Guiding Children from Ghetto Poverty to Stable Adulthood

It does not, or certainly should not, need to be said that it is very difficult for any individual to lift themselves out of poverty, let alone lift themselves out of the often-degrading lifestyle of poverty in the ghetto.  Republicans are constantly saying that if you’re poor and unsuccessful it’s your fault.  As though we lived in a land of great and equal opportunity.  But that is not the case.

Nevertheless, examples do exist.  Life stories I have read show that it is possible and suggest what the conditions are for it to happen.  I will be referring to people’s lives documented in two books:  Rosa Lee and The Tragic Life of Robert Peace.

Rosa Lee was a woman of the ghetto with many of the dysfunctions often associated with the ghetto lifestyle … drugs, shoplifting, prostitution, etc.  She had eight children, most of whom followed in her footsteps.  However, two of the boys did not.  Indeed they never participated in drugs or other dysfunctional activity and became upstanding adults with steady jobs.

Why the difference in the two outcomes?  There were two major factors.  Even as young children, Eric and Alvin, the two boys who “made it,” were for different reasons extremely embarrassed and even repulsed by their mother’s lifestyle and swore that they would make a different life for themselves.  Alvin was struck by shame and humiliation about living on welfare.  Eric felt anger and disgust about his mother’s shoplifting.  Both reactions heightened by taunts, actual and feared, from other children.

The second factor was that because there was something different about them, both attracted the attention of an adult who became an important mentor, a teacher in one case, a social worker in the other.  These mentors showed the boys that they believed in them, and that a different life was open to them if they applied themselves.  Although both became teenage fathers and dropped out of school, they entered the military and afterwards held down solid, primarily government, jobs.

The other example is the life of Robert Peace.  Peace was also a child of the ghetto.  While his mother was a strong and positive influence in his life, which resulted in him achieving academic and career success, his father was a negative influence, teaching Robert the ways and lures of the ghetto drug culture, which Robert soaked up like a receptive sponge.

Robert’s hard work in school earned him a full scholarship to Yale, where he continued to excel.  After graduating he went home to teach at the high school he’d attended.  However, at the same time as he attained this success, he remained deeply enmeshed in the ghetto’s drug culture and became a dealer  He was murdered at age 30 in a drug-related shooting.

While these are only two examples, I think that they offer some important lessons for those trying to improve the lot of ghetto children.  First, if children, either because of the influence a parent or some other mentor or due to some experience of their own, apply themselves to their studies, their natural intelligence will be watered and they will succeed in their studies  and gain self-confidence.  

Having written the previous sentence, it sounds like a real “duh!” statement.  And yet it isn’t.  The vast majority of children living in poverty, not just the ghetto, don’t have either a positive parent influence, a positive teacher/mentor influence, or some life experience that makes them determined to get out of the ghetto though an education.

How sad!  But you can’t blame parents living in poverty because they are who they are.  They are a creation of the social circumstances in which they were born and grew up.  Without strong programs to bring parents into the education process … and there have been successes … this just isn’t going to happen.  

The successful programs prove though that with sufficient public/government will and the resulting funding, it is possible.  But such government programs almost always lack funding.  The money is there; it’s just a matter of priorities.  Personally, I think the nation would be better served if the cost of several new fighter jet for the military …$412M for a single F-22 or $100M for a single F-35 … were diverted instead to such programs.

We all know what a sad state most urban ghetto schools are in, not just physically but more importantly in the utter lack of motivation provided.  The vast majority either don’t know how, or just don’t try, to transform the raw material that comes through their doors from children who have no interest in education, to children who seek it out and thrive on it.  

Again, though, there are schools that have been successful in achieving this transformation.  So we know it is not the child’s intelligence or background that is the insurmountable barrier … although the ghetto background is certainly something to be overcome.  It is first and foremost the attitude of educators and teachers, and secondly their abilities, that are the real obstacles and that need to be transformed.  This has to be a priority of federal, state, and local government.  The nation’s future is its children.

But if we look at the contrasting examples of Rosa Lee’s two children, Eric and Alvin, and Robert Peace, we see that providing a child with a good education is not enough,  There is a saying that you can take the child out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the child.  In the case of Robert Peace, that certainly proved to be the case.  But not with Eric and Alvin.

