Greg: My Failed Attempt to Answer Every Concern

Jack,

I think you're right.  I think that I need to respond very directly to the points that you made several posts ago and I can see that I've left you unsatisfied.  Perhaps we actually agree on more than we think we do since I actually do consider myself a capitalist and believe it to be the best way to generate wealth.  So this response will be divided into two sections.  First, I will pull some quotes or points from your most recent e-mail, offering a brief response and then, second, I will return to the post of your blog dated September 5 in order to respond directly to the seven answers you gave.

Part 1

First, you claim, "the level of poverty is stunningly low in our nation."

My response:  Of course American poverty is low if you compare it to underdeveloped or so-called "third-world" countries!  And I am sure you'd attribute the difference between the "first world" and the "third world" to the form of capitalism that has dominated in Europe and North America.  In part, I'd agree (although I'd also point out that our systematic exploitation of native peoples -- both in North America and in the subaltern world -- might have even more to do with our modern prosperity and their poverty).  

Yet in our own nation I'd hardly call poverty "stunningly low" in light of the facts.  According to the most recent census data, 16% of Americans currently live at the poverty level and 20% of children do.  These are our highest poverty levels since 1993.  In fact, 1 out of 6 children live in homes that cannot provide consistent access to adequate food.  And without government programs such as SNAP, WIC, subsidized school lunches, etc. these children might literally have nothing to eat.  Astonishingly, most Americans (58.5%) will spend at least one year in poverty between the ages of 25 and 75.  And currently there are an estimated 643,000 homeless people living in the U.S.  These are not "stunningly low" numbers; I'd call them "stunningly high."

You also said, "In order to find even the small amount of poverty we do, and to make it seem large enough that we would need government's forceful hand to correct it, we have to keep on redefining poverty upward.  Where once it meant widespread lack of food and shelter; today it means not feeling confident that these will continue, or receiving less material goods than others."  I am not knowledgable enough to know if the standards used to define poverty have shifted as you say.  But let me be clear:  I am not calling for more than a minimal safety net to meet the very basic needs of those in the most desperate of circumstances.    Yet I would ask, Jack, at what point exactly do you go from saying that there is a "stunningly low" level of poverty to an amount worth our collective attention?  When the number of homeless tops a million?  When the number of food insecure children rises from 15.9 million to 16 million?  Because to me, our poverty already seems quite noteworthy.  

Meanwhile, you praise the entrepreneur as the real hero of the story.  Yet if we are to witness the emergence of those meritorious entrepreneurs from among said 15.9 million, is it not fair that we as a society ensure that the 15.9 mil are provided with a stable learning environment, quality education, basic healthcare, and similar (dare I say "equal"?) opportunity to that of their middle and upper class peers?  Otherwise, the expectation that these unfortunate children (who simply, it would seem, lost the lottery at birth) will be able to participate in the free market at the same stratum and with the same wherewithal as their peers will be able is unrealistic.  The game is rigged.  The starting lines are uneven.  I can't beat you in a game of Monopoly with an inheritance of one house on Mediterranean and Baltic while you inherit hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk, no matter who ingenious I may be.  The proposition that seems so scandalous to so many laissez-faire libertarians is actually rather modest: Let's be proactive a making sure the game isn't rigged before it starts.

Second, you state, "The process of hiring the labor puts more income into the laborer's pocket than he could earn elsewhere, and so his wealth has increased.  That is how people escape poverty, and there is no other way."  I agree with that statement.  But why are there so many who are willing to work in the inner cities who have no businesses willing to hire them?  I'll answer that.  Because those who live in impoverished locations are oftentimes unreliable, difficult to work with, untrained in the etiquette and basic manners of the middle class, sometimes mentally ill, and even tend to be felons, etc.  So we have a quandry:  1) Poverty is alleviated when laborers are hired, but 2) those who can hire chose not to hire in the places of the greatest poverty.  The only solution that I can see is that profits must not be the primary goal of the businessman and businesswoman.  Of course, we do see some examples of this taking place, but they are precious few.  The truth is that, left to self-interest alone and the guidance of the invisible hand (and when we say "the invisible hand," do we not mean basic human nature?), the businesses go elsewhere.  What proposal then, based upon the free market, do you offer that will help people "escape poverty" since "there is no other way"? 

