Trump or Harris for Lower Prices?

Recently, I have seen lawn signs go up saying, “Trump - low prices, Harris - high prices.”  Is that a reasonable prediction for the next 4 years?

Many people think that Trump will handle the economy better and have lower prices because prices were lower during his term as President than they are now.  Whereas prices have risen dramatically during the Biden administration and so they think electing Harris will result in higher prices.  This is what Trump has told them.

This thinking is faulty.  Trump was president in the years before COVID.  That was a different world, economically as well as in other ways.  Prices were lower, but it had nothing to do with Trump and his policies.  As a matter of fact, his tariff war with China created a price spike for many products that came from China.

The Biden Administration, on the other hand, was impacted by the effects of COVID, which included dramatically increased prices for a number of reasons all stemming from the effects of COVID on the economy.  It had nothing to do with action taken by Biden and there was no way for Biden to control prices since we do not live in a Communist country where the government controls prices and wages.

So you can’t base your prediction on the economy and prices for the next 4 years based on the experiences of these two persons in office because they were dealing with different contexts.  Admittedly, there is no question that BIden’s infrastructure plan probably added some pressure on prices, but it also had a major impact on creating jobs which decreased unemployment.  So on balance, it was a good thing.

The question each voter must ask is what are the candidates’ economic program for the future.  Trump has no plan, only slogans, which sound good, but if there is no plan, they are only words.  Like when he wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare, but he and the Republicans never came up with a plan to replace Obamacare.  Harris, by comparison, has offered a somewhat detailed plan on what she plans to do to bring prices down for housing and food, among other things.

Beware political slogans.  Look for plans, facts. 

Making Trade and the Global Economy Work for the American Worker

The global economy is a fact and there is no avoiding it.  Trade is also a necessary fact of economic life.

The question is, how to make the global economy and trade work for America.  And by work I mean work for the American worker, not allowing corporations to prosper and investors to get rich at the expense of workers.  In today’s multi-national corporate world, we must remember that the interests of the corporation are often if not mostly not in line with the interests of their workers because of off-shoring and out-sourcing; we are increasingly not producing here to send abroad, but producing abroad to import here.

As I’ve stated previously, corporate interests have been the true driving force behind most government decisions in this as in all areas for the last 3-4 decades.  While that should continue to be part of our strategy, for the health of both corporations and investors are  very important to our economy, those interests should not be the driving force.  Instead, our most important goal must be to make the global economy work for the American worker.

As I stated in my 2004 book, We Still Hold These Truths, the American worker is the backbone of the American economy.  “Whether blue collar or white collar, whether skilled or unskilled, whether managing a major corporation or a local fast-food operation … each individual American worker contributes to and sustains the American economy.  He/she is both producer and consumer.”    I would note as an aside that American independent farmers, as opposed to big farm corporations, are self-employed American workers and so very much part of the backbone of our economy.

It is the American worker as consumer, together with constructive government action, that has enabled our economy to sustain itself and recover from hard times.   Not corporate America.

How would this revised decision-making perspective impact government policy in the areas of  trade, industrial development, infrastructure investment, worker education, and Third World development?  I am not an expert on economics, and so I will not pretend to have solutions or opinions on how best to implement such a strategy.  

We will need to develop new economic models that show how the American economy and its workers can prosper in this changed environment.  We must ask questions, like, are even “smart” free-trade deals that harm American workers while enriching corporations better for the economy and the worker than having no free-trade deals?  What is the role of government-funded infrastructure projects, so badly needed for our future economic health, to providing un- or under-employed ex-factory workers with good-paying jobs?  How do we encourage corporate investment in manufacturing jobs in the United States?  Is the best way of restoring the economic strength of the middle-class worker to bring development and rising wages to the Third World?

Let me just say a few words on this last point.  It is to the American worker’s benefit for our government to aid Third World development.  Why?  As the standard of living rises in the Third World, wages will rise and the benefit of off-shoring or out-sourcing work will decrease for American business.  That has already happened to some extent with China where companies have transferred production to lower cost countries in Southeast Asia.  When their wages rise, as they inevitably will, jobs will start returning to the U.S.  This is admittedly not a short-term solution, but it must be part of the strategy.

The Democratic Party must make this an important part of its 2020 campaign platform.  It fits seamlessly with the Democratic vision statement I proposed in my post, “The 2020 Election Is about the Survival of American Democracy, Our Historic Values.”  

