# 342 / Labor's Share

 

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Pictured above is Tyler Cowen. According to the write-up on Cowen in Wikipedia, which is where that link will take you, Cowen is "an American economist, columnist and blogger." He is also a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. 

Cowen's blog is called "Marginal Revolution," and his blog postings do sometimes focus, as seems appropriate, on topics directly related to economics. However, Cowen places an extremely high value on his own thoughts on virtually every topic, and his "Marginal Revolution" blog provides readers with Cowen's personal views on a multitude of subjects. Cowen has organized his blog postings by the following categories, so if you want to hear from Cowen (on virtually anything), please feel free to select an appropriate category and click away! My apologies if you would like to think about "Sex." There is no Tyler Cohen category for that.

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My own blog posting, today, is a reaction to one of Cowen's blog postings from May 14, 2024 - a blog posting that is not about Cowen's "travels," or about his views on "sports," or about "food and drink," but is actually about economics. Here is what Cowen has to say on a rather important topic:

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The Decline In Labor’s Share Of National Income

Tyler Cowen
May 14, 2024

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:

There is some bad news afoot for workers. Labor’s share of the US gross domestic product has been falling for a long time, by seven percentage points since World War II. The labor share for 2022 — depending on exactly which measure is used, it comes in at slightly more than 60% — is the lowest measured since 1929.

And it’s not just America. Globally, the labor share, which is the fraction of an economy’s output that goes to workers, has declined by six percentage points since 1980. The numbers suggest that the share of labor is declining in 13 of the 16 wealthiest countries in the world...

One possible explanation for labor’s declining share is simply that the cost of capital has been falling for decades in most countries. That development benefits capital income very directly: It’s cheaper to raise capital, which benefits workers only indirectly. Of course, with real interest rates higher recently, it will be possible to test whether the labor share of income will make a comeback. In any case, this stands as one of the most plausible hypotheses.

Globalization and automation are two other trends that may have made labor markets more competitive, at least as compared to capital markets. Yet it is not obvious why those forces would lower labor returns more than capital returns. Is labor more mobile internationally than capital? Even if you think US companies have benefited from buying cheap manufactured goods from China and then reselling them at the expense of US workers, that doesn’t explain why labor’s declining share has been so widespread across countries and decades. If globalization were the culprit, labor’s share should be rising in China and other major exporting countries — but the opposite is true.

There is much more at the link. And I do recommend this article by Loukas Karabarbounis, published in the Spring 2024 issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives. It, too, addresses, "Perspectives on the Labor Share."

oooOOOooo

As for Cowen, I found Cowen's summary observations about "Labor's Share" to be rather unsatisfactory. Note that Cowen provides no real "value judgment" about the report he delivers (although he does note that there is "bad news afoot for workers"). Overall, though, what should we think about the fact that "Labor's Share" has been falling? Is this something we should all be worrying about? And if we should be worrying about it, how much? Will it make a difference - and what kind of a difference will it make? Who is going to be hurt? Who is going to be benefitted? Cowen expresses no opinion on any of those questions. Mere "observations" can be helpful, but what is really called for, I  think, would be some evaluation of what the "facts" portend. 

In addition, besides providing us with some basis for judging the importance and probable impact of what Cowen is reporting, it would have been nice if Cowen had given us some idea of what we might do about the phenomenon he describes. I always think that the purpose of "observation" should be to provide us with the facts that will allow us to take an appropriate "action" in response.

Unlike Cowen, I am not reluctant to provide my own value judgment about the facts he reports. I think that the decline in "Labor's Share" is not only a bad omen for our politics, economy, and society in general, I also think we need to do something about it. 

A while ago, I reported in this blog about a Santa Cruz activist who is now using, as a "signature line" on the communications he dispatches by email, the following advisory message: 

“Things are the way they are because filthy rich people think they don't have enough money” 

This strikes me as accurate, and is another way to say the same thing that Cowen reports. "Labor's Share" in our economy is declining because those who already have a lot of money (and who own the businesses that produce economic wealth) are demanding that they receive even more money than they already get. 

What can we do about it? And what should we do about it? We can (and should) mandate that the contribution that workers make to the economic success of a business must be properly and proportionally rewarded, on a current basis. Just as the shareholder owners of a corporation get distributions from business profits, to honor their contributions to the company's success, so should the workers who contribute their labor. 

That kind of a solution to the observation that "Labor's Share" is falling would require new laws, establishing new rules that businesses would have to follow. We can change how our economy is governed, by enacting new laws, and my favorite equation shows us where we have to start: 

Politics > Law > Government

It is possible to change "the law." It is possible for ordinary persons to change the law. I have, personally, been involved in changing laws at the local, state, and national level, with these changes in the law having  then had an extremely significant impact on how our local, state, and national life is governed. My personal efforts have mostly impacted life Santa Cruz County, California - but I have actually played a role, personally, in changing the law at every level of our government.

