Why Do The Poor So Rarely Make The News?
Who could not guffaw over the news that Leona Helmsley left her dog “Trouble” a $12 million trust fund while cutting two of her grandchildren out of her will? The queen of mean, as the tabloids called her, commanded that when “Trouble dies, her remains shall be buried next to my remains in the Helmsley mausoleum.”
But maybe Helmsley’s obsessions aren’t as different from our own as we’d like to think. Consider the contrast between the extravagant coverage afforded NFL quarterback Michael Vick for his guilty plea on a federal dog fighting charge and the scant attention given a new Census Bureau finding that the number of Americans without health insurance had risen by 2.2 million, to 47 million. The number of Americans under age 18 without health insurance rose to 8.7 million.
The Census Bureau report was a one-day story largely buried on the inside pages. So do we care more about dogs than uninsured kids?
Animal lovers: Hold your brickbats. Our family has a delightful dog rescued from a shelter and I hate cruelty to our canine friends. The issue here is not dogs but people, specifically people in the media.
Why is it that the poor - and, for that matter, the struggling middle class too - disappear in the media, barricaded behind our fixation on celebrity, our titillation over personal sin and public shame, our fascination with every detail of every divorce and affair of every movie star, rock idol and sports phenom?
The hiding of the poor is systematic, according to a new study of 38 months of nightly news broadcasts on CBS, NBC and ABC by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a left-of-center organization devoted to media criticism.
“With rare exceptions, such as the aftermath of Katrina,” the study found, “poverty and the poor seldom even appear on the evening news - and when they do, they are relegated mostly to merely speaking in platitudes about their hardships.”
In the period between Sept. 11, 2003, and Oct. 30, 2006, there were just 58 stories about poverty on the three network newscasts, according to the study. FAIR couldn’t resist noting that by contrast, in the same period, there were 69 stories about Michael Jackson’s legal woes - and that’s just one celebrity.
The group estimated that the 191 sources quoted in poverty stories amounted to less than one-half of 1 percent of sources used in news broadcasts in that period.
To do justice to the networks, they provided extraordinary coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Anchors such as Brian Williams of NBC and Anderson Cooper of CNN (cable news was not covered in the FAIR study) brought urgency and old-fashioned moral outrage to their reporting on how poor people in New Orleans were treated, and the anchors were backed up by scores of committed reporters and producers dedicated to documenting a natural and human disaster.
But the Katrina coverage stood out precisely because it was the exception. It took a hurricane to sweep poor people into the news - and they didn’t stay long.
There is another lesson from Katrina: that covering poverty and inequality makes for compelling journalism.
At its best, broadcast news shines its powerful beacon on problems we have ignored and injustices we can remedy. On May 21, 1968, CBS News broadcast “Hunger in America,” a documentary reported by the legendary Charles Kuralt and David Culhane. One of the viewers that night was a U.S. senator named George McGovern.
“It was 1968 and I remember saying, ‘Why are they looking at hunger in the United States?’ ” McGovern recalled in an interview for a recent film on the food-stamp program produced by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. McGovern was riveted by a young boy who told CBS that he was “ashamed” that he did not have enough money to buy food at school.
“I said to my family that was watching the documentary with me, ‘You know, it’s not that little boy who should be ashamed, it’s George McGovern, a United States senator, a member on the Committee on Agriculture.’ ”
From that moment arose one of the most fruitful bipartisan alliances in congressional history: South Dakota Democrat McGovern teamed up with Kansas Republican Sen. Bob Dole to reform food stamps and expand other nutrition programs. To this day, McGovern and Dole are working together in the cause of ending hunger.
Celebrity stories will always be with us. It’s more challenging and infinitely more important to tell the next story of the boy or girl now living in the shadows who will shake our consciences and change our country.
E.J. Dionne Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist.
© 2007 The San Francisco Chronicle
The fact that there are no comments yet show that even on CD, poor people don’t get the run. Maybe they should hire a P.R. firm to boost their image. Or they could check into rehab, or make a sex tape.
Put this story in the “Duhhh” file along with:
Why do people with broken unset bones suffer more pain than others?
Why do the starving weigh less than others of their gender and age?
and
Will people ever stop dying?
It must truly be a slow news day if this is all EJ Dionne can think to write about.
I can predict that if the plight of the poverty stricken got top attention in the media, there would be a crescendo of hand wringing consternation but nary a word except the same old retoric on what to do about it. We are living under a criminal contradiction in our society–want in the midst of plenty.
Besides just wringing my hands in consternation, I offer the solution contained in the Website below. I would also like to see serious solutions offered by others, more than the so called “American Dream”, with each generation ending up 6 feet under pushing daises, having never experienced it.
http://socialismmarxdeleonforarealunion.org/index.html
Xavier Onassis, brilliant commentary. Thanks for providing a twist to the “why” do people continue to act against their enlightened self- interest. The insight you’ve shared will give me a couple of more tools to remind myself and others it doesn’t have to be the same old worn out thinking.
Wait a second. If we know anything from following the Democratic primary races, we know that once a person makes a little money he has no right whatever to talk about the working class!