And it provides an important differentiation between Democratic policy and Trump policy.  Despite his rhetoric, Trump has approached nothing, including the revision of NAFTA, with the interests of the American worker as the driving force.  It’s been business as usual, what’s best for corporate interests.  Democrats must make this startlingly clear.

Bring Sanity and Social Purpose to the Lottery

Lotteries were begun to meet the funding needs of state governments, mainly in the area of education.  That narrow focus, meeting state funding needs, continues to be the objective.

It is past time to broaden the focus to one that includes improving the financial wherewithal of as many people as possible, thus providing a greater boost to the  economy.  As it stands now, one person wins a jackpot, which depending on the lottery can run from several million to the recent Mega jackpot of $1.5 billion.

First, that is more money than a reasonable person/family needs, even over time.  We have seen over and over again over the years how people’s lives have been ruined by the sudden flood of money.  People don’t know how to handle it.  And vultures defend to take advantage of the situation.

Second, the concentration of all that money in one person does nothing to help the economy.  It would be far more beneficial if many people received, say,  $300,000.  Spreading the money out would provide a greater boost to the economy.

Third, spreading out the wealth would make a beneficial difference in more people’s lives.  And since the amount would be manageable it would be beneficial.

The argument will probably be made that the current system draws the most money for the state because people salivate at the possibility of winning these huge sums.  But if the game was changed, allowing more people to win and thus increasing the chances of winning, even thought the prize would be more modest that would be a huge draw I believe.  But even if the amount received by the state were somewhat reduced, injecting some social purpose into the lottery would be worth it.

The Concept of “Working Poor” Should Be Unacceptable

First what does it mean to be poor?  It turns out that’s not as simple to answer as one might think.

Doing research I found that “poor” means different things to different people.  Some definitions seem to be rooted in the old institution of the poorhouse, which was a home for paupers.  Poorhouses continued to exist well into the 20th century, in Ulster County, NY till 1976.  Thus, dictionary.com defines “poor” as having little or no money or other means of support.  To me that’s the definition of being destitute, not poor.  

Other definitions have a more enlightened, broader, less pejorative, perspective.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines it is as lacking sufficient money to have a decent living standard.  This to me is more in keeping with a modern sensibility.  Being poor is not being able to make ends meet consistently while maintaining a reasonable standard of living.  The indigent thus become a subset of the poor.  

Clearly, it is this second definition that encompasses the working poor; therefore it will be the definition used in this post.  In our current system, one can work and still be poor, and thus often still dependent upon charity or public support in order to make ends meet.  "Working poor" should be an oxymoron, but currently it's not.

Much has been written about the working poor in this country.  Many, mostly Republicans, argue that it’s just a fact of life.  Others, mainly Democrats, argue that in a country as prosperous as the United States, people working full-time should be receiving what’s termed a “living wage.”  

What is a living wage?  It’s defined as having enough money to meet a family’s basic needs at a decent standard of living, but absent what many Americans consider necessities of life.  A “living wage” thus does not include money for eating out, entertainment, any kind of insurance, or saving for a rainy day.  It is a step up from the poverty threshold, in that it takes into account the true cost of the necessities of life … food, child care, medical care, housing, and transportation … yet is still bare bones.  Anyone earning below a living wage as defined would thus be classified as poor.

The Federal poverty threshold, on the other hand, is based on findings from 1960s research that families spent 1/3 of their income on food.  So in setting the threshold, the government calculated the cost of food and multiplied it by 3.  That is still the basis of the calculation.  It’s just adjusted for inflation.

But that method of calculation makes the Federal standard outdated and woefully inadequate.  Food now accounts for only 1/7 of an average family’s expenses, as the cost of housing, child care, transportation, and health care have grown disproportionately.  So people who meet the Federal poverty threshold are still poor.  That is why eligibility for many assistance programs have eligibility levels at several multiples of the Federal poverty threshold.

Why is the government standard so miserly?  There are probably several reasons.  One is the old perspective that many still hold that being poor means being close to destitution.  Another is that as the leading democracy and strongest economy in the world, the government wants the number of people living in poverty to be as small as possible, for P.R. purposes.  Yet another is that given our “safety net,” the more people who are classified as living in poverty, the higher the expenses are to the government and the taxpayer. 

A different reason is that people do not like being called “poor” or being considered poor; in our culture it is still a pejorative word implying a whole panoply of failings.  This can be seen in Webster’s definition of poverty, “lacking a socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.”  Thus if you are poor you are beyond the social pale.  As a result, there’s little pressure to expand the definition of poverty to include more people.  Finally, people who are not poor just have no idea what being poor in our country means and how many people fall into the category.

