In the thread below, we were talking about privatizing government functions and its effect on state employees. Joe said:
Jobs for all Hoosiers are facing cutbacks & outsourcing, so exactly why state employees are exempt from the same issues is beyond me.
For starters, our state government has direct control over state employees. I suppose it boils down to whether you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing that workers generally are being subjected to cutbacks and outsourcing — in many instances due to increased global competition. If you think those pressures are ultimately a good thing, then I guess more is better. If you think those pressures are a bad thing for your citizens, then you take your stands where you can make a difference — public employment being one of those places.
I don’t think it’s enough to be able to buy widgets at a cheaper price. Your citizenry needs to be able to generate an income from their labor that allows them to buy the widgets. A Wal-mart income does not allow one to live a Wal-mart lifestyle.
What I see now is a sort of tragedy of the commons. The commons consists of the strong, healthy middle class we built up during the 40s through 60s, perhaps into the 70s. The tragedy is an economic strategy that consists of paying one’s workers too little to allow them to live a middle class lifestyle while selling one’s products to the employees of other businesses that have not yet adopted this economic strategy. It’s good while it lasts, but if it keeps up, eventually there will be nobody left to sell to.
My pipe dream of the middle class is a society where the median wage earner earned enough for a family of four to live on one income. That income would allow them to pay a mortgage on maybe 1,500 square feet and a quarter acre of land. It would allow a second parent to take care of the kids and participate in non-business community pursuits. If they were frugal, it would allow them to send the kids to college without much debt. The long time workers might have enough to afford a small cottage and maybe a fishing boat on a lake somewhere nearby. And, of course, by the couple’s mid-60s there would be enough to retire on and live in some dignity. Is my vision too opulent?
Doug-
“[A] quarter acre of land and 1500 sq. ft. of living space” would definately be opulent on Manhatten or in San Francisco, especially for a median wage earner, though there are jobs for median wage earners in those locales. More critically, in terms of the open land and living space you describe, you seem (in this one regard) to have a very suburban (or small town/city) vision of a good life, which is fine, but must be recognized as historically an oddity and one which is land and energy intensive (i.e. highly dependent upon the automobile). I would be very relucantant to sign on to an economic plan which had as an objective assuring median wage earners (or anyone else for that matter) access to suburban living.
No one should be “retiring” in their ’60s anymore. The “official” retirement age should be moved back to at least 70.
This is sort of off-topic, but while we’re talking about pipe dreams and civil service:
I’d like to see a society where “growing up” is book-ended by civil service. Go to high school, then after graduation you are forced to join an available civil service for 2 years – be it a branch of the Military, working with the poor, health care, fire-fighting in the West and so on. (Basically a very diverse set of civil programs that teach actually useful skills and give some much needed life experience.)
Then, once you have “matured” to 20 or 21 and hopefully have a better perspective on life, you get your basic college education paid for. I’m betting that a lot of folks move into those careers and study that they volunteered in – further strengthening our social fiber – rather than just gravitate to capitalistic endeavors for the economics. (Which is still fine – we need business people, lawyers and doctors too, but I bet they’ll have a much different perspective.)
After your “career” you should then get a government salary to live the “comfortable” life with a commitment of giving back to society of your acquired knowledge. This might be working with those 18 year olds in those social programs. It might be teaching. It might be advising policy within local government.
Not only will this help society by providing a dramatic increase in the amount of youthful-energy attacking our social problems, it brings the experience of the older generation to mold that energy. Kids get a chance to settle their post-high school minds down a bit in preparation for adult-hood and make better choices. Seniors get out of the house and live fuller and more energetic lives. Society benefits and grows stronger.
Doug,
I was just reading something along these lines last night in David Halberstam’s book “The Fifties.” He pointed out that when employers began paying their employees enough so that they could afford to buy the product they produced, the consumer society was born.
Who will do the consuming when nobody can afford to make purchases except the wealthy?
Possibly I should rephrase my question. Rather than asking whether my vision is a good one or not, perhaps I should be asking: 1) What sort of lifestyle should the average Joe who works hard and plays by the rules expect to be able to afford; and 2) Is it possible to organize society to make that a reality?