As for point three, you point out to me that hospitals were originally created by Christians -- which is why so many bear the names of saints and biblical characters.  Yay!  We're finally on my turf.  I am a church historian.  And you are exactly right.  The irony in the context of our conversation is that these hospitals you point to were not created for the generation of profit.  In fact, the idea that someone might profit from the care of one who is ill would have been considered unthinkably immoral.  Hospitals were originally set up as agencies of Christian hospitality, a tradition dating back to Abraham which demanded care for the guest because the guest her/himself is an end in and of her/himself.  To treat the guest as a means to another end (i.e. profit) was inconcivable to early Christians yet it is the reason the modern medical-industrial complex exists.  If only we had some Christians today who were more committed to treating people ends in and of themselves as opposed to putting profits first (whether in the insurance industry, the medical field, or all those jobs in between). But the system has made us all guilty and made it impossible to treat individuals as ends in themselves.  In other words, I believe Capitalism has offered an alternative religion.

As for your forth point, which states, "There are two kinds of compassion:  one which speaks compassionately and likes to persuade or compel others to behave benevolently but gives little personally; and the other which actually gives, from their own means, to those who suffer.  The first we call "liberal Democrats"; the second "conservative Republicans."  Wait now, that sounded snarky, you're thinking.  It comes from a recent census study by economist Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University, currently president of the American Enterprise Institute; published in his recent book, 'Who Really Cares.'"   Yes, I do think it is snarky.  And, worse, I think it falls into the logical fallacy of a false dichotomy.  Nevertheless, I won't argue with you on this.  Republicans are generous.  I know many who are -- including most of my family.   I'll just points out that it is logically possible to hold the position that for the sake of the poor it is necessary to BOTH give generously from your own wallet AND also advocate for a progressive tax.  I, and many I know, fall into that category.  I think these dichotomies (and stereotypes) are unhelpful.

Fifthly, you state, "When I say government is inefficient I mean that government has wasted resources that could have done far more for these poor had they been left in the hands of those who created the resources.  The government action, in the big picture, has left the poor worse off than they would have been."  My response is quite simple.  Those resources that would have been saved would simply not be in the hands of the poor.  To claim that they would have been is a tremendous leap of faith.  Such resources would be in the hands of those who control the means of production.  Without "directed" distribution of resources, we know that the bottom 40% of the people control only 0.2% of the wealth while the top 5% of the population controls 61.9% of the population.   So when you talk about how the social safety net "wastes resources," you're right.  But it just wastes the resources of the top 5%.  (Link to the academic paper -- it is from 2007 so things may have shifted a bit:  http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_589.pdf).  It is far more likely that dollar X would go for a yacht for someone making six figures than it would go for a childcare payment for the single mother trying to make ends meet on about $20,000 per year, and given the extreme wealth disparity in our nation, it seems disingenuous to me to suggest that the "waste" caused by reallocating funds for the poor actually damages the poor by, in essence, "wasting resources that could have done more for [them]."

On your last point you say, "[P]oor families, over spans of a decade or two, cease to be poor.  Only a few of those in the lowest quintile of family income--maybe 3-5% of them--remain there after a US census or two.  And that fact does, in fact, come from the US census."  Now that's odd.  First, because it doesn't line up with my experience at all (or the that of my many, many friends who work in the inner city), but, hey, if you have the data, then who am I to argue?  But secondly, it seems strange, in light of that data, for you to make the claim on Sept. 5 that when "poor people come to depend on government support, they sometimes set up multi-generational behavior patterns and forget what it might be to be a productive, self-supporting person."  After all, you can't have it both ways.  

Now, at this point, Jack, I just want to say that this debate is not personal.  I may sound very passionate and that I because I am and it is because I care very deeply, but it is not because I am angry at you or at any other of my conservative family or friends who genuinely believe that the government should not have a role to play in poverty alleviation (beyond what you have suggested such as enforcing private property laws, etc.)  That said, I will move on to the second section and try to address, very briefly the points you made in the blog of September 5.

