Glenn Beck: A Clear and Present Danger

It seems to me that the ideology of free speech in this country (a noble principle overall) has blinded us to the fact that there are limits, and responsibilities that go with it. Deliberate lying and sometimes even inciting violence clearly cross the line. Over the past ten years, there has been a doubling of hate groups in this country, and some of this robust growth can be attributed to the TV/radio hate mongers (Glenn Beck being only the best known among them) who have been preaching to the devil's choir. It's analogous to shouting fire in a crowded theater (to borrow a historic precedent). Beck even went so far as to call out social justice as a communist/nazi idea that should be rejected. These TV demagogues, who have been promoting virulently anti-social behavior among a well-armed and increasingly paranoid minority, are like a cancer. This profoundly un-American phenomenon is symptomatic of a serious social pathology. We need to start counteracting this with the truth. As Plato warned in the Republic, "ignorance is the ruin of states."

A Moral Eunuch

Tony Hayward is hardly exceptional in being fairness challenged. He’s only the latest star in this particular form of political pornography. He was quoted in the news today as saying that “life is unfair.” He’s a perfect example of the fact that life is indifferent in its effects. It’s people who are unfair, and he really doesn’t get it.

He was deservedly sacked for running a company that had mastered the art of getting away with reckless behavior and bouts of negligence (until Deep Water Horizon). In departing, he had the gall to call BP “a model of corporate responsibility.” But when the spill happened, he blamed the company that leased BP the platform; he grossly underestimated the seriousness of the leak; he would not allow scientists access to estimate the flow from the well-head until the government forced his hand; he was slow organizing a containment and cleanup operation, and even slower to compensate the victims. In his comments to the press, Tony compared what happened to him to stepping off the curb and getting hit by a car. On the contrary, this was a man who went out into the street in front of an onrushing car and dared it to hit him. But it was only a glancing blow. He’ll get a fat pension and many millions in severance pay, while many of the victims still wait for compensation.

Fairness is not about what the gods do to us. It’s about what we do to (and for) each other.

Soak the Rich?

We are about to have what could be an historic political debate over tax policy in this country. The outcome of this debate could be a fork in the road with respect to what is defined as a fair division of wealth in our society and how the tax burden is distributed.

I’m referring to former president Bush’s tax cuts, which are about to expire if no action is taken by the Congress. Many Republicans would like to make these cuts permanent, including the elimination of estate taxes. The Obama administration wants legislation that would extend income tax cuts only for the “middle class” (under $250,000 in income, it is said). Election year politics will cloud the issue, of course, with claims about the impact on economic recovery (stimulating growth) versus deficit reduction, and so on.

But the deeper issue here is what is fair – what is a fair share of a tax burden that finances wars as well as health care measures, national security and higher education. For some progressives, there are too many mega-mansions and humongous yachts in this country coupled with a deteriorating infrastructure of roads, bridges sewer systems, etc. to the tune of more than two trillion dollars in needed repairs, among other things. The rich should shoulder more of the tax burden. But to many conservatives, taxes are confiscatory, a raid on their fundamental property rights. Besides, big government is inefficient and wastes money. The private sector can do things better.

In this dysfunctional political season, we may end up with a deadlock, or a dead heat. But if the Congress does act on this issue, it will re-set the terms of our implicit social contract in this country for years to come.

Usury and Fairness

Both the Christian Bible and the Muslim Quran have injunctions against usury. In those days, usury meant that it was immoral to charge any interest at all on a loan, which after all provides help to someone in financial need. Times have changed, of course. We've long since capitalized a global lending industry, and (almost) nobody these days thinks it is immoral for a lender to charge a reasonable amount of interest on a loan. All this borrowing does much good. It allows people to buy homes and cars, finance businesses small and large, send their children to college, and even to take a vacation on the credit card.