Robert Peace was addicted (not in the literal sense) to the ghetto drug culture.  Rosa Lee’s other children were literally addicted.  Eric and Alvin, on the other hand, were repulsed and embarrassed by all the various social dysfunctions they encountered growing up with Rosa Lee.  What does one do, what does a society do, with this lesson.?

I guess the first question is how atypical is the Robert Peace experience?  If one looks at others who have come out of the ghetto background and established successful careers, how many continue to be caught in the harmful elements of ghetto culture as Peace was?  I don’t know the answer.  But my guess is that for most it is not a problem.  It is probably the rare person who is both caught up in something like the drug trade and also has a parent influence who pushes the value of education.

But even assuming that his story is atypical and that most do not get pulled under by those forces, it would still make sense for the children and society if schools placed appropriate emphasis on taking the ghetto out of the child.  Show the child not just that education is exciting and that the child is capable, but that a change in lifestyle is also necessary to free themselves from the dysfunctional aspects of the ghetto, all the while remembering that it’s not all negative.  The point should be that they need to show themselves self-respect by removing the degrading elements of the lifestyle from their lives.  Operation Push tried to do this, I think.  I’m sure there have been other programs.  But it needs to be part of the school program.

The United Negro College Fund has as their motto, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”  How true.  Yet even in the 21st century, the vast majority of urban ghetto children’s minds are wasted, both to their detriment and the detriment of our nation.  Which is not to say that many other children’s minds aren’t wasted!  A top priority of government and our society has to be to end this waste.

Rescuing American Democracy

A healthy democracy depends on a large percentage of the electorate voting and on the voting outcome being the result of a debate on issues and policies.  Our democracy is far from healthy on both these fronts. (I know there are other problems, but those are not within the purview of this post.  See, for example, "The Value of Differing Opinions," 1/4/13.)

In the US, voter turnout is notoriously low even in presidential election years compared with other developed countries.  (The US rate was recently 62%, well below the average of 70% and the top country, Australia, with 95%.)  Certainly, some eligible citizens choose not to get registered and vote.  But much of the low voter turnout results not from choice but from obstacles to voting, which belie the principle of “one man, one vote” and dilutes the participatory nature of our democracy.

A major obstacle in the U.S. is the day selected for elections.  In most countries, election day is on a Sunday, making it easier for people to vote.  In those countries that vote on a weekday, many declare election day a national holiday in order to make it easier for people to vote.  

In the US, of course, voting is on a Tuesday; it is not a national holiday; and voter turnout is shamefully low.  There is thus a nascent movement afoot to have federal elections on the first weekend in November.  As stated in a New York Times op ed piece, “Our current system penalizes single parents, people working two jobs, and those who have to choose between getting a paycheck and casting a ballot. Two weekend days of voting means those working families would have a greater chance of making it to the polls.”

But short of making such a change, it has been generally accepted for several decades that voting should be encouraged by making it as easy as possible to both register and vote.  These efforts have recognized that many people need expanded hours and early voting to have effective access to the polls because of their jobs.  

Recent efforts by Republican-controlled state legislatures to restrict early voting and expanded hours thus attack the principle of “one man, one vote.”  The same is true of laws that require photo IDs.  Both of these efforts make voting more difficult, especially for the working poor.  Voting is an essential right of citizenship; no unnecessary obstacle should be placed on that right.  

The primary concept behind the Constitutional right of free speech and its importance to the functioning of our democracy is the concept of a “marketplace of ideas.”  For this marketplace to function properly, the consumer’s choices should be made based on the quality of the competing ideas not on the marketing effect caused by unequal funding of campaigns.

Since we have never had public financing of campaigns, the unequal impact of money on the marketing effect has always been problematic.  But in recent years, the Supreme Court has struck down even the meagre laws we had attempting to restrict the amount of money given to campaigns by an individual and the amount of money corporations can spend on campaign and issue ads on the basis that such laws are an unconstitutional abridgment of the right to free speech.  

These rulings have resulted in exactly what was feared … an avalanche of corporate and big donor (and thus primarily conservative) dollars in an attempt to influence the outcome of elections, not by virtue of the quality of their ideas but the overwhelming volume of marketing.  This makes the marketplace of ideas totally dysfunctional.