Part II

1.  The primary point here seems to be that 1) welfare programs de-incentivize people from working and 2) it wastes valuable resources.  As for the first, I believe that is entirely untrue when you consider who very low the standard of living is for the person who lives off of the system.  This is why I believe that welfare and unemployment benefits should remain low (as they are) so that there is still plenty of incentive for such people to find work.  (SSI and Disability is different and I think those should be higher since those are people who CANNOT work even if they wanted to).  It boils down to the question of how much incentive you think is appropriate.  Let's take two scenarios.  In the first, if you don't work, you starve and your kids starve.  End of story.  In the second, you don't starve, but you also don't enjoy the delicious foods you see others eating around you; you don't get to clothe your children in new, quality clothes for schools so that they avoid insults; you don't get to s occassionally plurge and celebrate a birthday or vacation; you don't get to buy that car you've always dreamed of.  Now, in my opinion, the first scenario is just plain cruel.  Does it provide incentive to work?  Of course it does!  It provides very strong incentive.  The second scenario also provides incentive though.  Does it provide as much as the first?  Perhaps not.  And yet I believe it provides plenty of incentive for any able-bodied man or woman to try to find work and become a productive member of society.  

As for the wastefulness of resources, I believe I've already discussed that earlier.  In my view, a somewhat wasteful program that cares for the vast needs of the poor is better than no program at all.  You counter that it is wasteful and that this actually hurts the poor because the resources that are wasted could actually end up back in the hands of the poor themselves.  I counter with that:  yeah, right.  When the top 5% of the population controls 61.9% of the wealth and the lower 40% of the population controls 0.2% of the wealth, I'm highly skeptical that much of that those "wasted resources" are going to "trickle down" to the lowest of the low.  Those facts, combined with the church's pitiful efforts at poverty alleviation in our own nation -- let alone around the world -- leave me gladly accepting the crumbs that fall from the government's table.  I believe it's the best option that the poor have right now.

2.  You write,  "It was good for both sides, since the business owner got low priced labor and the new workers got the best pay they'd ever had.  They're both exploiting each other; but for some reason only the employer is accused of 'exploitation.'"  First off, I think you misunderstand me terribly.  I never have and never will accuse a businessman or woman who deliberately enters the inner city to create jobs of being an exploiter.  Yet your answer baffles me since I was involved in many conversations for many years, trying (begging) businessmen to set up shop in the inner city, but to no avail.  The last sentence of this quote aside, this investment in the inner cities simply is not happening at all in our nation today. And where it IS happening, it is happening by Christians who are deliberately setting aside the pursuit of profit as their number one agenda (a violation, I might add, of capitalism's rulebook).  Either that, or the businesses are being built in areas of cities that are being gentrified, which is an entirely different endeavor.  

The first part of your answer though, I agree with.  I think you are right that the ability of people to set up their own businesses and begin to sell and trade is a wonderful solution to poverty.  One problem:  As you know, setting up a business requires capital.  Where does that come from for a typical inner city family?  Problem 2:  You must have consumers:  Where do they come from?  And where do they get the money to buy your product?  In other words, I really like your answer in theory, but what does it look like in practice on a large scale in modern urban America?

3. Perhaps we need to have a discussion about the word "free."  I think we use it in different ways.  The way that the word "free" and "freedom" is used by John Locke and the Post-Enlightenment thinkers such as those who drafted the American constitution (Jefferson, etc.) had a very different understanding of freedom than did the authors of Scripture.  When Jesus speaks of freedom, he means something very different than the economic freedom you speak of in your posts.  We should discuss this because we could easily start talking past one another and equivocating on our terms.  That's not a response; just a reflection.


Know what? I think I'm going to stop here.  First of all, because I'm tired and I think I've addressed a lot of material already, but also because as I look ahead I see some topics coming up that will take some posts in and of themselves.  So I've tried to response more directly to your ideas.  If I still am too indirect, I apologize.  I'm not an economist and so you'll have to give me some grace for writing outside of my academic discipline.   But, beyond that, I'm not a logical positivist not even a foundationalist.  So perhaps were are dealing with some differences in our epistemological assumptions.  I suppose any discussions of this nature must begin with defining the philosophical and epistemological methods, mustn't they?  And perhaps that is part of our problem.  I read history different than you.  I imagine I have a very different theology than you.  And I likely have arrived at a different idea of "the good" than you.  And perhaps that is precisely what makes our conversations so interesting.  Till next time...

