The most ambitious rhyme ever attempted in rock?
My blood's so mad
Feels like coagulating
And I'm just sitting here
Contemplating
Doesn't quite work, but I admire the effort.
A giant economic treatise by me, the length of which is in direct proportion to my lack of knowledge of the subject. This is inspired by an awesome post on ThinkChristian and the subsequent discussion. I commented a couple of times there, but I don’t think even my in with the moderators would let me get away with this long a comment.
On the Living Wage debate: While I acknowledge paying more in wages is a burden on some business owners, this causes me to ask the question--why is $5.15/hour the magic number? If employers only had to pay $3/hour instead of $5.15, they could employ even more people and reward good workers even more. For that matter, if employers didn't have to pay low-level workers at all but only issue them grain rations or something, all the better from this point of view. So why pay wages at all? What is their purpose?
The value of labor and the individual as a free economic actor
As neat as the theory that increased wages causes increased prices sounds; no one can argue with the empirical fact that once in our country there were no labor laws to speak of, and the result was a large number of adults and children in virtual enslavement. In terms of anti-government regulation arguments, this is how much the labor was “worth to” employers in the free market, so employers shouldn’t be expected to pay more.
But what does this really mean—the “market worth” of labor? I’ve used this argument myself, but how does one actually calculate what that is? I would argue that in the pre-labor law sweatshops of America, the “market value” of labor was in fact irrelevant, employers paid as little as they could get away with, paying people whose only option other than accepting the pittance was no income at all.
This is simply not acceptable in a free country and a democracy. In this society, we want everyone to be able to participate in both the economic and political realms, and without sufficient economic resources an individual can’t do either. We are all allowed to vote, but without labor laws, people aren’t even able to get to the polls because they’re at work, and they certainly don’t have the leisure time to become educated voters or to participate in the system personally.
At the same time as I defend the right of business owners to run their businesses themselves (and that includes setting wages), not have the government run it for them, I would have to admit that many employers still pay as little as they can get away with. The conservative argument is that if people don’t like that they shouldn’t take the job. The conservative position is that every individual is a free economic actor: if they take a job they are agreeing, as free agents, to these terms.
This is simply one of the silliest arguments I’ve ever heard. It ignores three basic facts of life in the modern world: (1) One needs money to survive, (2) the only legal way to get money is to take a job, and (3) you can only take a job that is offered to you. If low-level jobs are the only ones offered you, you do indeed still have the option whether to take it. Your other two options are: (1), acquire money illegally, or (2) start looking for a nice cardboard box adjacent to a soup kitchen.
Freedom isn't free
One of the great things about this country is the economic freedom we have, which I think could become squashed by too much government regulation. The low-level worker mentioned above isn’t stuck in her low-level job status, whether the status level is the result of mistakes made by that person or by forces outside his or her control. He or she can pursue an education, advance by working hard, or, indeed, become “self-employed” as many people so glibly suggest. But all of these things require a certain base level of economic security: all college, job, and loan applications at least require a home address as a bare minimum, so our cardboard-box dweller doesn’t have much of a chance.
These things also require time, a luxury many people don’t have. A single person can take a lot of risks if they want to; they can take a cheap apartment in a shifty neighborhood, survive on Ramen noodles or dumpster gleanings, and forgo medical care. I personally don’t think it acceptable that we ask people to take these risks in order to start out in our economy. However, I think that if a person is that poor, their family, church community, etc. has more responsibility for them than the government—but there are cases in which the family or church can’t or won’t help.
On the other hand, once someone has a family, all the rules change: these options are no longer acceptable. The ideal is for a person to be responsible and to make themselves able to care for a family before having one. But if we acknowledge none of us conducts our lives perfectly, and that sometimes people find themselves in such a situation due to forces outside their control, what do we suggest that those who do have children to care for do?
Let’s get back to the question of “what is minimum wage.” I think that we can all agree that it’s not acceptable to own slaves—in other words, we can’t pay employees with only food and housing (or less), they must be paid a wage. This implies that we believe each individual is ideally an independent economic actor; the conservative arguments that workers “agree” to work for low wages “freely” reinforces that this is the ideal situation.
But the workers’ “agreement” isn’t always as “free” as we might like to think. One needs money in order to stay alive; and if one’s choice is a low wage versus no money at all, I don’t see how anyone can argue that that’s a real choice. Sure, the unskilled worker has many options to improve his or her lot, but these all require at least a certain amount of time and money.
What is "minimum wage"? What is it for?
So we return to the question—“what is a minimum wage”? One possible definition is that it is the lowest possible amount of money an employer can pay and be called an “employer” rather than a “slaveowner." I think that if you pay an employer one cent an hour—and despite arguments to the contrary, I believe you might be able to find someone to work on those terms out of desperation rather than “free choice”—that what you have there is a slave. So, we come up with a number which seems to us is a sufficient amount that a person can do something with it, be an independent actor as want to believe that they are. Why is this $5.15 an hour? People working full-time at that amount are under the federal poverty line, so by official standards this is not a “living wage.” So, should the minimum wage be a living wage?