I don't call my blog, "We Live In A Political World" for nothing. If we want to change the laws, to change the way our world is governed, we need to get involved in "politics." We need to get involved ourselves. That's where change begins.

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https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/forward-thinking-on-talent-state-capacity-and-being-hopeful-with-tyler-cowen

#341 / Cold Brews And Global Warming

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A new coffee machine (pictured) got some coverage in the July 5, 2024, edition of The Wall Street Journal. The article I am talking about was titled, "Want an Iced Coffee? Brands Want You to Make Your Own."

Here is how the new machine is described: 

Cold brews and iced lattes have soared in popularity at coffee shops. Now brands made to be drunk at home want a piece of the action. As the world becomes hotter, cold coffee is becoming more of a year-round drink ... Peter Giuliano, director of the Coffee Science Foundation, a coffee research nonprofit, forecast[s] that cold coffee will make up most of the category by 2030.

Cold coffee had long been an afterthought for many packaged coffee makers who limited their involvement in the category to milky, ready-to-drink bottles and cans. Figuring out how to get products typically brewed hot to taste good cold was a challenge.

Keurig in 2018 launched a “brew over ice feature” for its machines that brewed a hot coffee at 198 degrees Fahrenheit and then cooled it to 150 degrees. “We knew it wasn’t going to deliver on that true cold experience consumers were after,” says Morgan Lombardi, a senior director of product management at Keurig. “It was seen as a hack.”

Eventually, Keurig determined that consumers would wait three minutes at most and that the optimal temperature was 50 degrees. Any cooler and people couldn’t tell the difference. Very cold coffee also didn’t melt the ice, leaving drinkers with an empty glass full of it, which Keurig says they disliked....

“It’s easy to chill something with lots of ice or to put coffee in the fridge and wait,” says Lombardi. “Our challenge was trying to chill the coffee very quickly without impacting the flavor.”

Earlier versions of Keurig’s new machine were too big or took too long to cool the coffee down. The breakthrough came at a hackathon last year, when engineers found a way to cool hot coffee by passing it through a chamber containing aluminum and water that absorbs the heat.

It plans to launch the new $200 machine in the fall with ads touting the affordability of the drinks it brews vis-à-vis what consumers get from coffee shops.

As global warming advances, we want our coffee cold. So, let's get people to buy a machine that first heats up water to make good coffee, and then uses even more electricity to cool it down.

And producing that electricity, of course, requires the burning of more fossil fuels, heating up the planet even more.

Oh, the irony! 

Oh, the insanity!

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Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/business/iced-coffee-home-brewers-beans-0b5ac5b3

#340 / Good Advice From The Good Times

   

  

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Good Times | Santa Cruz, which is published weekly, is a pretty good paper: Local news. Lots of stories on music, music, music! Horoscopes, if you're into that kind of thing. Plus: Where to eat? Good suggestions in the Good Times!

Brad Kava's "Editorial Note," in the June 19-25, 2024 edition, provided some commentary on that edition's cover story, which told readers about "Onewheel," touted as a way to "surf on land." Here's a picture, in case you're not familiar with this rather amazing device, invented and produced by a Santa Cruz-based company:

Having seen Onewheel in operation, I am not, personally, anxious to jump aboard. Going down the Water Street Hill (which is close to where I live) would make me nervous. Frankly, getting on to one of those things would make me nervous no matter where I did it. I am just not sure my balancing ability is ready for a 20-25 mile per hour ride on a Onewheel over unforgiving concrete. There have been problems, too, as revealed in the article, and as some personal injury lawyers say. Still, as the Good Times' cover proclaims: "One Decade of Onewheel." It's an amazing and interesting story, and it doesn't look like Onewheel is going away.

Kava's Editorial Note opined that Onewheel might be a way to reduce our need for automobiles. As I say, I am not personally convinced that Onewheel is going to be the way to do that, but I am convinced that reducing the number of automobiles out there ought to be a very high priority, given the "climate" challenges we are facing because of our continued combustion of fossil fuels.

Once Kava zeroed in on that "climate" issue, he had some further advice - and very good advice, I think:

The craziest thing I’ve seen on a Onewheel is a guy who carries his young kid to school on one in Aptos. Inventions like this are helping get us out of our cars, something that makes for a brighter future. 

Now, if only our government would catch up and require all these new housing developments to be solar powered, we could really wean off the carbon teat that is sucking the life out of the planet (emphasis added).

Legal "mandates," legal "requirements," are how we tell ourselves what we should do. Making it a requirement that all new housing developments be "solar powered" - at least to the greatest degree possible - is just the kind of direction we should be providing to ourselves. 