- Greg

(And I really MUST stop neglecting my Ph D studies for this.  Paul Ricour, Hamid Dabashi, and Achille Mbembe are calling my name and they won't stop until I appease them).

Greg: "The Poor are Just Lazy" and Other Devilish Lies

“So wickedly, devilishly false is that common objection, ‘They are poor, only because they are idle’.” - John Wesley, 1753

Jack,

There is so much to address here.  I feel like we are juggling a dozen topics all at once. Part of the reason I take so long in replying is because it always seems like such a daunting task to write on this wide set of issues.  So, for the sake of clarity and to keep this exercise more enjoyable for myself, I will respond to only one or two of your points right now.  Perhaps we can cycle back around to some of the other ones at a later time.

In this post, I want to state why I disagree with your contention that government programs aimed at poverty alleviation actually make matters worse.  First of all, conservatives just love to point to the worst abuses of the welfare system, medicare, etc. in order to justify their opposition to providing a just and robust safety net for those in need.  To be sure, you can find examples of those who abuse the system -- plenty of them.  But is this as widespread as you and many others claim?  I do not believe that it is.  Not long ago one of my research professors investigated the welfare system and found that, at the time of his study, of those currently on welfare, 70% had been on it for less than two years.  Another 20% or so had been on it less than five years.  And only 7% of those on welfare could be considered "chronic abusers" of the system.  To hear some conservatives talk, you'd think the inverse of these figures would be true.

The fact is that the majority of those Americans who are caught in poverty genuinely desire to work and would prefer to have a job as opposed to receiving a handout.  My own experience as a pastor and community organizer in the inner city for four years confirmed this fact for me.  Far from the picture that many paint of the poor as lazy couch potatoes who would prefer to draw a free paycheck instead of doing an honest day's work (and there ARE those people, but they are a very small minority -- 7% is about right according to my own encounters with hundreds of people), most are eager to work and are even willing to do menial tasks or hard labor -- tasks that I would personally hate to do -- for a minimum wage paycheck if it were available to them.  In fact, whenever I announced a job opening at our weekly food pantry, I would have people lining up to ask me about how they could apply.  One time one of my co-workers announced a free class would be offered to help people acquire basic employment skills such as learning how to dress for an interview, what businesses look for and expect from their employees, etc. and we literally had to keep going back to make more copies of the flyer we had created because the demand was so great.  And when I managed to acquire a database of business in the area that hired felons, I ran out of copies of the list on a weekly basis.  No matter what the talking heads may say about the poor, no one will convince me that they are a mass of leeches on society unwilling to lift a finger to help themselves.  Instead, a whole host of factors contribute to chronic unemployment in the inner city.  Allow me to offer just a few scenarios/factors from real life:

- Teens (and adults) who want to get a job but literally have nothing presentable to wear to an interview.  I knew a teenage girl whose mother would sell her daughter's clothes for drugs.  The girl kept wanting to apply for a job, but every time we'd buy her a set of clothes for the interview, they would be gone by the next morning.

- Being geographically located in an economic desert in which jobs are simply unavailable.  And being unable to find transportation every day to the suburbs or downtown where businesses are actually hiring.  Public transit is the best option for most of in this situation, but even coming up with bus fare on a daily basis can be very difficult for the unemployed.  And it doesn't help when local politicians keep cutting funding for public transit.

- Inadequate access to computers and the internet for the purposes of finding job listings and submitting applications.  Some have called this the "technology gap."  Middle and upper class families take for granted the tools they have in their own homes for research and communication.  Job hunting is immensely more difficult when you have no internet, no computer, no phone, and sometimes no electricity at home.  (This is one reason I fought so hard to keep our local public library branch open in our neighborhood.  Our Republican mayor wanted to shut it down -- along with five other branches in inner city neighborhoods -- but together we raised such a fuss that he had to back down.  Interesting that he didn't propose shutting any libraries down in the wealthy suburbs.  If you're interested in this, here's a link for you: NUVO article )

- Lack of basic social skills make employers less likely to hire people who speak with improper grammar, who are unfamiliar with protocols of etiquette that middle class folks learn by osmosis, who struggle with issues of literacy, etc.  Not to mention racial discrimination which is still a very serious issue even in 2013.