The trouble with the “living wage” is that that’s a different amount for different people. Obviously, it’s different in different parts of the country, so I support local solutions. But it’s also different for different economic actors. Teenagers who have no expenses and are saving for college, a car, or spending money, don’t need $10/hour. By definition they are low-skilled workers, even if they do have marketable skills, they are prevented from taking skilled jobs because they have to go to school. There are also plenty of other people who are, in fact, independent economic actors by virtue of having few or no expenses; such as graduate students, people who are primarily homemakers but want to make some extra money, etc. If these people want a job that doesn’t require a high level of commitment-the expectation they’ll still be working there in five years or even one, that they need to work more than a few hours a week or take work home with them-and are willing to accept low wages in return, they can be said to be freely accepting the terms of a low-level job.
In these cases, low-wage jobs contribute to, rather than take from, economic freedom. I feel that if the minimum wage were raised too high, this freedom would be taken away. If my job were suddenly required to pay $2 more per hour than it currently does, my employer might not be able to afford to employ me at all. If they could, they would probably want more of a commitment from me to make the investment of their money worthwhile. If the only jobs that were available were 40 hour a week jobs paying $10 an hour with medical benefits; then I would either have to drop out of school, take out more loans to meet my expenses, or work illegally.
I will have to admit here that of recent years, most of my jobs have been within the $9-11 range suggested for a “living wage,” but they have also required a few more skills than the cashier etc. jobs that we are mostly talking about. If the minimum was raised, however, I have no doubt that people in jobs like mine would be upset at getting paid no more than those in lower-skilled jobs. Thus, the expected salary for my level of clerical jobs would either increase, perhaps pricing me out, or such jobs would be “downgraded” and employers would have trouble getting skilled people to fill them.
So where's the problem?
I think the problem is not that relatively low-paying jobs exist, but that there are too many people who find themselves stuck in them, attempting to live on them even though they were never intended to provide a “living wage,” and unable to move upwards in the economic system.
Why is this, and what should we do about it? I believe few of us can say all of our problems were caused by someone else, but few of them are entirely self-created either. That’s why I don’t think a simple solution would work—either “living wage” legislation on one side, or telling people to learn to live on less or find a better job on the other.
First, I think we really need to take a look at our lifestyle expectations. Many have pointed out that the poorest in our country are far richer than an average person in many countries. Well, that only goes so far: if a person is able to live indoors but doesn’t have adequate medical care, are we supposed to think that’s acceptable because somewhere someone else doesn’t have either?
On the other hand, I do think our society suffers from an “assumption of affluence.” We assume that we all should be able to afford what are really luxuries: cable TV, cell phones, multiple cars, gym memberships. If we can't afford them, we think the problem is with the system rather than with our spending habits. This assmption is supported by our suroundings: try going online or flipping through a magazine for advice on one of your new year’s resolutions: eating healthier for example. All of the suggestions you will find will be expensive: the food items these sources will want you to invest your hard-earned cash in will start with the eternal Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, and that’s the cheapest of the ingredients you’ll see.
Now try looking for suggestions on reducing your grocery bill: all of the suggestions you’ll find are guaranteed to harden up your arteries in short order.
We all seem to believe that a good life—not only in terms of material goods, but in terms of bettering ourselves—cost money. And this is the least of our unrealistic expectations.
As I noted above, we all make mistakes in our lives—none of us conduct our lives perfectly. But at the same time, I’m afraid we think that mistakes we make “shouldn’t” have consequences, when in fact “shouldn’t” doesn’t enter into it, the fact is that they do. Getting addicted to drugs, not taking advantage of the free education we have in this country, having a child before one is able to financially take care of it, are all going to have consequences. Of course, people should be given opportunities to overcome these consequences, but no government program can erase them completely.
But on the other side, there are other factors to take into account. One is that people don’t always have the support they need to overcome these consequences. I believe that the individual’s family, church, etc. have the primary responsibility for helping these people, but a government component is needed too, especially for those who don’t have family or community support.
Second, we can scale back our expenses to just the necessities, but we can't scale back to zero. It does cost money to live inside, to eat food, to wear clothes, to pay the doctor to keep us alive. If we find a way to reduce these expenses beyond a certain limit, somebody somewhere is going to have to pick up the tab, either directly or indirectly.
