Tim Wise
"What’s
the difference between a radical and a liberal?" It is a question I’m
regularly asked at lectures, usually by college students struggling with their
own sense of the world, trying desperately to figure out where they stand on the
seemingly endless spectrum from right to left. Often it is put to me by College
Democrat types: folks who are frustrated by their party’s lack of commitment to
social and economic justice, but who can’t quite bring themselves to break with
the group they consider the only alternative to the far right.
Usually,
I answer the question in the fairly predictable way: by explaining that at the
most basic level, the difference between radicals and liberals is one of focus,
and where one places the crux of the problem for our current predicament,
whatever that might be. In terms of economics, liberals tend to believe that the
larger system of which we are a part is basically just, and that injustices and
negative goings-on within that system are mere unintended consequences of an
otherwise well-oiled and beneficent machine: a little tinkering here, a little
reform there, perhaps a little more money for those at the bottom, and
everything will basically be O.K.
On
the other hand, the radical believes that the system itself is the problem: in
terms of economics this means that the system of profit does not create hardship
as the unfortunate sidelight of an otherwise warm-and-fuzzy social order;
rather, we believe that the pain experienced by people under such a system is
very much inherent to that system, and is in fact required by it in order to
function. People are out of work in such a system, and thus poor and even
destitute, not because the system is breaking down; but indeed, because it is
working exactly as intended.
Now
at first, this is an analysis that most don’t want to accept. And that’s no
surprise, as "seeing the system" goes against everything most of us
have been taught since we were young: the idea that one can be whatever one
wants if one simply tries hard enough and plays by the rules. The notion of the
U.S. as a pure meritocracy where individual failings are just that-individual,
is a very seductive ideological posture, and one that few have ever subjected to
real challenge.
The
good thing for those of us who are radicals however, is that every now and then
we get a little help in proving the larger point from the most unlikely of
sources, and this week was no exception. For as I write this, Americans have
just been told that we must brace for a ratcheting up of interest rates: three
times in one day as we enter May, and another likely hike in the middle of the
month. And why? Well, as Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan explains, the
economy is too healthy, unemployment has fallen too low, and wages-God
forbid-have started to inch upward for too many, thereby raising the specter of
dreaded price hikes. As such, it has now become necessary according to the
worldview of the Fed-one that is shared by all major players in both the
Democratic and Republican parties and certainly by their Presidential
candidates-to raise the cost of borrowing money, thereby cooling off the
expansion and hiring spree, and perhaps even nudging the unemployment numbers
back up a bit.
But
wait: what was that? Intentionally slowing down job and wage growth?
Intentionally doing something to push unemployment up-and thus, put folks out of
work? Exactly right, and thus, it is Alan Greenspan who has demonstrated this
week the accuracy of radical analysis as to the nature of the economy under
which we labor and live. This former devotee of the market-worshipping,
pseudo-intellectual cultist, Ayn Rand, now demonstrating clearly that pain and
suffering, low wages and poverty are not the result of individual moral failings
or a decline in the Protestant work ethic, but rather, are built-in to the
nature of modern capitalism.
The
fact that wages for most workers are still at lower real dollar values than they
were in the late 1970’s, or that most of the wage gains have been at the top of
the employment structure and that over 40 million working people still lack
health insurance is of no consequence: according to Greenspan, things are too
good for too many people, and now it is time to tighten our monetary belt. But
what does it all mean, outside the confines of economists’ models and reserve
bank meeting rooms?
Well
consider this: when the Labor Department says the unemployment rate is 3.9
percent-the current official rate and a 30-year low-this is hardly an accurate
depiction of the joblessness picture in the U.S. After all, the official
unemployment rate doesn’t include those who have grown so discouraged by their
job prospects that they’ve stopped looking for work, nor does it include the
many who work only seasonally and so they don’t actively seek employment for
much of the year, nor does it count those persons who are able to pull down only
a handful of hours-perhaps temping-and instead counts these as if they were
every bit as employed as the full-time salaried employee. If these persons were
counted in the official unemployment/underemployment rate, the number of such
folks would at least double, coming to around 8%, or perhaps even as high as
10%. That the Labor Department does in fact keep this number-called the U-7 rate
but never reported to the general population-is only further confirmation that
the propaganda system in this land requires intentional obfuscation of the true
state of economic affairs.
And
so it is essentially a matter of official monetary policy to maintain
unemployment at around 8-10% of the potential workforce-around 9-11 million
people in all-so as to keep the economy from "overheating," which
really means to keep wages from rising too high, thereby forcing companies to
either raise prices or suffer a loss of profitability as workers pocket more of
the value produced by their output. If we assume that many of these 9-11 million
unemployed and underemployed persons have dependents, and that lacking steady
income they likely also lack bankable wealth-producing reserves to call on in
hard times, it is fair to estimate that over 20 million Americans are stuck in
the ranks of the poor and near-poor thanks to the conscious decisions of
economic elites to keep them there.
The
doors that this simple and readily apparent fact of American life has the power
to open are substantial: after all, if people are out of work and poor (and
thus, often in need of public assistance) because of a deliberate economic
policy; and if, indeed, the destitution of these individuals is something which
is required so that the rest of us may enjoy lower prices by maintaining a
certain degree of slackness in labor markets, then not only should we not
disparage the poor for their poverty, but indeed, we should perhaps consider
them among our most noble citizens: sacrificing their own good for the
well-being of us all.
To
witness what the Fed is doing this summer to interest rates-all because workers
are supposedly doing too well-is to witness perhaps one of the central
organizing issues of the new decade: simply put, that working people are hurting
and will continue to hurt in this system so long as the interests of the owning
class are put ahead of those of everyone else. As long as jobs and wages are
seen as zero-sum games-and profit maximization seen as the penultimate goal of a
national economic policy-working people will continue to be played off against
one another, rotating in and out of financial instability. To highlight the
structural nature of economic hardship-and the Fed’s actions make this much
easier for radicals to do effectively-is to provide a new way of discussing so
many of our most vexing political and social issues. It is to allow citizens to
potentially rethink their stereotypical and negative views about the poor, about
people of color (blamed for "taking" jobs from whites), and the real
sources of whatever pain and insecurity they may be experiencing in their lives.
It is to launch a frontal assault against the myth of meritocracy and the
"magic" of the marketplace, and it is to make clear the overlapping
worldviews of the two dominant political parties in America: a clarity that will
be desperately needed if we are ever to build an effective alternative to the
status quo.
So
this week, let those of us who are radicals do something we probably never
expected to find ourselves doing: thanking Alan Greenspan for making the nature
of our economic beast more apparent than any army of sociologists could ever
hope to do. And let us go forward, using the facts pulled from the very
headlines of the mainstream press, as we strive to make the public "see the
system" for what it is so they may join in an effort to replace it.
Tim
Wise is a Nashville-based activist and educator. He can be reached at [email protected]