It also dilutes the concept of “one man, one vote.”  If one takes the concept seriously, it necessitates not just that no person’s actual vote counts more than another’s, it means that no person’s voice counts more than another’s …  at least not because of the amount of money a person has.  Because if it does, if money talks in elections, then a relatively small body of people and corporations have a much greater voice in the election and thus often the outcome of an election than the general voting populace.  Obviously, money doesn’t always ensure winning.  But it sure helps.  This is contrary to the egalitarian nature of our democratic principles.

For this reason, we should have public financing of elections with all candidates having the same amount of money to spend and with all outside advertising, whether on issues or candidates, prohibited within a certain time period of elections.

But the proper functioning of the marketplace of ideas requires more than equal time (a concept in broadcasting which unfortunately has been discarded).  It requires the absence of lies and deceit.  

I know the theory is that lies will be exposed in the give and take of the marketplace and so will not give the perpetrator an advantage.  However, in our viral instant communication age, the fact is that a falsehood once cleverly spoken attains so much currency that it is virtually impossible for the victim to recover, to effectively counter the lie and render it harmless.

What we therefore need is a “Truth in Political Advertising” law.  See my very first post, “Truth in Politics: De-Frauding American Politics,” 2/1/11.

There is nothing more important to the continued healthy functioning of our democracy than that we have an informed electorate, that a large percentage of the electorate votes, and that no one has a greater voice in the outcome of an election by virtue of the amount of money he (or a corporation) spends.  Laws need to be passed to protect and improve the process.

For the Sake of Your Children and Grandchildren, Don’t Ignore Climate Change

If you have a 3-year old child or grandchild, he or she will most likely live until 2090.  His or her children … your grandchildren or great-grandchildren … will most likely live until 2115.  What kind of environment do you want to leave them … one that creates hardship and even threatens life or one that nurtures it?   That is the question that every corporation head, every member of Congress, and each and every citizen should ask themselves when considering the issue of climate change.

Al Gore was absolutely right when he labeled climate change, “An Inconvenient Truth.”  Corporations find it inconvenient because they don’t want to spend more money to clean up their emissions or change how things are produced.  The public finds it inconvenient because it doesn’t want to change it’s habits … the car culture, wanting consumer goods to be cheap, not wanting to bother with conservation.  And it’s inconvenient for the government because it means having to take leadership and, at least in the short run, displeasing important constituencies.

But guess what?  Inconvenient or not, the evidence becomes clearer every year that we are headed down a path that will lead to major disruptions and hardship for much of the Earth’s inhabitants.  And the disruptions and hardships are arriving more quickly than scientists had anticipated.

In the old days, miners used to take canaries down with them into the mines to warn them of impending disaster.  If gas was building up, the canaries would get sick before the miners had any awareness of a problem.  And the miners would get out as quickly as possible.

We have already had plenty of climate change “canaries in the mine,” but only scientists seem to be concerned.  Whether you look at the disappearance of arctic ice in summer, the weakening of the ice shelf in Greenland and parts of Antartica, the increase in violent weather and drought, the report that most polar bear cubs are not living to maturity, the march of pests from southern to northern areas with accompanying destruction of forests, deadly tick infestations of moose, the movement of fish and lobsters from their ancestral habitats further north as the Atlantic Ocean waters off much of New England become too warm … all of these things are warnings of much worse things to come.  

And each year, the scientific reports contain a familiar refrain … that the changes are happening more quickly than had been anticipated.  Now there is consensus that even with the world-wide agreement to cut carbon emissions currently in process, significant impact cannot be avoided, with such impact appearing by 2050.  Scientists are no longer even sure that the previous standard limit of a “safe” rise in temperature (2º C/3.6º F) is correct; it may be lower.  But even that limit can no longer be avoided.  Only catastrophic impact can possibly be avoided, and even that is less likely as each year without action passes..

We … governments, corporations, and the public … are playing a losing game of Russian roulette with the lives of our children and grandchildren.  If we want our immediate descendants to be able to continue living on Earth in a safe, secure environment, then more drastic broad-based action needs to be taken now.  Everyone gives lip service to “our children are the future,” yet everyone acts like there’s no tomorrow.  Everyone’s planning is short-term.

I don’t know what the exact answer is.  But I do know that denial has to stop.  And significant action has to be taken by government, corporations, and individuals for the sake of our children.

Can We Stop the Mistreatment of Women and African-Americans?

There has been much in the news these past few months about both the abuse of women by men of all sorts, and the mistreatment of African-Americans by the police.  To the extent that articles about these issues examine the causes, writers blame respectively an ongoing misogynistic attitude among many men and racism within the police force.