Let’s look at actual dollar figures.  The 2018 Federal poverty threshold for a family of four is just over $25,000.  If the sole support for a family earned what many Democrats argue should be the minimum wage of $15 an hour, that would amount to a gross of $30,000 a year or an approximate net take home of $26,500.  Just above the poverty threshold.  

A living wage for a family of four, on the other hand, would be around $60,000, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator; more than twice the Federal poverty threshold.  If you are supporting a small family, the minimum wage in most states is a poverty wage.  Even the target of $15 is, as shown above, barely above the poverty threshold if there is only one adult in the family working.  If the family had 2 adults and both were working full-time at $15 an hour, they would then together earn just under a living wage.

Thus, in order to have a living wage for a family of four … and remember what this does not include …  either the single worker needs to have a pretty good job bringing in $60,000 a year, or two members of the household need to each earn $15 an hour and work full-time.

How many people make up the working poor, unable to make ends meet on a consistent basis?  In 2012, using a guideline of 200% of the poverty line, which would be close to the living wage as explained above, 12 million full-time workers earned below that amount and constituted, in this particular analysis, the working poor.  

In another report based on 2013 Census data, 1 out of 3 “working families,” 10.6 million out of  32.6 million, had incomes under 200% of the poverty line.  While the definition of “working families” was not supplied, the numbers suggest that it is similar to the 2012 study noted above.

Even using the Federal government’s poverty guideline and definition of the working poor as people who spend 27 weeks or more a year in the labor force, in 2014, 9.5 million people were working poor.  A much lower income threshold but a broader labor category.

No matter how you cut it, a large number of Americans are in families of the working poor.  Using the living wage threshold, roughly 30-40 million.  As to the total number of Americans under that threshold, I saw a 2012 figure of 100 million and a 2017 figure of 146 million.  Obviously both can’t be right, but either way, it’s a large percentage of Americans.  

Thus, somewhere between 1 in every 2 Americans and 1 in every 3 Americans were either living in poverty, as defined by the government, or were in families whose incomes were below the living wage threshold, what is also sometimes referred to as low-income, which means they were poor as defined in this post.  

That is a terrible statistic for a country as prosperous as the United States.  Poverty has a a terrible impact on most people and thus is a major drag on the health and well-being of our economy and democracy.  It is also a disgrace and a failure of our system.  A country should be judged not by how its wealthiest citizens fair, but by how its poorest do.  

It would thus be in our best interest, in the best interest of all citizens including the top 1%, to do everything we can to see to it that the maximum number of people are employed at a living wage, whether in the open labor market or in government-organized jobs (such as the Depression-era WPA and CCC), and that those who cannot work receive government support sufficient to keep them out of poverty.  Both our economy and democracy would be on a firmer footing.

No one in the U.S. should live in conditions without enough food to eat. a secure roof over their heads, and proper health care.  One can’t pursue one’s right “to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” without those basics.  If business and government working together aren’t providing that foundation then we are not living up to the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence.

White Working Class - The Republican Base?

While reading a recent New Yorker, I came upon a sentence that made me stop in disbelief.  “The base of the [Republican] Party, the middle-aged white working class, …”

I was aware that many working class whites had become Reagan Democrats and that many were at the heart of the Tea Party’s strength.  But that things had gone so far that this part of the traditional Democratic base had now become the Republican base stopped me in my tracks.  Was this true?  What in the world had happened?  

As I thought through my answer to this question, I sadly realized that it was true and how it came to be.  The factors:  economic woes, race, class/elitism/intelligence.

The Democratic Party has been the party of the “common” person for most of its history in that it has championed the rights of the worker, immigrants, and the poor, but not Blacks.  Whereas the Republican Party has been the party of the moneyed establishment and was (and still is) steadfastly against any advancement in the rights of the lower classes, including workers.  Not surprisingly, the Democrats were rewarded with the loyal votes of white working-class America.

The first break in this alliance came with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under the leadership of President Johnson and the Democrat-controlled Congress.  Working class whites in the South, together with many white collar whites, left the Democratic Party in droves and became the key to the solid Republican South.  The percentage of working class whites voting Democratic in 1960 and 1964 was 55%; in 1968 and 1972, 35%

While this situation improved during the 70s because of Watergate and a sharp recession, the defection returned with the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan.  White northern and midwestern working class men had begun feeling the pinch of stagnating wages and the loss of jobs.  They were attracted to the “can do it” energy of Reagan, his patriotism, and just him as a person.  He was not an intellectual; he was someone they could relate to.  The Democratic candidates during the period, by comparison, did not have charisma, nor exude energy, nor were they flag-waving patriotic … and they were definitely intellectual and spoke like it.