Further our concept of the "bare minimum" needed has increased over time-and not in ways that are entirely unreasonable. One hundred years ago, few people have phones. Now, I don't think it's reasonable to call a phone a "luxury": everyone should have at least the ability to call 911 in an emergency--more than one life could be at stake in case of a fire or other disaster. We have more access to medical care than used to be the standard, and much better medical care is available now. Sure, anyone can get emergency care at a hospital; but lesser medical conditions can also be life-threatening or disabling. It sounds harsh put in these terms, but even if one doesn't consider an individual's life or health worth society's investment in saving it for its own sake, remember that person is being prevented from contributing to society by that health condition as well.
Another is that there is, in fact, a “working poor” class in this country: people who work hard, full-time or more for years, and never manage to get above poverty level. Not only is this a problem for taxpayers, who often have to take up the slack through government programs, it’s a problem for society. If we believe that all people are created equal, and that as free society we do best when we have the full contribution of every member of society; if there are factors which prevent some members from contributing, then we are losing out. If these factors stem from unfair economic practices, as a society we’re committing at least one of the two big sins mentioned by the Biblical prophets. This is a problem for us as Christians.
Labor relations and the Bible (to be continued)
I believe that the Bible has a lot to say in both Old and New Testaments about the how employers should behave towards employees and vice versa. These messages are somewhat indirect because the ancient economy was fundamentally different from ours, however, I think there are a lot of lessons we can learn. Naturally, I’m going to be telling you of those opinions, but I have to go do stuff for my actual jobs right now, so that’ll wait till later. And if anyone has actually read this far—thanks, I appreciate it!
We get phone calls for people other than ourselves pretty frequently. The first phone number we were assigned when we moved to GR showed up on everyones' caller IDs as "Michael Flowers." I believe it was after a very confusing call from someone in Chicago who really, really wanted me to give her Michael Flowers' current phone number that I decided to call the phone co. on that one. Several months/more phone calls later, the phone co. decided they couldn't fix the problem and assigned us a new number.
After that we started getting calls for Amy all the time; this culminated in Amy herself calling to ask if we could give them her new number. Thus I embarked on my new career as a message service. We still get calls for Amy (after this # has been all ours for at least a couple of years), but lately we've been getting calls for some mysterious new entity as well.
Last week we got a message from a fellow who wanted a "brochure" from some company he was trying to call--the name of it sounded like "Amumblemumblemumble." (By the way, I've noticed that when people are leaving phone messages, they tend to mumble information that is very familiar to them, like their own names. I'm sure I do that at least as much as anyone else does, but in my secretarial avocation this leads to problems when taking messages: "Um, Muhmumble called and wants you to call him back, his number is 555-82mumblemumble").
Sometimes I ignore these calls, but other times I call the person back to let them know their message didn't reach its intended hearer. I did that today with the brochure guy.
It has occasionally happened on these calls that people want me to give them the new number of the person that they are trying to contact. Now, I hate to cloud the issue by the fact that I do indeed have Amy's new number; but in general, how on earth would I know contact info for the previous holder of the phone number that was randomly assigned to me?
The brochure guy seemed confused, like most recipients of my well-intentioned corrective calls do, but he also kind of tried to argue with me. "Well, I was trying to reach Amumblemumble. This is the number I was given."
I wonder what he was expecting? That I would crumble and admit that I was actually a representative of the Amumblemumble company all along, and promise to send out his brochure immediately?
Haha, he won't get me to admit my complicity with Amumblemumble that easily. Nice try, brochure guy, but you've got to get up pretty early in the morning to fool Michael Flowers--I mean Amy--I mean, um, yeah, me.
(I've turned comments on on this one, despite the fact that anonymous individuals continue to attempt to sell all types of crazy crap to the readers of my blog)
A random one: I was thinking about the use of gender-inclusive language, etc., and realized that while I use gender-inclusive language myself in writing and speaking, I am really not bothered when others do not do so. I'm also not bothered by the idea of God being primarily represented as masculine in the Bible etc. I think there's two main factors in this:
1. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a time period and family in which I was taught that women and men are equal, and that my being female was not a negative thing and I would not disqualify me from doing anything I wanted to do. And as a child, I usually believed what I was told.
I think that women who grew up before the whole women's liberation movement were raised with the expectation that they would go into traditionally female roles, and that the world would deal harshly with them if they tried to take on any additional roles. For these women who found that these traditional roles were unappealing to them and who were part of the generation active in opening up new roles for women, the use of gender-exclusive language is representative of the "bad old days," and threatens a return of the times when women had limitations placed on them by society.
Because I didn't grow up with that sense of limitation, gender-exclusive language isn't threatening to me. To me, it's just an old-fashioned or more traditional use of language, with no implication that society will or should return to a pattern which places limits on women. Thus, it doesn't bother me when people use it, and it annoys me when older texts such as hymns are re-written to be "gender-inclusive"--to me, the latter is nothing but an attempt to rewrite history. In such things as Bible translations, I think it's appropriate to use gender-inclusive language when the original word was gender-inclusive; but not appropriate when the originally was obviously intended to mean male or female.