While both of these statements are undoubtedly true, duh!, the real reason lies deeper.  It lies in the insecurity of men.  (See my post, “ The Root of all Abuse and Violence - Insecurity,” 1/7/2013 .)

The reason why so many men abuse women … whether it’s campus date rape, military sexual assault, spouse abuse, or men watching violent porn … is that it’s a way for them to exercise power.  Man is raised in a way that makes him insecure.  And insecure people often seek to compensate for or mask their insecurity by exercising power over those who are weaker than they are.  That together with misogynistic feelings creates a perfect storm.  The result:  abuse of women.

Why do many police, regardless the city, routinely mistreat African-American men in so many ways, running the gamut from verbal abuse to chokeholds and shootings?  The answer again is that, in addition to black men being looked down on or mistrusted due to racist feelings, police as men get off on exercising power over others.  And they know that they can exercise that power vis a vis blacks almost with impunity.  Again, we have a perfect storm and the result is abuse.

I agree with many commentators that an important part of the answer to this deep societal problem consists of  education, or better put, re-education.  In the case of police it’s relatively easy, at least in a logistic sense, because you have a captive audience that can be forced to attend classes.  For men in general, that kind of approach is obviously not possible.

But even if you do re-educate police or attempt something similar with men, the real obstacle to changing behavior is that their attitudinal perspective stems from the messages they have received throughout their lives regarding either women or African-Americans.  And that message can effectively be transformed only by altering the social context within which men and police exist.

How does one begin to alter the context of racism?  Since the police are to a certain extent a culture unto themselves, one can change the culture of the organization, top down.  Which will certainly help.  But if the broader social context remains unchanged, once someone has been taught to think less of, or be afraid of, or hate people of another race, it’s very hard to change that except through an enlightening personal experience, one on one.  (Although even that is not a sure thing … there was a saying in Nazi Germany that every Nazi had his Jew.  That personal experience, however, obviously didn’t impact the larger negative attitude.) 

Changing the social context of racism is an issue that has bedeviled educators and social thinkers.  It almost requires starting fresh, with a blank slate.  Which is why the only real hope lies in educating children, and seeing that at least within the schools, they are exposed to nothing but respect for those who are different from them.  We can’t control what they experience at home or on the streets or even on television or on film, but we can control what they experience and are taught in school.

The same answer applies to altering the misogynistic, love/hate attitude that many men have towards women.  This is nothing new.   It is not a feature of our modern culture.  It goes back centuries and millennia … all those years in which women were basically chattel and had no rights.  My word, women weren’t even allowed to vote in the United States until 1920!

Here again we must start in the schools.  Boys must be exposed to nothing but respect for girls and women.

In both cases, one can expect that there will be instances of children acting in inappropriate ways, with a lack of respect and even violence.  Any such behavior must be dealt with in an appropriate manner, which does not exclude punishment of some sort, but there must be more than that because people do not change thought patterns or even behavior solely because of punishment.

So far I’ve only addressed the education aspect of solving, or better put, ameliorating, this problem.  What about the underlying factor of man’s having been raised in a way that makes him insecure?  

Assuming that to some degree you agree with this assessment, explained in the post I referred to earlier, you may well ask how this issue can be addressed.  Once again, the answer lies in our children,  If children can learn to be insecure, they can learn to be secure.  Insecurity is not the natural human state.

The difficulty in bringing about such change is that we are the result of an unending cycle of insecure people raising insecure children, who go on to become insecure parents, and on and on.  To break this cycle, we must make prospective and existing parents aware of this problem and encourage them to take steps to both raise happy and secure children and at the same time make their own lives better as well.  

To that end I have written a book, Raising a Happy Child. While based on Buddhist principles, the lessons it contains are applicable regardless of one’s religious affiliation.  There should be a huge parenting outreach through churches, schools, and marriage license offices to begin orienting parents on how to raise happy, secure children.

Raising a Happy Child is available in both softcover and eBook formats through Amazon and other online book-retailers and through your local bookstore by special order.  For more information about the book as well as the Table of Contents and sample text, go to www.ThePracticalBuddhist.com.

The Proper Balance between Industry, Government, and the Public Good

In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson said, “a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement …”  In that sentence lies the answer to this central issue in American democracy … what us the proper balance between industry/private rights, government, and the public good.

