This Week:

Quote of the Week

Attention: Anti-Imperialist Sports Fans

The Causes of War

The Principles of Social Security, Part 3

Greetings,

I guess my new computer works pretty swell. My "Free Gift Offer," which I sent out earlier this week in order to test the system, yielded a veritable deluge of responses, from which I shall pick 5 lucky winners on August 1st. And what's next? Huge Nygaard Notes billboards on the road to the horsetrack? Let's hope it doesn't go that far...

While I have been going on about Social Security lately, lots of other important things that bear mentioning have been squeezed out for lack of space. So next week looks like it might be another Nygaard "potpourri" of brief comments on the surreal and mundane events that make up American life in the 21st century. The International Criminal Court, the local Ford Plant, Drugs! Race! Money! And more! Man, I'm turning into a regular huckster, doncha think?

‘Til next week,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

"So distribution should undo excess, And each man have enough."

- King Lear, Act IV, Scene 1

Attention: Anti-Imperialist Sports Fans

Next Friday, July 28th, I am going to a Minnesota Lynx basketball game. I hope some of you will join me. Actually, it's not just any old game, the Twin Cities CISPES Anti-War Committee is having a fundraiser consisting of a pregame barbeque in Loring Park, followed by a trek to Target Center to cheer on the Lynx at 8:00.

The Anti-War Committee are the folks who bring you information and activist events on a range of issues, from the campaign to end sanctions against Iraq, to solidarity with the Colombian people, to a great protest of President Clinton when he came to town last month for a fundraiser. I think the idea of having a basketball-related fundraiser is an original one. The Lynx are a terrible team, but I've heard they're fun to watch. Plus, the barbeque should be fun, and there are bound to be interesting discussions making some "lynx" between important issues. Twenty bucks gets you dinner and a ticket to the game. Call or e-mail Anh Pham of the Anti-War Committee for tickets: 612-722-0928 or phamx016@tc.umn.edu.

The Causes of War

Buried in a small article on page A12 of the June 16th New York Times (All The News That's Fit To Print!) was an article that I, myself, would have put on Page One. Entitled "World Bank Blames Diamonds and Drugs for Many Wars," the article reported on a World Bank study, released the previous day, of 47 civil wars that have taken place over the past 40 years around the world. As presented, the article was mostly standard World Bank propaganda, seeking as it did to attribute global conflict to greed and avarice on the part of whatever guerrilla group you care to look at ("from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe," as the article put it.) This tack is not unrelated to the routine trivialization of protests against that very same World Bank in which the corporate media so often indulge, and which I briefly mentioned in Nygaard Notes #77 ("Head for Philadelphia!").

But I thought the real story was hinted at in the second paragraph when the Times noted that the study pointed to "a nation's economic dependence on commodities" as "the single biggest risk factor for the outbreak of war" around the globe. And they really got my attention in the second-to-last paragraph when reporter Joseph Kahn said, "The study recommends that the best way to prevent conflict and restore peace is to effectively control commodity production and to wean a nation away from a heavy dependence on cash crops and natural resources."

Ignore for a moment the paternalism in the phrasing (exactly who is going to "wean" whom?). What should have landed this story on the front page is that "heavy dependence on cash crops and natural resources" is precisely what is called for in the neo-liberal economic theory that has been the basis of the policies of all of the post-war international economic institutions, certainly including the World Bank. The zany phrase that classical economists like to use is "comparative advantage," by which they mean that, in an integrated global economy, each country should concentrate on what they do best, and let go of the other things that some other country can do "better."

What this has meant in practice is that the wealthy countries - via their control of the international economic institutions - say to the poorer countries, "Hey, you grow the wheat, let us make the bread." Increasingly the rich countries are saying, "You grow the wheat and make the bread, but we get to sell it and take the profit." Of course, since the wealthy countries control most distribution and access to global markets, what this means in practice is that the poor countries have to take whatever price is offered by the rich for their wheat (or copper, or fish, or, increasingly, labor). And then they have to buy the bread from us!

Any reader of 20th-century history will know what happens when the occasional nationalist leader comes to power and tries to re-orient his or her nation's economy away from "dependence on commodities" and toward the production of finished commodities for domestic consumption (known in the economics biz as "import substitution"). The United States sends in the weapons, the intelligence agents - and sometimes the Marines - and throws out the "bad" leader to have him replaced by one more amenable to our own needs. "Our own needs" being, as always, the needs of multinational corporations.

It sure sounds like this "study" is saying, in effect, that the World Bank's policies are "the single biggest risk factor for the outbreak of war?" I'd say it's time for another Nygaard Notes Alternative Headline here. How about: "World Bank Policies Seen as Cause of Global Warfare." That'd sell some papers.

The Principles of Social Security, Part 3

Over the last two weeks I have laid out the nine guiding principles of Social Security. In this final installment I'll evaluate those principles, using as a guide my own core values of Solidarity, Compassion, Justice, and Democracy. I think the majority of Americans share these values, when you get right down to it, but if yours are different you can substitute them and evaluate Social Security (or any public policy) using the same process.

First I'll do some "visioning" around my own principles as they relate to Social Security. Afterwards I'll criticize the principles that have shaped the program up to now, and mention my idea of what real Social Security might mean.