I’ll bet E. J. Dionne had a nice suit on while he penned that. I doubt he was the son of a mill worker.
Presidential candidates AND journalists should leave this issue to all the prominent working class folks who have access to the levers of power.
Could the answer to Dionne’s question be that people who make their money in the news/entertainment industry (like him) avoid news that might reflect shame on their audience and its values? Even his article is not about the plight of poor people but about statistics on poor people.
Besides stepfour’s observation, the poor are ignored in the US because:
1. It is all to often associated with race and racial discrimination, the existence of which is certainly an embarrasing, inconvienient truth to be supressed.
2. The mass media is pretty much triumphant in indoctrinating the people, especially younger poeple, into the callous, Dickensian neoliberal philosophy so well elaborated on by MtnGoat these past few days. So with regard to poverty - it is simply dismissed as “it’s your fault”. This is a brilliantly diabolical approach, because it becomes a contrived circular tautology. Even if Ayn Rand herself had fallen into misfortune and poverty, and thence discovered the rigged nature of the system she had promoted, she would have been helpless to convey the idea, because everyone she approached whould have used her earlier philosophy to dismissed her with: “Get lost bag lady - it your fault”.
In fact I now recall back in the Reagan days, an old Australian girlfriend (back when Australia was yet un-infected by neoliberalism) often would call the US “the land of it’s your fault”.
3. And finally, the US is very clever in keeping it’s poor out of sight and out of mind from those with the economic power to do something about it - mostly ensconced away in dilapidated city neighborhoods. This probably largely accounts for the far more proogressive viewpoints of city dwellers compared to the suburbs.
Xavier Onassis, that is superb. Thank you for it.
I don’t forget the (secret) shame I felt as an adolescent (about 4 decades ago), when once we were poor. I won’t divulge any details since it’s not necessary and it’s still embarrassing. But as horrible as it was for me –and I’m not about to diminish my personal shame and pain — I still realize that the poverty (and all of its attendant feelings, etc.) which I experienced pales in comparison to that of many, many others. My experiences and perspectives cause me to feel compassion, to empathize with others.
In this world of plenty, more than enough to go around, there is too much gluttony and too much (unnecessary) want. We are not short of resources, not at all. What we are short on (actually deficient in) is caring, kindness, and compassion.
Seems to me that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’, as one book says. And from all corners of the globe, far too many are infected with the love-of-material virus. I truly believe that all problems stem from this.
btw, I don’t feel as the poet does regarding the “duhh” factor of this essay. I’m confused at that comment, it seems callous to me. Is it?
Just a small criticism too… I squirm whenever I see poor or homeless people referred to as “the poor”, “the homeless”, etc. I feel that this terminology actually helps to objectify people. Shouldn’t we write/say *poor people*, *homeless people*, etc? Or would this help to humanize others too much? I once made this complaint to a writer who responded with some excuse about “lack of space, column limitations, word count…”. So I sent another letter saying that there are only 3 extra letters in the word *people* versus the word *the*, and I asked him how as a gay man he’d feel if gay people were commonly referred to in the media (of which he’s a part) as “the gays”. He didn’t reply to my last query.
peace…if we can make it
Thank you for the kindness, netminno. Since you liked the thinking, perhaps you’d like also to read my other comment, found here:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/30/3513/
Here’s a tough explanation for you:
Americans like winners. Americans want to associate with winners. They want to win. They want to know what the winners are doing, what the winners are thinking, who they are sleeping with, what fashion they are wearing.
The news is given by winners, from the viewpoint of winners, because everyone wants to feel like a winner, or to know how they should think to rise from the banal masses of mediocrity into the winner’s circle.
That’s America for you.
In America, being poor is equated with being a loser, an undesirable. No one wants to hug a leper, and no one wants to know what the losers are doing nor how they are suffering. If it gets shown, most Americans will change the channel.
How’s that?
Quote from I don’t know where:
When I feed the poor they call me a saint.
When I ask why there are poor people, they call me a communist.
Thank you, also, annemarie. You observe wisely, in my opinion, about the term ‘the poor’, and I will heed your advice whenever I remember, and add that we should be referring to WORKING poor PEOPLE.
Who works harder, just to stay alive, than poor people??
There is a REASON the leisure class is called such, perhaps?
Now, about the love of money being the root of evil…here is what has always been missed: we have failed to make the distinction between SELF-earned, and OTHER-earned money! Selfearned money is always good because it is making more goods and getting more goods. Otherearned money is always bad because it is getting more goods without self making more goods, therefore it is theft.
Money is good. Money is as good as the goods it buys – your shelter, food, healthcare, etc. But people can’t see that more money overpay can be bad, can be cause of 99+% of our troubles. Self-earned money is as good, as other-earned money (overpay, theft) is bad.
All the money equals all the products of work. No work means no products, which means the money is worthless. Half the work means half the products, which means all the money is worth half as much as it would be worth; the unit of money buys half the amount of goods, of work products. Twice as much work means the unit of money buys twice the amount of goods.
People have lost sight of the basics. The money system is too complex and confusing for people to see it whole, to see it simply. People can’t see the economic forest for the economic trees. Economists try to change things by fiddling with the money factors, interest rates, etc., but this cannot make a difference. The only thing that makes a real overall difference is the amount of work.