If you are not following the news on global warming and "climate change," let me tell you that the need to stop burning fossil fuels, period, is ever more urgent. Is Onewheel going to be an effective carbon combustion reduction strategy? Nice idea, but I'm doubtful.

But building all new construction to be solar powered, as a "mandate," as a "requirement"? Telling ourselves that this is how we have to do it? 

That's really good advice from The Good Times!

Foundation of Freedom

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(1) - https://blueskysparky.com/benefits-of-solar-panel-installation/

(2) - https://www.goodtimes.sc/the-editors-desk-25/

#339 / Houston, We [All] Have A Problem

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The image above comes from a Washington Post article that was posted online on September 13, 2024. The Post's article was titled, "The Disaster No U.S. City Is Prepared For." The type is pretty small, in the image above, but the legend under the image says that on July 8, 2024, 71% of the homes within Houston, Texas were without power.  

The paywall that will probably face most readers of this blog posting may well prevent non-subscribers from getting the full story. In essence, The Post tells us that it's not just Houston that has a problem. The power grid, in the United States, is not capable of maintining widespread electric service as the grid is assaulted, ever more frequently, by weather-related outages. And, of course, as global warming continues to change the conditions that we tend to "take for granted," our world is increasingly dependent on the electrical power that is ever more at risk:

FOR DAYS, RESIDENTS OF HOUSTON STRUGGLED to survive as temperatures rose. They shared generators, filled buckets and bathtubs with ice, packed air-conditioned hotels and emergency rooms. The most vulnerable struggled to get the care they needed. Many died. But in some ways, Houston was narrowly spared. Temperatures rose to the high 90s, but only for a couple of days. If the heat had stayed, the human toll could have been far worse. Experts warn this type of catastrophe — a combined power outage with a heat wave — is a scenario that cities and states are unprepared for.

I am increasingly coming to believe that we are going to have to make major changes in how we operate our world - and we are going to have to make those changes quite quickly. "Radical" changes are going to be needed. That could be exciting, and I think we will have a better chance to do well, with the challenges ahead, if we think of all the necessary changes as a positive opportunity for a social, economic, and political transformation that will make the next twenty-five years a time worth celebrating. Resisting and resenting the changes we need to make - and those changes will require genuine sacrifices - are going to be counterproductive.

These were my thoughts, as I read the article in The Post. 

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/hurricanes-power-outages-heat-wave-risk

#338 / Creative Instigation

 

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Fern Tiger is an artist. She is also an "instigator." Click that link to her name to find out more about her, and/or read the description below, which comes from a website for her recent book, Creative Instigation:

Fern Tiger, founder and creative director of Fern Tiger Associates in Oakland, CA, has designed and facilitated scores of projects throughout the U.S. that have engaged communities, organizations, institutions, and public agencies in solving controversial issues and overcoming power gaps in strategic, innovative, and meaningful ways. Her transdisciplinary approaches to this work combine the creative, intuitive tools of the artist/designer with the practical, systemic tools of urban planners, the discipline of academic researchers, and the inspiration of community organizers and activists. Tiger has taught at several universities and most recently held professorships at Arizona State University, and University of Washington Tacoma.

Clicking the link to the title of Tiger's book will let you find out about the book itself, not just about the author. What this book tell us is that democratic self-government works, when rooted in local action. The "case studies" outlined in the book demonstrate that community-based efforts can change unacceptable realities and can help realize a community's dreams and aspirations.

But, before we can get those benefits.....

Some INSTIGATION is required!

My personal experience, here in Santa Cruz County, California, absolutely validates what Fren Tiger says, and I would be delighted to see a lot more examples - contemporary examples - here in my own hometown and throughout the nation. 

Reading Fern Tiger's book might give you some ideas! I recommend it! 

There is a Book Relase Party in Oakland tomorrow. After that's done, I am hoping Fern Tiger will come down to Santa Cruz. In my opinion, we could use a little "Instigation," and the sooner the better!

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https://nyupress.org/9781613322512/creative-instigation/

#337 / That First "R" Comes First For A Reason

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I was, at one time, on the Board of Directors of Californians Against Waste. I have also served on the Board of Directors of the Californians Against Waste Foundation. You can, by the way, click one of those links to make a donation (hint, hint)!

CAW and CAWF preach the "Three R's."

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

I think it's fair to say that concerned members of the public tend to focus on the value and importance of "that "Third R," "Recycling."

That's OK, but it's the "First R" that is most important. The picture above shows plastic materials I have kept around in my home, hoping to "reuse" them (haven't done it, though, have I?). The photograph below, showing materials that we all assume will be recycled, is intended to help make clear the scope of the problem.

What we need most is not more "Recycling." What we need most is "Less." 

Less production. Less consumption. Less waste. Less pollution. Less danger to the natural environment that sustains all of our human activities. 

