Rethinking Econ 101

Like it or not, we're in a class war and there ain't no Switzerland.
--anonymous

On NPR this morning an economist who writes for Slate magazine was defending Wal-Mart’s policies of paying its employees low wages. He said that the overall benefit to society was worth it because consumers get cheaper prices at Wal-Mart than at stores which pay workers more. This makes those other retail outlets “less competitive.” The conservatives point to NPR as evidence of the liberal media. This guy from Slade was slightly to the right of Agosto Pinochet. NPR didn’t offer a counter argument. I am giving it here.

Slavery was also a good thing for a lot of people. It wasn't a very good thing for those on the business end of a bull whip. This fetish with keeping down costs is an economic idea with so many holes that it is hard for me to believe that it makes sense to anyone.

I have been having this argument with friends over the past couple of weeks. I have listened to them bad-mouth unions and speak out against mandatory vacations for full-time workers. They all present the basic argument that the fucking tool for Slade put forth: We must let the market decide wages and if you aren’t happy about your vacation policy you can get another job—this is a free country after all. This laissez-faire economics is taught at every university in this nation. It was what I was taught as an economics major at Indiana University. I used to buy into this philosophy back before I had looked at the world and didn’t know any better. The only contrary opinion was socialism and of course we knew that was really bad.

The problem is that there is absolutely no successful model of this type of economy we are in such a hurry to implement. The more the U.S.A. moves to dismantle the government programs that since the depression have ensured a more egalitarian society, the worse things are becoming for the lower income classes. On the other hand, if you travel to Western Europe it is extremely apparent that these social democracies do a better job of taking care of all of their citizens than we do here.

Forget about the damage Wal-Mart is doing to this country, what disturbs me more than anything else is people’s attitudes about money and class. On issue after issue Americans are showing that they really don’t care about those less fortunate than themselves. We aren’t willing to pay taxes because we feel that we are supporting a lazy underclass. Never mind that this simply isn’t true, that we are paying a bigger proportion of our taxes to fund a defense industry that is entirely out of control and is completely devoid of an overriding philosophy as to how we should be defended.

I don’t think we as a nation are over-taxed and I don’t think we need to save 20 cents on a pair of underwear at Wal-Mart if it means their workers make less than a living wage. I think every American has the right to health care. I don’t feel that these views are liberal; they are simply the views of a citizen. I refuse to believe you if you say that we can’t afford to give every worker a living wage with benefits.

to be continued…