The overpaid takes out more than he puts in, and the underpaid gets out less that he puts in; equals theft = anger = violence = unhappiness. Every theft comes with an angry person attached.
And the violence is escalative even when the injustice is not growing, because both sides will escalate the violence to try to win. And the injustice is always growing, is automatically escalative: money makes money. Which means the person didn’t make the money. Which means money steals money.
I’ll add that compassion for oneself is what is needed. Compassion for others is fine and dandy, but it cannot substitute for adhering to principles of justice. “Woe to the society that relies on charity to do the work of social justice.” Altruism is not necessary, not reliable, and therefore not recommended as a rational motivation for establishing/creating economic justice for all. In dispassionate truth, the most self-interested person in the world has every reason to align with and prioritize economic justice, and zero reasons not to. By heaping piles of wealth on a Paul McCartney or Howard Hughes, all we are doing is giving him an extremely unsafe environment to live in.
People know that being a poor person is bad for the poor person.
Once people realize that being a rich person is bad for the rich person, they can stop clawing their ways towards misery in the human economics game of all-grab-all-destroys-all.
Someday, if we humans are still around, people will react to a billion-dollar lottery win as they do now to a cornered rattlesnake. The idea of money for nothing will alarm us, because we’ll see the danger of having other-earned money.
as for what poet said, in my opinion, too, this story does matter. I believe we should study, rather than ignore, our human stupidity/collective insanity.
mir59,
So true as well.
You should be aware that the contemptuous manner that USAns use “loser” - implying that the fallen in a contest, even if simply by bad luck, is itself is dishonorable - is foreign to languages and cultures outside of US-English.
I recall that growing up as a kid, we would often play “monopoly” and more than onces me, most of my brothers, and sad to say, once my father, wouuld throw tantrums of shame and anger - throwing the board accross the room or such, when it became apparent we were about to go bankrupt and become a “loser”. Curious if ths happens in other cultures…
PJD,
I have not spent enough time overseas to say for sure, but I think Europe is not too different. In fact, in some sense Europe is worse. There are some areas where having the wrong name makes you a loser, and no accomplishment is going to erase it.
At least, in America, if you have money you are a winner. You might be the wrong race or religion, from the wrong town or college, but if you hussle your way to financial success — you are in.
Of course, we still have the blue bloods of the Hamptons and such. And, there’s no way into that thing but by birth or marriage, as the allegory of Jay Gatsby enacts so perfectly.
The core problem is that, in America, the general perception of one’s value as a human being is in direct proportion to net worth.
A quote:
Jules Feiffer:
I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn’t poor,I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underpriviledged.) Then they told me that underpriviledged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don’t have a dime. But I have a rich vovabulary.
Thank the Lord that there are journalists like E. J. Dionne Jr. who have a moral conscience and a worthy pulpit.
Thank the Lord there are people out there who have an open heart and see the need for sharing to bring the destruction of humanity to an end.
For some great quotes:
http://www.share-international.org/maitreya/Ma_prior.htm
While the MSM does not spotlight the poor,I think the average citizen is well aware of them. From panhandlers to the Salvation Army to the poverty in the “foreign missions,” we cannot escape them. They elicit fear. Fear that we might become like them! We are anxious to preverve ourselves and our families. In this vacuum the televangelists move in with the promise of prosperity, if only we accept their version of the Jesus gospel. Salaam.
Why does anything of real importnce seldom make the news? Then if it does, why is it quickly buried?
We know why.
EJD leaves the question unanswered. The reason the poor rarely make the NATIONAL news is because the billionaire media controllers must continue the myth that America is classless and racism has been stamped out. Otherwise, a steady stream of truths might actually wake up the sheep, nine out of ten of whom, apparently, are armed. Talk about outnumbered - the top 1% of the country versus the other 99? Can’t have that now…
Of course, the poor are all over the LOCAL news - cause they burn stuff and shoot each other and rob little old ladies and steal children and force drugs down kids’ throats.
Why would the instruments of the ruling class want to show the extent & depth of the devastation, show the living bodies of their employers’ victims?
Class is taboo. That’s why. You’ll see a network special on incest (there was one just on last week or the week before), before you see one on class issues.
The MSM wants to make it seem as if everyone has a job and enough to eat and a decent place to live. They don’t want people to know that even working people struggle to make it, working 2-3 jobs to keep from drowning. They don’t want poor and working people to know that something is wrong, that they are not alone, and that it isn’t their fault.
That’s one reason why I like posting here. I know that I’m not the only working person who sees it, that I’m not just imagining things.
Poor and working Americans need to share their stories for the world to see. Guys like me aren’t just a bunch of Archie Bunkers.
The poor make the news very often. Abusing their children, murdering their spouses, robbing stores, shooting their classmates etc.
The media shoves movie stars and such in everyone’s face-not that anyone cares as much as they want them to.
Also,people have to do something shocking to be newsworthy. Murder is only one example.
It is much the same as advertisers shoving their 3rd world inferior products in everyone’s face. Only some are brain-dead enough to follow.