The economic problems of the white working class also increased their resentment over Democratic support for things like affirmative action, welfare, and women’s rights.  They saw the Party as going to bat for everyone but them.   And so again in 1980 and 1984, working class whites voted Democratic only 35%.

While Bill Clinton (who was more down-to-earth and not so intellectual) did somewhat better, the numbers again went down with Al Gore and John Kerry.  And that has continued in 2008 and 2012 with Obama.

Pre-Civil Rights Act, the issues binding the white working class and the Democratic Party were economic.  In that period, Democratic progressivism was mostly about economic prosperity.  Post-Civil Rights Act, the issues driving them away were their worsening economic situation and the Democratic’s new emphasis on social liberalism, including most recently the advancement of gay rights.

The white working class has always been conservative on social issues.  During the past 40 years they have also come to feel that the Republicans will do a better job with the economy.  And so even though the Republican Party has never shown any real interest or caring for the plight of the working class and instead has done the bidding of corporate America, whose interests are usually diametrically opposed to that of the working class, we see this continued phenomenon of working people voting against their economic interests.

There is evidence that with the Trump candidacy this trend will only increase.   Through his outrageous statements regarding Latino immigration as well as his support for protectionist policies to protect American jobs, he may be attracting even greater white working class support.  

For example. it was reported that in one depressed county in Pennsylvania, working class white Democrats are “flocking to Trump.”  Before the primary, 4,647 Democrats and independents in Luzerne County switched their registration to Republican, nearly four times the number of Republicans and independents who changed their registration to Democrats.  One caveat about this example, since Luzerne County is in the coal region, Hillary Clinton’s ill-advised and much publicized comment about putting a lot of coal miners out of work may have more to do with this switch than Trumps comments.  Nevertheless it is troubling.

In the forward to the 2011 edition of We Still Hold These Truths, I noted the following about the plight of the working class.  (Many today may be surprised to hear blue collar workers referred to as part of the middle class, but for decades they were because their unions provided them with very-well-paying jobs.)

“The middle class is made up mostly of nonprofessionals … people with only a high school degree. As manufacturing and other middle class jobs have disappeared, their standard of living and the quality of their lives has been drifting downward. The recent recession only exacerbated the trend. In March 2011, 12 percent of those with only a high-school diploma were unemployed compared to 4.5 percept of those with college degrees and 2 percent for those with professional degrees. The greatest impact has been on men … in 1967, 97 percent of men 30-50 years old in this cohort were employed; in 2010, just 76 percent were. Not only has this resulted in economic problems for these men and their families, these pressures have brought about greater interpersonal stress, with a resulting increase in divorce rates and other examples of social dysfunction. The greater income inequality that developed during this period has also resulted in heightened actual and felt lifestyle differences between the middle class and those with more income and education.”

I wrote then that the world the working class knew since WWII has been turned upon down resulting in them being scared, angry, and alienated.  I chided Democrats for not highlighting this important shift in the American social fabric.  They talked about the need to protect the middle class (everyone always does), but the evisceration that had already occurred was not mentioned … Democrats had and have not shown that they feel the pain of the working class …  and practical measures to reverse the trend are not much of anything.

This year, Hillary (assuming she is the nominee) must show that she feels the pain of the working class.  She must distance herself from her Wall Street backers and show that she is willing to fight for measures to protect workers and bring back jobs, even if those measures are against corporate interests.  Although at this point it may well already be too late.  Hillary has been around long enough that people already have a very fixed opinion of her which new-sounding words from her can probably not effectively overcome.

Also, as I have been urging for years, Democrats must expose Republicans for the hypocrites they are.  They never have and they never will do anything to support the American working class.  Trump may make noises that appeal to the working class, but his policies are not Republican Party policies and they will never be enacted.

Even if Hillary can win without these votes because of the changing electoral demographic, the American worker cannot be left in the dust. They are in pain.  They are a natural part of the Democratic Party’s constituency.  Their well-being is important to the economic stability and health of our society.  Republicans will in the end do nothing to help ease their pain.  Democrats must step up to the plate.

Understanding Why America Is No Longer, and Perhaps Can Never Be, As Great As It Was

People either go on about how great America is, or they lament that America is not as great as it used to be.  In the first case, people typically ignore reality.  In the second case, they often ignore fundamental factors. 