Because, as I see it now, the average Joe and his wife can both work hard enough to raise a family they see between the end of the workday and bedtime, just keep up with the mortgage, send the kids to college if the kids are willing to assume a fairly substantial amount of debt, and maybe squirrel away a little bit of money to last them until the first serious illness or one of their employers shuts down and leaves them with a significant amount of downtime.
Wow Doug, for a moment their your premise sounded a bit like the religious people (I get the sects confused) who go door to door with the picture of a lush valley with deer romping next to the garden “don’t you want this world?” (ok, what self-respecting deer would leave lettuce in a garden untouched?). It kind of gave me the willies.
Population as it is today, we are lucky everyone *isn’t* having two kids each (with our longer life expectancies, we can all do the math, right?) and I agree with Paul as to the quarter acre of land (do we *have* that much buildable land? are we still planning on farming any of it?). Um… after age 5 aren’t most kids in school the bulk of the day? And as a side note… your world still had one parent not seeing them (*if* they were home for some reason).
Personally, I think a major part of our problem is our rampant consumerism (of which I am totally guilty). The other thing the middle class from the 40’s and 50’s have in common is being content with a much simpler life style. My parents have a fixed income, a small, uncluttered house on a small lot. They use the library, ride public transportation, shop at second-hand stores if they need clothing, grow many of their own vegetables, eat most of their meals at home (they go to a local diner for Sunday brunch), take advantage of free events (they are lucky to live in Seattle), rent an occasional movie, have friends over for a lunch of soup and sandwitches, listen to the 30-year-old stereo (Heathkit I built in 8th grade), watch Jon Stewart on their single TV, and are very happy as the retired middle class of their day.
And this isn’t just them in retirement… they have always kept it pretty simple. If people our age were willing to live like they do, we too could do it on a single (middle-class, not Wal-mart worker) income. If we were willing to raise our children as many of us were raised (two to three new outfits at the beginning of each school year), we could do that on a single income as well.
As to college… I actually don’t have a problem with student loans (within reason); I think it made me appreciate school more having to pay for a chunk of it myself. I was very proud when I finally paid it off.
Average Joe? ;)
I think if you want to organize society that way, there would be more impact from tying the minimum wage to the poverty level or CPI.
As part of playing by the rules, I would think that getting a high school diploma should be a part of the rules – realizing that, to get to the Average Joe level you describe, in many cases a college degree is also required. I think that’s where things have come unhinged.
Good point Joe.
According to one study I found, “The overall national public high school graduation rate for the class of 2003 was 70 percent.”
What that education is preparing the students for (if not college) is also an important factor.
Could someone explain to me when the world ended and the middle class died? I must have missed it. There have always been cutbacks and outsourcing since we left the farms and started manufacturing “things”. Economies swell and shrink in cycles. People lose jobs and get new ones. Life goes on.
Unemployment is low, 95% of the people that want to work have a job, per capita income and wages are up and go up every year, consumers are still spending, the stock market is cruising along, interest rates are low, and all I hear is how the sky is falling. Where do you guys live? In a different Indiana?
And the constant reference to Walmart is getting really old. People “start out” at Walmart like anywhere else. As they move up they make more. The warehouse and management positions pay very well. The suddenly unemployed father of 4 working at Walmart in the sporting goods department isn’t there for life, he doesn’t want to be. Most folks working retail at Walmart or Meijers don’t consider it their career for life. How on Earth can anyone think your first job or a cashiers position or a busboy should start at the top of the wage scale?
10 years ago, I lived in a deeply impoverished neighborhood. My rent was $214/month, which I split with a roommate!
I went back there this weekend. Two things caught my eye: There were more houses boarded up than ever. Every occupied house seemed to have a satellite dish attached to it.
One of my personal struggles as a 3rd party politician is that even for the poorest among us, the standard of living has risen. It would be far easier for a 3rd party to rise if it weren’t so, R & D collusion aside. Cars get 30 mpg instead of 8 and last twice as long. Basic food & clothing are really cheap. People complain when they don’t have 30 days vacation, yet 50 years ago you were lucky to get 10 days.
