George's Osborne's new proposal to let workers sell off their employment rights to employers reminded me of this Swiftian satire from 2010...
A Modest Proposal to Transition to a "Cater to the Rich" Economy
A Modest Proposal to Transition to a "Cater to the Rich" Economy
Thursday 09 December 2010. Source here.
In an article in The New York Times titled "Some
Very Creative Economic Fix-Its," New York University economics professor
Andrew Caplin calls for workers to put their stakes in a "cater to the
rich" economy.(1)
According to Caplin, growing inequality is a fact of life in the future
of the US and global economy - "some people will succeed and others
will not." Rather than judging this to be bad or good, the poor and
middle class would do best by trying to "understand the needs" of the
wealthy and attempting to provide services to meet their demands.
Rand Paul recently expressed a similar sentiment in
the immediate aftermath of his Senate victory. "We're all interconnected
in this economy," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "There are no rich, there
are no middle class, there are no poor. We all either work for rich
people or sell stuff to rich people."(2)
For Paul, the "cater to the rich" economy is already here. The key now
is to expand it, starting with extending tax cuts for the wealthiest to
spur their spending and investment and create more jobs.
From the perspective of someone who is currently
unemployed and has worked a variety of low-wage temp jobs over the past
year, I think both Caplin and Paul are onto something. Based on my
experiences, I want to submit a modest proposal for a "cater to the
rich" jobs program that would provide guaranteed jobs, housing and food
to millions of Americans.
My most recent job in the "cater to the rich economy"
was picking orders and assembling bracelets for the upscale jewelry
company Chamilia. Most Chamilia beads for their charm bracelets sell for
between $25 and $65 each, though gold ones can cost over $400, so I
doubt they are in the price range of most working people.(3)
My co-workers and I were almost all temps hired
through temp agencies like ProStaff (recently renamed Attero Human
Capital). We were happy to have this job, but frustrated when it ended
after fewer than two weeks. We're more than willing to "cater to the
rich," but we'd like, more than anything else, to have some job
security, rather than the instability that comes from working through
temp agencies. Many of us had just recently been among 550 workers hired
for a call center job we were told would last a month, but only lasted a
single day.(4)
Across the country, there are millions of people
suffering from a similar fate, either unemployed or lacking even minimal
job security. And nearly two million long-term unemployed will exhaust
their unemployment benefits by the end of December, raising the grim
prospect of even more homelessness, and even starvation. In exchange for
job security, I think we'd be willing to make some sacrifices.
Therefore, my proposal is that state governments
urgently organize big job fairs of a new type: "The Cater to the Rich
Job Extravaganza." Workers participating in this job fair would be
guaranteed jobs, housing and food by employers at the fair - for life.
In exchange, workers would agree to give up their wages, which would
hopefully spur the type of long-term hiring that companies have been
hesitant about despite record corporate profits. I was only making about
$10.50 an hour anyway (when I could find work), and when you add up
rent, utilities, transportation, food, and other bills, there's really
not much left over - especially when you don't work regularly. Any money
saved on wages could also be used to provide more guaranteed jobs for
other unemployed or underemployed workers. In order to insure that
workers are free from pre-existing conditions that might impede their
work abilities, employers would be free to fully inspect their potential
employees at the job fair, from head to toe. Insurance company
representatives would be on hand to aid these inspections.
I can imagine that this proposal would be quite
attractive to many workers. For example, it might appeal to the "Amazon
gypsies," the 500 temporary workers living in RVs and campers near an
Amazon.com warehouse in Kentucky, where they will make $10 an hour until
Christmas, after which they will drive on in search of another job.
I believe it would be most convenient and efficient
if employers provided the guaranteed housing and meals in my proposal on
or near the premises where workers will be working, and I think this
would definitely help attract workers. I say this because several of my
co-workers on the evening shift did not get home until nearly 1:00 AM
(after finishing at 11:00 PM), since there are so few buses running at
night and they couldn't afford cars. By the time you wake up in the
morning, it's time to head back to work anyway. Plus, a lot of us are
currently living (miserably) with relatives or in our parents'
basements, so a change of scenery would be appreciated.
Living on or near the premises would also help us
spend more time with our kids, who we don't get to see much. Working
from 2:30 PM to 11:00 PM means that you're asleep when your kid goes to
school and at work when they get home - but it'd be easier to see them
without a long commute.
Speaking of kids, we are all very worried about their
future given the state of the economy. Perhaps, in exchange for our
employers' housing and feeding them, they could promise to work for them
once they are of age. If employers could guarantee them employment for
life, I think this is a deal we would be willing to make. And if it
turns out that another company or wealthy individual could use their
services better, they could pay a transfer fee to their current
employer. This would help our children avoid the same instability and
insecurity that we have gone through.
There could be additional incentives put in place to
encourage workers to sign up for this jobs program. For example, many of
us are in over our heads with mortgage payments we can't afford,
meaning it would be hard for us to sign up for a scheme requiring us to
forgo wages. Perhaps mortgage, credit card, student loan, and other
debts could be forgiven to those who sign up - a bailout for workers
kind of like that given to Wall Street. In exchange, the big banks and
others owed money could be given the services of a certain number of
workers in this jobs program. The investment banks will pay out $89.54
billion to their employees in 2010, so there should be no shortage of
opportunities to cater to them.