Christmas is coming. 

How about "Less" for Christmas? That is what's called for, and we are all being called!

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Image Credits:

(1) - Gary A. Patton, Personal Photo

(2) - https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/are-you-an-aspirational-recycler-heres-9-things-you-actually-cant-recycle

(3) - https://www.businessinsider.com/mom-buys-tons-of-presents-for-under-tree-2015-12 

#336 / Getting Out Of Dodge

   

 

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[I am] making plans to get the fuck out of Dodge. I would rather be literally anywhere on earth other than the U.S. on January 20th. (Iran! Syria! North Korea! Couldn't be worse than here. Bring it on.) But my passport is expiring soon. The cost for a new one is absolutely shocking! It's gonna cost me 4 1/2 times as much as it did in 2015. Now, you need to be wealthy to live in the U.S and wealthy to leave! 

As the indented quotation shows, "ERD" is a real thing! Don't we all love acronyms, nowadays? I have selected "ERD" as a way to provide a shorthand way to talk about "Election-Related Distress." 

Of course, we shouldn't discount "Anger," either. I think that there is plenty of that going around, and I could have called the syndrome upon which I am commenting, "Election-Related Anger." However, as you can appreciate, selecting "ERA" as an acronym for the syndrome that I have decided to call "ERD" could have led to confusion. There is, of course, a relationship. NO "ERA" helps trigger "ERD."

The friend who blasted out the message that I have presented, above, bolded and indented, did so back before Thanksgiving. He does have a point! 

However, let me belabor MY point a bit - or at least one of the points I like to make in these blog postings. If we truly believe in "self-government," and consider that we are not just a bunch of individuals, whose only job is to look out for ourselves (and if we think of ourselves as part of a greater whole, and understand that we are all involved, and are all implicated, in the conduct of our national government), then the problem with our election results can't really be blamed, at least not entirely, on somebody else. The way I see it, fleeing the country because of our personal "ERD" isn't quite right.

Choosing to flee the country because of one's personal "ERD," in other words, is not a solution that meets the test often offered to determine what is "good conduct." Recently, I commented on the political philosophy of John Rawls. In my blog posting published on the day after Thanksgiving, I quoted an article that said the following:

The philosophy of Mr. Rawls, who died in 2002, is grounded not in self-interest and competition but in reciprocity and cooperation. His most famous idea is a thought experiment: If you want to conceive of a fair society, put on a “veil of ignorance.” That is, consider a way to organize it if you didn’t know your position — your race, religion or economic status.

It’s an intuitive idea, similar to the classic scenario of how you might cut a cake more fairly if you didn’t know which slice you would end up getting. The idea resonates widely, since it is, in effect, a political version of the Golden Rule — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — that in some form is found across cultural and religious traditions (emphasis added).

"We are in this together" is another way of saying the same thing! If you, personally, are suffering from "ERD" (as I will readily admit that I am), I think the best solution for the "D" part of the syndrome (the "Distress" part) is to get together with others similarly afflicted, and figure out what we are going to do to return us all to political good health. Then, of course, we actually have to take action, not just comment!

Putting it another way, and to keep those homilies coming: Let's stay here and fight. Not flee in fright.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/passport-renewal-online-state-department/

#335 / EPIC

 

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My wife and I provide small donations to lots of different environmental organizations. One of them, the Environmental Protection Information Center, or EPIC, is headquartered in Arcata, California. EPIC describes itself, and its mission, as follows:

Founded in 1977 and based on unceded ancestral Wiyot territory in Arcata, Humboldt County, California, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) is a grassroots 501(c)(3) non-profit environmental organization that advocates for the science-based protection and restoration of Northwest California’s forests, rivers, and wildlife with an integrated approach combining public education, citizen advocacy, and strategic litigation.

Our vision is a Northwest California with healthy, connected, and wild forests where sustainable, restorative management practices are the standard. The forests of the region will help buffer the impacts of climate change resulting in clean air and water, abundant and diverse native flora and fauna, and the protection of natural beauty and quality of life for generations to come.

EPIC's 2023 Annual Report is what has prompted today's blog posting. Check out what EPIC is doing. If you feel moved to contribute to its work, that would be great. 

Let me, however, give you another idea, too. 

As I was typing out the title (EPIC) for what I have just written, another "EPIC" jumped into my mind. "EPIC," as an acronym, has another meaning. Readers may, or may not, have heard about this "other" EPIC, with the abbreviation celebrating an historical movement that I'd like to think we might all remember: 

End Poverty In California 

As Wikipedia describes this "other" EPIC, it was "a political campaign started in 1934 by socialist writer Upton Sinclair (best known as author of The Jungle). The movement formed the basis for Sinclair's campaign for Governor of California in 1934. The plan called for a massive public works program, sweeping tax reform, and guaranteed pensions. It gained major popular support, with thousands joining End Poverty Leagues across the state. EPIC never came to fruition due to Sinclair's defeat in the 1934 election, but has been seen as an influence on New Deal programs enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt."