When people say that America is great, they are either referring to the strength of our military (which is a fact), the size of our economy (which is a fact), or the things America stands for (which is also a fact, at least in theory).  

However, while we unquestionably have a strong military it does not serve its purpose of protecting American interests because our enemies are not cowed by our might nor do we have the political willingness or financial ability to send our military everywhere it is needed to protect our interests.  Thus we are not really as strong as our size and might would make it appear.  American strength is somewhat of a facade.

Our economy is also the largest in the world, even though the Chinese have been rapidly catching up with us.   We also have the most stable and strongest domestic economy in the world.  But our corporations, and as a result our financial well-being, have become so interconnected with the stability of the rest of the world economy that our economy is not as strong/stable as it was.  

Further, because of stagnant wages and loss of middle-class jobs, financial inequality in America has soared and become damaging and our middle class, which was the bedrock of our consumer economy, has been eviscerated.  The American people are hurting even as its corporations are prospering.  Then there’s the fact that the rest of the world, in particular China, holds most of the debt that we have incurred spending more than we take in, especially as a result of the disastrous Bush II tax cuts and the Iraq war.

As to American exceptionalism being a function of our ideals, as I’ve noted in prior posts, this exceptionalism is mostly a myth (see “American Exceptionalism - A Myth Exposed”).  America has never lived up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence or the 14th Amendment.

On the other hand, when people speak of America not being as great as it was, they often speak of America not being respected because our military needs to be stronger.  But the lack of respect has little to do with the strength of our military.  It is more because America has not for many years had the moral authority that it once had, even if it was based on an illusion.  Also, as noted above, our guerrilla enemies are not scared of our military prowess.

When they speak of our economy being weaker, they do focus on the issues I raised above, but the underlying context is not addressed.  The economy is not as great as it was because the world has changed and America has changed.  

The world has changed because 3rd world countries are no longer just producers of raw material (with the glaring exception of most of Africa).  And so they produce products that would pose competitive problems for U.S. production even without the free market trade agreements that have proliferated at the behest of both economists and corporations.  Unless the U.S. would enact high protective trade barriers to keep many foreign products out of the U.S.  But that would create a different problem … the combination of not having inexpensive foreign-produced items to purchase and a reasonable growth in U.S. workers’ wages would lead to high inflation rates that would damage our economy.  (Also, the inevitable trade war fight that would ensue would harm our exports.)

But America has changed in significant ways as well.  During the first stage of explosive growth in our economy, much of the country was still unsettled frontier leaving room for  a huge expansion of economic activity accompanied by huge increases in population through immigration from all parts of the world.  During the second stage, from the turn of the 20th century into the initial post-WWII period, America was unequaled because the rest of the world’s developed economies were minuscule by comparison and China and most of the non-European world were undeveloped, not even developing.

None of that is true today.  And so, because of all of these factors, the way often cited for the American economy to regain its strength is through American creativity or innovation.  And many think we’ve done just that.  

But while we have seen lots of American technological innovation in the last few decades, it has only fueled American corporate profits, not worker wealth, since the products are all produced overseas, and so the economy has not really been strengthened.  Only if those jobs were brought back would it make a real difference.  

As for creativity, since the creation of the computer chip, there really hasn’t been much creativity, just innovation.  Even nanotechnology is innovation, not creativity.  But regardless, unless creativity resulted in good, middle-class jobs for U.S. workers, it would not help strengthen our economy.

But this discussion begs the question, “Does America have to be great?”  Economically, given the size of our population and the standard of living that we were used to 40 years ago and would like to reacquire, that answer is unfortunately, yes.

Thus, bottom line, figuring out how to bring American jobs back or create new ones without creating other major economic disruptions such as high inflation is a task that corporations and workers/unions need to sit down at the table to discuss, probably at the behest of government.  One point seems clear.  To significantly increase the number of American middle-class jobs, wages will have to be lower than they once were, but that would still result in a benefit for both workers and the economy.

The only other way that America will either be or viewed as the great nation it once was economically is if much of the rest of the world implodes and the U.S. finds a way of disconnecting itself from that calamity.  I think recent history shows that it would be prudent to prepare for that eventuality.

Militarily, America certainly needs to be strong.  But what that means in the context of current or projected international conflicts has been a subject of some debate.  Many argue that we need a leaner and more flexible military rather than an updated version of the current dinosaur.

As for being great from a moral authority perspective, while there is no need to be great, it certainly would be very beneficial from many perspectives for the U.S. to regain its moral authority.  President Obama certainly tried to move in that direction in the beginning of his first term.    But to regain that authority, much would have to change both within this country as well as how it engages the rest of the world. 