On the other hand, it also represents a form of wealth transfer from those who have a financial need to those who already have a surplus of wealth. It's a form of regressive taxation and wealth redistribution that has become a heavy financial yoke for the middle class and the poor in our society and an engine for helping the rich to get richer with a minimum of effort. This "downside" to our national indebtedness is especially offensive with regard to the so-called pay-day lenders, who advance small amounts of money to cash-strapped low income workers (for the most part) at rates that typically exceed 400 percent on an annualized basis. Such predatory practices, which squeaze the proverbial ounce of flesh out of those who are already desperately poor, clearly cross the line into usury in its old-fashioned moral sense.

How can any civilized society countenance this? The answer is obvious. We have long since stopped being a civilized society.

Equality is Better for Our Health

Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, in their 2009 book, The Spirit Level, show beyond doubt that more egalitarian societies fare much better across many measures of health and well being, from life expectancy to crime rates and mental health problems. For instance, more than 25 percent of Americans suffer from some form of mental illness, compared to 10 percent in countries like Japan, Germany, Sweden and Italy. It is long past time to disasbuse ourselves of the myth that unrestrained capitalism is the best path to the greatest good for the greatest number. It provides the greatest good only for the few at the top of a very steep economic pyramid.

The Meaning of Our National Parks

Film maker Ken Burns' recent PBS series on our national parks highlighted a fundamental truth that our conservatives, and especially the free market libertarians, would like to deny.

Government at its best can be an instrument for serving the general welfare in ways that capitalist markets cannot. (Of course the opposite can also be true. Economist Joseph Stiglitz characterizes the Bush years in Washington as a "corporate welfare state.") Our national parks are a prime example of the positive side. They are "public goods" that everyone can enjoy and not resources that can only be exploited for private profit and that are accessible only to those who have influence and money -- like a country club.

As Burns noted, nothing else in our society better fits the democratic ideal -- a collective benefit that is equally shared.

Penalizing the Victims

There is something immoral about the conservative opposition to an extention of expired unemployment benefits for 2 million Americans who were thrown out of work by the financial meltdown and the recession. These born again deficit hawks, who approved huge deficit spending during the Bush years to provide tax cuts for the wealthy, who added Medicare drug benefits without developing a way to pay for them, and who fought a war in Iraq with borrowed money, find that a modest (by comparison)$34 billion to provide for the basic needs of the unemployed should be paid for with spending cuts elsewhere.

Well, I suggest a 10 percent pay cut for Congress and its sprawling staff for the next few years. Or how about a "luxury tax" (Monopoly Game?) on the bonuses receieved by Wall Street bankers? Or maybe the taxpayer subsidies that have undergirded record oil company profits should be eliminated. Of course, this is not about fairness, or even fiscal responsibility. It's a cynical election-year ploy. Shame on them.

Are the Rich Different?

The recent flurry of news stories about how the rich manipulate tax writeoffs, walk away from underwater home mortgages and in other ways bend the rules in their favor has inspired some variants of Ernest Hemmingway's famous line: "The rich are different from you and me. They have more money." Nowadays, the rich are also accused of being "more ruthless than you and me" or that "they know how to game the system."

Well, maybe we should try to be fair minded about this charge. The fact is that the rich are very different from one another -- in their ethics, their politics and their personalities (among other things). Come to think of it, they are as different from one another as you and me. There are highly responsible billionaires who devote their lives and fortunes to charity work (George Soros and Bill Gates come to mind)and ruthless egotists who are on their umpteenth marriage and are still finding ways, late in life, to profit from their machinations. (Bernie Madoff may now be in prison, but he is still not remorseful.)

So maybe Hemingway was half right. The rich are categorically different in having more money than you and me. The other half is that they have economic security while most of the rest of us do not these days. Consider, for example, the 2 million Americans whose unemployment benefits have run out while Congress dithers self-righteously about fiscal responsibility. As long as there are Americans whose basic needs are not being met -- some 25 percent of us accordingly to a number of different studies -- the rich have an advantage that is fundamentally unfair. But this is also a "difference" that could be fixed if, as a society, we choose to do it. So, stay tuned.