First a question.  What does the phrase, “restrain men from injuring one another,” mean?  One could take it quite literally and think that it refers solely to criminal acts.  But early on, government and the courts realized that there were other ways in which men injure others, and so a system of contract and tort law was developed to protect people, as well as businesses, from injury.

During the Progressive era that held sway for most of the 20th century,  the concept was further broadened to include protecting the public good, which in effect means protecting all individuals and businesses.  For example, it is in the public good that small businesses prosper or that we breathe clean air.  Thus a whole system of laws and regulations were enacted to protect the public good from injury from the exercise of unbridled power by corporations.  

Whether it’s labor laws, security laws, environmental laws, or antitrust laws … all of these laws, and the agencies and regulations that implement them, were felt necessary to protect the less powerful from being injured.  And in so doing such laws fulfill the maxim stated by Jefferson.

There was a long time in American history when business operated with virtually no restraints.  But as the industrial revolution took hold, and corporations became very powerful institutions that had no concern other than the making of money, regardless what their impact was on others, government started understanding that it needed to act to protect the less powerful from injury.  

The first federal child labor law was passed in 1916.  Prior to that the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the law setting up the Interstate Commerce Commission were passed around 1890.  Over the next decades, countless laws were passed and regulations enacted to protect individuals, the public, and other businesses (such as farmers and small business owners) from the power of large corporations.

Until the Reagan presidency, it was commonly accepted by both Democrats and Republicans, as well as the general public, that such laws and regulations were critical to government performing its task of “restraining men from injuring one another” or in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “to secure” everyone’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This was not an “anti-business” era.  Hardly.  The prospering of business was supported by the government in many ways, in recognition that a robust business community was critical to the strength of the American economy.  But it was a time when government and the people understood that if large corporations were left to themselves, they would trample over everything in their path to making more money.

And so whether it was the Taft-Hartley Labor Laws, the Glass-Steagal Act, the Clean Water Act or the creation of the EPA, these were not “anti-business” measures.   They were measures that reflected the understanding that there needed to be a balance; that while corporations needed freedom to act, that freedom was not absolute.  They could not in so doing injure others, and it was the role of government to protect those who did not have the power to protect themselves against injury from the actions of corporations by retraining them. 

Ronald Reagan, however, brought about the beginning of a fundamental change in this accepted attitude regarding the role of government, both on the part of the Republican Party and a large segment of the public.  He famously said, “Government is not the solution to the problem.  Government is the problem.”

And so began the era of deregulation.  To a large extent, the financial crisis of 2008 that caused the Great Recession can be laid at the doorstop of deregulation … principally the repeal of Glass-Steagall.  Yet despite this event, which was catastrophic for many Americans, the attitude of less regulation is better regulation continues to be the rallying cry for the newly radicalized Republican Party and its Tea Party base.

Somehow, we must restore the meeting of the minds regarding the role of government and the balance our country had struck between private rights, government, and the public good.  How we get to that point I don’t know.  The polarization is so deep; the language of public discourse is so divisive.  Yet we must try or our country will diminish in greatness even as its corporations thrive.

How to End Wage Stagnation and Bring Back/Increase Jobs

Two of the most important issues facing our country is how to improve the wages of workers (as opposed to management), who make up the bulk of our workforce and whose spending accounts for a large share of our economy, and significantly increase the number of living-wage jobs either by bringing them back to this country or creating new ones.  These issues are important from a variety of perspectives: economic, of course, but also moral, societal and national security.

We have seen wage stagnation for the past few decades because workers no longer have any clout.  Whether a workplace is unionized or not, corporations haven’t given raises because they know that workers have no place else to go.  They can’t leave even if they are disgusted with their pay because alternative jobs just aren’t there.  They’ve gone overseas, making it an employer’s market.

So how do you change the situation?  There is going to be much talk in the coming months about revising the tax code, both for individuals and as it applies to corporations.  As a general matter, I would argue that any tax break for corporations should be tied to their better performance in a variety of areas affecting the public good, such as the environment and wage stagnation.

I would therefore suggest a new provision that would provide that if corporations give workers a percentage raise in a given year equal to the percentage rise in profit, then such corporations would get a tax break.  Corporations need to be incentivized.  Some might say they should be penalized if they don’t provide such a raise, but that would never fly in Congress.

