THE INEVITABLE PAIN OF A TRANSFORMATIONAL SOCIETY

THE INEVITABLE PAIN OF A TRANSFORMATIONAL SOCIETY

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© November 3, 2011

Guilt is a powerful motivator.  It is now playing out in the finance districts of our principal cities as protesters of the “99 percent” (have nots) stubbornly occupy the streets and parks in deviance of the “1 percent” (haves).

We born during the Great Depression, when safety nets were first introduced for society in general and for the have nots in particular, witnessed the nation getting caught up in the largesse of others doing more for us than we were expected to do for ourselves.  We watched as our nation lost its moral compass and its way so that today we, as a society, are not happy campers. 

We forgot that Horace Mann found the key to ending poverty and it was education. 

Horace Mann led the Massachusetts legislature in 1838 to create public school education paid for and maintained through taxation.  It was for all children thus underpinning individual success, and by extension our collective national success. 

Education is the hegemony of our international prominence over the past two centuries.  But by an unwitting paradox, however, we now are well off the pace in educational achievement of many nations across the globe that have copied our design.

Somehow guilt watered down this in the last century, especially after World War Two, when we forgot why we won the war.  We forgot about how the citizenry picked itself up by the bootstraps after the Great Depression with an appreciation of education, honest hard work and national unity.  But we forgot in particular that education provided value added status in the workplace, in the community, and in our individual lives.

We born during the Great Depression appreciated that our first job, our most important job was getting an education.  We had teachers who were dedicated to creating value added status in our little minds so that we could go out into the working world as thinkers, problem solvers, and doers, not looking for what we could get but for what we could give to society. 

We were into the common good as opposed to the watered down version that would supersede this culture and mindset, which I have come to call personhood.

Personhood became palpable when the emphasis was placed on protecting our delicate psyches, in treating us all alike in the classroom, in promoting the idea of self-esteem, being careful not to distinguish between winning and losing, succeeding and failing, winners and losers. 

Grading and performance became increasingly superfluous so that today an “A” grade, which once was designated with a “four,” can now be found worth five or six or more points in the grading system.  An indication of how meaningless grades have become is the necessity for competitive achievement tests such as SAT’s and GRE’s.   Even these tests have provided faulty benchmarks because most students are taught to the tests, or take review courses so that they perform well on them. 

We have taken the most wonderful discovery of all from people and that is self-discovery.  We have made school a prison if not a factory, and we have made the factory or workplace an entertainment center, a place to go to on a regular basis, socialize, hang out and let our machines do most of the work while we wile our time away surfing the Internet, texting or talking on our cell phones.  We have gone from hardware to software and from brawn or muscle power to brainpower, but imperfectly.

Unions of our major industries pressed management for more and more entitlements and wage concessions, principally during the post-WWII years, not looking to worker productivity, worker identity or making work more worker centered.  As a result, most factory workers brought their bodies to work and left their minds at home.  They were punched and prodded, badgered and intimidated to react to instructions from the few (management) to often do what the many (workers) knew was counterproductive, “but not their problem.”

Apparently, no one in labor or management envisioned the world catching up and then eating our lunch, which it has been doing for half a century.  It was easier to give in than to call out.  Consequently, we have not only gotten flabby as a nation but flabby as thinkers, problem solvers and doers. 

When you take people essentially out of the equation, when you attempt to do for them what they might better do for themselves, you weaken them and their resolve and diminish them individually as persons and collectively as an intellectual capital resource. 

All this has been discussed to the point of nauseam many times before, but I indicate it here to emphasize how ridiculous and shortsighted educators, politicians, parents and students have become as the basis of what and who they are has become increasingly inauthentic to the point of irrelevance.

At the same time, we have gone from a creditor to a debtor nation.  This is as true at the state as at the national level.  State legislatures are not able to maintain the entitlements to public employees because they now far exceed what private sector employees receive in compensation, benefits and retirement accretions. 

Countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain have taken this entitlement fiasco to ridiculous extremes.  The incentive to work in the private sector in these European nations was taken out of the equation as public employees faired far better than workers in the private sector, that is, until the economic house came crashing down, putting these nations on the brink of bankruptcy, possibly destabilizing the world economy.

So, we may be approaching a Great Depression far in excess of the 1929 world economic and banking crash.  Against this scenario, there are still winners and losers.  Some commentators have the insight and courage to point this out, David Brooks among them.

DAVID BROOKS AS SEER

David Brooks is a New York Times syndicated columnist who tempers his conservative remarks quite frequently with statistical or demographic data that says less offensively what he is attempting to communicate more aggressively.  He has been quite concerned about the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd and its copiers across the United States, and now across the Western world.

In his column today, he mentions Blue Inequity and Red Inequity.  Blue Inequity is the 1 percent that have stirred up the “Occupy Wall Street” 99 percent crowd.  The 99 percent occupiers represent Red Inequity.  They resent the 1 percent millionaire/billionaire club that they see as the problem. 

The economic superstars are located in our major cities and financial centers, and are paid much more than good or average performers.  Blue Inequity is distributed mainly among non-financial managers, doctors, financiers, lawyers, engineers, athletes, entertainers and media personalities. 

This exclusive club was extant, but smaller when this republic was founded, but it has always existed, and will continue to exist whatever the economic circumstances of the nation.  Inequity of the type described here has existed in every form of government since the beginning of civilization.  Likewise, this group designation has consistently included only 10 percent or less of the constituency of the republic.  What is interesting is the take David Brooks has on the other 90 percent, which includes most of us.

I will now quote him in italics because I cannot improve upon what he has to say, a message that should resonate with us all, and if it doesn’t, shame on us!

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Crucial inequality (among Red Inequity) is not between the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent. It’s between those with a college degree and those without.

Over the past several decades, the economic benefits of education have steadily risen.  In 1979, the average college graduate made 38 percent more than the average high school graduate (my highlighting), according to the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke.  Now the average college graduate makes more than 75 percent more (my highlighting).

Moreover, college graduates have become good at passing down advantages to their children.  If you are born with parents who are college graduates, your odds of getting through college are excellent.  If you are born to high school grads, your odds are terrible.

In fact, the income differentials understate the chasm between college and high school grads.  In the 1970s, high school and college grads had very similar family structures.  Today, college grads are much more likely to get married, they are much less likely to get divorced and they are much, much less likely to have a child out of wedlock (my highlighting). 

Today, college grads are much less likely to smoke than high school grads, they are less likely to be obese, they are more likely to be active in their communities, they have much more social trust, they speak many more words to their children at home . . .

Over the past few months (re: Occupy Wall Street), attention has shifted almost exclusively to Blue Inequity.

That’s because the protesters and media people who cover them tend to live in or near the big cities, where the top 1 percent is so evident.  That’s because the liberal arts majors like to express their disdain for the shallow business and finance majors who make all the money.  That’s because it is easier to talk about the inequality of stock options than it is to talk about inequalities of family structure, child rearing patterns, and educational attainment.  That’s because many people are wedded to the notion that our problems are caused by an oppressive privileged class that perpetually keeps its boot stomped on the neck of the common man.

But the fact is that Red Inequity is much more important.  The zooming wealth of the top 1 percent is a problem, but it’s not nearly as big a problem as the tens of millions of Americans who have dropped out of high school or college.  It’s not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock.  It’s not nearly as big a problem as the nation’s stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent (that pay no income taxes and therefore have no vested interest in the country – my comment).

If your ultimate goal is to reduce inequality, then you should be furious at the doctors, bankers and CEOs.  If your goal is to expand opportunity, then you have a much bigger and different agenda (David Brooks: “Inequality is more than percentages,” Tampa Bay Times, op-ed page, November 3, 2011).

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