Fairness and Deception

Is it fair for someone to knowingly deceive another person and thereby gain an advantage? In fact, it depends. In card games, like poker, it's expected and people who are good at it are admired. (Hmmm!) Likewise in many sports. And, as we know, all's fair in war. One of Winston's Churchill's more famous quotes was "In wartime, the truth is so precious it must always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

But what about deception in the business world. What about those packages that actuallty contain less than half of their total volume? Or the "sale" items that are sold out even though you got to the store as soon as it opened? Or the "fine print" that literally hides onerous clauses in credit card applications and home sale contracts, etc. Or what about Dell Computers, which knowingly sold defective computers to millions of customers, including other Fortune 500 companies, for years before owning up the problem and doing something about it? (And this is only one example of corporate malfeasance.)

The answer is obvious. Human relationships, including those between sellers and buyers in the marketplace,involve reciprocity. They must be based on fair and honest dealing, or trust will break down and so, in the end, will the relationships that we all depend upon. In the case of Dell Computers, it has yet to recover from the massive defection of a loyal customer base.

Cynic of the Year Award

It's past time to create a new form of public recognition for the rampant cynicism and hypocrisy in our society. It seems fitting, as a badge of dishonor for our dark era, that we should have a cynic of the year award -- though we might have to increase the frequency to once a month, once a week, or even once a day.

Our first award goes to the Republican Party as a whole. At least this is what the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (a man who is adept at lying with a straight face) affirmed the other day when he said that "virtually every Republican" agreed with Republican Senator John Kyl that extending the Bush era tax cuts for the rich did not need to be paid for, whereas the proposal to extend desperately needed benefits to the long-term unemployed (at five percent of the cost) were a travesty against fiscal responsibility. It's worse than cynical. It's a moral outrage to condone a giveway to the rich and penalize the victims of what should properly be called the Republican Recession.

Fairness Cuts Both Ways

Often enough there are good reasons to be outraged by the many forms of corporate deception and exploitation -- but certainly not always.

David Segal comments in last Sunday's New York Times that there are also many instances of customers who practice deception and what amounts to legalized fraud. Consider for example the people who purchase Halloween costumes for their children then return them to the store the day afterward. Or the evening gown that is returned after being worn once. Need a specialized tool for some job, why not rent one for free from your local hardware store?

If you think this is no big deal, consider how you would feel in the store owners' place. Fairness doesn't work unless everyone is willing to recognize the rights of others. Otherwise, there can be no middle-ground, only irreconcilable extremes.

Fairness Makes "Contact"

Fairness is a common theme in Holywood movies, which is not surprising. It evokes emotional involvement and feelings of empathy in an audience. It plucks a string in the human psyche.

A classic example is the 1990s movie "Contact." It's a science finction story about a young, female atronomer, Ellie Arroway, who single-handedly, doggedly pursues for many years the seemingly quixotic search for extra-terrestrial intelligence in defiance of many skeptics. The most important of her adversaries is David Drumlin, an influential scientist, former mentor and later head of the National Academy of Science and scientific advisor to the President, who actively thwarts her efforts and undermines her career. Yet, when she finally succeeds in her quest, Drumlin moves to claim credit and co-opts the leadership of the international effort to decipher the message from outer space. To top it off, he outmaneuvers her in the competition to be selected as the astronaut who will be sent into space in the vehicle built by a consortium of nations from plans contained in the extra-terrestrials' message. As Ellie and her nemesis meet for the last time at the Kennedy Space Center just prior to the launch, Drumlin is moved to speak candidly about all of this:

Drumlin: "Ellie, I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that's an understatement. What you don't know is that I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the [selection] hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world."

Ellie: "Funny, I always believed the world was what we make of it."

Against Fairness?

The British newsmagazine, The Economist, this week, in one of its leaders, came out against the concept of fairness. "Fairness is fudge. This newspaper will have none of it...It signals limp thinking." As they frame it, "one lot" is in favor of everyone playing by the same rules and let the winner take all. Another "lot" wants everyone to get equal shares. These two meanings are opposed: freedom versus equality! It is a choice that has to be made. By using the same word for both it loses any meaning. "We reject the wide, woolly notion of fairness in favor of sharper, narrower words..like just or cruel."



Here is my letter to the editors in response:

Against Fairness?

