In the current strident debate about unemployment, we hear politicians and pundits argue about economic policy. The talk is about deficits and economic stimuli and tax policy.
All of this rancor obscures a more fundamental issue: We choose the kind of society in which we live. The choices we make are moral choices and, as moral choices, they are ultimately based on our central religious values.
We tend to treat changes in the economy as if they were like the weather -- natural phenomena governed by forces beyond our control. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have chosen to live in a society with high unemployment and with income distribution that is becoming medieval. A tiny percentage of Americans owns most of the wealth. Meanwhile millions of willing and able people are without work. This did not just happen. We created this situation.
An economics professor once taught me that if you focus on money, you will never understand economics. What he meant was that the economy is a huge system of human relationships in which people produce and exchange things and services. Money is not the economy; money is a way of keeping score.
As social creatures, one of our fundamental needs is to be in relationship, to participate, to give as well as to receive. Look at what happens to people when they are not employed, especially for long periods. Not only does their income go down, so does their sense of worth. They feel isolated and rejected. Having real work to do gives us a sense of dignity, belonging and value.
Some would argue that we should even treat the right to work as a fundamental human right like the freedom to vote or to choose one's religion. In fact, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to work and protection from unemployment.
When we realize that the economic system is a human creation which we chose and which we can change, we see important moral choices everywhere. Levels of taxation are a moral choice driven by our religious values. So is the level of unemployment.
For example, we could choose to live in a society with low unemployment. We could choose to have less economic growth if it meant more people would have work. We could choose to pollute less.
Given the choice between living in a country with a few rich people, lots of unemployed people, low taxes and high pollution or a country with fewer rich, more people with jobs, higher taxes and environmental sustainability, I know the choice my religious values point me toward.
It's a no-brainer. I would choose the latter.
What would you choose? The choice is ours to make.
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It's the "law of large numbers". You can't predict the motion of one gas particle, but as a whole gas behaves predictably. Same with the economy, the world: there are six billion molecules in the world that collectively exhibit somewhat predictable behavior*. But no one or even group of them can change that collective behavior. It's an illusion. We don't control or even direct society - it is our collective behavior, not easily changed.
*for the geeks: if world population was equal to Avogadro's number, world behavior would probably be completely predictable, 6B is just too small :-)
Americans work 20% more hours than Europeans, have lower standard of living. The biggest difference is US workforce is 50% female. Wages didn't rise, mothers had to go to work to make ends meet. That increase supply of labor, which lowers prices (wages). The more workers, they less they each will be paid.
Same with college graduates: the greater the supply, the lower the price. Those who claim higher education makes the population richer are wrong. Corporations get richer from the larger and cheaper supply of trained labor, the college-educated get poorer.
Workers make a product, then as consumers buy it back. The difference is profit that goes to stockholders, mainly the hereditary rich. That process transfers wealth to the rich from everyone else. It doesn't then "trickle-down", the rich lend it back to us so process can continue. Eventually people (and taxpayers) can't pay their debt to the rich, the system fails. Happened in 1929, again in 2007.
Capitalism is immoral, unemployment is kindness.
All of the other religions have their own problems as well, but certainly Christianity's track record seems particularly egregious and hypocritical when trying to promote tolerance and social justice (see the church's stance on gays and women for proof). A world without religion would not only be a more moral world but the people promulgating greed wouldn't be able to do so under the guise of being 'religious'.
So spot on. If only our population understood this.
If only our journalists understood this...
That although money physical supply had an effect of the flow of goods and services. Like the great depression when a low amount of money restricted commerce. Money Supply should be limited to that and only that. That Milten Friedman Chicago School of economics (GOD to Reagan, Greenspan and Burnacke) was OUT TO LUNCH creating a Money Market and contant Money Supply Manipulations.
If only our Journalist would quit talking LIKE EXPERTS for simply interviewing EXPERTS. New you cannot use instead of information that I can digest into my own opinion and not JOURNALIST OPINION
What we need in this country is election reform, so that anybody, poor or rich, can run and expect to win. We also need to limit the influence of lobbyists and big interest. We need to give this country back to the people before we put the entirety of the blame on the people.
No, I'm not willing to be a your tax slave for the illusion of equality. No, I'm not willing to let the state take the fruits of my labor and distribute them to someone else because you think that state-sponsored looting is the moral high-ground.
And, quite frankly, I don't care how you interpret your magic book. It makes you no more noble than the rest of us.
If you were an NFL quarterback, would you call it "team-sponsored looting" to pay the center a decent salary? Your vanity to the contrary, you would not have made it big without substantial support from society. Only subsistence farmers can truly say that the outside world has no claim on them. It sure sounds like your ego would not permit you to be a dirt farmer.
My point is this...how much is enough for you? If you add up local, state, and the proposed increase in the top tax bracket to 39 percent it adds up to just under a total 50% in a lot of states (more, in some). How many months should i work for free so that over 40 percent of the U.S. has to pay nothing in income tax? At that point, who am I really working for; the "evil corporate elite" or the 40 percent?
For those reasons, our ancestors, again and again, tell us that people have the right to rebel. However, they also warn us about the danger of rebellion. Is it not both a political and a religious duty to organize non-violent resistance when those who govern us are, as in the case of the current SCOTUS and many state legislatures, arbitrary?
I am aware that Rev. Morales was recently found guilty and sentenced for participating in non-violent resistance to Ariizona's legal requirements for law enforcement to interrogate suspected illegal immigrants. In these dark days, it is good to have those who light a candle in the darkness.
Citizens United, as well as the divisive and venomous political atmosphere in Washington has rendered our individual voices useless and non-influential. So, while your article is absolutely correct, and rightly points out a serious governing issue, I sadly don't think that the government cares anymore.