As long as you have some people getting socialized medicine-no one will care about the uninusred or the troops dying in Iraq.
Sad.
tis the end of august,
all is agusto….
well how else could it be…
so many in “poverty”
hey, lets do better
you and me….
Peace,
Ken Hausle
evelyna sez…”The poor make the news very often. Abusing their children, murdering their spouses, robbing stores, shooting their classmates etc.”
And in doing so, the MSM makes the poor out to be deserving of their poverty by highlighting the actions of a few.
“So with regard to poverty - it is simply dismissed as “it’s your fault”. ”
Just who is it we should hold responsible for ones choices…someone else?
exactly, so true…..
the few who do NOT have everyone else in interest…
hey goat of the mountain, what is up…
the few,
the few who think they are so true….
the
sick
few
whose time is coming to an end……
oh you few, worry not…….
the dew remains,
the time,
the pains,
…….
what is left to say…
Peace
this is what is left to say…
never will be the end of day….
we shall prevail for we know how…
how
to care
to love
to understand
how to achieve hope
and peace
and remedy
hope peace remedy….
Mtn Goat,
“Just who is it we should hold responsible for ones choices…someone else?”
You take a lot flack for your commentary, yet your’s is the often well stated.
Who can be held responsible for ones choices and actions? Everyone. That is true when corporations and governments exploit, pollute, murder, and terrorize. The game is fixed. The game is fixed to create and preserve wealth and power for the oligarchy. We are forced to pay taxes to subsidize business and war, and in order to keep the poor pacified we give them just enough to become dependent. When will the poor recognize that its dependence actually facilitates an impoverished reality.
Of course, the poor have the choose whether to play by the rules of this system of exploitation, or to educate themselves and create a reality that values their own life and abilities above that of ignorance and delusion.
So many victims, yet being a victim is a role, a role in a game that is unworthy of one’s energy. First, one must become aware of their role as a victim, then act upon this understanding to remove oneself from this situation. Relating based on voluntarily agreed upon terms does not only create healthy meaningful friendships it’s also good for business.
Does poverty assume one is a victim?
Marikken - that quote, “when I feed the poor they call me a saint, …” was made by Dorothy Day. She was the amazing community radical activist (and Catholic!) that began the Catholic Worker in NYC.
Mtn Goat,
People are born into severe poverty. Hopefully, we can agree that is not a choice.
Now, from within a condition of severe property life is hand to mouth. The schools are terrible. Mom and dad (if he’s around) are probably working two minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. They can’t afford day care.
So, you’ve been born into an environment that is working against you at every turn. The food your parents can afford will leave you fat or undernourished.
Since your parents can’t afford to be around, you are raised on the street.
Let’s accept that children, if not raised well, are impressionable. Children are not trusted to make smart decisions until later in life. They are not allowed to drive until 16. A woman cannot give herself away until 18. Voting at 18. Drinking at 21. Home alone without supervision at 13 (I believe).
Et cetera.
A malnourished, undereducated child living in poverty with minimal adult supervision can still — by sheer luck of character and force of will — avoid the pitfalls, commit to the books despite a positive example of success doing so, and yank himself out of it. Yes.
But, we are talking about an extraordinary, extraordinary kid that would be able make something of himself here under these conditions. Bill Cosby has an astronomical IQ. Good for him. We can’t expect every poor urban child to have an IQ six deviations above the mean.
Now, let’s consider the other extreme.
Suppose one is a useless human being, prone to laziness, consumption, debauchery. Suppose, however, one is born into privilege. The son of privelege can fritter away most of his life, make all the wrong choices, yet still have access at any point in his life to status and money.
He might be born into a wealthy political family. He might be dumb, a terrible student, a drunk, have no business sense.
Regardless of his abysmal character and his terrible life choices, he might still attend an elite school such as Andover, then Yale, Harvard, and eventually become President of the United States.
We have a very long way to go before we have the conditions under which the meritorious thrive and the dead wood wastes away. To think this is the way America functions based on some theory or philosophy is ivory tower academic thinking and bears little resemblance to the reality out there in society.
Personally, all I would argue for is a fair shot for those that work hard and stay out of trouble. If you play by the rules, you should have a chance to play in the game. That’s all.
And I don’t really see how any of this could be considered controversial.
MIRF59: Good enlargement of the frame that may help to adjust MT goat’s reference point.
Here is a thought I have been pondering
for a long long long time.This is not to
flame or create dissension, but simply
ask that it be given thought.
Why is it that when we say poor or poverty,
it is always images of African Americans
that are thrust to the fore.
Even in the Katrina Disaster, yes the
horrible pictures of those poor people
on roofs and the flood water rising
were the most horrible sight and we
must never forget it. However, those
Deep South States are the poorest even
without Katrina. African Americans are
not the only poor people there. I can
understand that the Media focused on
the horrors happening to the black people
because it was so really horrible. However,
using this same reasoning and observations
I can also say UNTIL THIS COUNTRY IS WILLING
to admit there are other poor people, we
will make not one change. Sadly, having
watched over the last 20plus years, it is
okay for black people to be poor. This is
not a racist statement. The facts stare
you in the face. The GOP will unabashedly
tell the TV Audience. People are poor
because they are lazy, drug addicted or
alcoholic. They do this as they describe
large cities such as NYC, Some Commentators
and Talk Show Types will say they are not
willing to pay taxes for these people–their
poverty is their own fault.