The same is true for bringing jobs back to the US.  At some point, given increasing labor costs overseas and what will be increased transportation costs, it will make economic sense to bring jobs back here.  In the meantime, the government needs to provide a tax incentive for companies to expand domestic operations that provide living-wage jobs.

But in addition to the problem of jobs being sent overseas, one must face the following fact.   In an age of ever-increasing application of technology to the production process, the same number of jobs are not going to be created even if production is brought back because they just aren’t needed to produce the product.  

That means that a large share of the increase in good-paying jobs needed to keep the economy and the middle class robust will have to come in the form of public works projects.  Luckily, there is no end to the infrastructure projects, both improvements and new, that are desperately needed to support our country’s functioning at the highest level.  

Thus, the government will need to embark on an ambitious plan, similar in scope to the Interstate Highway System, to insure an ongoing strong economy, not just in terms of GDP increase but in the strength of the middle class.  The radical Right will no doubt respond by kicking and screaming about socialism and the deficit.  

But such a plan is even more justified now than the Interstate Highway was when Republican President Eisenhower proposed its enactment.  While Eisenhower’s rationale that the system was needed to improve the country’s defense was overstated (it was more honestly an economic measure), one can argue with a straight face that the proposed infrastructure plan is critical to the nation’s security, both in a physical functioning sense as well as in the strength of the economy.

This is a challenging time for the United States.  If we do not rise above petty bickering and join together to support a nation that is strong, not just in military might and the power of its multi-national corporations, but in the health and welfare of the average citizen, then we are doomed to become a shell of our former self, a Potemkin village.

Large Corporations Have Gutted Our Economy and Damaged Our Country

Republicans are always touting large corporations as the engine of our economy and argue that we have to have business-friendly policies in order to allow them to grow and create jobs.  And while Democrats might take a more nuanced stance publicly, their actions in Congress certainly show that they, while not in lock step with Republicans on this issue, are also certainly very friendly-disposed to large corporations.

One would be a fool not to agree that the business sector, including large corporations, is critical to the health of our economy.  However, it is one thing to say that we need to have policies that promote the growth of business and another to say that business interests trump all others, such as the public good.

But these statements about the importance of large corporations are just cover.  What it’s really all about is something very base at the core of American politics … the power and influence of money.  

It’s no secret that large corporations and industry groups have, through their largesse in donating money to political campaigns as well as their newer participation in PACS, bought unequaled clout in the halls of Congress.  While there are some clear exceptions, generally, regardless what type of legislation or regulation you look at, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, at the end of the day, big business has either gotten their way or so weakened measures meant to control them and protect the public that the end result is in their favor.

Clearly the growth of big business has benefited those who sit at the top of corporate power and are players on Wall Street ... the new elite, the 1%.  But what about the rest of us?  Has the average American benefited from the growth of big business?  Has our country benefitted?  To answer that question, I will be looking at the impact on jobs, wages, small business, and transportation.

Jobs:  Big business is almost solely to blame  (I say “almost solely” because unions carry a good share of the blame as well), aided and abetted by government tax policies, for the loss of millions of jobs overseas since 1979.  For the transformation of the average American worker from solidly middle class with a good wage, to struggling to hang on at a low wage.  Looking just at manufacturing, employment collapsed from 19.5 million workers in June 1979 to 11.5 million in December 2009.

Corporations have always been greedy.  It’s their nature.  In the first part of the 20th century, workers were typically, not always, viewed almost as an enemy who challenged the corporation’s absolute power and wanted more of the corporate financial pie, rather than as valued workers who were responsible for the quality of the product.  The antagonism between the two forces was very evident.  The passage of Federal labor laws, while not changing this dynamic between management and labor,  helped level the playing field by giving workers real negotiating power.

But at some point, corporations had enough of labor negotiations.  Those in power wanted to retain more of the financial pie for themselves and shareholders.  This provided the motivation to find a way out.

And they found one readily available ... the South and it’s “Right to Work” laws.  Many manufacturing firms moved south to take advantage of these state laws which made it very difficult to unionize, and thus wages were significantly lower.  Job losses thus started occurring long before globalization.  

So, for example, I grew up in Reading, PA.  One of the largest employers was Berkshire Knitting, at the time the largest knitting mill in the world.   But within a few years, the vast mills were all empty.  After being sold to Vanity Fair, the jobs moved south and thousands of workers in Reading were out of work.  The same scenario played out in many cities throughout the northeast as light manufacturing relocated to the South.