2. The second reason reflects the way I view myself: I see myself primarily as a human being, and secondarily as female. Being a "human being" first means that what is most fundamental to my identity places me in the same category as males and as any other potential subgrouping. This doesn't mean the fact that I am female is not important--being female colors the way my human-beingness is represented to and interacts with the world; and adds to (rather than takes away from) my total identity.
In terms of the first creation story in Genesis, humans were made in the image of God--male and female. This indicates to me that both males and females are humans first, in the image of God; and second male and female, both of which must reflect some aspects of God. The second telling of the creation of humans gives us more specifics on this creation, and tells us more about being "male" and being "female."
The story as a whole seems to say to me "Here is the cool stuff you get to do and be as a human being," and then "Here is more cool stuff that you get to do and be as a male" or "Here is more cool stuff you get to do and be as a female." To me, the first set of "cool stuff" is what we all have in common as God's creations, that these are the most fundamental things about us is reflected in the statement "in Him there is no male or female" etc. The extra cool stuff is what differentiates us as male or female. I don't see that this extra stuff has to be the same stuff in order for men and women to be considered equal.
True, that this stuff is different has been viewed to mean not only that women's unique characteristics make them lesser than men; but that women do not in fact share any fundamental cool characteristics with men, but are fundamentally different and inferior creatures. However, I see this as evidence of the scurrilousness of human beings rather than a prescription of nature or God.
Many people seem to believe that because I'm female, the idea of a primarily masculine God ought to bother me and I should find some female concept of deity to relate to (memo to Dan Brown :). In a way, this seems rather sexist--like saying I'm a girl so I should go play with the other girls, not try to join in the games that are supposed to be for boys. The idea of a primarily male God doesn't bother me, first of all because my identity is not primarily female--it's primarily as a human being, thus the most important things about me are the same as everyone else and relate to God in the same way. Second, because of the wording of Genesis, God must have what we think of as "female" as well as "male" attributes.
Third, because while I think that males and females have some differences, I don't see that as making one better or worse than the other. I see these differences as positive, not negative. Hence, while the Bible speak of God primarily in male terms, I see this as positive, not negative, and does not denigrate female-specific characteristics. Also, let's not forget that in the gender terms of the New Testament, all believers--the church--are cast in female terms, as the bride of Christ. So if I am to be offended by a male God, then male believers ought likewise take offense at being cast as female in descriptions of their relationship to God.
The Simpsons has been on TV for exactly half my life. I must have sometimes watched the Tracy Ullman show, on which it of course debuted, because I remember one short about Bart stealing cookies and saying Maggie did it, also one about Bart and Lisa pretending to be tribesmen or something using Homer's ties, and getting yelled at by Homer's original voice. On the other hand, I don't remember anything Tracy Ullman did on the show.
I was 16 and a junior in high school when it started. Well I remember its, and my, early years. I remember I had to watch it on a tiny black and white TV because my mom wanted to watch something else in the living room--Monday Night Football maybe? Did it used to be on on Mondays? I remember writing an essay for an Earth Day contest in 1991, while watching The Simpsons on the tiny TV. For my Civics class, I had to volunteer at a community center, and I remember one time trying to watch it on a TV mounted to the wall, without sound, while kids swarmed about kicking up a ruckus. And of course, I had one of the T-shirts.
I was so pleased with myself that I understood the literary references in the Kamp Krusty episode; and wished I could understand what Bart was saying in the one where he goes to France and learns French. I didn't understand the controversy over Bart being a bad influence--and now I understand it less than ever. Though I wouldn't let any children of mine watch hardly anything on TV now, which shows you the difference between 16 and 32.
I didn't watch much TV while I was in college, but kept watching faithfully when I could. Who could forget the Halloween episodes, Otto's wedding, the death of Maud Flanders, the time Ralph went on a date with Lisa, the Monorail, and the proud day that Homer was promoted to Safety Manager at the power plant.
I never thought the show could get bad, and I hoped it would keep going on even if it did, because I thought it could be just as funny if it became a deliberate parody of itself. But I haven't watched many of the new episodes in the last few years, and those I have seen haven't done much to bolster my confidence. Bart joining a boy band? Which is really a front for Navy recruiting? Huh? Then there was an incomprehensible one which culminated in the Mad Magazine building blowing up. I seem to remember that one was on shortly after 9/11, and I couldn't believe they put it on at all.
If this trend of badness keeps up, and if the show is still on in another 16 years, you can bet I won't be allowing any of my kids to watch it...instead, I'll be making them watch the DVDs of the first 10 seasons or so with me. Won't they be thrilled?
It's true, I've turned off comments on new posts due to the ratio of unsolicited sales "comments" to real comments having become about 50:1. Apologies to all of you kind folks who read & comment here from time to time.