If the advice I have given in many of my posts on this site were followed, it would go a long way to regaining our moral authority.  But that, unfortunately, is highly unlikely because to bring about that change means changing who holds power in Washington … ending the control that corporate America and the wealthy have over our policies.  Although Bernie Sanders talks of such a revolution, achieving it is another matter … and he is the only candidate talking about it.

As has been the case in many of my posts, the final analysis is that we survive in an outdated, broken system and cannot be what we need to be in the future without major changes in our political, social, and economic structure.

Healing Our Nation, Healing Ourselves

In my recent post, “The Problem Isn’t Capitalism, It’s Our Society,” (October 8, 2015), I noted that the social problems in all modern societies (and most ancient ones, for that matter) don’t stem from their particular economic system, whether it’s capitalism or socialism or communism, regardless how much people rant and rave.  History has shown that changing the economic system does not change the basic nature of a society’s problems.  It typically just replaces one class of elite with another class of elite, one unequal structure with another unequal structure.

What then is the root cause of our societal problems?  And how do we make progress in solving these problems?

The root of our problems is that our society is not a community, meaning that it is not a culture in which everyone has a respected and valued role to play.  Instead, we feel that most people are not entitled to respect, that they have little value, that they are certainly not our equal, and that they do not deserve to be treated with dignity and kindness.  It is a culture of me/us v them.  This lack of community affects the family, the workplace, the smallest village, the state, the country, even the community of nations. 

That in a nutshell is the nature of the problem.  All the ills of our society … poverty, homelessness, workplace conflict, family conflict, civil strife, even war … stem from this basic lack of humanity in our interactions with others. 

Before proceeding further, it is important to clarify what I mean by a “lack of humanity.”  Humanity is defined by Webster’s as “being kind to other people and animals.”  Inhumanity, the opposite, is defined as “being cruel to others.”

In common usage, however, we have a much narrower concept of inhumanity.  For most of us, inhumanity implies a horrific act, a barbarous act, like the ISIS beheadings, or even the tortured conduct at Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War.  

But as the definition clearly states, anything that is cruel to others is an example of inhumanity.  And mind you, this is from Webster’s, not some religious or spiritual text.  Combining that definition with the definition of cruel: any behavior that causes physical or mental harm or pain is cruel and thus inhumane.  Before we can make progress in solving society’s problems, we must acknowledge and accept this definition.

Using this definition, acts that man endures at the hands of his fellow man - whether in war, civil conflict, or everyday life situations such as in the workplace or even within the family - that are hurtful and painful, that fail to respect others, their equality, and the right of all to live with freedom and dignity … all of these acts are examples of inhumanity.  Yes, even acts you might view as somewhat innocuous in the workplace or at home, if they cause mental harm, are examples of inhumanity.  Without question, discrimination and bigotry are examples of inhumanity.

Aware of this definition, one begins to realize that inhumanity is almost more the norm of human interaction than humanity.  Thus the efforts of those, there’s even a foundation, to promote “random acts of kindness.”  How sad.

How do we find a solution to this problem?  How do we bring humanity back into human interaction?

We begin by noting that while this is not a new problem peculiar to the modern age, it is not a function of human nature.  If we look at communal societies such as indigenous groups that still exist, or Native American communities before they were devastated and corrupted by the white man, we see communities in which everyone had their place, everyone was valued and respected, everyone felt secure even though, in the case of Native Americans, there was some private ownership.  

But when mankind moved from communal societies to societies based on the individual as the organizing unit, something significant was lost in the transition … a sense of security.  And it has gotten worse over the centuries as civilization/technology has “progressed” and we have become ever-more disconnected from people and more connected to material things.

But I do not believe that all is irretrievably lost.  True, I don’t think from a practical perspective that it’s possible to have a true communal society in a nation as large and complex as most modern nations.  But since I don’t think there is an inherent contradiction between a capitalist economy and a sense of community, the question becomes - how to create the feeling and advantages of community while still having an economy that has the individual unit and private ownership as its basis.

Since our society is based on the individual, not the commune, the answer will also have to be based on the individual.  If the goal is to change our society and the world, it will have to be done one person at a time.   Some leadership from authority figures and the culture would help, but ultimately it comes down to the individual.

As noted above, what was principally lost in the transition to an individual-oriented society was a feeling of security.  When people feel secure, they have the psychological ability to be kind to others and respect others.  To give of themselves for the benefit of others and for the common good.

