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3/3/2009
Burri on capitalism: For richer or for poorer

In a stunning turn of events, a columnist for a Madison-area newspaper completely misunderstands capitalism:

Dear state Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine): You told the State Journal that Gov. Jim Doyle's plan to modestly raise income taxes on the wealthiest 1% of the state's residents constitutes "resorting to class warfare" and will undermine investment in the economy.

Wrong, ditto-head! First of all, we already have full- blown class warfare. It's called capitalism. But the side that routinely sustains the greatest casualties rarely fights back.

That's the Isthmus' Bill Lueders. Part of me hopes I'm misunderstanding him. Most of me knows I'm not.

Capitalism. The economic system that made obesity a bigger problem among the poor than malnutrition. Class warfare.

It’s the rich vs. the poor. The wealthy and the workers. Cigar smoking plutocrats in gold-plated boardrooms lording it over the downtrodden middle-class masses.

The Man, making war on the poor schmucks who didn’t have the simple common sense to be born into money.

Come up with a product, or a service, or an idea you can sell. Sell it. Make a good living at it. And suddenly you're a heavily armed soldier tramping over somebody else's crops.

My goodness. At the risk of putting words into his mouth: Bill Lueders thinks we won’t have real equality and freedom until we’re all standing in the same bread line, hoping the Central Commissariat finally sent a large enough shipment of bread for everybody to get some. We’ll only know true economic freedom when the America’s dark corporate masters have been cast into the pit; when the mighty Proletariat has risen up to take rightful possession of the means of production; when those filthy profit motives have been put aside once and for all, and we can finally give according to our ability, and take according to our need!

Please.

Capitalism is, of course, messy. Adversarial. Some people will, of a necessity, have more than others. It has to be that way: if we all owned factories, who would run the machines? If none of us owned factories, who would pay us to run the machines?

Think of it this way: the NFL has 32 teams, all of which compete against one another for fans, players, games. They’re adversaries. They want to win. They want the other teams to lose.

But they also need each other. How long would the league last if only a few teams ever had a chance? Even the Arizona Cardinals can reach the SuperBowl! What a country!

Capitalism is like that: management and labor; producers and consumers; the proletariat and the bourgeoisie – they compete and conflict with each other, sure, and even with themselves. But they also need each other.

Class warfare? I guess you could call it that, but you’d be using the phrase differently than Rep. Vos did. He was referring to the concerted, intentional effort to cast “the rich” as “the problem.” As in: they’re not paying their fair share! They have to pay more. More taxes, more wages. The economy sucks, and they have to fix it!

Don’t tax you, don’t tax me. Tax that guy behind the tree! It’s just good politics: create a bad guy – a bad guy who isn’t you – so you can take what he’s got and the voters will thank you for it.

It’s not, as Lueders suggests, a one-sided fight. The “rich” and their allies – me included – do fight back. The difference is: we fight to let people keep what they earn. The other side fights to take it.

Lance Burri is a contributor to the Badger Blog Alliance and The TrogloPundit.

COMMENTS

I started writing a much longer reply to this post and realized I'd manage to get everyone mad at me before anyone ever got to the point. So here's the somewhat shorter version with my point FIRST:

We don't have a problem in this society because there are wealthy, working, and poor. We have a problem in this society because there are those at EVERY level who live beyond their means and believe that they have a right to do so. If we all used some common sense and we all put greed aside, there would be much less fiscal unrest between income levels.

The priveleged should think twice about whether they really need to live in a $750k home when they just might be able to 'scrape by' in the $250k house ... maybe even some of that residual income could trickle down to their employees so workers could live in a $100k ranch rather than a trailer.

There are workers who are equally guilty. Those who believe that they should have ALL their health care paid by their employer ... not just while they are employed, but for the REST OF THEIR LIFE! Sorry, that's beyond a reasonable expectation and those who are a part of the 'over-takers' at this level are putting their organization on the fast-track to insolvency OR overseas outsourcing.

The poor have their share as well. Before I start here - YES we should all be compassionate to those who have been hit by hard times. But those at this income level who believing that they should have a life of comforts and conveniences simply because they can breath are sadly mistaken.

The bottom line: None of us are ENTITLED to what we have and we ALL should look more at living on what we truly NEED rather than thinking we need things simply because we WANT them.

Greed stinks ... And nobody has a problem smelling it.

Jeff (Tue Mar 03 07:17:11 2009)

You are right, Jeff. Greed does stink. I can't help but wonder how much is really enough for some. Before the wealthy CEO finally says "I've got enough,now. I'm going to spend the rest of my life helping others."

What more can you buy when you already have everything?