But it was the advent of the global economy, “globalization,” that nailed the lid on the coffin of the American blue collar worker.  Again, solely because of corporate greed ... wanting to increase the bottom line regardless at whose expense ... (and often against the background of union intransigence) manufacturing as well as many other types of jobs moved en masse to lower cost locations, mainly Mexico and Asia.  The result was a literal hemorrhaging of jobs and the decimation of America’s middle class.

For example, U.S. Dept. of Commerce data show that “U.S. multinational corporations cut their work force in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million.”  In the two years following the 2008 Wall Street crisis, large American corporations cut U.S. payrolls by a net of 500,000 jobs.  At the same time, they hired 729,000 workers overseas. Corporations were hiring, just not in the U.S.

Corporate spokesmen and their political apologists say that this move off-shore was necessary in order to keep “American” business competitive.  Nonsense.  It was to keep corporate profits and thus CEO and shareholder pockets flush.  They always had the option to cut prices, but that would have meant lowering profits, which is anathema in corporate America.  Protecting American jobs was obviously nowhere on their list of goals.  (Unfortunately, unions were also often unrealistic and refused to countenance pay or benefit cuts in return for job security.)  

The poster child for this off-shore movement, General Electric’s then-CEO Jack Welsh, argued that public corporations owed their primary allegiance to stockholders, not employees.  Nor, although this was unspoken, to the country that spawned them.  Therefore, Welsh said, companies should seek to lower costs and maximize profits by moving operations wherever is cheapest.

And so they moved their operations and the jobs were lost.  These are no longer “American” companies in any sense other than headquarters. 

Yes, it’s true that many new jobs have been created in the United States, including since the recent recession.  But those jobs have overwhelmingly been lower-paying service industry jobs and often part-time jobs.  So people hired for these new jobs are working for less money and their standard of living is far below what it was previously.

Wages:  It’s no secret that American workers’ wages have stagnated over the past few decades.  The reason is also clear … the loss of middle class living-wage jobs overseas and the creation of low-paying jobs here.  And for those who still have their formerly good jobs, their pay has at best remained stagnant or they have had to take a significant cut in pay in order to keep the corporation from moving the jobs overseas.  

Again, all to protect the corporate bottom line.  And so we see that while CEOs today make astronomical sums, a 937% increase, inflation adjusted, in their total compensation package between 1978 and 2013, a typical workers’ income in inflation-adjusted dollars rose only 10% during that same period.  

If corporate profits have risen approximately 3% per year during this period (or 105% … yes, I was surprised, far less than the rise in CEO pay), why haven’t their workers benefited?  Because workers no longer have any clout.  With so many jobs lost overseas, companies, whether unionized or not, don’t have to worry that their employees will leave if they don’t get raises.   They know that workers have nowhere else to go.  And it is a rare corporation that will raise wages because it is fitting to do so.  Obviously, CEOs do have clout.

Small Business:  Politicians of both parties love to talk about the importance of small business to the American economy and cite government efforts to help small business.  Yet these same politicians curry the favor of the very forces … large corporations … that have brought doom to small (and often not so small) local businesses across the country.

We have become a nation that, certainly from a retailing perspective, lacks virtually any individual character from place to place.  Everywhere you go, you will find shopping malls with exactly the same stores.  You will find roads lined with exactly the same collection of fast-food outlets.  You will find a proliferation of Starbucks coffee shops.  And of course, you will find a Walmart, a Lowes or Home Depot, and a Staples or Office Depot.  As a consequence, local stores offering the same services have been put out of business whether because they couldn’t compete with volume pricing or corporate marketing or couldn’t offer the same selection.

These large corporations have thrived, not just because of the business acumen and ambition of their management … which of course is critically important … but because of government policies and actions, including the enabling if not encouraging of the suburbanization of America.

Let me again look at Reading, PA as an example.  In the 50s, downtown Reading was a thriving place with a vibrant local retail scene and cultural life.  But as highways were built that encouraged the creation of suburban development, a new type of business entered the mix … national and regional retail corporations … that found their home not downtown but in new suburban malls.  As this development increased, people living in the suburbs, which now overshadowed the city-dweller in both numbers and economic purchasing power, no longer needed to go downtown to shop, or eat, or go to the movies.  And so despite all sorts of measures by Reading officials, downtown Reading died and is nothing more than a memory, replaced now by an office culture.