We absolutely need to protect the California environment. That is, without question, an "EPIC" task. But how about we couple that with another, even more "EPIC" effort, taking a cue from Upton Sinclair?

It is pretty clear to me that our future - and whether we even have a future, here in California, and across the nation, and around the world - is going to depend on whether we can accomplish both of the EPIC tasks just mentioned. Soon, we will have a new president and vice president. They are not going to do that for us.

So, how about we rework our priorities and give it a try ourselves?

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https://www.wildcalifornia.org/post/2023-annual-report

#334 / Let's All Read Rawls

 

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Pictured above is John Rawls, who has been designated by the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy as "arguably the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century." Click that link to Rawls' name if you'd like to learn more about him. Below, I am including the entirety of a New York Times' "Guest Essay," by Daniel Chandler, an economist and philosopher based at the London School of Economics. 

Chandler thinks that reading Rawls might "save" the Democrats. Since it's likely that The Times has deployed a paywall, to protect is product, I have copied out the Chandler essay in its entirety, to make sure that those reading this blog post, and who don't have a subscription to The Times, can understand the importance of what Chandler is saying, and the importance of Rawls' ideas. 

In fact, besides "saving" the Democratic Party, reading Rawls might help us to "save" our system of self-government, a system that is not so much visibly in existence as remembered fondly by those who still indulge themselves in reading the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address. 

Can we create a contemporary politics that "is grounded not in self-interest and competition but in reciprocity and cooperation"?

I think so, and I think "can" means "must." 

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The Democrats Are in Trouble. 

This Man Can Save Them.

Nov. 24, 2024

By Daniel Chandler

The election victory by Donald Trump and his Republican Party was a rebuke of a Democratic Party that has positioned itself as protector of a despised status quo, rendering it unable to connect with an electorate desperate for change. Defeating Mr. Trump in the future will require liberals, progressives and others on the left to articulate a positive vision that can capture the imagination of a broad majority of Americans.

But where can they find the inspiration for such a vision?

The answer lies in the work of the towering 20th-century political philosopher John Rawls.

In his epoch-defining treatise “A Theory of Justice,” published in 1971, Mr. Rawls set out a humane and egalitarian vision of a liberal society, an alternative both to the toxic blend of neoliberal economics and identity politics that has dominated Democratic thinking in recent decades and to the pessimistic anti-liberalism that holds sway among some more radical parts of the left. In this time of crisis for liberalism, it offers an unparalleled, and as yet largely untapped, resource for shaping a broad-based and genuinely transformational progressive politics — not just for Democrats but also for center-left parties internationally.

The philosophy of Mr. Rawls, who died in 2002, is grounded not in self-interest and competition but in reciprocity and cooperation. His most famous idea is a thought experiment: If you want to conceive of a fair society, put on a “veil of ignorance.” That is, consider a way to organize it if you didn’t know your position — your race, religion or economic status.

It’s an intuitive idea, similar to the classic scenario of how you might cut a cake more fairly if you didn’t know which slice you would end up getting. The idea resonates widely, since it is, in effect, a political version of the Golden Rule — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — that in some form is found across cultural and religious traditions.

Mr. Rawls argued that we should choose two guiding principles for how we design society’s core political and economic institutions, its “basic structure.” First, all citizens should be free to live according to their own beliefs and to participate in politics as genuine equals. Second, we should organize our economy to achieve equal opportunities and widely shared prosperity, tolerating inequalities only where they improve the life prospects of the least advantaged.

Such lofty principles might seem detached from reality, and given their high level of abstraction, it’s no wonder that liberals, conservatives and socialists have at times cited Mr. Rawls or even claimed him as one of their own. While it’s not immediately obvious how to put his ideas into practice, this is starting to change, as a growing number of progressive economists, including Joseph Stiglitz and Thomas Piketty, are looking to Mr. Rawls for inspiration.

While Mr. Rawls was an idealist, he was also a realist, arguing that a society organized according to his principles would be not only fair but also stable. His 1971 book contains a remarkably prescient warning that a deeply unequal society like modern-day America, where economic success is equated with individual worth, would lead to a politics of resentment that could threaten the survival of liberal democracy itself. The solution is not simply greater material equality but to secure the dignity and self-respect of the least well-off.

Such a vision has eluded not just the Democrats but also mainstream progressive parties across the developed world — the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party, the German Social Democrats, the Australian Labor Party. These parties largely accommodated the rise of neoliberalism and its philosophy of individualism and unfettered markets in the 1980s, alienating much of their working-class base. And they have typically responded to the rise of right-wing populism with a combination of disdain and technocratic pragmatism.

