I had a buddy in college who gave me shit about the fact that he had to borrow money and my dad paid a lot of my way. I told him that my job was to get good grades. In other words, don’t take my good fortune for granted. That’s my job. (Message from right-wing blogger on how he handles his personal privilege.)
The above is part of a much longer exchange I had with a right-wing blogger some time ago. I ask permission to use his name, and did not receive it. There is, within our exchange, fodder for a hundred posts, but the smugness and insularity of those particular words has hung with me. It’s quite disgusting.
First, let me expose the overall framework of right wing thinking. It goes like this: I am a wealth producer. Others consume wealth and feed off me. From this comes the natural extension, the notion of “going Galt.” They threaten to leave society, stop producing wealth, leaving all of the rabble to try and survive without them. In another part of our exchange, the right winger above mentioned that he always takes care of his employees before he pays himself, indicating that he even believes his employees to be beneficiaries of his charitable existence, rather than the opposite.
It is indeed a shame that so many of us elect to exchange our freedom and perhaps half of the wealth we produce in exchange for the illusion of security. That’s a side issue.
But at least this person concedes a privileged position. He acknowledges that not having to go into debt to get through college was a gift. He doesn’t talk about the other advantage granted to him, likely because he hasn’t a clue what it is like out there – he was an “insider” in the health care system, and so had access to quality care without the risk of enormous out-of-pocket expense. He has probably never been without the privilege of access to our health care system.
I concluded our exchange by offering up a small piece of wisdom, inaccessible to the right wing mind: We are all wealth producers. As a “left winger” I do not advocate confiscatory policies. I advocate paying back privilege. Imagine that all of our society was offered what he had – a high platform from which to embark on a career. Imagine that all of us could start out our lives with access to education and health care, and build from there. Imagine that so many of us were not chained to our desks by student loans and the need for health insurance, inaccessible to so many of us without employment by others.
That’s all that other industrial “democracies” do – I use quotes to separate us from the others, as we are the least democratic of the industrialized world. The knock on socialism is that it mandates that everyone cross the finish line at the same time. That’s nonsense – socialism merely allows everyone access to the starting gate, even without Daddy to pay the bills.
Sheesh. What hubris contaminates the right wing mind.
Piece of Mindful 
We are all wealth producers???
What about these guys? Brooks, NYT.
“So Americans should be especially alert to signs that the country is becoming less vital and industrious. One comes to us from the labor market. As my colleague David Leonhardt pointed out recently, in 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today that number is around 80 percent. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work.”
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Set aside, just for the moment, that there is an underclass that includes people who leach off the system. I grant you that, but not to the degree that you imagine.
Now realize that McDonald’s just turned away 938,000 applicants after filling 50,000 crappy jobs without benefits.
The people you are talking about are not getting up and going to work. They are getting up and looking for work. And where are the jobs? Care to jump a boat to China?
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I’ll play.
So if it isn’t 20% Mark, what is it? Do we subtract 4 or 5% to account for the last few years down turn in unemployment numbers? Do the people you see hanging around the street corners in large cities really job seekers?
And what about the efficiencies of payments?
What about the trillions we’ve spent and yet the poverty rate remains the same?
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Let’s take the concept of unemployment rate a step further: Since the Administration of HW, we have changed the way that we measure it. We have eliminated those who are discouraged – looking so long and not finding that they have given up. We have eliminated “marginally attached” workers – those looking for full time work who have had to settle for temp or part-time jobs.
Including those who have given up and those who are in part-time and temp jobs who need full-time employment, estimates range from 16-22% unemployment, depression-era levels that are shielded by economic legerdemain. That pretty well covers your 20%.
Cato disagrees with this. Cato says we’re all happy.
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PS – I don’t know what we have spent on anti-poverty measures any more than you. I agree that giving people money while not helping them otherwise is debilitating.
The best anti-poverty program would be high marginal tax rates coupled with import tariffs.
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Ahhh… another paean to the white picket fence.
Let’s 96% of men worked. This was 1954, and the woman’s place was where? Barefoot in the kitchen. 16% of them go to work full time replacing men in the workforce, and you get your 80% figure today.
Actually, that’s far too simple of an explanation. HOw about this one.
1954 was just 9 years after the end of WWII. Babies were booming. The government had just finished spending billions and billions of deficit dollars bringing the country out of the great depression. The economy was booming, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was government programs aiding vets. Total employment was far higher–the unemployment rate was lower because large sectors were not part of the workforce (women). Certain minority groups were unrepresented in the labor statistics–unemployed but not included in the stats. After all, in 1954, did it really matter if minorities were unemployed? That they were included in the overall picture? Nah.
How about this one. How many of the 20% that don’t work today don’t work because they don’t have to? The are wealthy enough to coast through life, or daddy pays their bills? I recall you beating up on trustafarians a lot BI. They are part of that 20% too, just as much as say certain Bushies who went to Yale.
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Really? Then how come this:
“According to figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has a smaller share of prime age men in the workforce than any other G-7 nation”
These other G-7’s have economic woes, women in the workplace, and minorities. Why is our poor such slackers?
Could it be there’s an incentive not to work? Could it be men are absolved of any responsibilities, could it be your party manipulates the poor for votes?
Ah…..Yes, yes and yes.
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Not a good reader? Go back above and look at the unemployment numbers. My god do you impose your unrealistic economics on reality.
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Answer: What is Progress (sarcasm)
Approximately 30 years ago 100,000 workers got up & went to work at the 12 steel mills in & surrounding the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Today, 2 mills remain & approximately 20,000 workers produce the same amount of steel. We have Chinese welders building bridges
in the U.S. because we do not have enough skilled workers. Maybe we should be training some of the unemployed. Workers of undocumented status are picking crops for farmers.
Should the unemployed U.S. citizens work 20 hours a week & go to school 20 hours a week.
Let’s look at the big picture. General Motors is allowed to move jobs overseas at the taxpayers expense. Now, we see the hierarchy of G.M. moving their families to Singapore
& other countries “safer” than cities such as Detroit & Flint, Michigan. Do NOT expect change from Washington. What do you think our congressmen do when they leave office?
There are high, very high paying careers waiting for those who are obedient to the corporate lobbyists.
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