What would Alexis de Tocqueville say Today?

Was reading this Vanity Fair article the other day; it ended with an interesting historical reference, driving home a point I believe is utterly lost in our contemporary political discourse: that the fate of every member in our system is inherently tied together, not in an egalitarian sense, but in a practical one.

Here's the quote:

"Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late."

This notion was really quite novel at the time. A new, fresh, and contemporary principle that trumped previous social structures and contributed greatly to the success of this country.

So why would we so foolishly abandon it now?

It is in the best interests of the aristocracy (why call it anything else?) to encourage and maintain as large and thriving a middle class as possible. When aristocrats begin to greedily sabotage our revolutionary American class structure (a structure perhaps more important than Representative Democracy itself, I would argue), then bad things will inevitably follow.

No matter where you stand on this issue, the pattern of 25% of wealth in 1% of the populace is indisputably wrong (unless you believe in a tiny elite class!). It is also a very familiar pattern, a mere shadow of the true social stratification evident in Europe in the 19th century and all over the world today.

To return to such a structure is absolute insanity, particularly when an historical precedent already exists regarding how such structures typically come to an end. We already know what will happen: systemic economic collapse, revolution, civil war, human suffering, etc.

And yet, there seems to be a movement afoot of near-giddy, gleeful destruction of basic programs and services. It is one thing to advocate small, streamlined government and a rigid scrutiny of how our public funds are used and misused.

Bravo.

It is another thing altogether to cut into the bone of basic American principles - for instance, the right of every child to receive a quality public education (no matter what your view on union power, etc. that right is indisputably in peril).

More important than ideology (as we all have valid and reasonable opinions, ideas, etc. on how society should work), are the emotional patterns that resonate throughout this debate. A polarizing fracture is underway consisting of seemingly innocuous complaints, poor jokes, innuendo, etc. - that belies a deeper and more fundamental schism tied up in long-standing notions of race, class, and culture.

Let us tackle difficult social issues (like a bloated and unsustainable deficit) with ethical integrity and empathy for our fellow man. This should be true of all of us, but particularly those so fortunate to reside in positions of relative privilege, power, and wealth.

If you make more than a few dollars a day, that's you!!!!

How to End the Great Recession - No, Seriously, This is How

This recent op-ed piece in The New York Times, How to End the Great Recession by Robert B. Reich, reinforced many of the points I was making in my previous GM/AmeriCredit post.

(By the way, the language used and accepted by the media, particularly "double dip recession", is comical. If the only market to 'recover' was the stock market, and the stock market is by nature speculative, then - because nothing has really changed, if only worsened - the market's speculation of 'recovery' was in absolute error! Thus there was no recovery other than a fictional/errantly speculative one and any notion of a "double dip recession" is misleading. But how we try to pigeon-hole reality into our robust explanatory economic models!)

In any case, I found the below segment of particular relevance:

"But for years American families kept spending as if their incomes were keeping pace with overall economic growth. And their spending fueled continued growth. How did families manage this trick? First, women streamed into the paid work force. By the late 1990s, more than 60 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home (in 1966, only 24 percent did).

Second, everyone put in more hours. What families didn’t receive in wage increases they made up for in work increases. By the mid-2000s, the typical male worker was putting in roughly 100 hours more each year than two decades before, and the typical female worker about 200 hours more.

When American families couldn’t squeeze any more income out of these two coping mechanisms, they embarked on a third: going ever deeper into debt. This seemed painless — as long as home prices were soaring. From 2002 to 2007, American households extracted $2.3 trillion from their homes.

Eventually, of course, the debt bubble burst — and with it, the last coping mechanism. Now we’re left to deal with the underlying problem that we’ve avoided for decades. Even if nearly everyone was employed, the vast middle class still wouldn’t have enough money to buy what the economy is capable of producing."

In other words we are economically obese and lack the means to keep up with our own insatiable consumption except by a nonexistent (fictional) or unhealthy trans-fat (predation) avenue.

Debt is far and away the number one fictional AND predatory market in America, both among our citizenry and government.

We are woefully addicted to debt.

In order to become a functioning member of society (i.e.; obtain a strong credit score), you must in fact go into debt! (Not to digress once again, but this is an absurdity. We must include non-debt behaviors that demonstrate a potentially reliable debtor - things like paying bills and rent on time, etc. To penalize a citizen for "insufficient credit history" is to penalize the wisdom of avoiding debt altogether - hard to comprehend.)

The ludicrous interest rates, inability to pay off the principle, etc. is (much like the subprime loan) a classic example of the institutionalized swindle. And yet, our citizenry seems to accept this as an example of their own failings, rather than a corrupt and exploitative manipulation of the most vulnerable among them.

By no means do I make light of personal responsibility; that is not the point. Again the credit card debacle gets back to an inherently predatory business model: profit is derived primarily from consumer failure. Because it is in the best interests of the credit companies to nefariously (sorry, I have beaten all the life out of this wonderful word) sucker their prey into agreeing upon the most obscene terms and conditions, you cannot blame the credit card companies for it (slew of eager and inscrupulous MBAs notwithstanding). It is the structure itself that is to blame.

Surely there are some who might disagree and say "free market - fair game!" To those I simply point to the fundamental issue: the growing discrepancy between rich and poor.

As Mr. Reich points out:

In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income.

It is this figure that should, more than any other, sound the alarm. It is truly more epic than "one if by land, two if by sea" (to borrow the revolutionary symbolic abuse of the historically ignorant "Tea Party" - vitriol for another post!).

Our citizenry remains benightedly clouded in issues of Tyranny/Divine Right of Kings vs. Representative Democracy - which we somehow equate to "freedom" - when in truth degree of social stratification is a far more accurate measure of a relatively equitable society.

Right??? We're (ostensibly) not big on rhetoric - the proof is in the pudding!!!

When the billionaire Meg Whitman spends more money running for Governor of California than any candidate in history, we might want to stop kidding ourselves about the principals of equality inherently embedded in Representative Democracy! We might as well return the country to a monarchy, at least then we might have someone better looking!

Again I digress. Clearly I'm jealous of Sweden... Dearest Princess Madeleine... Decree whatever you like! (It has long been proven Swedes live the most fulfilled/happy lives; here we have some hint as to why!)

Adolescent joking aside, the very grave point is that at the moment we have a massive problem in America, greater than any we have faced in our nascent history:

We are coming to resemble the very societies we once despised.

The true test of our fortitude - literally of the revolutionary principles upon which the country was founded - is to bring this alarming, immoral, and growing social discrepancy into more equitable and humane proportions, particularly before our fictional, unsustainable, and unfathomable wealth catches up to us and exacerbates (to put it mildly) tensions that are at the moment so tepid they might be easily ignored altogether.

If we do not address this issue of growing stratification at once and with all our heart and souls, we are absolutely doomed.

What we have yet to ask ourselves (but will inevitably arise, you watch) is this simple question:

Does the top 1% have the right to 23.5% of the nation's wealth?

The answer, obviously, is no; the means by which this is ultimately resolved, however, is a matter we should all consider most carefully. As I stated before, it is a question of life and death; if history is any guide, the sooner we realize this, the better for all of us! Do not be lulled by sirens into a false sense of security when it comes to issues of a civil nature, particularly when we live in a world accelerated by technology and information, turning changes once attributed to centuries into mere decades, mere decades into years.