But worse is when these wealthy folks hammer at the workers for wanting more pay when they themselves draw $10 million per year and rising at the rate of 20%. Or when the wealthy Wall Streeters complain when their very federal bailout is funded by the little guys on Main Street.

Have we no shame?

Jack Lohman (Tue Mar 03 08:48:57 2009)

Indeed there are limitations to what the market alone can do. Perhaps, we are becoming a post-capitalistic society. Our Gov now owns the largest share of the largest bank, there's more to come. I believe this is called socialism. The limits of capitalism have been reached through accelerated personal greed of a few, that has harmed many.

Belleville (Tue Mar 03 10:49:57 2009)

I normally don't respond to these screeds but one point is worth noting. Nowhere in the discussion of capitalism here is the word risk. Capitalism is based on risk. 'Risk is the ingredient in the secret sauce of capitalism' as someone recently said (and I'm paraphrasing.}

What we have seen during the looting of the treasury by the Bush Administration is the attempt to eliminate risk from shareholders and investors in corporations.

I've said here before that the so-called ownership society is now threatened because those invested in private securities from the stockmarket in 401k's and whatnot should never have done this because they are not capitalists. That old tv commercial about owning "a piece of the rock" only applies to the boulders not the pebbles. Capitalists spread risk around to dilute their losses.

What we are seeing is the attempt not just to bail out the rich but to also bail out the ownership society.

The author Thomas Frank showed that the marketing hype for the ownership society was done over decades and took on the nature of a belief system-- one market under God. And the ownership society
was supposed to trust their employers to contribute equal shares.

Face it. The gullible do not deserve anything better. All of the 'safe' investments in defense contracting, health insurance parasites and hedge funds with no basis in hard goods at all are now having their bets covered by those who were not gulled into playing a rigged game.

As to capitalism itself being class warfare I'll just leave this with one question to ponder: What class to you think you are in?

Lon Ponschock (Tue Mar 03 11:36:28 2009)

I'll try to keep my screed short. If it were not for those "gullible" people that were sold a bill of goods by crafty, dishonest but very good mortgage brokers, we'd have no pedastal for the elites.

Jack Lohman (Tue Mar 03 12:00:37 2009)

Jack,
The screed mentioned referred to the original piece by Burri. I think yours is one of the best voices on here. The position on the comment sheet was accidental.

What I see is people being gulled into thinking that they are so special that they are immune to risk by investing in so-called "safe" corporate thieves and parasites.

I just read this quote this morning:

"Only for so long will strung-out $35,000-a-year families enjoy magazine articles about the most successful businessmen in Dallas or television programs about the lifestyles of the rich and famous."

The quote is from Kevin Phillips in 1990. But if the phrase 'lifestyles of the rich and famous' were changed to T. Boone Pickens and Britney would it not be just as apt today?

This massaging of the public has been going on for a long time and the technique is documented by Thomas Frank.

Or go to the Appleton Library and get a documentary called "The Century Of The Self" by Adam Curtis to get a wider interpretation of how the process works.

Lon Ponschock (Tue Mar 03 13:06:35 2009)

My comment wasn't in defense, Lon. I knew your intent. Your mention of people being gulled into thinking that they are so special that they are immune to risk, brings to mind that those were the first people ripped off by Madoff and Stanford.

Unfortunately, then came the non-profit victims. But that whole thing revolves around this free-for-all market that some of our friends like. We are getting to the point that I think we should take some advice from Sweden.

Jack Lohman (Tue Mar 03 13:32:24 2009)

Jack,

Maybe you and I would describe the same Swedish advice, maybe not. The Swedish advice I'm familiar with comes from the sustainability mavens like Torvald Lahti and his Natural Step for Communities program. This had a bit of cache the last couple years here and Lahti did some guest presentations in Appleton.

If you're referring to nationalizing things, I guess the Swedes are doing that as well.

But what must be really addressed is local investment, how to do it and with whom. Going beyond the theory of Natural Step systems when there has been no preparation for them in the local economy is an issue I've been trying to learn about and resolve.

Common sense advice is hard to come by but there are some who will tell you to find a local bank that invests in real things with a reasonable expectation of return-- not 30% the first year. One proposal is mini bonds in the denomination of $100. So the community takes responsibility for its own development. When the investor can see his own product taking shape it is more likely that the larger concerns of what is growth and what is bloat will become apparent.

Do we need more condos? For whom? Do we need new bridges? How wide? Things like that.

Lon Ponschock (Tue Mar 03 14:02:25 2009)

Here's a piece I wrote on Sweden, and the first link is good. I think I could deal with that.

Jack Lohman (Tue Mar 03 14:52:51 2009)

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