The Nov. 5 election has been widely characterized as pitting a Democratic Party committed to defending American institutions against Mr. Trump and the MAGA movement, which appear to want to overthrow them altogether. The reality, of course, is that most Americans seem to want something in between: a political vision that recognizes the value of democracy and a market economy as well as the need for far-reaching reform of America’s political and economic structures.

It’s here that Mr. Rawls’s ideas come into their own, offering the kind of animating vision that could rejuvenate the Democrats — and other center-left parties around the world. A political party inspired by him would stand up for an inclusive and tolerant society, a vibrant democracy, equality of opportunity and fair outcomes. But it would also be honest about just how far America falls short of these ideals and embrace the task of responsible but radical reform.

Rather than simply seek to protect America’s ailing constitutional democracy from Mr. Trump’s inevitable attacks, a party committed to Mr. Rawls’s first principle — that citizens should be able to participate in politics as genuine equals — would harness popular frustrations in support of a bold agenda to break the grip of private money on American politics, for instance through public funding for political parties, strong limits on private donations and depoliticizing the judiciary through an independent commission for appointing Supreme Court justices.

On the economy, Mr. Rawls has frequently been misunderstood as advocating a familiar politics of redistribution, in which society seeks to maximize growth and compensate the “losers” through welfare payments. But in fact, he was one of the first champions of what we would now call predistribution, and his ideas point toward an economic agenda that would tackle inequality at its source by promoting good jobs, a fair distribution of wealth and greater democracy in the workplace.

In practical terms for a modern political party, this would mean going all out for a pro-worker agenda to address the long-neglected concerns of non-college-educated voters — not simply for higher incomes but also for meaning, community and a chance to contribute to society. Democrats must continue to call out Mr. Trump’s economic policies of almost certainly inflationary tariffs, tax cuts for the rich and attacks on unions for what they are, a dangerous con, and instead present big ideas that would actually advance the interests of working people. They would include huge investment in vocational education and left-behind places, forming an effective industrial strategy to create good jobs and giving workers more of a say in how companies are run.

Critics will no doubt denounce these ideas as interfering with economic liberty, as Mr. Rawls’s libertarian colleague Robert Nozick did. But they are perfectly compatible with the dynamic market economy that is vital for both individual freedom and economic prosperity. The aim is not to control outcomes but to create rules of the game that work for everyone.

Justice for women and minority groups would be integral to this vision, but it would be tied to universal values of justice and fairness rather than identity politics and pursued, wherever possible, through universal rather than group-based programs for education, health care, housing and welfare.

It’s hard to feel hopeful right now. But for all the talk of a generational realignment, there continues to be a clear majority in favor of a tolerant and inclusive politics — nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed last year thought “increasing racial and ethnic diversity” was a good thing for American society. And there is an enormous appetite for change: A survey conducted in 2021 found that 66 percent thought America’s economic system needed to be completely reformed or needed major changes, while 85 percent said the same about its political system. Democrats must harness this energy rather than wish it away.

In the end, it is through politics, not philosophy, that America and other democracies must find a way forward. Yet the challenge facing the Democrats and their counterparts elsewhere is not simply to win votes but to change minds. In Mr. Rawls’s ideas, they can find a big-picture vision that is rooted in the best of the liberal tradition and can show the way toward a much-needed period of reconciliation and renewal (emphasis added).

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#333 / Hostile To Human Development

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Our Thanksgiving holiday notwithstanding, today's blog posting is not about turkeys, or the delights of family get togethers. It is about "families," though, and some of their most obvious failures. 

The Atlantic has an online article, dated March 13, 2024, which has been published with the following headline: "The Terrible Costs Of A Phone-Based Childhood." The article, by Jonathan Haidt, with photos by Maggie Shannon, is a rather long one, and my personal experience with the paywall maintained by The Atlantic suggests that any non-subscribers reading this blog posting may have trouble accessing it. 

Read it if you can! That would be my advice. I will provide a bullet list, below, of some of those "terrible costs" analyzed in the article, but the article is well summed up in a subheading immediately following the online title: "For a little over a decade, we have been raising children in an environment that is hostile to human development. We need to change that now." The bold-type emphasis has been added by me!

As promised, here is a list of some of the key findings, presented in Haidt's article: 

Young adults are dating less, having less sex, and showing less interest in ever having children than prior generations. They are more likely to live with their parents. They were less likely to get jobs as teens, and managers say they are harder to work with.

Members of Gen Z are shyer and more risk averse than previous generations, too, and risk aversion may make them less ambitious.

Gen Z is in poor mental health and is lagging behind previous generations on many important metrics.

Self-Harm Rates of U.S. Children Ages 10-14 have skyrocketed. Particularly for girls.

