Competition, Cronyism, Corruption

Jul. 09, 2019

In this tense and intensely polarized political moment, the subject of economic inequality has go one of the almost hot-button issues in the political soapbox. Every candidate in the overstuffed Autonomous principal field has acknowledged the subject and proposed one strategy or another to accost it. Predictably, pundits are fretting that these prescriptions go besides far, but what we should exist asking is whether they become far enough.

A new report on economic disparities by the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals what nosotros can already intuit: that inequality is a public health crunch and the spiraling income stratification in the U.Due south. is giving ascent to a widening gap in the health outcomes of rich and poor Americans. The study found that while race and gender go along to play a role in health disparities, since 1993 income has become the dispositive factor.

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One might not be surprised to learn that of all the groups surveyed, rich white men were found to be the healthiest, enjoying life spans of upwardly to 15 years longer than the poorest Americans. Information technology turns out that an economic system that funnels more and more than money to the already rich—a system that allows three Americans to ain as much wealth as the 150 million poorest combined—is literally killing people.

And it's not simply a lack of access to medical care that accounts for the correlation between the income and health gaps; the JAMA study cites other research showing that healthcare accounts only for a fraction of health outcomes overall. For example, low educational attainment is responsible for equally many deaths as heart attacks.

One might not exist surprised to larn that rich white men were found to be the healthiest, enjoying life spans of up to 15 years longer than the poorest Americans.

This undeniable and evidently unjust country of affairs has been the impetus backside the growing demand amongst the American public for major government intervention, the about famous of which is Senator Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All Nib, which would effectively outlaw the private insurance manufacture. Sanders and other presidential hopefuls, Senator Elizabeth Warren in particular, accept also floated proposals for massive pupil debt forgiveness and tuition-complimentary public higher. Predictably, these proposals have been met with outrage, derision and scorn from some quarters, decrying them every bit a gateway to some sort of Stalinist totalitarian dystopia. But even if mainstream Democrats withal flinch at embracing the term "socialism," the prescient ones are at least making pocket-sized critiques of a arrangement that seems to exist falling in on itself.

Concluding autumn, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III urged a Boston business association to espouse something he described as "moral capitalism." Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg recently declared himself a "democratic capitalist." And in the headline of a New York Times op-ed previewing his forthcoming book, the renowned liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz insisted, "Progressive capitalism is non an oxymoron." These folks and their agreeing peers—let'due south call them "adjective capitalists"—haven't reached consensus on terminology, merely they all seem to hold that whatever kind of capitalism we've got these days needs a modifier.

The economic outlook of the adjective capitalists is generally of a piece with the post-Great Recession Democratic line: our economic system is "broken," and must be fixed through some combination of byzantine financial sector regulations, means-tested middle-class "tax-advantaged" programming, incentives to firms who practice right by their (documented American) workers, market-based solutions to climate change, and an unquantified demand on the super-rich to "pay their fair share." These prescriptions are valid, every bit far as they become, but we'd do well to acknowledge that when information technology comes to coming together the basic material needs of American life in the 21st century, they don't go far plenty.

Even if mainstream Democrats withal blanch at embracing the term "socialism," the prescient ones are at to the lowest degree making pocket-sized critiques of a system that seems to be falling in on itself.

Here are some truths: periodic and predictably worsening recessions aren't an avoidable result of insufficient monetary and fiscal tinkering; ecological apocalypse bearing down on us after a few decades of ruthless fossil fuel extraction and consumption isn't going to be forestalled with carbon taxes and voluntary corporate pledges; and the singular objective of maximizing profit requires the immiseration of the very course of people who produce (and swallow) the commodities from which that profit is realized. All of these are either necessary functions or inevitable byproducts of a system that is doing precisely what it is supposed to do in the absenteeism of any civilizing, dare I say, socializing, counterforce.

To be sure, the describing word capitalists quite eloquently describe and adjudge the problem. Neatly summarizing a national temper of biting acrimony and widespread economic misery, Kennedy drops the cadet at Donald Trump's door: His is a country of bitter rivalry between young man citizens, forced to incessantly spar over the scraps of our system. My wages can't grow unless your food stamps go. Your medical bills can't fall unless my insurance gets taken manner. And so Americans spend their days fighting each other over economic crumbs—while our organization quietly mitt delivers the entire pie to those at the height.

Thanks to the Congressman for succinctly identifying capitalism's tactic of sewing segmentation and mistrust among the working class to undermine its capacity to build solidarity; just such a tactic isn't a nefarious invention of the odious figure in the White House. Information technology should go without proverb, this is not "his" country. Trump didn't create this state of affairs; he'south merely a natural excretion of it. Surely we know this, simply with a politics, business and media class who largely came of age in the waning years of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the triumph of the West and the Stop of History, we seem to accept so fully captivated the Thatcherite "no alternative" maxim that he is intellectually incapable of articulating i.