- If the only job you qualify for is manual or physical labor (and it usually is if you're a high school drop-out), then what do you do if you deal with chronic pain?  Or if you've been restricted from lifting anything over 10 lbs by your doctor?  This automatically eliminates you from a huge percentage of the jobs available in your area.

- Young adult males who can make ten to twenty times as much money selling drugs on the corner than competing for that one position that just opened up at the Dollar General down the street.  Capitalists are right about this:  human beings are rational and will do what they need to do to survive.

- Felons who are immediately disqualified from 95% of employment opportunities before the interview even begins.

- The woman whose husband has abandoned her with three children that she alone must care for and who somehow must find a way to job hunt and hold down a full-time position that will actually be profitable after deducting the costs of childcare.

- Middle aged workers whose parents require constant medical care and attention and who cannot afford the expense of a nursing home or elderly living facility.

These are only a few examples of the obstacles that the poor face when seeking employment (and I'm sorry they are so roughly written -- I'm typing this all very quickly because otherwise it won't get done).  Of course, the government is not the answer to all of these problems.  No one is saying that.  But some of these issues can either be exacerbated or alleviated according to how as a society we choose to address them.  

I submit to you that the "invisible hand" does very little to rectify much of what I've listed above.  Guided purely by self-interest and the pursuit of profit, a business owner will simply not choose to locate her business where the threat of break-ins is constant, where the workforce is uneducated, where the base of consumers have little to no disposable income, where real estate prices are in free fall, where the broken down infrastructure makes "importing" and "exporting" supplies through the economic desert a hassle, and so on.  If businesses are to be located in the inner city in order to provide jobs for the urban poor, the business owner must be motivated by more than the bottom line.  They must see it as their mission.  (There are examples of this being done in our country -- often by Christians -- and I applaud those efforts.  But they are far too few.)  The invisible hand does not provide that sense of mission.

Meanwhile the government can actually address some of the issues in productive ways.  We can provide cheap (or free!) public transportation.  We can maintain a robust and well-funded system of public libraries in order to lessen the technology gap.  We can ensure that the poor have basic healthcare so that a freak accident like a broken arm doesn't cause a family to go bankrupt.  We can fund our schools and pay our teachers adequately so that every child in our nation can learn to read and excel academically.  We can provide funds for counselors, psychiatrists, and social workers who want to address the complexities of poverty on an individual level and bring healing to damaged minds.  We can fund summer lunch programs in the park so that children don't have to go hungry three months each year.  We can provide re-entry programs for rehabilitated felons seeking to enter the workforce.  We can provide programs like Jobs for Life that equip unskilled workers with basic tools to make themselves more employable.  I could go on and on and on.  But here's the thing:  doing these things costs money.  Money isn't the ultimate solution, but it is an important part of the equation.  And the question I am asking is this:  As the richest nation that has ever existed in the history of the world, can we find enough money to make sure that our poor are given ample opportunity to work themselves up and out of poverty?  Will we collective address on a system-wide level the systemic causes of poverty in our nation?  And when people do hit hard times due to loss of a job or major medical issues, will we provide a safety net to catch them when they fall and see them through until they can get back up on their feet?  I believe we can.  And as a Christian I believe that we have a moral obligation to see that it gets done.  

Next time I write, I want to address this frequent claim by libertarians and conservatives that taxes are theft.  But I think I should wrap up this post for now.  I'm enjoying this dialog so let's keep it up. My replies may be somewhat infrequent in coming months due to how busy my Ph D work is keeping me, but I will reply eventually.

Be Well,

Greg

Greg: The Uneven Starting Line

Jack,

The time has finally come for me to reply.  It's been a hectic few weeks.

For the sake of clarity, I'm going to try to summarize your main points.  You can correct me if I'm wrong.

1.  Humans CREATE wealth through their own work and effort and ingenuity.

2.  Since an individual creates his own wealth, he or she alone has the right to that wealth.  No one should be allowed to take that away.

3.  A proven method of attaining human happiness is through "earned success" (i.e. the rewards of hard work).  (By the way, I do not dispute that; I would dispute that it is the only or even the primary means to happiness).

4. All of the great captains of industry created wealth out of thin air; they did not steal it from others.  Their actions are morally praiseworthy.