Sirs:

The modern concept of fairness, derived from the original Greek idea of “justice”, has been regularly debunked ever since Periclean Athens. You share with the ancient Sophists the argument that everyone defines it differently, therefore fairness/justice is a meaningless term.

You should brush up your Plato, who provided a definitive rebuttal in the Republic. Fairness is not, after all, some sort of absolute standard or measuring rod. It refers to an aspect of our relationships with one another. Fairness has to do with taking into account the needs and interests of all parties, or “stakeholders”, and trying to strike a balance, or find a middle ground, among them. It is always context specific. As Plato put it, justice is a matter of “giving every man his due.” A good rule of thumb for judging fairness is to ask how you would feel in the other person’s place.

As for the deep conflict between capitalism and socialism over property rights versus economic equality, neither can claim to have absolute priority. We are all approximately equal in relation to our well documented basic needs. These are biological imperatives that must be accommodated, or else. However, “equity”, or rewards for merit (what Aristotle called “proportionate equality”), is also a fundamental aspect of fairness, along with the principle of reciprocity.

Happily, you do not practice what you preach. I find that The Economist is more fair-minded than most. Whatever you choose to call it, I hope you’ll keep on doing it.

For Legal Justice, You Must Be Patient

In the "things could be worse" department is the report that only in June of this year did the court system in India convict the executives who were responsible for the infamous pesticide gas leak at a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal in 1984. It sickened tens of thousands of area residents, and they have been suffering and dying ever since yet never received more than a fraction of the compensation claims that were made for them. Sixteen years later, the seven former Union Carbide executives received a sentence of two years in prison.

The Sham of "Binding Arbitration"

On the surface, the common practice that businesses use of signing contracts with their workers that impose binding arbitration in case of disputes seems like a good idea, a gesture toward fairness. In fact, it's the reverse, a trap that employees are unwittingly falling into. As the New York Timesreported the other day,it's a rigged game. Arbitrators, for some reason, almost always rule in favor of the employer, and our Supreme Court has now ruled that, no matter how outrageously unfair the arbitrator's decisions may be, employees have no recourse.

Top Ten Outrages

Yesterday MoveOn-org posted the following list of political outrages. It speaks for itself:

1. Exxon Mobil made billions in profits, and yet paid not one dime in federal income taxes in 2009.2

2. The 2005 energy bill had a little known provision, commonly called the Halliburton Loophole, which exempted natural gas drilling from the Clean Water Act. The result? Water so contaminated that you can light it on fire.3

3. Massey Energy was cited more than 2400 times for safety violations in its mines, but chose not to fix potentially lethal problems because low penalties meant it was cheaper to simply keep paying the fines. This spring, 29 miners were killed in an underground explosion at a Massey mine in West Virginia.4

4. Michael Taylor was the FDA official who approved the use of Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone in dairy cows (even though it's banned in most countries and linked to cancer). After approving it, he left the FDA—to work for Monsanto. Until last year, when he moved back to the government—as President Obama's "Food Safety Czar." No joke.5

5. Internal Toyota documents outline how the company was successful in limiting regulators actions in the recalls last year—saving hundreds of millions while the death toll continued to climb.6

6. GE and its lobbyists—including 33 former government employees—have successfully lobbied Congress to override Defense Department requests to cancel a GE contract to work on a new engine for the Joint Strike Fighter jet. GE will need $2.9 billion to finish the project.7

7. Top executives at 9 top banks including Citibank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley paid themselves over $20 billion dollars in bonuses just weeks after taxpayers bailed them out to the tune of 700 billion dollars.8

8. During the waning days of the Bush administration, officials responded to a long-term lobbying campaign by pre-empting product liability lawsuits for dozens of whole industries. They bypassed Congress entirely and rewrote rules ranging from seatbelt manufacturing regulations to prescription drug safety.9

9. Sunscreen manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson and Schering-Plough, in the interest of profits, are opposing an FDA proposal requiring full reporting on sunscreen labels. The New York Times just confirmed that current SPF ratings don't even measure sun rays that cause cancer.10

10. BP—a company with a record of 760 drilling safety and environmental violations—was granted safety waivers in order to operate the deepwater drilling rig that ultimately created the worst environmental disaster in US history.1