On the other hand, when people feel insecure the natural psychological tendency is to protect oneself, which devolves into seeing others as a threat, creating a me/us v them dichotomy.  In that situation one is not kind to others and one does not give of oneself for the benefit of others.  But the damage caused by insecurity goes even deeper than that.  When we feel insecure, we do not offer even ourselves kindness and respect because we do not feel worthy.  There is no happiness in our heart.  Thus the current state of affairs.

I have written in previous posts how insecurity is the source of all of our problems.  See “The Root of All Abuse and Violence - Insecurity” (1/7/13) and “Insecurity as the Cause of Social Conflict and International War” (1/10/13).  

For some, or perhaps many, readers this will all sound like “new-age gobbledegook.”  But bear with me.

Since I am positing that the solution to our society’s problems lies with the individual, before going any further, I ask you to ask yourself a question:  “Am I happy?  Am I truly happy?”

If you can look deep inside yourself, past your ego, and answer that question, “yes,” then more power to you and you are ready to start, if you haven’t already, treating all people with kindness and respect.

Unfortunately, most of us cannot answer that question, “yes,”  because we are troubled, we feel conflicted.  We are insecure.  It’s not that we don’t experience moments of happiness, but do we feel deeply happy?  No.

This is true regardless of one’s status in life.  Many people think that once you’ve made it, have money, have power, that you’re home free and experience happiness.  But that is usually not the case.  Regardless how strong our ego, regardless how successful we are, we don’t experience true happiness because we are at bottom insecure beings.  We have never been taught to open our heart and embrace all aspects of ourselves.  

We have never been taught  that we have everything we need within ourselves to be at peace and experience happiness.  Instead we’ve been taught that we need to be what we aren’t or need to have what we don’t have.  And the higher we achieve or the more we obtain, the more it seems we obsess about retaining what we have and obtaining even more

This is what must change.  If one person learns to embrace himself and know that he has what he needs inside himself to be at peace and experience happiness, then he will not only change his own life, but the life of all those he  comes into contact with because he will now relate to those around him very differently … he will offer them joy, kindness, and respect.  The more who change, the greater the impact.

Now, it’s a well known fact that most people will not undertake change for the benefit of others.  No matter how often people swear to do this, it just doesn’t work.  Most people will only undertake change for their own benefit, and even that is very difficult, so strong are our habit-energies.

So here’s the next question I want to ask you.  Would you like to be truly, deeply happy?  Would you like to be free of feelings of insecurity?  Would you like not to obsess about what’s going to happen to you tomorrow?

If your answer is, “yes,” then read on.  Despite years of negative programming by family, peers, and the culture, this is more within your reach than you might think.

The process is quite straightforward.  But it does take a lot of work to achieve as you are changing the habits of a lifetime.  Here are the basic steps:

1.  Become aware that all your feelings about yourself and the world around you are a result of your learned experience.  Now, most people would say this is as it should be because that’s how we learn.  However, learning facts and learning judgmental values are two very different things.  

You may be familiar with the Rodgers and Hammerstein song from South Pacific that says, “you’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, before you are six, or seven. or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate.”  Well, that basically is true for all feelings and perceptions.  Even everything we feel about ourselves is what we’ve been taught.  If you feel bad, or incompetent, or ugly, or the opposite, it’s what your family, your peers, and the culture has taught you.

None of these words describe who you and others really are; these are just labels we have been taught to apply.  They cover up the reality of people yet for most of us these labels are the only “I” and “them” that we know.  How many children are told over and over that they are bad or stupid?  How many are told that others, such as blacks, are dangerous, slow, and lazy?  And so these children come to identify themselves as bad or stupid and they identify others as dangerous, slow, and lazy with the harmful results that follow both for themselves and those around them.  How sad. 

The labels we apply to ourselves and others may just be just a product of the mind; it’s what we’ve been taught.  But they are no less powerful and cause us and them suffering.  It doesn’t matter whether the labels are pejorative or superlative, they cause suffering.

The oft-quoted serenity prayer says, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  Those are truly words to live by.

We can’t change the way the world is.  But we can change how we relate to ourselves and to others … the labels that we automatically apply to everything we experience. That is totally within our control, difficult though it may be to part with habit-energies that have formed over a lifetime. When we stop applying labels and see ourselves and others as they truly are, not caricatures or stereotypes, a new world of possibilities opens up.

This is why Nina Simone wrote “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.”  She wanted black children to hear that they are not stupid, but in fact gifted.  She wanted them to see their true selves.  Not the image placed on them by white society.

If you accept and acknowledge the truth of these statements, then you have made the first important step to in your own small way changing the world.