Historical perspective is a nice thing. When you can get first person accounts of factory laborers and farm workers from the first half of the 20th century, their dream was of greater mechanization so they could save their backs. I find that people who romaticize working on farms or in steel mills never did those jobs. But beyond that, our society puts a far greater premium on knowledge than muscle. The 1950s economy rewarded semi-skilled individuals who could perform the numerous monotonous jobs available. The “joy” of that day was that you really didn’t have to be very smart to make a fat living. Today’s economy demands a far more dynamic worker for the top dollar.
I often come to feel that the chief complaint really is that a populace that generally resents having to learn equally resents having to deal with the reality that bringing little or nothing to the table when negotiating with a prospective employer is bound to result in little or nothing coming back at them.
My perspective comes as the blunt instrument of the collection industry — imposing garnishments and draining bank accounts of all kinds of people, including those who had been middle class until they stupidly let a member of their family get too sick to afford.
Doug, That explains your jaded view of things. If a large part of your practice is in the collection end of things it would be hard to think otherwise.
Sad as that is, remember to keep in perspective it’s still a tiny percentage of the population.
I worked in an industry that required aggressive collections and while that wasn’t my department I did see a lot of heartbreaking scenarios. I also saw some of the most creative lying ever by people dodging the collection process.
Good advice Tim. I know that the folks I encounter are not entirely representative. I don’t know exactly what percentage of the population they represent. The statistics show
Some of them are just hardcore losers. Full stop. But there are enough who work hard, made a few bad decisions and/or had some bad luck and were staring down the business end of a garnishment order or a frozen bank account, not to mention a Sheriff’s sale and other problems.
I try to keep it in perspective, but I’m sure I’m not completely successful.
You aren’t kidding about the creativity though. Some of those folks have been in the system so long they know it better than I do. Get a guy in the construction trades with a child support order, and you can just about forget about collecting anything.
For some people, Walmart and other similar jobs are exactly where they are going to work for life. Few people work their way up at Wal-Mart or any other service employers, at least in my neck of the woods. Furthermore, I’m not sure that the managerial pay at such places is anything to shout about, even if some people do manage to work their way up through the system.
We can comment all we want to about why such jobs exist, who works them, what the chances are for rising up to better jobs, because
some–if not most–of us have no personal experience with working at the Wal-Marts of the world and have little contact with people who do.
A prominent businessman here saw nothing wrong with yet another strip mall defacing the east side of town because he thought that the low-wage jobs it was bringing were “second-incomes” for housewives. Second incomes? For many people, service job income is their first and only income. That businessman, however, thought that the prospective employees would be like his wife–women who wanted to earn a little pen money on the side but didn’t need to earn enough to live off of. Perhaps that businessman was an extreme example, but I’ve talked to so many people who have their pet theories about service jobs and the people who work them, yet they have never worked those jobs themselves nor had to live off that income.
Testing.
I thought I submitted a comment earlier, but it looks like the dog ate it.
Pila, I take it you never worked at service type job, eh? I started out with two paper routes (before and after school) at 12. At 15 I was washing dishes at the Waffle House in Ft wayne for $1.55 an hour..I worked a ton of service jobs all through high school and college because I was taught the value of work and money….percentage wise, most of those service jobs turn over a lot, very few are lifers, it is a stop along the way of your economic life.
I’ve been broke and I’ve been well off, and the only way I got to the “well off” stage was starting at the bottom and working my way up.
Nobody offered me the vice president job first.
I have friends who are Walmart managers and 6 figures ain’t exactly chicken feed…the warehouse workers in Garrett start at $12 an hour, the avg is $15.
I guess my point is simply life is what you make it,(economically,spiritually, and morally) and starting at the bottom of the service industry can make you very appreciative and knowledgeable (and wealthy)later in life.
Pila, I forgot about the prominent businessman. He didn’t build the strip mall to give part-time jobs to women, he built the strip mall to lease or sell the property and sell products for a profit. Even a small strip mall generates a hell of a lot more than part-time jobs for bored housewives….