5. A free market system delivers greater justice and greater happiness to people than any other system.

I realize that I've offered an oversimplification of your points, but I think that's the basic gist of what you're driving at.

So here are a few of my own thoughts.  First, are you willing to admit that there are some instances in history in which the rich gain their riches by oppressing others and using them as a means for their own end (i.e. increasing their wealth)?  An obvious example of this is slavery.  If you are willing to admit this, then the obvious follow up is "Is this still taking place today and what can be done about it?").  If you control the means of production and I do not have any capital of my own save the strength of my own muscles and the ability of my own mind, then you have me at a great disadvantage.  The starting line is not the same.  The scales are already balanced in your favor.  If I'm desperate enough, I will sell you my labor for a small amount of money in order to feed my family and, in the meantime, you profit greatly from my willingness to work for you for very little.  Thus, YOU have not CREATED the wealth; I have created the wealth and you have skimmed off all but a meager hourly wage that you must pay me -- just enough to keep me coming back.  This is, of course, what happens in Southeast Asia and throughout the world every day.  And, in order to increase your bottom line, you might skimp on maintaining the factory that I work in and after a few years -- boom -- a roof collapses and I die.  Without labor laws to protect me from you (the captain of industry), what power do I have?  Should not something be done in the name of justice and fairness to balance the scales?  

I stumbled across an interesting statistic the other day:  those who are born in the top 1% have a 99.87% chance of remaining right there in the top 1%.  How would you explain this fact?  Are those born in the top 1% that much more intelligent or beautiful or talented or strong than the rest?  I interpret it as a sign that our common notions of social mobility are a myth.

If we can agree that people do not all start with equal opportunity (do you agree with at least that?), then what do you propose ought to be a way that we even the scales?  Or is that even an effort worth undertaking?

Turning to a more theological argument, I would ask you, "How are you able to create?"  You are right that our human ability to create is a function of our being made in the image of God.  But you run the risk of sounding like Homer Simpson when he prayed before a family dinner, "Well, God, I worked hard to make the money to buy this food so thanks for nothing."  We are able to create because we have brain and brawn.  Those are God-given.  You are able to be a professor because God gave you a good mind.  Thus, in what sense is the wealth that you create by using that good mind in any way your own?  You mind is on loan from God.  Of course, the implication of this is something that I think you will agree with:  we own nothing.  We are merely stewards of what God has entrusted to us.  And this is not mere wordplay or semantics or holy-church-speak.  This has implications for our understanding of property and what we are to do with our property.  I find in the Bible a God who is particularly concerned with the poor and who demands that his people care for those poor.  In fact, God cared about them so much that he established laws to ensure that sinful human nature did not forget or neglect to care for his beloved poor. 

Out of curiosity, in your view, if a human is created mentally handicapped, then how should she or he be cared for?  How much money should they make?  Do they CREATE wealth?  If not, what is our societal obligation to them?

I think that the basic, foundational problem I have with your argument is how it assumes a rigid individualism.  In reality, we are all far more interconnected to one another than your model seems to assume.  The generation of wealth has many sources.  Yes, it can be hard work.  But other factors also come into play -- social structures, geography, inherited socio-economic status, laws, values, moral formation, social capital, etc.  

I also have a host of theological and biblical questions for you.  For example, why does Luke teach us that communal property and sharing was normative among early church members?  How compatible is the Lockean language of private property ownership with this?  What do you make of Leviticus 25 and the Jubilee laws?  There are many others but those seem most relevant to our current discussion.

For the record, I am not a socialist.  I believe in much of what you believe -- the right to work hard and earn your keep.  But I also believe that society can and ought to take certain measures to curb the excesses and abuses of the free market.  I find the current distribution of wealth in our country to be morally reprehensible.  This is because my sense of what is right and wrong are rooted in the biblical themes of love, compassion, equality, fraternity, community, the interconnectedness of human life, and a concern for the common good.  I know that you may not list the same virtues and themes from your own reading of Scripture, but then we enter into the world of biblical hermeneutics which is a world I most certainly welcome us to enter if you so desire.

Your turn.  (I actually don't like saying that because I don't believe we are having a competition here.  I'd prefer to think of us as cooperating with one another in seeking the truth.  But perhaps that emphasis on cooperation over and against competition makes me a liberal softie).

- Greg