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Inequality and Sustainable Society
March 18, 2012
Rev. Paul Beckel
First Universalist Unitarian Church ~ www.uuwausau.org It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Krishnamurti
LIGHTING THE CHALICE #453
GATHERING SONG Cuando el Pobre #1027
RE MINUTE
CHILDREN’S FOCUS Yertle the Turtle, by Dr. Seuss,
with extra inspiration from Red Hot Chili Peppers
ANNOUNCEMENTS & GREETINGS
OUR PRAYERS of GRATITUDE & RELEASE
MUSICAL MEDITATION
READING Matthew 20:1-16
The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius (a day’s wage) and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last. Such is the kingdom of heaven.
RESPONSIVE READING #586
SHARING OUR GIFTS
MESSAGE
Thank you for all of the ways you find to respond to the gift of life with kindness, creativity and generosity.
There is within us that inclination to share and to co-create. An opening of self that feels so good. Not unlike the grateful opening of our doors and windows this weekend. Alleluia!
I’m not suggesting that pouring-ourselves-out is the only inclination within us. We also have a tendency to hoard...to pull back, to defend ourselves. We have a tendency to compete, and we’ve developed a lot of powerful tools to help us to do so. So we’re competitive AND we’re connected.
We need one another...and at the same time we may fear one another.
And still we grow. Our human population swells. The wealth of nations increases. And new democracies emerge year after year – entire nations aspiring to an expansive vision of liberty, equality, and justice for all.
Liberty, equality, justice. What these ideals will mean in practice continues to unfold. The romantic view (promoted at the time of the American Revolution) held that liberty and equality are inseparable. We cannot have liberty without equality, and vice versa. But recent storms of political rhetoric have twisted up some new perspectives (that I find troubling).
The implication, of late, is that liberty and equality are opposites. We have to choose one or the other. Liberty, in caricature, being the ability to do whatever the hell I want to do regardless of how it affects others. And equality being what the weak and lazy promote so that they can sponge off the strong.
Have our ideals so degraded? Is there no nobler purpose to which we can aspire? 20th century philosopher of economic and political ethics, John Rawls, suggested that Liberty, Equality, and Justice could mean something in a system constructed by people who didn’t know how they, personally, were going to fare within that system. That is, if you came into the world not knowing where you were going to be born, not knowing what resources your parents would have, not knowing what skills or deficits—what mental, physical, or demographic characteristics would shape you—in that case, what rules and structures would you put in place for society?
That would be a good place to start. It’s a lot like the golden rule. We don’t, however, have the opportunity to start from scratch to create such an idyllic society.
Still, those of us in democracies do have some influence over how our societies will be structured. And we have a lot of say over how we will engage with one another locally, day-to-day.
So let’s take a look at how things actually are. And consider whether the system as it stands is helping us to accomplish our American dreams and our ethical ideals.
Much of what I’m sharing today is based on data and argument from a book called The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. [Wilkinson and Picket, 2009]
Its thesis is simple: inequality hurts everyone.
Up to a certain point, material goods and wealth can make our lives better. But among the wealthy democracies of the world today, what do we see when we compare per-person income against the frequency of common social problems? Nothing. There is no correlation. When we look at infant mortality, obesity, murder and incarceration rates, life expectancy, mental illness, addiction, and teen pregnancy...as our average incomes go up, do these problems go down? No. Comparing one country to another, if we look at social problems as a function of average wealth, the results are all over the map.
But there’s another way to look at ourselves: sorting societies not according to average annual income, but on a measure of inequality.
If we just look at average annual income, the democracies of the developed world hover within a fairly small range of one another. (Life may seem pretty similar in Denmark, Switzerland, or the United States.) But if we take those same countries and compare the wealth of the top 20% to that of the bottom 20%, we see dramatic differences from one country to another.
And then when we look at social dysfunction in relation to income inequality, a clear pattern emerges: those societies with higher inequality have a disproportionate number of social problems. But here’s the key point: it’s not just that unequal societies have more poor people and therefore more poor people with problems. No. Unequal societies have more social dysfunction at every income level.
Inequality hurts everyone.
Just as racial inequality is bad for whites, and gender inequality is bad for men, income inequality is bad for the rich, the middle class, the poor, and everyone along the line. This analysis is based on data collected by the World Health Organization, The World Bank, UNICEF, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (which is a group of 34 wealthy countries seeking to stimulate economic progress and world trade).
The same comparisons are made within the 50 U.S. states and the results are the same. Where there is higher inequality, there are proportionately higher rates of social dysfunction...not just for those at the bottom, but across the board.
(Wisconsin does well overall—as of 2009—with lower inequality and a lower index of social dysfunction than most states. This may be comforting if you and your family plan to never leave Wisconsin.)
Does it have to be like this? From 1978-2005, the prison population in the U.S. went up four times! The rate of incarceration in the U.S. became 14 times that of Japan. Among the U.S. states, we see the same correlation of higher inequality to higher incarceration rates. Additionally, those states with the death penalty have much more income inequality than those without the death penalty.