Why did we not see Poor Whites in La , Miss
and Ala after Katrina???? Could it be
that CONSERVATIVE ECONOMIC FUNDAMENTALISM
that permeates the South has made Poor WHITES invisible. Who wants people saying
they are lazy, drunks or addicts??
Economic Fundamentalism holds that your
government owes you nothing and therefore
expect nothing from your government.
This sounds cynical, but I do still have
some hope that if enough people push the
issue front and center, it just may catch
on. Thanks EJDIONNE for your efforts.
Where is Xavier Onassis? Many thoughtful comments here, but his seemed to get at the heart of the matter the best. For what it’s worth, my two cents:
SOCIOECONOMIC DEMOCRACY
A Democratic Basic Income Guarantee
Robley E. George
Center for the Study of Democratic Societies
USBIG Congress
New York City
March 4-6, 2005
ABSTRACT
Socioeconomic Democracy is a model socioeconomic system wherein there exist some forms of Universal Guaranteed Income and Maximum Allowable Wealth, with both the lower bound on personal material poverty and the upper bound on personal material wealth set and adjusted democratically by all participants of society.
This paper briefly describes the essential elements of Socioeconomic Democracy, including quantitative democracy and economic incentive, and then outlines some of its properties, such as societal variations, justifications, relationship with Islam, practical political approximations, realizability, and the significant reduction of a large number of acknowledged serious societal problems.
We conclude by reviewing how a number of contemporary dilemmas impeding the realization of some form of needed universal guaranteed income are trivially (and democratically!) resolved with Socioeconomic Democracy. These include questions such as How much?; Who decides?; Where necessary funds come from?; Where does democracy fit in?; and How soon can all this start to happen?
Introduction
It seems there have always and everywhere been two major thrusts of progressive political activity. Determined or hesitant, but always present, they can be found throughout the Ages, in the United States of America, and throughout the “globalizing” world. These two thrusts are the ubiquitous demand for more and more meaningful democracy and the equally ubiquitous search for a more sustainable and just socioeconomic system that resolves rather than creates and perpetuates serious, unnecessary, and costly societal problems.
Combining these two active thrusts produces, or certainly suggests, what has come to be called Socioeconomic Democracy. It is respectfully submitted that the present state of the nation and the world, intimately interconnected and interrelated, make the realization of some form of Socioeconomic Democracy absolutely essential, not only for human progress but for human survival.
Socioeconomic Democracy is a theoretical model socioeconomic system wherein there exist both some form of Universally Guaranteed Personal Income (UGI) and some form of Maximum Allowable Personal Wealth limit (MAW), with both the lower bound on personal material poverty and the upper bound on personal material wealth set and adjusted democratically by all participants of society. Many of the details, implications, and ramifications of Socioeconomic Democracy have been discussed in the book Socioeconomic Democracy: An Advanced Socioeconomic System published by Praeger (2002).
The essence of Socioeconomic Democracy may be traced back at least to many of the thinkers of ancient Greece, such as Thales, Plato and Aristotle, to all the great religions of the world, as well as Tom Paine (who gave the United States of America its name and the inspiration to perform the new experiment) and Tom Jefferson (who made the experiment official), and on down to include the many progressive thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All have pleaded for humanity to think about ideas similar to these. It appears it is now time for humanity to act. As Bucky put it, “Utopia or Oblivion.”
Basic Elements of Socioeconomic Democracy
UGI. In the idealized state of the model, each participant in this democratic socioeconomic system would know that, regardless of what he or she did or did not do, a democratically determined Universally Guaranteed Personal Income (UGI) would always be available. Put another way, society would guarantee each citizen some minimum amount of purchasing power, with that amount determined democratically by all of society and with citizenship the only requirement for eligibility to participate.
Depending upon the degree and direction of technological development, this democratically set, societally guaranteed minimum income for all could be sufficient to satisfy the typical individual’s minimum subsistence needs. Alternatively, society might democratically decide to set the guaranteed amount at only a partial subsistence level, for a variety of legitimate reasons. There are as many different forms of UGI (ranging at least from Basic Income (BI) to Negative Income Tax (NIT)) as there are reasons to establish some form of UGI.
It is noteworthy that the state of Alaska is at present the only governmental entity in the world that has a form of UGI, namely the Alaska Permanent Fund, which provides each and every resident an annual sum determined by revenues from the state-owned oil fields and recently ranging somewhat under $2,000 per year per resident.
MAW. In the ideal theoretical model, all participants of the democratic socioeconomic system would understand that all personal material wealth above the democratically determined allowable amount would, by due process, be transferred out of their ownership and control in a manner specified by the democratically designed and implemented laws of the land.
