks specificity. The campaign will surely dot some of the “i”s
and cross some of the “t”s. But let me
flesh out some of the ideas composing this orientation.
In the last posting, I presented the basic ideas proposed by
the late philosopher, John Rawls. His
two main relevant ideas regarding equality are (1) the notion that justice is
the product of a people/group establishing the basic rules of their arrangement
when no one knows beforehand what his/her status will be once the arrangement
is formulated and (2) that once one analyzes the reasons for anyone’s success,
one can only attribute limited attribution to a person’s effort for said success. Both of these factors lead one to limit any
compensation one is apt to receive relative to market determinations. Last, Rawls argues for assistance for those
not so privileged under the consideration that life can and does visit misfortune
on potentially anyone – “there but for the grace of God go I.”[1] If we take the
ideas of John Rawls and like-minded thinkers to a heightened degree, we still approximate
the fifth orientation, equal results.
Advocates of equal results hold that since people
have little control over the abilities they enjoy, they should not be entitled
to any financial benefits beyond those that others are able to secure. In terms of our economic system, not only are
those with rare gifts in high demand skill areas compensated way above what
they deserve, they can accumulate such financial benefits – accumulate capital
assets, that is – and use them to further their advantage to the detriment of
those not so advantaged.[2] This is, in the equal results advocates view,
immoral because it is basically unfair.
The beliefs of the equal results orientation are:
1. A person’s abilities are
primarily developed from social conditions over which the person has little to
no control. Therefore, a person who is
able to secure a very high income is taking advantage of benefits he or she had
little to do with in acquiring them.
2. A person’s rewards for
work should not reflect the randomness in the distribution of skills with which
some might be blessed and should, therefore, in order to be fair, be pretty much
the same as that of others.
3. The height of unfairness
in capitalist economic arrangements is that some can earn in a few days what
takes others to save in a lifetime.
4.
We pay very little attention to a person’s merit, as a person, in
determining what rewards he or she is able to acquire. Instead, we focus on marketable skills or other
arbitrary assets that a person has.
5. All people’s labors are fundamentally equal
and the pay received should not vary much.
The only difference among their labors is simply that they are
different. Highly paid workers or
business owners are not the only providers of hard work. Laborers also work very hard. Therefore, labor should be more or less seen
in terms of equal value. An example: the
movie star who performs in front of a camera should not make so much more than
the cameraman or woman who works behind the camera. Both are equally
responsible for the product produced.
You might think these beliefs are highly
un-American. Well, not so fast. There have been prominent Americans who have
espoused such views or views that are similar.
Eugene V. Debs comes to mind; he was a prominent labor leader and
presidential candidate in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century. Don't get me wrong; his views
were never that popular, yet he did represent a tradition of thought that
harkens back to political thinkers of the past from the more obscure John
Ruskin to, at least to some degree, Henry David Thoreau.
Of course, there are Marxian-socialist ideals
contained within these beliefs, but they also can be found in the works of Leo
Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi. In America,
such beliefs seem to have gotten more traction during times of extreme
exploitation of laborers, such as during the industrial revolution of the late
1800s, or during harsh economic times in the Great Depression. More recently, as I am indicating in this
series of postings, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has attracted many
followers. Reported disparities currently characterizing our income and wealth
distributions might have something to do with Sanders’ popularity. The results of today’s primary election in
New Hampshire will indicate how popular the Vermont senator is among the
Granite State’s Democrats.
All socialists, at least to some degree, espouse
Marxian principles. For a dramatization
of such advocacy, see the film, Reds,
starring Warren Beatty, who was also the film's producer and director. Many adherents to these beliefs have derived
them from religious teachings as in the case of Tolstoy and his view of
Christianity. Others, like Marx himself,
view such beliefs in a more “scientific” fashion, claiming that economic
realities will evolve or erupt into a system where such beliefs will take
actual form in resulting social and economic relations and institutions.
Let me focus a bit on Karl Marx, considered the
father of socialism. Influenced
by the philosopher Hobbes, Karl Marx saw the eventuality of a socialist state –
one in which productive property would be owned in common – as inevitable. In his view, the development of society is
simply the product of deterministic laws in which people, following their
nature of being hedonistic egoists - a la
Hobbes – are just pursuing their selfish interests. This pits people in antagonistic
relationships, according to the economic classes in which they find
themselves. In the case of socialism,
this inevitable system will take hold as a result of the conflict among the
business class, the bourgeois, and the laborers, the proletariat. The proletariat will prevail according to
Marx – a “scientific” eventuality.
In terms of policy, such a takeover, if past
socialist programs are an indication, will call for a stronger to a much
stronger presence of government in the operations of our economy. For example, Sanders is calling for free
college tuition and a single payer system of healthcare. The single payer will be government and that
calls for higher taxes. If his other
goals follow the socialist lead, we can anticipate his presidency to seek other
programs where government involvement will call for even higher taxes. He often cites the fact that other advanced
countries provide for certain public services.
He often reminds us that we are the only advanced country that does not
provide universal healthcare. If you
compare tax rates between those countries and ours, ours are a lot lower. According to Tax Policy Center, in 2008, tax
rates of many European countries are 40 percent of GDP, while the US is 7
percent of GDP.[3]
In a capitalist nation, equal compensation would
be approached, more than likely, through taxation instead of mandating
equalized pay schedules. Someone’s gross
pay might be quite a bit higher than someone else’s, but after taxes the
effective pay rate will be more equal.
In so doing, we would approach, if not reach, the Marxian
principle: “From each according to his
[her] ability, to each according to his [her] needs.” For those who live by this dictum, he or she
is worthy of higher status among his/her comrades. Whether or not this represents Bernie Sanders’
thinking, I’m sure the upcoming campaign will give us a clearer understanding
of how Marxian Sanders is.
[1]
Of course, you are welcome to visit the last
posting to read a lengthier description of Rawl’s ideas.
[2]
In a recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist, Thomas
Piketty, argues that due to the accumulation of capital, there has developed an
entrenched class that is benefiting from the income based on that
capital. See Piketty, T. (2014).
Capital in the Twenty-First
Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment