Who is Giving to Society and Who is Leeching?

People often try to identify society's parasites - the people who take more than they deserve or contribute, those who are straining the system - whether that be "welfare queens," Wall Street execs, artists, academics, CEOs, or union members, depending on who is making the judgement.  Likewise, people locate the "providers," the selfless and generous members of society, and commonly attribute these properties to philanthropists, non-profit employees, "job creators" (i.e. CEOs), scientists, politicians, and volunteer workers.  When I look at the world from a Marxist perspective, my lists do not resemble either of those above.

The Leeches
From a global perspective, I would say that a leech is anyone making more than a living wage in the industrialized world.  Anyone who drives, in a car with GPS, listening to their iPod, to a job that enables them to sit and pee when they want to, to go home and order Thai food in the evening, and take the weekend off to sit on their leather sofa and watch Blu-Ray movies on their flat screen tv.  Anyone who has more than what they could produce by themselves (given existing level of technology) is by definition a leech.  They are taking more than their fair share and leaving the rest of the world with less.

The Givers
Obviously, I would not put the so-called "job creators" in that category because, far from actually being job-creators in any predictable sense, they are most responsible for Third World poverty, pollution, materialism, urban poverty and crime, inaccessible medical care, the alienation of the elderly, war, and violence in general.

I also do not think that scientists are contributing to society in any general sense, once you get to the end of the balance sheet.  (Click here, here, and here for a refresher on my attitude toward science.)  A lot of new technology is only enjoyed by a tiny fraction of the global population, and the production of new technologies - including even medical treatments and pharmaceuticals - is done in the service of capitalist interests, not the "common good."  In fact, the "common good" is threatened by pollution, advanced weaponry, rising costs of health care, increasing poverty, and that unquestionable "voice of authority" that has naturalized concepts of race, gender, and sexuality to the detriment of all but white, straight, middle-class males.

Academics in general are leeches.  Those with a "social interest" claim that they are going to use their research to transform society.  But who, in the whole history of academia, has actually made a dent in the social order?  Even Marx, the paragon of socially radical scholars, whose work is STILL relevant as a critique of the world system, has failed even more than a century later to actually change that system.  Intellectuals and politicians who have acted in the name of Marx have done nothing more than create some of the most violent forms of capitalism ever to have existed.  And a very scant few of the academics today are in the same league as Marx.  Most spend their days doing busy-work - rehashing their dissertation into a million dull, uninspiring variations, while participating in conferences, seminars, and journals that try to pass these turds off as Belgian chocolate - and they do all this "important" work while making a pretty nice salary, wearing clothes made by Indonesians who can barely leave the factory, eating at restaurants where they are served by people working two jobs a day, etc.  So many people are putting so many hours of labor into the material things they take for granted; and they believe they are contributing something back to those people by writing a few articles for esoteric journals.  Academics live in a comfortable cocoon.

Even philanthropists, foundations, and non-profits are NOT contributing in any meaningful way to society.  They may redistribute an insignificantly tiny fraction of the world's wealth back (yes, back) to those in need, but mostly they stand as a huge road block to systemic change.  They are a visible symbol of the possibility of progress within the current system (a lie).  They pacify and make people complacent.  The are ultimately beholden to corporate interests, and, consciously or not, actively work to maintain the status quo.  (Go here and here for more detailed discussion.)

Now, on the other hand, people who work on their own, for no salary, to comfort and aid those around them, certainly are doing something commendable.  They are contributing something.

Those who engage in protest, speak their minds, and challenge the social order are at least making attempts in the right direction.

But most of all, the biggest contributors to society are those who work hard, doing menial labor for a pittance, so that the privileged may eat, be entertained, clothe themselves, be transported, and keep their homes clean all the more easily and affordably.  In some sense these are de facto slave laborers, and they form a majority of the world's population.  The real Givers are all the assembly line workers, garment makers, servers, dishwashers, maids, auto mechanics, bus and cab drivers, grocery stockers, construction workers, miners, plantation laborers, couriers, janitors, yard workers... and I would even include teachers.

They may not choose their lifestyles and jobs (they would probably give anything for something better), but they give more than they receive, nonetheless.  And anyone who does not have the balls to work a crappy, low-paying job should never talk about "giving back," "making a difference," or "contributing" to society.

A Critique of Trickle-Down Economics

Recent use of the term "class warfare" reminds me that I still have some posts to write about language (in which, incidentally, I will be able to explain more fully the name of my blog). For now, I will once again set language aside and focus on one particular argument being made by those who decry "class warfare."

The essence of their argument is that taxes should not be raised on wealthier people because it will reduce their incentive to keep doing the things that made them wealthy in the first place - the very things that create jobs and grow the economy, thus raising the standard of living for everyone. Hence, the wealth of the country's richest citizens must be protected for the sake of the economy as a whole.

The first point (taxes reduce incentives) is more obviously ridiculous. It mirrors the argument that intellectual property rights are necessary to cultivate creativity, which I have already refuted. But beyond this, just think about what this claim is actually saying: in effect, that people would willingly choose to have less money (post-tax) so that they don't have to pay more in taxes. (Think, just as an example to illustrate a general principle: if somone could make $100,000 and pay $10,000 in taxes or $100,000,000 and pay $250,000 in taxes, who would really choose to have $90,000 rather than $750,000??) If someone really desires a lot of money, the likelihood that they will be deterred by tedious calculations concerning the increase in profit in comparison to additional required effort is fairly slim. Furthermore, there actually is not a proportional correlation between rate of profit and time/energy expended, so one cannot assume that "efforts" are any real consideration in this trade-off. It would really just be a matter of someone settling for less money overall so that they could pay less in taxes, and that is just silly, if the whole problem with taxes in the first place is that it diminishes one's income.

What about part 2 of the argument, then? Does capitalists' ability to accumulate large profits create jobs and grow the economy? The answer is "yes" according to neoliberal ideology. It is "no" according to empirical evidence and structural analysis. First, one must consider what "job creation" and a strong economy means, from a structural standpoint.

I have already commented on the role of fluctuating employment rates in a capitalist system. The important points are that 1) there is an optimal unemployment rate (and it is not zero!) to maximize profitability, and changes in employment are driven primarily by changes in productivity (in large part a matter of how the production process is organized); and 2) the creation or growth of a succesful business does not by any necessity result in more jobs. Business owners and entrepeneurs are not in that sense "job creators."

The strength of an economy is a matter of regional constraints to competition and the global organization of space/division of labor that is required for the capitalist system to function. Thus, while the economy in one area of the world may be strong, higher purchasing power/wages in one locale requires poverty in others. As a capitalist gets wealthier, some other people may become richer as a result, but overall, a lot more people will become impoverished. Everyone is linked within the global system.

Economic expansions (of the system as a whole) occur when, for a variety of reasons, capitalists are able to maintain regional constraints to competition, widen inter-regional inequalities, and keep supply within the bounds of demand. Yes, capitalists will become more prosperous, and, yes, so will some people in some regions of the world (most people will become significantly poorer), but that does not mean there is any causal relationship between capitalists' profits and the perceived "strong economy" in the "lucky" regions. Both are effects of the structural manipulations that allow for economic expansion.

For the past few decades we have been experiencing a global economic contraction. A LARGE one. It is, at its root, a crisis of overproduction. That means, quite simply, that capitalists have invested in the capacity to produce far much more than what there is demand for (or even what demand could be manufactured by the government). Our economic crisis is a crisis of too much stuff! Encouraging enterpernuership and investment will not save the economy. It will make it far, far worse.

At this point there can only be massive structural reorganization. Wealth will have to be redistributed, if only because the current distribution is so skewed as to render it unsustainable. Ironically, it is redistribution of wealth that could actually create the conditions that would allow capitalists to once again construct exploitative relationships from which they could glean massive profits. I hope that doesn't happen.

Who Are the "Job Creators"?

The upshot of my last post was that an enterprise cannot grow or generate profits without affecting everything around it in complicated ways, including the very foundations of its own success.  Nothing occurs in a vacuum, yet too often, when talking about the economy, that is how we think.

This applies particularly to the concept of "job creation."  In the U.S. that is the number one topic of conversation, and almost all of those conversations are deeply irritating to me.  People talk as if jobs are "created" primarily through the wise decisions of businessmen.  Successful businesses breed more jobs.  In fact, the word "job creator" is currently used as a euphemism for "capitalist" or "CEO."

I saw a video production from Glenn Beck that pretty well summarizes this point of view.   ...And, I cannot seem to find it online.  Since I do not want to waste my entire evening looking for it, I will describe.  Essentially, it is a children's school film, designed to counter a film or a series of films that Beck claims are shown regularly in public schools in order to brainwash children.  He proposes his film be shown instead.  The essence:  allow wealthy business men to prosper, and they will create lots of new jobs.  Okay, I don't remember any of the details, except that there were stick figure drawings, so maybe it wasn't worth even bringing it up.  However, after showing the film, Beck also commented that, because Bill Gates had the incentive to make lots of money, he built a successful company that created all sorts of new jobs in the computer and tech industries.

Job creation does not occur in a vacuum.

Bill Gates may have created some new jobs.  But what about all the jobs lost in the industries that were made obsolete by his computer technology?  What about all the potential jobs that were lost because of his monopolization of the market?  What about the jobs lost as a result of computers doing work that people used to do?

Even the simple act of creating new jobs or starting a new enterprise has all sorts of complicated effects, including job loss and the destruction of other enterprises.

Doesn't it seem just too easy that simply giving businesses tax breaks, or other such incentives, will magically create jobs and grow the economy?  It is.  That is an incredibly myopic view of economics.  When you are dealing with something as complex as the economy, nothing is that easy.