Does it have to be this bad in order to serve as a deterrent to crime? Obviously not, because while American crime rates are somewhat higher, our incarceration rates are dramatically higher than in comparable countries.
So here’s what this system does accomplish:
· It creates a perception of safety from the underclass.
· The use of “their” threat to “us” serves as an effective political tool.
· And it diverts attention from more serious, more destructive problems such as white-collar crime and systemic exploitation of the poor by the rich.
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Could we just blame it all on racial minorities? Let’s take them out of the picture for a second. Compare death rates of only-white Americans to that of most other developed countries, we still do worse.
How about children having children? In the U.S. we have four times the teen births of the European Union average.
Let’s look at social mobility – a measurement of whether our income-level is predicted by our parents, or whether we tend to move up or down according to our own abilities. Well, in 1950, 15% of sons remained within the confines of their fathers’ income level. Then we saw steady improvement: across the 60s, 70s, and by 1980 it was down to 10%. The trend then dramatically reversed course, shooting up to over 20% in 1990 and over 30% by 2000. As inequality in the U.S. changes over time, social dysfunction rises and falls in concert.
Social mobility also refers to the concentration of poor people within poor neighborhoods. And we see a high correlation here: in more equal societies the poor tend to be more widely integrated. In unequal societies, poverty tends to be densely concentrated. Which means, if you’re poor, you not only have to deal with your own issues, you have to deal with the consequences of poverty that spill all over your neighborhood.
But inequality is bad for everyone—not just for those in poor neighborhoods. Our social stratification means longer average commuting times for everyone, more traffic accidents for everyone at every income level, more pollution, more crime for everyone, worse overall school performance affecting us all, poor nutrition in neighborhoods without grocery stores or buses—leading to shared health care costs that we cannot control.
Diabetes, hypertension, cancer, lung disease, heart disease, infant mortality and life expectancy...maybe our odds get better if we live in a place that spends more on health care? No. That doesn’t seem to help.
But are the odds better for those who live in societies with greater income equality? Yes.
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Is this just some socialist screed? No. Different countries achieve equality in different ways. In Sweden people have a wide range of personal income but tax and social policies redistribute that income substantially. In Japan, however, the government does comparatively little in this area, and yet Japan is the most economically equal of all the wealthy democracies because there is comparatively little variation in people’s salaries. And this shows in their quality of life.
So please don’t reject what I’m saying because it points to a particular political solution. It doesn’t. And don’t reject what I’m saying because we’re not supposed to talk about this kind of thing in church.
Within the first few books of the Hebrew bible we find law after law about how we should be with one another in terms of material well-being. In Leviticus the command is given: do not glean to the edges of your field, but leave behind some for those without a field. The same command is repeated almost verbatim four chapters later, and repeated again in the next book, Deuteronomy.
Moving through Hebrew scripture we get to the Book of Ruth, the story of an isolated foreigner. Rather than running her out, the landowner orders his workers to make sure she gets what she needs...then goes further: so as not to compromise her dignity, he has some grain pulled out of each bundle in the field and tossed aside so Ruth won’t even know that she’s benefiting from someone’s charity.
The message of scripture is incessant on this theme. The Hebrew prophets channel Yahweh saying: I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! How much more strongly can I say it: love mercy, and do justice!
The theme is repeated of course in Christian scripture. In the letter of James it’s written: Do not rely on good wishes or good words for one another. If your brother and sister are without food and clothing, get them what they need. Faith without works is dead.
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I criticize the Catholic Church from time to time because we need to hold those with power accountable for the way that power is used. Today I will balance my criticism with kudos because the Catholic teaching on preferential treatment of the poor is fundamental to who I am. It’s not uniquely Catholic, of course, but it’s well articulated in 20th century liberation theology.
Grounded in the wide sweep of history, in which oppression occurs again and again, with the strong accumulating riches, generation after generation, in such a way that they soon control the lives of the weak. The privileged accumulating privilege exponentially and ultimately hurting everyone.
I’m not going to pretend that I’ve ever been oppressed. Like Clarence Darrow I can say I love the working man because he likes to work and I don’t. I am a straight white man of privilege with smooth hands. The biggest thing I’ve ever had to carry was one of my fancy words. But if that’s the best I can do then let me get short of breath using my words. INEQUALITY HURTS EVERYONE.
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Are unequal societies unstable? Does inequality swing like a pendulum, back and forth over time between the extremes? Or do unequal societies eventually self-destruct? I won’t try to predict. But if our eyes are open we cannot help but see the self-perpetuating nature of wealth accumulation. We pretend to value meritocracy—a system in which we compete on a level playing field. But economic reality is described better by the cartoon in which a pin-striped cigar-smoking father says to his prim child sitting in his lap: “It goes in cycles, Junior. Sometime the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Sometimes, the rich get richer and the poor stay the same.”
Let’s accept for a moment that some inequality is inevitable. Even Jesus said it: “The poor will be with you always.” Does that mean that whatever happens is OK? Do we accept any level of inequality, no matter how absurd?
