That creaky, old time religion
by Tom Sullivan
It’s not exactly “Springtime for Capitalism” lately. The old time religion is a bit creaky and tattered around the edges, as are the Americans with bad teeth living under overpasses.
The young stylist who cut my hair Friday explained she was moving this weekend to her boyfriend’s hometown of Bowling Green, KY. She was ready “to get on with my life,” she said, and was tired of living hand-to-mouth where lower-wage workers were barely able to make ends meet. Lower costs meant they could afford to buy a house in Bowling Green.
You know things are dicey when true believers feel obliged to draft paeans to the glories of the free market, when magazines like Bloomberg publish opinion pieces titled, “Capitalism Needs Reform, Not Revolution,” when reporters are asking if presidential candidates are socialists, and when even the business press is speaking finally of reigning in capitalism’s worst excesses.
Beside the threat climate change poses to bringing down the entire system anyway, Noah Smith offers at Bloomberg:
The second major challenge is to make Americans feel less materially insecure. Instead of looking at aggregate economic numbers — gross domestic product, or the share of wealth held by the 1 percent — we should look at the basic determinants of material comfort and security.
Welcome to the party, pal. FDR proposed that as his Third Freedom in 1941.
Nicholas Kristof reviews an effort by one business owner in Seattle to bring to heel the kind of cuthroat capitalism that crashed the economy in 2008. Four years ago, Dan Price of Gravity Payments announced to employees he would raise minimum salaries to $70,000, in part by slashing his own $1.1 million income to the same level.
Blasphemy! cried the business press. While the roll-out was rocky, Gravity Payments’ business is up and profits, Kristof writes, are “higher than ever.” But the model is probably not scaleable. Being first drew press and new customers followers might not see. But Price has shown what’s possible.
The problem is, followers of that old time religion who have done well for themselves — and not likely all by themselves — are not anxious to share their good fortune.
“Real Time” host Bill Maher echoes FDR in commenting on how countries with a higher socialism-to-capitalism mix rank as happier than the United States in the recent World Happiness Report. They have low-cost or no-cost education and universal health care.
“Happiness isn’t only about what you have. It’s also about what you don’t have to worry about,” Maher said. As FDR knew, piece of mind is freedom as well.
For the benefit of aging Cold Warriors, perhaps, Maher recommends we rebrand any reformulation of America’s capitalist and socialist elements “Capitalism Plus.” Because, “It’s a plus when you get sick and you can focus on getting better instead of not going broke” and ending up sleeping under an overpass.