A Movie Review
The Declaration of
Independence states that all are created equal and have the right to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but income inequality has locked us all
into the prison of free market economics.
The life and liberty of the poor is not respected and the rich are
obsessed with wealth. The result: a
divided community in separate prisons without a thread of connection. Happiness is a lost goal.
Robert Reich
confronts the current economic malaise with his book, After Shock, and a
movie “Inequality for All.” The movie
follows the book in theme and content.
Reich effectively
establishes the fact of inequality with bar charts; one especially impressive
is a chart that has the configuration of the Golden Gate Bridge. This is fitting since the bridge was built
during the great depression as part of an economic stimulus program and Reich
teaches at nearby U.C. Berkeley. The
movie is based at U.C. Berkeley showing Professor Reich teaching a class – and
us - about income inequality and what he proposes we do about it.
The Golden Gate Bridge
bar chart shows two towering opposite poles representing income inequality just
before the great depression and income inequality just before the great
recession. Immediately the impression is
– income inequality = an economic crash.
What is the moral
point of view? Let’s refer to the papal
Encyclical most revered by conservatives, Centesimus Annus. and to Dutch theologian – Henri Nouwen.
The
‘Liberal’ Answer: Focus on Middle Class
Security
Reich and others look to Roosevelt’s New
Deal of the 30’s for the answer: money
in the hands of those who will spend it on goods and services will stimulate
the economy to benefit all. The ‘multiplier’
effect results in a constant turnover of funds for spending that stimulates
production and jobs and the ‘accelerator’ effect of increased investment maintains
the recovery. The movie provides a
circular graph for an explanation.
The ‘accelerator’ effect depends on
investments in the production of goods and services and not on various types of
Ponzi schemes; hence government regulation and spending on infrastructure is
crucial.
The ‘multiplier’
effect depends on providing purchasing power on a massive scale. The keys are labor unions and taxes. Reich goes along with the New Deal economic
theory that workers must have the right to organize and taxes must be fair
requiring the rich to pay their fair share.
For the system to work, government is needed
for direction. Reich is clear that the
economic system is not of nature, but was and is created politically. He also is clear that the system is to
benefit most not just the few. This is
where we find the basic disagreement.
Republicans and right wing Democrats look to the economy to benefit the
few.
But what direction
are we going? Since the 70’s Republicans
and right wing Democrats have moved the political spectrum to the right. Today Eisenhower would be to the left of
Obama. Eisenhower wrote to
his brother Edgar,
Should
any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance,
and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party in
our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes
you can do these things. Among them are
H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires,
and an occasional politician or business man
from other areas. There number is
negligible and they are stupid. (The Papers of Dwight
David Eisenhower, L.Galambos and D. van Ee, eds. doc.1147. cited by J.S. Hacker
& P. Pierson, Winner-Take All Politics, Simon & Schuster, New
York, 2010, p. 189.)
Today compromise in
the middle is really right wing politics controlled by the very wealthy which makes
Reich’s movie quite clear.
Centesimus
Annus as a Guide to the Moral Dimension
Some sample quotes: Income disparity
As a help in reviewing
Robert Reich’s movie, “Inequality for All,” let us consider John Paul II’s Centesimus
Annus widely touted by conservative analysts as most important and
supporting for their point of view.
Centesimus Annus
was written in 1991 for the 100th anniversary of the Encyclical Rerum
Novarum. Pope John Paul II reviewed
and reaffirmed the social teaching tradition of the church and named it part of
the ‘New Evangelization.’ (C.A. Intro. 3; c.1,5; c.6, 53 ) The 1891 setting for
Rerum Novarum was tragic income disparity.
Pope John Paul wrote in Centesimus Annus,
Here
we find the first reflection for our times as suggested by the encyclical (Rerum
Novarum). In the face of a conflict
which set man against man, almost as if they were “wolves,” a conflict between
the extremes of mere physical survival on the one side and opulence on the
other … However, the pope was very much aware that peace is built on a
foundation of Justice. (C.A.c.1,5.)
Intervention
by the government
Such
a society is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be
appropriately controlled by the forces of the society and by the state, so as
to guarantee that the basic needs of the whole of society are satisfied. (C.A. c.
4, 35)
Labor
Unions
Furthermore,
society and the state must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of
the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings. This requires a continuous effort to improve
workers training and capability so that their work will be more skilled and
productive, as well as careful controls and adequate legislative measures to
block shameful forms of exploitation, especially to the disadvantage of the
most vulnerable workers, of immigrants and those on the margins of society. The role of trade unions in negotiating minimum
salaries and working conditions is decisive in this area. (C.A. c.2, 15)
Preferential
option for the poor
The focus of Robert
Reich’s analysis is the middle class, but for Roman Catholic social teaching
the focus is the poor. John Paul II
wrote in Centesimus Annus,
Rereading
the encyclical (Rerum Novarum) in the light of contemporary realities
enables us to appreciate the church’s constant concern for and dedication to
categories of people who are especially beloved to the Lord Jesus. The contents of the text are an excellent
testimony to the continuity within the church of the so called “preferential
option for the poor,” an option which I defined as a “special form of primacy
in the exercise of Christian charity.” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,42
cited in C.A. c.1, 11)
“Preferential option for the poor” is unique to the Roman
Catholic Social Teaching. By the “poor”
is meant world-wide poverty – of little concern to Robert Reich in his attempt
to save the U.S. middle class.
Ecology
and Consumerism
Centesimus Annus was written in 1991
and John Paul II had concern about the environment as part of his moral
economic message.
Equally
worrying is the ecological question which accompanies the problem of consumerism
and which is closely connected to it. (C.A. c.4, 37)
It
is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is
presumed to be better when it is directed toward “having” rather than “being,”
and which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend
life in enjoyment as an end in itself. (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 35, Populorum
Progressio, 19, cited in C.A. c.4, 36)
Neither point, ecology nor consumerism, is emphasized by
Robert Reich.
Reich
and His Movie – Inequality for All – Not Radical Enough for Catholic Social
Teaching
‘Preferential option
for the poor’ is not important for Reich with his focus on the U.S. middle
class. Catholic social teaching expresses
concern for the poor worldwide. Reich was
a member of the Clinton administration when N.A.F.T.A. (North American Free Trade Agreement) was passed. On January
4th 1994, the Zapatistas took control of several towns in Chiapas
Mexico in protest. N.A.F.T.A. was
nothing more than a new way for U.S. corporations to exploit Mexican labor.
It’s not just Reich;
the politics of the day skip concern about the poor, not just in other parts of
the world, but in our own inner cities.
This relates to ecological concerns; after all the wealthy can always escape
the floods. Roman Catholic Dutch
theologian Henry Nouwen noted that compassion, a defining note for being human,
is limited in our capitalistic society.
Nouwen wrote that compassion, like that of
Jesus, looks like an enemy of competition, the basis of the free market. Would too much compassion destroy the contemporary
version of the free market economic system? Remember, it’s the source of opulence for
those in power. (McNeil, Morrison,
Nouwen, Compassion, Doubleday, New York, 1982)
Conclusion
The income gap
threatens the existence of U.S. democracy, but ‘New Deal’ economics is not the
solution. Consumerism threatens the
earth itself. Jobs, work, fair income with
the goal of happiness for all, needs to be re-thought and apparently Reich
doesn’t even see the fundamental problem which is somewhat different from that
of the 30’s.
“Inequality for All” is informative and
important, but it falls short of even defining the economic disaster we face; the
very ecological environment we live in is threatened by our economic system
based on ‘having’ rather than ‘being.’