Hence, a rational, self-interested and insatiable (as the neoclassical saying goes) extremely wealthy, law-abiding participant in the democratic socioeconomic system, who is at or near the upper bound on allowable personal wealth and who further desires increased personal wealth, would be economically motivated, that is, have economic incentive, to actively increase the well-being of at least some of the less materially wealthy members of society. Only in this manner can these (still-wealthiest) participants persuade (at least a majority of) the rationally self-interested less wealthy participants of the democratic society to vote to raise the legal upper limit on allowable personal wealth — thus allowing those wealthiest participants of the democratic society to legally acquire and retain the increased allowable amount of personal net wealth they so crave, as well as allowing many of those presently far below the MAW limit to continue their dreams and fantasies toward unlimited personal wealth some day.
There is, in fact, strong economic incentive for those who are pegged at or are near the upper limit on allowable personal wealth to be successful in improving the general welfare. For if the current level of MAW is not producing sufficient improvement in the general welfare, as democratically determined, there is the possibility and indeed probability that the democratic society might democratically decide to reduce the MAW limit even more in order to enlist even more still-wealthy participants and their extra wealth in the noble task of improving the well-being and welfare of society in general.
Democracy. There is a simple procedure by which each individual participant in a democratic society (or each member of a democratic legislative body) can directly vote his or her particular preference for an amount, magnitude, or quantity of something in question, with the democratically determined, societally or legislatively desired amount unequivocally resulting. As if to emphasize the significance of the discovery, Duncan Black and Economics Nobelist Kenneth Arrow independently and more or less simultaneously established the important mathematical result and procedure a half century ago.
Their now-classic social choice contributions have provided the theory which shows that the median value of the monotonically arranged participants’ (voters’) preference distribution is the amount the democratic society as a whole is “for” — assuming the minimal operational “one participant, one vote; majority rule” decision-making process. Only the median value can command a majority’s favor in pair-wise votings with all other amounts. Roughly speaking, this means that the democratically determined amount is such that half the voters want that much or more while the other half want that much or less.
It is by this simple, mathematically correct process and procedure that the society-wide lowest tolerable level of personal material poverty and the highest allowable level of personal material wealth can be established and adjusted over time as democratically desired in the democratic society.
Variations of Socioeconomic Democracy
First, observe that if a particular participant in this democratic socioeconomic system were opposed to a societally guaranteed minimum income for all, for any reason, that participant could vote to place the lower limit on UGI at zero. If a majority of participants so voted, it would be the democratically determined desire of that society to have no UGI. Similarly, any participant who would be opposed to a maximum bound on allowable personal wealth, for any reason whatsoever, could and should vote to place that upper limit at, say, infinity. If a majority of participants so voted, it would be the democratically determined desire of that society to have no upper bound on net personal wealth.
Four basically different possibilities are therefore immediate. There could be democratically desired and established societies wherein there exist nontrivial bounds on both UGI and MAW (ie, UGI not equal to zero and MAW not equal to infinity) or where either one of the bounds is nontrivial while the other one is, or where there are no bounds on either fundamental socioeconomic parameter — just as currently exists, though in this case at least societal approval of the extreme disparity would have been consciously, thoughtfully and democratically given.
Beyond these four fundamental variations is the wide range of possible variations in the magnitudes and the degree of “tightness” of the UGI and MAW bounds. Different societies may all want to institute some form of Socioeconomic Democracy but differ in the amount they democratically decide is appropriate for them at that time and under their current circumstances.
Approximations to Socioeconomic Democracy
Then there are all the practical political approximations to Socioeconomic Democracy. For example, there are the numerous alternative systems for guaranteeing some minimum amount of general or restricted purchasing power or guaranteeing some minimum amount of goods and services that would more or less approximate the ideal theoretical concept of UGI. One particular long-established principle of any civilized society is universal public education, at least for a certain age range. Universally guaranteed public education is a very real form of universal partial Basic Income, with the service in lieu of income being the governmentally funded and provided public education for people of certain ages. Universal guaranteed medical care, likewise available in almost all self-proclaimed civilized societies, is another approximation to UGI. Instead of unqualified UGI, various approximations could (and actually do) stipulate satisfaction of particular qualifications or requirements. Thus all so-called means tested and/or targeted welfare programs are approximations to UGI. So are all so-called obligation- or service-requiring programs.
Seemingly the closest thing to a limit on personal wealth is a tax on personal wealth. Depending upon the parameter settings (eg, the tax rate on wealth and the level above which a wealth tax applies), both of which could be decided democratically, the effect of such a tax could slowly approximate what a MAW limit, set democratically, could accomplish much more rapidly. Another familiar form of an approximation to a tax on personal wealth (which in itself is an approximation to a limit on personal wealth) is the Inheritance tax or Estate tax or, as some would have it, “Death tax.” Of course, here also the particular parameter settings for such systems could and perhaps should, in a democratic society, be set democratically.
Approximations to democracy, as approximations to anything else, can be fairly close or fairly distant. An approximation to all members of society democratically setting the UGI and MAW limits would be having only those citizens at least 18 years of age, say, vote to decide the magnitudes of the two bounds. Another kind of approximation to the democratic ideal is the situation characterized by different political parties and candidates advocating different amounts for the two bounds, depending upon their particular understanding of (or desire to change) the general will of the society. If democratic procedures were followed to determine ascendancy to political power, it would seem the winning political party might, in some sense at least, be said to have spoken (approximately) for the democratic society as a whole. Certainly a democratic legislative body could use the democratic procedure and establish UGI and MAW levels that could be said to be a close approximation to the democratic desire of the whole society.