It's almost impossible to fathom the extent of human flourishing, liberation and innovation that might effect if people weren't forced to spend every waking hour just trying to survive, just given the chance to thrive.

Of class, unlike so many of united states of america, Representative Kennedy has re-ballot campaigns to worry nearly, and therefore, a delicate thread to weave. The same goes for the 2022 Democratic presidential field. None of these candidates can be seen to be oblivious to the ache of a justifiably aroused electorate, nor tin they afford to squander their opportunity to nowadays themselves as champions of the populous in a moment of acute populist political feeling, simply they practice accept corporate donors to court. So they hedge, obfuscate and play both sides of the table, on one hand promising to wring this or that concession from Wall Street, or to spank the bottoms of companies that "outsource American jobs," while on the other continuing to conflate gauzy notions of "freedom," "liberty" and "democracy" with "capitalism."

To a higher place all, the adjective capitalists cling fervently to and sing the countless praises of "competition." Stiglitz's master prescription for his "progressive capitalism" are "regulations that ensure strong competition without abusive exploitation, realigning the human relationship between corporations and the workers they employ and the customers they are supposed to serve." Competition, competition, contest is the mantra, but take we really considered what contest is? It's non a condition that tin run in perpetuity, nor is information technology meant to.

By definition, competitions must come to an stop, producing winners and losers. As competition proceeds, the field of winners is at once narrowed while the winners themselves gorge on the proverbial corpses of the losers. Is it surprising that the rampant and extravagant consolidation of players within (and soon enough, across) the airline, tech and retail industries coincides with yawning wealth and income inequality? These are the physics of backer contest.

The most ruthless competitors, those virtually determined to win, will practise the near to bend the rules, such as they are, to their own benefit.

The most ruthless competitors, those near adamant to win, will do the most to curve the rules, such as they are, to their ain benefit. Once sufficiently powerful, they will simply change the rules, not to ensure perpetual competition, but to safeguard the spoils of their victory. Uber didn't aggressively lobby New York City to impose a purely regressive "congestion pricing" tax on motorists to be hateful; they just did it to increase demand for Ubers. But the adjective capitalists insist that competition is virtuous, and most virtuous when it goes around and around the track forever.

Information technology is true that ruthless competition under capitalism has brought untold technological and productive marvels into existence that could've come into being no other style. The great irony is that we now have the power to end material scarcity, but the system that gave us that ability is dependent on the maintenance of scarcity to survive. In the 21st century, competition may be well and good when it comes to developing new smart phones, dating apps, or varieties of high fiber breakfast cereals, merely when we apply the principles of competition and commodification to health, housing, education, and food, the price of being a "loser" can be fatal.

Information technology would be 1 thing if simply Republicans served as commercialism's evangelists and foot soldiers in the neoliberal era, but the system'due south relentlessness in clearing all obstacles to its goal of creating private turn a profit could not be limited to the domain of a single political party. For the past xl years, even the best alleviation Democratic standard bearers tin offering to a weary, ground-downward population is the solemn promise that anyone who "works hard and plays by the rules" ought to have a shot at the American dream. That's pretty thin soup, given that the interests enervating all that hard work are the same that accept made all the rules for a generation.

The point is that things take not e'er been the way they are now, and they don't need to remain this mode. In a recent New York Times op-ed well-nigh the fate of the renowned Cooper Marriage, famous—until 2011—for charging its students no tuition, E. Tammy Kim writes, "Not long ago, many colleges were indeed gratuitous; much longer agone, elementary pedagogy was not. There is no natural law that deems one matter a public good and another a market place-based luxury. Information technology is upwardly to us to determine."

In a country that mythologizes the (increasingly mythical) "eye grade," is information technology really radical to return to and expand upon the policies that created that class? Would nosotros really stifle innovation and ambition if we guaranteed that every American was entitled to a decent education where she might discover and nurture any number of intellectual gifts? What if, in the richest country in the history of the world, no one had to fright homelessness, or ration their insulin, or breathe toxic fumes from a dangerous refinery in their backyard?

It'south easy to imagine but near impossible to fathom the extent of human being flourishing, liberation and yes, innovation, that might outcome if people weren't forced to spend every waking 60 minutes just trying to survive, but given the chance to thrive. The skeptics and cynics say we tin't afford to give all of us this chance; but to wait around the world today is to wonder, how can nosotros afford non to?

Ajay Raju, an chaser and philanthropist, is chairman of DilworthPaxson and a founder/lath member of The Citizen.

Photo by Guillaume via Flickr

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