Play and Independence have declined.

Rates of adolescent depression, loneliness, and other measures of poor mental health have significantly increased.

The amount of time that adolescents spend sleeping declined in the early 2010s, and many studies tie sleep loss directly to the use of devices around bedtime, particularly when they’re used to scroll through social media.

Exercise declined, too.

The most devastating cost of the new phone-based childhood was the collapse of time spent interacting with other people face-to-face. A study of how Americans spend their time found that, before 2010, young people (ages 15 to 24) reported spending far more time with their friends (about two hours a day, on average, not counting time together at school) than did older people (who spent just 30 to 60 minutes with friends). Time with friends began decreasing for young people in the 2000s, but the drop accelerated in the 2010s, while it barely changed for older people. By 2019, young people’s time with friends had dropped to just 67 minutes a day. It turns out that Gen Z had been socially distancing for many years and had mostly completed the project by the time COVID-19 struck.

Self-Reported Disabilities of U.S. College Freshmen Have Increased.

Fragmented Attention, Disrupted Learning Have Increased.

Addiction and Social Withdrawal Have Increased.

A Decay of Wisdom and the Loss of Meaning Is Clear.

Young People Are Struggling to Find Meaning in Life.

Haidt, who is a social psychologist, has four recommendations to counteract what is happening to young people - four "norms" that Haidt believes would help roll back the phone-based childhood in which children are now trapped: (1) No smartphones before high school; (2) No social media before 16; (3) Phone-free schools; (4) More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world. 

Legislation, Haidt believes, would be a perfectly acceptable way to accomplish items (1) through (3). It's hard to see how it would be possible, though, to legislate the kind of good parenting that could help accomplish objective (4), and yet that fourth "norm," I think, is the most important one. Unlike items (1) through (3), that fourth prescription advocates something "positive," something that would displace phone use because it would be more appealing and interesting than what a young person might find on a phone.

I do think that "positive" approaches are going to work best. In other words, what will work best is to restructure our lives in a wholesale way. The "collapse of time spent interacting with other people face-to-face," identified by Haidt as one of the problems faced by younger people, is an affliction that affects us all. 

When we are "on our phones," we are not, actually, where we physically are. I have pointed this out before. Going "on our phones" is to abandon the "real" world in which we physically live. The very first item in the finding from Haidt's article more or less makes this clear. Is "going on our phones" going to be more fun, more interesting, and more captivating than sex? 

Well, according to Haidt that might actually be true - and I do have some questions about that. I am not suggesting that more sex could be the be-all and end-all solution to the problem that Haidt has identified - though let's be honest, Haidt's article does suggest there is a possibility there, and we really can't deny that sex offers lots of attractions! 

Besides noting that sex could be one way to jolt us all into the "real world," I do want to suggest that all of us, and not just young people, need to take seriously the idea that we need to put our phones aside, and to find out that the real world is a lot more rewarding, and more involving, than the phantoms we find in that cellphone in our hand!

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(1) and (2) - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects/677722/

#332 / Moyn's Rules And A "Cabaret" Warning

 

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My blog postings in the last couple of days have, more or less explicitly, considered how those who lost the recent presidential election should now act, given that we know that our next president will be Donald J. Trump, and a Donald J. Trump who showed signs, during the campaign, of wanting to be a "dictator," even if only for a day. 

Many of those who opposed Trump in the election have taken very seriously the threat that we will be facing an autocratic, wanna-be "king," or "dictator," when Donald Trump is installed as president next January. Project 2025, and Trump's campaign itself, gives substance to this concern. However, as I said in my blog posting yesterday, quoting Yale law professor Samuel Moyn, it is probably true that there is "no alternative to persuading our fellow citizens of our beliefs." 

Those concerned that the recent election signals the "End of Democracy" have to admit that Mr. Trump won the election, democratically, and absent some sort of armed resistance, something along the line of the "Civil War" that some Trump supporters seemed to be contemplating prior to the election, should Trump have lost, we are going to have to operate within the confines of the current political environment. We are going to have to play by "Moyn's rules." 

It would be absolutely wrong to decide, since Mr. Trump was elected, that the majority of the voters have declared their desire for the kind of autocratic, totalitarian approach that Trump seemed to feature during his campaign. We need to "resist" that sort of autocratic approach to government - but by "persuasion," not "power." Best I can tell, that is where everyone seems to be coming down. We need to make our system of democratic self-government work the way it is supposed to - and everyone needs to abide by those "Moyn rules." 

But what if Mr. Trump and his supporters (in Congress and otherwise) actually do want to eliminate democratic self-government, as many feared before the election? The New York Times, on November 25, 2024, carried a Guest Essay by Joel Gray, an American actor who is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in the musical Cabaret on Broadway and in Bob Fosse's 1972 film adaptation. In his Guest Essay, which I am reprinting in full, below, Gray warns us all to be aware of that possibility.

