The free market system is at the heart of the American dream that we all know by heart: 'if you work hard enough, you too can become a Bill Gates'. Well, perhaps not as nerdy, but certainly as wealthy. Not that *all* of us can become millionares if we all work very very hard; there's only a certain amount of money in circulation, only a certain amount of natural resources to use as a base (for example, arable land, or development plots for condominiums). And the market, while global, is not infinite. If Bill Gates becomes fabulously wealthy by gaining 90% (somebody tell me, is it really 90%, or is that a conservative estimate?) of the PC market, you can't garner the same 90% of that market in order to become equally wealthy. You might gain 90% of some equally lucrative market. But once again, there is only so much money in the pot; after every consumer has spent that money for the month, there's none left to be had. Yes, we are including those consumers who live by the credit card as well.
So, some of us, not too many of us, can become very well-off if we work very hard. Or perhaps if we have the right connections (being born into the right family helps) and we work somewhat hard. The rest of us are stuck. It's much like the lottery: we play because there's the chance of hitting the jackpot, never mind that most of us won't.
Second prize, however, for those who don't strike it filthy rich, is to achieve financial stability. That was the legacy given to us by the '50's: a dream of a small house with a picket fence in the suburbs, 2 1/2 children and a dog. The children grow up and go to college, perhaps not Ivy League but a good college, they get good jobs with good benefits, and a better standard of living than their parents had. And so on through generations. No lottery here; you're guaranteed at least this much, if you work hard, eat right and go to church on Sundays. Here was the 'Contract with America' before it was rewritten by the Newt.
So, what of those who work mimimum wage jobs, or temporary positions, with poor or no benefits, struggling to make ends meet? Clearly, or so the script tells us, they did not work hard enough. If they were only smarter, or harder working, or more morally upright, or whatever their flaw is, if only they didn't have it, then they too would get the small house and the picket fence. It's a shame that they don't, and we'll give to charity once in a while to help them, but that's all that we are required to do. This is the way society is supposed to be, everyone in his place. There's nothing inherently bad about that, after all. Is there?
First off, there are only so many well-paying jobs to go around. Sad but true. The job market is very finite, as anyone who has been 'downsized' recently knows. We could retrain everyone in the world to write applications for Internet access, but there are only a certain number of slots for that kind of work; when they are full, the rest of the programmers go hungry. The other end of the coin is that there are a certain number of jobs that are needed to support the economy which do not pay very well. Many 'service industry' jobs, from fast food to janitorial to a huge portion of the receptionist positions, pay lousy and have lousy benefits. But we need people to fill these slots; you want a clean office when you go in to work in the morning, and you want to be able to drive through the Burger King drive through and get that breakfast croissant (do they even have croissants at Burger King?), and you want your receptionist to give you your messages with a cup of coffee when you walk in. But you don't want to pay much for it.
Why don't you want to pay much for it? Because, the belief goes, these are jobs that anyone can do. They don't take some special skill, or large amounts of training. So if one person finds the wage too low, odds are real good that you can find ten more to replace him or her. That's how the free market system works: supply and demand. If the supply outstrips the demand, the price drops. In this case, the number of low or unskilled workers outstrips the number of positions for which they are qualified, and so their wages are low. Who's to blame? Well, they are, of course, for not getting the skills they need for a good job. Right? Right?
Perhaps not so right. There are a certain number of positions requiring skilled labor, and when those are full, where do the rest go? To put it plainly: if everyone in the U.S. over 1 years of age miraculously was granted a college education from a good school, some proportion of them would find skilled work, and the rest, the majority, would not, because the positions don't exist.
Ah, you say, but they weren't as talented as the ones who got the positions after all. That's what competition is for, to ensure that the best and most capable party wins, since society benefits as well.
A fine argument, but not necessarily true. How many times have you heard that old saw, 'it's not what you know but who you know'? That saying exists for a reason. Many many factors enter into the hiring process. Does your style of speech indicate that you come frmo the same social ranks as your interviewer and the other employees at your prospective job? Are you able to establish common ground with the interviewer, or are your backgrounds too dissimilar? Of course, we know that race, ethnic background and gender play a role, whether we acknowledge it or not. And these factors all work *early on*, during childhood. They don't wait until the prospective employee is out of school and knocking on doors; they affect the nature of the future employee's preparation for his or her chosen career.
But, let's leave all that aside. Some people will do better than others, and so some will be chosen while others will not. Do the ones who did not, deserve their fate?
Well, let me ask the question another way. I imagine you do actually like your office to be clean when you go in to work in the morning, that you do like to have your messages handled comptently, that you like having fresh fruit available in the grocery stores, that you appreciate having clothing that's durable and that suits you. Why not pay enough money for these services so that the people who provide them to you can also get that small house and picket fence? Why should they be penalized?
Or, even more to the point: surely you would agree that no person's humanity is more valuable than another's... unless you, like Orwell's pig, believe that 'some are more equal than others'. Now, in this society, everything we do, whether it's be born, die, eat, drink and make merry, get married, raise children, everything we do costs money. And the opportunities you have are restricted by and large depending on the amount of money you have. Of course there are exceptions; a multi-billionare can't just buy himself the Presidency.... we hope. But for most things, including having the leisure to create (to write, to paint, even to create a decent Web browser under the Gnu Public License, for the good of the community) without starving, we need money. In some sense, then, we determine the quality of a person's life by the amount of money they are paid. It is, if you like, a judgment; if you are worthy enough, you get the really big bucks; if you are basically but not exceptionally worthy, you get decent bucks, and the rest of you, well, shame on you!
If this seems a little harsh on first reading, consider how many times you have heard: 'the homeless don't want to get off the street', or 'people on welfare really don't want to work', or 'people in those low-paying jobs aren't fit for anything else', or ... the tried and true: 'if they would work hard they could get out of poverty.' I.e.: they are in poverty, therefore they must not be working hard; since they don't work hard they deserve what they get. As I said, a value judgment.
But now let me ask: consider the fruit-picker who migrates to California for the harvesting season, spends ungodly hours every day in the hot sun doing mindless back-breaking work which provides you with fresh fruit readily available; why is his life worth less than yours, that he should be paid a pittance but you, who work in a 'skilled job', should get paid many times as much? Or, why is his life less valuable than the company CEO whose income is in the topn 1/10th of 1 percent? Why should we not attempt (or die trying) to give him that quality of life that we believe is our entitlement? Is it not his as well? If you have two coats and your brother has none, what should you do?
This is what I don't like about the free market system, that it cannot answer that question adequately. And since it can't, I'm in favor of adopting a system that can.
Happy May First, everybody...