It’s strange the little
things you can learn sometimes from abroad about your own country’s history. A Dutch reporter recently cited an exchange between
Henry Ford and Walter Reuther, the head of the auto workers’ union. Ford was
showing Reuther a newly automated factory and said to him, ”Walter, how are you
going to get those robots to pay union dues?”
To which Reuther replied, “Henry, how are you going to get them to buy
cars?” Sometimes it’s more complicated
than that. Boeing has been negotiating
with its machinists’ union, trying to get them to agree to 401(k)’s instead of
fixed benefit pensions, along with other concessions. The workers don’t buy planes, though if they
can any longer afford it, they are passengers.
Boeing is using the usual corporate ploy of threatening to move its new
plane operations elsewhere, to “ensure it remains competitive” and of course to
guarantee its CEO his over $100 million annual compensation package. Latest word is that the machinists have caved
in and agreed. It’s just another lost
battle in the erosion of worker and retiree income that comes about from the
capability of corporations to move elsewhere. It's what economists like Robert Reich, Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz regard as a basis for the continued stagnation in our economy. But it may echo in Congress and elsewhere also.
2014 is the year issues
meet head-to-head during negotiation over proposed trade pacts between the U.S.
and both the EU and China. Negotiations
have been going on in secret with mainly corporate interests in the loop, but
the Obama administration is promising to protect worker interests. But agreement by the workers and the Congress
is going to take a lot of trust, and Boeing is not helping any. At the same time as it’s negotiating secret
trade pacts to promote American exports, the administration is promising to
reduce income inequality and protect worker rights. The goals seem at cross purposes, since
profitable exports are generally perceived as requiring low labor costs at home. At the same time, Larry
Summers points out that the real roadblock to a robust economy is inadequate
demand for goods and services, and low-paid workers are not going to do much in
the way of stimulating demand. He seems to be echoing Reuther, while the corporate interests are talking like Ford. We're facing the kinds of policy choices that would benefit greatly from the input of a well-informed public, but that's not what seems to be happening. Left
strictly to the markets and to secret corporation negotiators, the workers are
most likely to lose again. It seems the
only way really to cure income inequality and the economy is not from within
the usual market mechanisms, which give power only to the corporations, but with
the electorate. The fact that trade
negotiations are occurring during an election year may prove interesting.
George Will of course
would prefer that those ignorant voters not get in the way of clever
negotiators. In a recent column, he
opines that the principal problem with democracy is… democracy! He quotes favorably Churchill’s quip that “the
strongest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the
average voter.” He bases his views on
the “public choices” view of economic theory which holds that “rational
ignorance” prevents voters from being well informed on policy choices, and
makes them opt for “sentimental” (that seems his code word for considering the needs of others) solutions, rather than the market-based
solutions he prefers. He seems to think we would all be better off just letting
the markets decide things. George
forgets – surely his education must have included it – that in a democracy, the
voting process is a principal means of legitimizing government and stabilizing
society.
Rational ignorance is
the failure to learn about a topic resulting from a decision that knowing about
it won’t affect your life much. But
policy decisions do affect your life a lot.
It’s just that in a market economy where the corporate interests hold
the reins of power, only political means are available to the “average voter” to
affect outcomes. The voting booth
becomes the “market” in which he can express his choices in a meaningful
way. George could have more closely
examined the “average voter” and found that the principal difference between
him or her and the corporate negotiator is not in rational ignorance – the negotiators
have plenty of that themselves - they understand how policy options affect
markets, but not people. The real
difference lies in the quality of their education and the extent of their self
interest. The negotiator, like George,
is much better educated and much more happily uninterested in the fortunes of
others. But part of the cure for the
ignorance of both the average voter and the negotiator is supposed to be
democracy itself. George could have
quoted Churchill saying that “the only thing worse than democracy as a form of
government is all other forms of government.”
Or Lincoln saying “God must love the common man because he made so many
of him.” Or Alexander Pope acidly remarking
that “How God feels about riches can be seen from those he bestows them on.” Take that, Donald Trump!
A quality education in
a democracy is supposed to be a public good available to all, provided through
public funding as a benefit for all. It
was Jefferson who emphasized that with his sponsoring of the University of
Virginia, in his own words, his greatest achievement. If the average voter is
not even aware enough to know at least roughly the impacts of policy on his
life, then we have failed to achieve a necessary goal of democracy. The price of liberty is both eternal vigilance
and quality education. If agricultural
policy is going to raise or lower the cost of a loaf of bread by a dollar for
the average voter, or put or take out a million dollars from the pocket of a
billionaire, there is no reason the average voter should rationally be less
interested than the billionaire. Yet
elite educations even at the high school level generally include some economics
and political science and other subjects needed to better understand policy
choices, while much public education is deficient in all that. The deficiency continues at college levels. The “average
voter” starts off with a major educational handicap. It is that handicap which must be cured for
effective democracy, and that requires the enlightened funding which many of
the prosperous are so unwilling to provide.
Back in the days of
slavery, slaves were prohibited from learning to read and write; their owners
knew that an educated person would not willingly remain a slave. Now in the 21st century, education
must go far beyond the rudiments if we are to maintain ourselves as a free and
prosperous nation. That requires loosened pockets among those who have already benefited from their own superior
education. To overweight ignorance as a factor
in policy choices is to turn it simply into an excuse for ignoring the genuine
needs of the economically powerless. That itself displays a kind of irrational ignorance, for it leads not only to the kind of economic stagnation we have been experiencing, but to economic and political strife.
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