PAY ATTENTION! TAKE HEED! No capitulation to autocracy! No tolerance for totalitarianism!

oooOOOooo

I Starred in ‘Cabaret.’ We Need to Heed Its Warning.

Nov. 24, 2024

By Joel Grey

Mr. Grey played the Emcee in the original Broadway production of “Cabaret” and in the motion picture version, for which he won a Tony Award and an Academy Award.

This past week marked 58 years since the opening night for the Broadway premiere of “Cabaret” in 1966. At the time, the country was in deep turmoil. Overseas, the Vietnam War was escalating, and at home, our most regressive forces were counterpunching against the progress demanded by the civil rights movement. The composer John Kander, the lyricist Fred Ebb and the playwright Joe Masteroff wrote “Cabaret” in collaboration with the director Harold Prince as a response to the era. The parallels between the rise of fascism in 1930s Berlin as depicted in the show and the mounting tensions of the 1960s in America were both obvious and ominous. 

I played the Emcee — the Kit Kat Club’s master of distraction, keeping Berlin mesmerized while Nazism slipped in through the back door. Night after night, I witnessed audiences grappling with the raw, unsettling reflection that “Cabaret” held up to them. Some material was simply too much for the audience to handle. “If You Could See Her,” which has the Emcee singing of his love for a gorilla — a thinly veiled commentary on antisemitic attitudes — ended with the lyric: “If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn’t look Jewish at all.”

When we first performed it, in Boston, audiences gasped and recoiled. It was too offensive, too raw, too cruel. Producers fretted and the line was changed to “She isn’t a meeskite at all,” softening the blow, yes, but also the impact. I resented the change and would often, to the chagrin of stage management, “forget” to make the swap throughout that pre-Broadway run.

I’m hearing from friends in the current Broadway production of “Cabaret” that the line is once again getting an audible response, but of a different sort. On more than one occasion in the past two weeks — since the election — a small number of audience members have squealed with laughter at “She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.” In the late 1960s, we softened the line because the truth was too hard to hear. Today, it seems the line is playing exactly as the Nazi-sympathizing Emcee would have intended.

My initial assessment, when word first reached me about this unusual reaction, was that these must be the triumphant laughs of the complicit, suddenly drunk on power and unafraid to let their bigotry be known. Now I find myself considering other hypotheses. Are these the hollow, uneasy laughs of an audience that has retreated into the comfort of irony and detachment? Are these vocalized signals of acceptance? Audible white flags of surrender to the state of things? A collective shrug of indifference?

I honestly don’t know which of these versions I find most ominous, but all of them should serve as a glaring reminder of how dangerously easy it is to accept bigotry when we are emotionally exhausted and politically overwhelmed.

The 1960s were a time of social upheaval, but also a time of hope. There was a sense that as a society, we were striving toward progress — that the fight for civil rights, for peace, for equality was a fight we could win. “Cabaret,” with its portrayal of a decadent society willfully ignorant of its own demise, provided a stark counterpoint to that hope. It was a warning against the seductive power of distraction, the dangers of apathy and the perils of looking away when history demands that we look closer.

Now, in 2024, we find ourselves in a different, far more precarious moment. The recent election of Donald Trump to a second term has left many Americans, particularly those who fought so hard against the forces of authoritarianism and hate, feeling drained and disillusioned. There’s a sense that we have seen this show before, that we know how it ends, and that we’re powerless to stop it. Or worse, a sense that even though we are facing dark times, they won’t really affect our own day-to-day lives — echoing the tragically shortsighted assessment of so many European Jews in the 1920s and ’30s.

“Cabaret,” with all its humor, spectacle and tunefulness, has always been both the peanut butter and the pill hidden within. It’s an entertainment that seduces us into distraction. “Leave your troubles outside,” the Emcee implores in his opening number. “In here, life is beautiful.” It’s also a cautionary tale that forces us to confront the perils of falling prey to such distractions.

The current revival cleverly ramps up the seduction, staging the show in a fully immersive, champagne-soaked party environment constructed to beguile its audience. Only when the Nazis finally show up do we see how false our velvet-enrobed sense of security has been. We, too, have chosen not to see what has been directly in front of us.

The democratic election of an authoritarian figure, the normalization of bigotry, the complicity of the frightened masses — none of these are new themes. We have indeed seen this show before, and I fear we do know how it ends. It’s understandable to want to retreat, to find solace where we can, but we cannot afford to look away.

History is giving us another chance to confront the forces that “Cabaret” warned us about. The question is: Will we listen this time, or will we keep laughing until the music stops?

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/24/opinion/cabaret-trump-joel-grey.html