Transportation:  Why is America a nation which, more than any other, is so dependent on the automobile?  Why do we have such a weak national or regional passenger railroad system?  Why, with a few large city exceptions, do we have such weak local public transportation networks?

The answer is unambiguous … for almost a century, the automobile industry was the most powerful industrial force in the country.  The saying, “What’s good for GM is good for the country,” was said in all seriousness.  And its influence was not surprisingly felt in Congress as well as in state and local government.

Prior to WWII,  although cars had become an essential element in American transportation, the railroad and mass transit were equally essential.  But after WWII, the federal government, under President Eisenhower, began a massive investment in creating the interstate highway system and expressways that bypass and go through major urban areas … all to make it easier for automobile and truck traffic to get from place to place.  

The official reasoning for this huge expenditure was improving our defense and response to nuclear attack.  But what really lay behind this decision was the power and influence of the automobile industry, together with a desire to increase economic growth through new highway and housing construction.

Just as the coming of the railroad brought about the creation of new towns and cities in its day, so too did the new highway systems (together with the new availability of low down-payment long-term mortgages) bring about the proliferation of suburban development, not just outside major cities but virtually all cities. Over the next few decades, what began as an experiment in changing the basic nature of American everyday life turned into the default mode, urged on by a confluence of powerful business interests and people’s desire to own a home and some property (what became “the American dream”) as well as the white flight from cities.

This government action amounted to a huge subsidy of the automobile industry which had no counterpart in the railroad industry and only a faint counterpart for local mass transit.  Since automobiles were deemed by government to be the transportation of choice, virtually no new mass transit or light rail systems were built in the United States for several decades after WWII. 

But the automobile industry wasn’t satisfied with the benefits flowing from this government action.  They also brought about the actual dismantling of existing light rail systems, most well-known is the Los Angeles system, and the obstruction of new mass transit lines.

The result of this influence (together with the other factors noted) was an increasingly car-dependent society, the deterioration of railroads, and the stagnation of mass transit systems.  Only in the last few decades, since the mid-70s, have new and expanded mass transit systems been built in various cities to accommodate an inescapable need.  

For example, in the San Francisco area, “after dismantling the existing electric streetcar and suburban train system in the 1950s in favor of highway travel using automobiles and buses, given the explosive growth of expressway construction,” the modern BART system began limited operation in 1972 and was expanded over the following decade.

Now, one could certainly argue that the American public revels in and treasures its ability to go where and when it wants to based on the automobile.  After decades of mass marketing campaigns, this has indeed become a major feature of our culture.  And so the average American would not say that they have been short-changed by this development; quite the contrary.

But looked at objectively, would the average American and the country as a whole have been better off with the post-WWII development of a more balanced transportation network … one that included a viable, modern national and regional railroad system, more comprehensive mass transit systems in major cities, and light rail systems in other cities, together with an improved network of roads.  The answer is certainly yes.   And it would have left us better prepared to adjust to an era where the use of fossil fuels must be reduced. 

By looking at these major areas … jobs, wages, small business, and transportation … we see that the power of big business has had a major negative impact on the average American worker as well as on various aspects of our society.  

Not to be forgotten is the broader economic impact of the decimation of the American middle class … the middle class was the backbone of our consumer-driven economy with consumer spending accounting for 70% of GDP (some argue 52%).  Only the emergence of the ubiquitous credit card has saved the economy, but at the cost of massive household debt … an average of $15,593, a total of $880 billion.   Not a good thing.  Many things that have happened because of the power of big business cannot be reversed; however, many can.

Large corporations have consistently shown themselves to be amoral.   As defined by the dictionary, that means that they have no moral standards, restraints, or principles; are unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong.  They have only one guiding principle … improving their bottom line. 

For the good of our country, this cannot be allowed to continue free of restraint.  The public and government must break from this stranglehold of big business and fight for a more egalitarian society.   

In every society, there will always be those who are better off, even rich, and those who are not as well off.  But there is no excuse in a society as rich as ours for the egregious disparity in incomes, for the decimation of a strong middle class, for children to go to bed hungry, for people to be homeless, and for the pollution of the air we breathe and the water that sustains us, which pollution threatens not just our health but our very way of life and possibly the viability of planet Earth.