Alternative Values and Social Security

While we can only speculate as to the values that form the basis for the nine principles of our current Social Security system, we can certainly come up with some principles of our own that are based on clearly-stated values. Such as the following four values:

Solidarity. This "One for all and all for one" value calls for a system that is Universal, Compulsory, and Comprehensive. That is, the best system would be a system that would impose costs on all of us in order to finance protection for each one of us.

Justice. Since our economic system produces immense wealth for a few and leaves some with less than enough income to live in dignity and health, those who value Justice would want to design a Social Security system that is Redistributive and provides benefits Adequate for living in dignity and security.

Compassion. A Compassionate system would acknowledge that people are different, with different capacities to deal with adversity, different earning capacities, different abilities, different social obstacles (such as white supremacy or sexism), and different needs. This value would be expressed in the already-mentioned principles of Universality and Adequacy. A Compassionate system would not make people "earn" their benefits by adhering to some absolute standard on a far-from-level playing field, but rather would recognize a right to live in dignity and security by virtue of being human, and would award benefits accordingly.

Democracy. The value of Democracy says that each individual is entitled to the same level of dignity and protection as everyone else, and it also says that the people affected by a policy should have input into the way the policy works. In line with this value, I would put in place the principles of Local Control and a Guaranteed Income.

Principles Old and New

As to the current principles of Social Security, I agree with some of them, disagree with others, and I see that some important principles are missing from the list entirely. I'll look at and comment on each of them now (for explanations of each one, see last week's Nygaard Notes).

1. Universal. This principle is clearly in line with the values of Solidarity and Compassion, but it must be broadened. The current system is not really "Universal" because it does not fully include many "other" people, such as adults with disabilities, widows and/or widowers who have never been in the paid labor force, adults who have been laid off before "earning" eligibility for Social Security benefits, and others.
2. An Earned Right. I would throw out this principle, since true Universality makes it irrelevant. Plus this violates the values of Compassion (what if one cannot "earn" this right?) and Justice (is it fair to deprive a person of income security in an economic system that has built-in unemployment, as ours does?)
3. Wage-Related. This is a good principle, but the problem comes in the fact that an individual worker's wage can be affected by many factors out of the control of any individual. This is incompatible with the value of Justice. Instead, I would make benefits related to the "social wage," which in turn would be related to the local and/or regional cost of living, as determined by the councils mentioned above. It amounts to the same principle, but interpreted in terms of the values of Justice and Democracy.
4. Contributory and Self-Financed. I would throw this out entirely, as it has nothing to do with my values. In fact, since only "wages" are taxed, leaving capital gains and wealth untouched, the "Self-Financing" principle builds regressivity into the structure of the program, which violates my value of Justice.
5. Redistributive. This principle certainly lines up with the value of Justice, but I would interpret it more strongly (partly by throwing out Principle #4). Also, since minimum benefits are currently too low for many people to live on - in fact they are not intended to be enough to live on - we need to increase the progressivity in benefit levels in order to assure Adequacy, one of our "alternative" principles.
6. Not Means-Tested. This is an excellent principle. Rather than "testing" people to make sure they are poor enough, I think that a Guaranteed Income should go to everyone, set at a rate deemed appropriate by the councils mentioned above. This principle often comes under attack from "progressives," but it seems to line up quite well with the values of Democracy, Justice, and Solidarity.
7. Wage-Indexed. This is an excellent principle but only if it is indexed to the social wage rather than the wages earned by the individual. This would guarantee that benefits would be set with the express purpose of meeting a democratically agreed-upon level of income in each community. This would better match the values of Justice and Democracy.
8. Inflation-Protected. This principle is clearly in line with the values of Compassion and Solidarity.
9. Compulsory. This principle is a keeper, for reasons of Justice and Solidarity.

In addition to these principles, I have mentioned an additional four. I think that a true system of Social Security should be Adequate. Adequacy would mean that benefits would be provided at a level that would allow the recipient to live in dignity and security.

The system should be Comprehensive. The current system of Social Security in the United States is much less Comprehensive than many other countries. Other systems include such things as family allowances and maternity benefits. Many other nations also provide national guarantees of health care, workers' compensation, and unemployment coverage. These systems may call themselves "Comprehensive." Ours may not.

The system should be Locally-Controlled. By this I mean that the administration of the necessary benefits would be controlled, and compensation levels would be set, in councils elected by members of workers' and farmers' organizations. Financing would be provided by the Federal government, to assure that people would not be penalized for regional variations in economic conditions that are out of their control.

The fourth principle is the principle that arises, rather naturally I think, when you consider all of the previous principles together. That is the principle of a Guaranteed Income, such as that proposed by Martin Luther King in 1967 (and which I mentioned briefly back in Nygaard Notes #54: "A More Complex Martin Luther King").

To go beyond the American conception of "Social Security" and consider the idea of a Guaranteed Income is a big leap. At the turn of this century it might seem almost crazy, although it hasn't always been so. This idea is neither new nor particularly difficult to do, in the economic or technical senses. It is a radical idea, to be sure, and it would change class relations in this country dramatically. But if we are concerned about Solidarity, Justice, Compassion, and Democracy we should at least be able to imagine such an idea, or come up with a better one.

To read the words of Dr. King on this subject, go visit http://www.progress.org/dividend/cdking.html.