Socioeconomic Democracy and Islam
Perhaps the most familiar aspect of Islamic economics is “no interest” loans — a suggestion in fact insisted upon by prophets of all the monotheistic religions. Basically, with Islamic loans, the investor shares both the risk and the reward of the use of the loan, with negotiations about the terms of the loan agreement.
However, it is not “no interest loans” but Zakat (essentially a moral tax on wealth to help all — both the giver and the receiver — to live thankful and productive lives) that is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The original detailed schedules of types and amounts of wealth to be taxed and the specific eight different categories of appropriate uses of the tax resources provide charming reading. With Ijtihad (systematic reasoning, one of the elements of Islamic economics, which is sometimes honored and sometimes ignored, not unlike everywhere else), Zakat could be but mostly hasn’t (yet) been modernized (to truly reflect modern categories and situations).
The prophet Muhammad conceived (or was given) the rather reasonable and commonsensical idea of allowing (through taxes) those of society with the most wealth to financially and otherwise help those of society presently in need so as to produce a peaceful and balanced society wherein everyone has the opportunity to grow strong, thankful, cooperative and happy and able to contribute to their humanity and its further balanced development. Zakat can be viewed as a religious requirement to “promote the General Welfare,” to use a secular phrase made popular by the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, written over a millennium later.
If the Qur’an specified a tax on wealth, as opposed to a limit on wealth as with Socioeconomic Democracy, perhaps it was that even Muhammad himself (or God Herself?) could not at the time conceive of, let alone predict, way back then, that eventually there would be personal-profit-pursuing megamultiibillionaires and hungry people. In any case, it seems clear enough that Zakat is, if not identical with, certainly an approximation to the ideal theoretical model of Socioeconomic Democracy (or, perhaps, vice versa), with the appropriate parameters set through societal consultation, the need of which was frequently emphasized by Muhammad.
In this regard, Islamic economics can take pride in the fact that at its root, the prophet Muhammad knew which was the important variable to tax, ie, wealth, not income, a millennium prior to the creation of capitalism, communism and socialism and now three more centuries into their continuing confusions. Muhammad further appreciated the desirability of democracy, expressed in his frequent urging of thoughtful consultation with all those concerned about and affected by a matter before that matter was to be resolved.
Feasibility and implementation of Socioeconomic Democracy
The serious study and objective comparison of alternative future possibilities provide the opportunity to make a contribution toward desirable societal development. Complementing this opportunity is the necessity of establishing that the alternatives considered are in fact physically realizable and implementable. Suffice to say here that the major areas of voting procedures, administrative and legal technicalities, parametric economic analysis as well as political considerations of instituting some form of Socioeconomic Democracy have all been considered. Socioeconomic Democracy is quite feasible — requiring only an informed, functioning democracy.
For example, consider the political aspects of implementing some form of Socioeconomic Democracy. Bounds on guaranteed personal income and allowable personal wealth, democratically set, can not be realized until at least a majority of the voting citizens in a contemporary politicoeconomic system learn about, understand and favor such a democratic wealth and income distribution boundary controller subsystem. Actually, of course, it can be anticipated that something more than a majority of the citizens of a society will have to favor a democratic resolution of the matter before a democratic resolution of the matter can be realized. This would be especially the case if a Constitutional Amendment is required.
It is difficult if not impossible to recall any historical economic system change of such magnitude that was subjected to such informed public scrutiny prior to peaceful, voluntary and democratic societal acceptance and adoption, as by definition must be the case with Socioeconomic Democracy. Such necessary public discussion of the matter would eventually democratically resolve not only whether some form of Socioeconomic Democracy should be established but as importantly would go a long way in shedding light on and determining where the bounds should be set under the prevailing circumstances.
In any case, coalitions of political parties, committed to passage of the necessary legislation, are one possible adoption procedure open in some societies. On the other hand, being an alternative to all existing economic systems, Socioeconomic Democracy provides a well-defined, humanistic, just and democratic focus about which a new or rejuvenated popular political party could (re)organize and (re)capture political power. Prior to the legal establishment of an actually democratic bound-setting procedure, these political parties could, as earlier mentioned, propose specific magnitudes for the bounds, which would reflect their understanding of the general will of that society. At least for the necessary transitional phase, this last scheme might be considered a quite reasonable approximation to the ideal theoretical model.
It should also be clear that the possibility of a just and democratic socioeconomic system, which would actually and maximally benefit all citizens of society, provides strong economic (and other) incentive for all rational, self-interested citizens to actively participate in the political process — something currently considered not worth the time and trouble, in the minds of many and sometimes a majority, since, under present circumstances, the questions to be decided, democratically or otherwise, are not seen to be relevant to their lives.