2.  Let your heart embrace all aspects of your being.  This is not something we are taught, either by family, peers, or the culture.  Quite the contrary.  We are made very aware of our faults, our failings, all the “negative” aspects of our character.  And so we learn not to love ourselves, not to respect ourselves; we are flawed, not worthy.  We become insecure.  We become very sensitive to perceived slights and wrongs and get angry or hurt, we tend to either withdraw or become an egomaniac.

Embracing all aspects of your being does not mean “indulge” yourself, giving yourself license to do things which may be harmful to yourself or others, but it does allow you to acknowledge these aspects of yourself and have compassion for yourself and for these tendencies, knowing that they are taught.  They are not you.

When we embrace ourselves fully we feel whole and so it removes the struggle, the internal battles, that tie us up and feed our anger, fear, and negativity.  Embracing these aspects of us greatly lessens their power. It may sound counter-intuitive, but when we, for example, fight our anger, try to rid ourselves of it, it actually strengthens our anger.  By embracing ourselves, these emotions instead sort of get smothered by love.  When we feel whole there is no reason to be angry. 

3.  Know that you have everything you need within yourself to experience peace and happiness.  Again, this is not what we’re taught by family, peers, or culture.  Just the opposite.  We are taught that we need all sorts of things … change who we are, how we look, obtain material things … in order to experience happiness.

But as in the first point, this is all stuff we are taught.  It is not a reflection of reality.  It is in fact by depending on things outside of ourselves for happiness that we are fated to experience endless disappointment, frustration, and psychological suffering.

This is not a refutation of John Locke’s famous poem, “No man is an island.”  It is not a call to isolate yourself and remove yourself from the world.  It is instead a call again to change how you relate to yourself and the world around you.

By not needing things, by not obsessing about things, by being able to say, “It’s great if it happens, but if it doesn’t that’s ok too,” the things we desire or want lose the power to frustrate us and cause us suffering.  It’s called non-attachment.

After becoming aware that all our feelings and perceptions are learned experience, a product of our mind, and not a reflection of our true selves … and after we allow our heart to embrace all aspects of ourselves … you will find that you become aware from within yourself, from your heart, that you have everything you need inside yourself to experience peace and happiness.

To summarize:  When you are aware that all your feelings and perceptions are taught, you will realize all the bull in our culture.  When you embrace all aspects of your being, you will find when you meet or even just observe others that you feel their suffering or joy, and you will feel compassion grow within yourself.  

When you know that you have everything you need inside yourself to experience peace and happiness, you will be able to go through your days without anything pushing your buttons.  You will be secure.  You will be aware of all things.  You will note the things that you can in some way change, but regarding those you can’t, you will be aware that things are the way they are because it’s just the way it is, your buttons will not be pushed, you will not obsess, you will not become agitated.

When you have reached this state, or even just begun the process of walking this path which is so different from the one you’ve followed in the past, you will find that you perform more and more random acts of kindness.  That you feel a sense of community with all people and have compassion for their state and suffering.  That you understand the value of all people, of all life, and that you respect all people.  

For you realize that people are the way they are and you are the way you are because it’s the way we’ve been taught to view ourselves and the world around us.  There are no evil people, just people who’ve been taught to do harmful things to others.  There are no failures, just people who have not been able to accomplish something that their learned experience drove them to do.  There are no lazy people, just people who’ve been beaten down all their lives by messages that they will not amount to anything.  There are no worthless people; everyone has something to contribute to society if given the opportunity; sometimes its intellect, sometimes its talent, sometimes it’s just a smile or their presence.  

And when you realize these things, you will support politicians who seek to change the fundamental nature of our culture, to create a sense of community, and to change the way we view government because so much of how people view themselves, respect themselves or don’t, feel they have opportunity or not, is a result of their interaction with government.  This is not an anti-wealth movement.  It is not an anti-business movement.  It is just a movement that says that everyone has their value and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.  

The Declaration of Independence states that all people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the purpose of government is to secure those rights.  So government action to improve educational opportunity, health care opportunity, job opportunity, and housing opportunity is necessary in order for all people to be able to truly experience life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to experience dignity and respect.   

Lincoln stated that we are a democracy “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”  This implies both rights and responsibilities of citizenship.  Those who have been able to benefit from the system and gain wealth need to give their fair share to support the government’s efforts to provide all citizens with a meaningful equal opportunity to make more of their lives.  The wealthy will still be wealthy, but part of that wealth will now serve a meaningful function in the betterment of the common good.