Tim I need to make a clarification, The businessman I was talking about did not build the strip mall. He made no profit from it whatsoever. He was merely voicing his opinion about why the strip mall would be a good idea.
Furthermore, the examples you gave from your own life appear to involve jobs you had as a child or teenager–not jobs you had to support children, pay rent or mortgage, etc. I don’t know for sure, however. I don’t know your life story any more than you know mine, so please don’t make assumptions about me or what jobs I have worked.
I’ve known a few managers at big box stores myself–none of them made in the six figures. More like the low five figures. Maybe you know people who are not store managers, but are higher up in the management heirarchy.
I’m not against people working their way up, so please don’t make remarks that suggest that I don’t know how the work world works or that I don’t know anything about economics. Life is what you make of it to a certain extent, if you have the ability to make something of it. Not everyone who works in service jobs is going to work their way up to a decent wage. In fact, service employers likely count on that. There is little, if any, negotiating with service employers. I don’t care if someone has 3 Ph.D.’s. That person has no more power to negotiate with a large service employer than a high-school graduate or drop out. The difference is that the person with the Ph.D.’s will probaby have more opportunities to get better jobs.
We can all have our pet theories, whether liberal or conservative, but no matter what we think, it is not necessarily possible for many people to work their way up into better jobs. That is an unpleasant reality that some of us here don’t have to face.
Pila,
What you’re arguing against is the position that the will of the individual is supreme, which I believe we’ve seen recently in another discussion here(1).
While respect for individual autonomy is an essential aspect of a free society, and while Nietzsche can be fun to read, oversimplifying assumptions are the death of good philosophy — political or otherwise.
The argument from supremacy of the individual will is that anyone, no matter how dire their circumstances, can become a billionaire. This assumption is seldom stated outright, because it is transparently absurd and frequently in conflict with the speaker’s other political goals. For example, if taken at face value, it was never necessary for the U.S. to fight Communism or depose Saddam Hussein, because any individual with sufficient will and merit can overcome an arbitrarily oppressive environment to achieve success. Hypocritically, foreigners under unfriendly governments need all the help from us they can get, ostensibly because the state is frustrating the realization of individual potential, which as an a priori assumption is completely unfettered in the U.S. (except to the extent that we’re a welfare state, which movement conservatives will complain about but dare not dismantle).
The argument, suppressed during periods of foreign intervention, is magically resurrected when that intervention ceases being expedient. Witness the parellels of Nixon’s “Vietnamization” and the present-day rhetoric of “we’ll stand down as the Iraqis stand up”. Evidently the people who could not throw off the shackles of Saddam now have the proper amounts of will and skill to weld back together a fragmented country undergoing an apoplexy of internecine conflict. (Never mind the numbers of Iraqis who are dead or have fled the country, nor the fact that is the precisely the educated and skilled who are most likely to emigrate or end up targetted for assassination, as in the recent raid of the Education Ministry.)
Anyway, I think this is one reason the neocons were so infatuated with Ahmed Chalabi. (Or, rather, they were infatuated with the narrative they’d built up around him — Chalabi was born to privilege, but it is a common failing of hero-worshippers to ascribe extraordinary virtues to those who say the things they want to hear.)
The convenient thing about the doctrine of supremacy of individual will is that responsibility for everything that happens to a person in his or her life can be laid at his or her own shoulders. Of course, this is a rhetorical tactic of convenience rather than a proper philosophy precisely because of the inconsistent manner in which it is applied. Scions of the conservative movement, for example, are routinely lionized until they fall from grace, when they are excoriated. The Movement made you, and the Movement will destroy you. I find this a fascinating endorsement of collectivism by nominal individualists, all the more so because it is so implicit and covert.
The same pattern applies to the Iraqis to whom we are charitably restoring self-determination. It doesn’t really matter that many of the people most capable of restoring a stable state are now dead or have abandoned the country; the conservative movement stands ready to anoint a new team of “self-made” heroes, utterly indifferent to the individuals characteristics of their new scions.
(1) https://www.masson.us/blog/?p=1774#comment-97193 (link put in manually because using an A element caused the preview to barf)