Ramifications and Benefits of Socioeconomic Democracy
As described in the book Socioeconomic Democracy: An Advanced Socioeconomic System, it can be shown that numerous serious and acknowledged (not to mention some of the many presently unacknowledged) societal problems would be reduced or more or less eliminated with Socioeconomic Democracy — simultaneously. These problems include (but are by no means limited to) automation, computerization and robotization; budget deficits and national debts; bureaucracy; maltreatment of children; crime and punishment; development; ecology, environment and pollution; education; the elderly; feminine majority; inflation; international conflict; intranational conflict; involuntary employment; involuntary unemployment; labor strife and strikes; sick medical and health care; military metamorphosis; natural disasters; planned obsolescence; political participation; poverty; racism; sexism; untamed technology; and the general welfare.
One example must suffice. Consider international conflict, that is to say, war, a perennially popular and productive form of planetary depletion and pollution. The enhancement of societal well being made possible with Socioeconomic Democracy (ie, the synergetic effect of simultaneously reducing a wide variety of current society’s other stupid problems), ipso facto provides an effective and positive deterrent to international warfare, here assumed undesirable and to be eliminated. The simultaneous resolution of a large number of serious societal problems eliminates at once many causes of — and perhaps more important, many excuses for — war.
Beyond this, many other specific beneficial effects can be anticipated. For example, those participants in the democratic socioeconomic system who are personally at or near the societally, ie, democratically, set upper bound on allowable personal wealth would no longer have personal economic incentive to promote war or military intimidation, whether involving their own country or other nations, for private profit as is frequently the case now. They could no longer gain personal wealth by such action and could well lose it, especially if their society democratically decided to further reduce the allowable personal wealth bound to help finance involvement in the hostilities.
Democratically set, governmentally guaranteed personal income for everyone also provides many direct deterrents to warfare. Among other strong effects, it would eliminate any economically “handicapped” class, which, of course, has historically provided warring nations with a convenient pool of combatants. Such guaranteed income also solves the very real and almost always neglected problem of necessary income for all those who presently derive their personal income and personal wealth from warfare, its design, threat, preparation, or promotion, either directly or indirectly, here in the USA or anywhere/everywhere else.
Yet if some war is absolutely “necessary,” both democratically set MAW and UGI bounds, and the economic incentives they create, would go a long way to insure that all military personnel are provided adequate care (financial, medical, psychological, educational and otherwise) to meet the requirements for salvaging a deservedly respected, dignified and healthy life, both during and after military service — as opposed to frequent present-day neglect and lack of necessary attention to veterans’ needs by the hypocrites who’s actions and inactions helped create all the dead and wounded veterans.
Socioeconomic Democracy and Resolution of BIG’s Major Dilemmas
We conclude by briefly mentioning and noting how a number of the major contemporary dilemmas impeding the realization of some form of universal guaranteed income can be and indeed are democratically resolved with Socioeconomic Democracy.
How much? It has been observed that there are at least as many different opinionated answers to the question of how much BI is best/possible/desirable/necessary/affordable/justifiable/whatever as there are different reasons justifying some form of universally guaranteed personal income (the latter being a very large number, we all agree). The basic question of “How much?” nevertheless appears not to have been seriously, or at least sufficiently, considered from the perspective of a democratic society. Socioeconomic Democracy addresses and answers the question democratically.
That “How much?” is really more than just one question is clear from the observation that what is a reasonable level of BI depends upon, among other things, its source(s) of finance and any other economic incentives in place working for or against the need for some form of BI.
Who decides? Never before in the history of humanity has it been simultaneously physically possible and near trivial for all impacted participants of a society to democratically decide such fundamental questions as that society’s minimum acceptable material poverty level and that society’s maximum allowable personal wealth level. Socioeconomic Democracy facilitates the realization of this potential by peaceful, thoughtful, productive and legal means.
Where should necessary funds come from? It is observed that, of all the “classes” of society — democratic or otherwise — including, say, the presently desperately poor, the presently unemployed poor, the presently underemployed poor, the presently working poor, the presently shrinking “lower,” “middle” and “upper” middle classes, the presently wealthy, the presently rich, the presently super rich and the presently ultra rich, the class that would be “hurt” the least by providing some of any necessary funds to finance a BIG is clearly the class of the ultra rich. On the basis of compassion alone, the policy has merit and should be welcomed by all “compassionate conservatives.”
Furthermore, and far more important, consider the societally beneficial economic incentive created by Socioeconomic Democracy, and the many societal problems significantly and simultaneously reduced as a result of that economic incentive. All this also argues for the “compassionate” solution.
How soon can all this start to happen? Whatever else, it can be agreed that the wider public discussion and acceptance of the ideas of a universal BIG, resulting from the understanding that the stubborn dilemmas heretofore impeding the realization of some meaningful form of basic income can be made to evaporate democratically, will unquestionably hasten the day of realization.
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Robley E. George is the founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Societies, a research and educational institution dedicated to the examination and explanation of the properties and possibilities of democratic societies and democratic socioeconomic systems. His latest book is Socioeconomic Democracy: An Advanced Socioeconomic System published by Praeger/Greenwood in 2002.
Center for the Study of Democratic Societies
http://www.CenterSDS.com
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