Do you remember the glorious 1950s? In that decade American CEOs took home an average of 25-30 times as much as their typical employee. Thirty years later, in 1980 it had grown a little bit: to 40 times. In 1990, 100 times. By 2007, when we were riding high on policies of unlimited possibility (just before the crash) CEO packages were 350 times what a typical worker earned.
And how, in the meantime, has our social contract fared? What has changed about the way we see each other and feel about each other? Surveys have asked whether people think their neighbors can be trusted. Is there more trust in richer countries? No. Is there more trust in poorer countries? No. Is there more trust in the more equal countries? Yes.
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Some would have you believe that how it is...is how it has to be. This must be the only way the system can work. Inequality is natural. Even Darwin affirmed “survival of the fittest” so obviously ravenous merciless competition is the only way forward, right?
But “survival of the fittest” is another caricature, and a dull one. (Besides, Darwin never said it.) Yes, competition has played a vital part in both biological and cultural evolution. But to suggest that dog-eat-dog is nature’s only way is to miss out on many of nature’s greatest wonders.
Consider Darwin’s description of a tangled bank: “...clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth.” This entire complex web having evolved not just through competition but through symbiosis, symbiogenesis, biological mutualism, and countless other interdependencies.
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Competition is not bad. But we all know: competing for status requires keen attention to status. We need to be constantly on the alert and tuned in to judge between winnable and un-winnable conflicts. “In many species life and limb often depend on knowing when to back off and when to challenge a dominant animal for rank.” [Wilkinson] And when we have nothing to fall back upon, there is a great temptation to kick the dog or take it out on someone else lower than ourselves.
Humans evolved to be attuned to status. We also seem very attuned to unfairness, even as young kids we have an intuition about unfairness, to the point that we feel indignant even when it happens to someone else. And we might intervene even at a cost to ourselves.
But if you cannot fight against unfairness, either that done to you, or that which you see all around, it causes stress. Personal stress, family stress, neighborhood stress, and stress in the larger society.
So we just compete harder; we work longer hours (we have less vacation than those in more equal societies). We eat more, shop more, and produce more garbage.
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I’m not saying we shouldn’t compete with one another. Equality doesn’t mean we have-to, or ever could guarantee equality of outcomes for everyone. But we do need to look at ourselves. An overwhelming percentage of Americans of every political affiliation say that something is amiss. We’re off track. It’s very hard to put a finger on what has been lost. Is it freedom? responsibility? traditions? family values? Or is it trust? Are we simply ready to give up on one another, give up on government, give up on society as a whole because no matter what we do, someone is always going to try to take it away?
For thousands of years humans have struggled just to have the basics in life. Our path forward was the path of growth. To get what we needed, we needed more. Well, we’ve done phenomenally well at getting more. Which brings us now to a more difficult question: not about HOW to grow, but what do we do when we find that growing doesn’t suffice? And more isn’t enough?
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I’m not suggesting that we replace the competitive marketplace with soviet-style central planning. The collapse of that empire, and China’s shifting economic structure too, tell us vividly that we can’t overcome the problem of too much power in private hands by concentrating all of the power in the State. State power too can be inefficient, corrupt, and based in the denial of human rights. But this doesn’t mean there are no alternatives to corporate plutocracy.
We have created a variety of viable forms of social organization, and an interdependent international economy requires this variety. We need an economically diverse tangled bank rather than a single beast to which we have to feed our very souls...lest in its death throes it takes us all down with it.
There are alternatives. In the 20 largest US cities almost 40 percent of the 200 largest enterprises are non-profit organizations like universities and medical institutions. 2,000 municipal electric utilities supply 40 million Americans with electricity—providing energy which is 11% cheaper because they’re not making a profit for shareholders. 4,000 community development corporations create local business initiatives including low-income housing. There are 48,000 coops in the US, with 120 million members. 10,000 credit unions with assets totaling $600 billion provide financial services for 83 million Americans. 1,000 mutual insurance companies are owned by their policy holders; 30% of American farm products are marketed through cooperatives. [Wilkinson] There are alternatives.
While corporations are required to maximize shareholder value (generally seen as short-term profits), these other organizational forms seek to remain economically viable while providing something of value to the community. They’re not giving themselves away. They’re not financially naive.
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Spring can be soft, whimsical, and light on its feet. But we all know that spring swells with power...power that cannot be denied.
Karen [our soprano soloist today] is singing all these love songs about butterflies and other nature metaphors and the voluptuousness of spring. Abundance. The profuse sexuality is hidden behind words in foreign languages, but still, we intuit fullness within the passion with which it sounds forth.
You bring forth today too, I charge you: bring forth that overflowing spring abundance. Know no fear and hoarding. Know no need to divide “us and them” nor to cling to every grain of sustenance as if it were your last. It is your last. No matter how much we have—each mouthful, each lungful, each photon of sunlight is potentially our last. There is no use hoarding more than we need.
SENDING SONG The Fire of Commitment #1028
BENEDICTION #587
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