Of course, if we ever want to leave the jobs program
and try our luck in the job market again, we would reassume our debts,
with heavy interest rate penalties. This is the only fair way to prevent
people from signing up just to get rid of their debts.
There are many potential benefits to this proposal in
addition to providing jobs. For example, many have bemoaned the decline
of community in modern America. As it is right now, workers on temp
jobs rarely build ties with one another, since we are rapidly laid off
or shuffled from project to project and we all come from different
communities. If we were all living together and guaranteed employment
for life, this would certainly aid a revival of community spirit and end
the days of "bowling alone." Instead, in our free time, we could
organize activities like dances, sing-alongs and Bible study groups.
This proposal might also help the environment by
reducing the commute to work and, thus, cutting carbon emissions.
Further, rich people love organic produce (Caplin envisions small-scale
farmers succeeding in the "cater to the rich" economy), so perhaps some
employees could be given jobs setting up gardens to provide
locally-grown food.
This is also a politically realistic program. Jobs
programs usually involve proposals to dramatically increase public
spending, which is politically unfeasible these days. Not only do the
Republicans control the House of Representatives, but the leaders of the
Democratic Party long ago recognized that America's future lies in a
"cater to the rich" economy, and smartly oriented themselves toward
policies that would help concentrate wealth at the top in exchange for
campaign donations.
Luckily, my jobs program requires minimal public
expenditure and is mainly dependent on private sector initiative. Tax
cuts for the richest Americans could (and should) be extended, helping
them to guarantee more workers jobs, housing and employment. I do,
however, think it would make sense for the government to pay for a 2011
Census of rich Americans, asking them what types of stuff they like and
how they can better be catered to. This "cater to the rich" Census would
provide temporary jobs and also help workers prepare for future job
fairs. In addition, since private employers would be guaranteeing jobs,
housing and food for life, this proposal would help reduce the number of
people on Social Security, thereby helping to reduce the long-term
deficit and fulfill the goals of Obama's deficit commission.
Other countries facing high unemployment might also
consider this program, though they could implement versions reflecting
their political systems and their own peculiar institutions. For
example, Britain and Ireland have a larger public sector than the US
(though it is increasingly under attack) and, therefore, it might be
easier for the government to provide guaranteed jobs, housing and food
in "workhouses."
Finally, and perhaps most controversially, it would
make sense to bar anyone signing up for this jobs program from voting,
because they might have an incentive to vote according to their
employers' wishes or interests. But more than 40 percent of Americans
don't vote anyway, and both political parties can be trusted to steward
the transition to a "cater to the rich" economy, so this shouldn't be a
big deal.
Some might worry that this proposal sounds peculiarly
like certain previously discredited economic schools of thought in
American history, but I think we have to put everything on the table to
confront this jobs crisis, rather than prematurely judging proposals
based on abstract moral arguments. As Professor Caplin explains, it's
ineffective to start arguments with "should," which cuts off creative
thinking and problem solving. Instead, I hope we can apply the best
insights from the history of American economic policy to creatively
tackle the challenge facing us today of how to provide jobs for the 15
million unemployed.
P.S. Even the great economic thinker Karl Marx
understood the potential benefits of such a proposal: "If [the worker]
resigned himself to accept the will, the dictates of the capitalist as a
permanent economical law, he [or she] would share in all the miseries
of the slave, without the security of the slave."(5) Marx recognized that if workers are to accept growing inequality, they might at least be provided with some security.
Footnotes:
1. David Segal, "Some Very Creative Economic Fix-Its," New York Times, 11/27/10.
2. CNN, 11/2/10.
3. For a glass bead that sells for $35, they pay $1.90 to a factory in South Africa. They pay similar prices to factories in Thailand and China, countries whose employers and workers seem to have recognized the benefits of committing to the "cater to the rich" economy.
4. See my article, "Hundreds of Twin Cities Workers Learn How to Become a Commodity."
5. Karl Marx, "Wages, Price and Profit."
2. CNN, 11/2/10.
3. For a glass bead that sells for $35, they pay $1.90 to a factory in South Africa. They pay similar prices to factories in Thailand and China, countries whose employers and workers seem to have recognized the benefits of committing to the "cater to the rich" economy.
4. See my article, "Hundreds of Twin Cities Workers Learn How to Become a Commodity."
5. Karl Marx, "Wages, Price and Profit."
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Dan DiMaggio is an
independent writer, temp worker and member of Socialist Alternative in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has an MA in history from Tufts University
and was an activist with the Harvard Living Wage Campaign. His article
"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Test Scorer" will be published in
the December issue of Monthly Review.
Comments
Someone recently pointed out that the President of the USA has less power than the Congress. The other major contributor to American politics is the massive 'Lobby' industry, which, from what I can discern, has far more influence on policy than the pleb voters.
Regards, Paul.