Independence...or Subjugation Day?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/04/2007 01:09:00 AM
An industrial army of workers under the command of a capitalist requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and NCO’s (foremen, overseers) who command during the labor process in the name of capital. The work of supervision becomes their established and exclusive function…The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property. [Karl Marx, Das Kapital]

It’s been a long time since I’ve made a hardcore political economy post. Here's a very provocative article that I've come across from the rather left-of-center Economist's Voice online publishing service out of UC Berkeley. Samuel Bowles of the Santa Fe Institute and Arjun Jayadev of the University of Massachusetts at Boston have entitled their brief but provocative (to say the least) paper “Garrison America.” The authors hit the nail on the head in differentiating economists from political economists by noting that while economists are concerned with how resources are used in producing the pie, political economists are interested in how the pie is divided. They quote Vilfrid Pareto (pictured) in his work the Manual of Political Economy where he says “[T]he efforts of men are utilized in two different ways…they are directed to the production or transformation of economic goods, or else to the appropriation of goods produced by others.” The first category is similar to that expounded on by Adam Smith and consists of those who directly or indirectly produce goods and services we consume. The second is what the authors call “guard labor”—the police, rent-a-cops, military personnel and others who constitute the disciplinary apparatus of society. By the authors’ estimates, more than a quarter of US labor is now engaged in guard labor—providing security and imposing work discipline.

Their finding is that increases in guard labor in America (see figure 1) and other developed states are related to rising levels of inequality and a host of other (nominal) undesirables such as greater polarization, greater political conflict, less political legitimacy, and less welfare spending (see figure 3; note how America is always in an especially bad position). The authors have a somewhat ornate definition of guard labor. Included are not only military personnel and guards but also monitors who are engaged not in production but “enforcement of claims arising from exchanges and the pursuit or prevention of unilateral transfers of property ownership.” Figured in the total are the unemployed as a labor disciplining device (“get the job done, or else…”) and the incarcerated (“don’t break the law such as by stealing, or else”).

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

This bleak picture of America-as-gated-community isolating the haves from the have-nots brings to mind Gary Becker’s recent article suggesting that inequality is good because it demonstrates better returns to college graduates. It begs the question, “but, isn't the system stacked in a way that predetermines who gets an education?” that I don’t want to get into right now as that’s another can of worms. Suffice to say, I think matters are far more complicated in a political economy sense than Becker lets on. If you want more of this (admittedly left-leaning) line of reasoning, do check out Douglas Massey’s new book Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. Its main idea is the same in that inequality needs enforcement; in the Bowles and Jayadev paper, it’s done by guard labor:

The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the most unequal income distribution of any advanced industrialized nation. While other developed countries face similar challenges from globalization and technological change, none rivals America’s singularly poor record for equitably distributing the benefits and burdens of recent economic shifts. In Categorically Unequal, Douglas Massey weaves together history, political economy, and even neuropsychology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how America’s culture and political system perpetuates inequalities between different segments of the population.

Categorically Unequal is striking both for its theoretical originality and for the breadth of topics it covers. Massey argues that social inequalities arise from the universal human tendency to place others into social categories. In America, ethnic minorities, women, and the poor have consistently been the targets of stereotyping, and as a result, they have been exploited and discriminated against throughout the nation’s history. African-Americans continue to face discrimination in markets for jobs, housing, and credit. Meanwhile, the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border has discouraged Mexican migrants from leaving the United States, creating a pool of exploitable workers who lack the legal rights of citizens. Massey also shows that women’s advances in the labor market have been concentrated among the affluent and well-educated, while low-skilled female workers have been relegated to occupations that offer few chances for earnings mobility. At the same time, as the wages of low-income men have fallen, more working-class women are remaining unmarried and raising children on their own. Even as minorities and women continue to face these obstacles, the progressive legacy of the New Deal has come under frontal assault. The government has passed anti-union legislation, made taxes more regressive, allowed the real value of the federal minimum wage to decline, and drastically cut social welfare spending. As a result, the income gap between the richest and poorest has dramatically widened since 1980. Massey attributes these anti-poor policies in part to the increasing segregation of neighborhoods by income, which has insulated the affluent from the social consequences of poverty, and to the disenfranchisement of the poor, as the population of immigrants, prisoners, and ex-felons swells.

America’s unrivalled disparities are not simply the inevitable result of globalization and technological change. As Massey shows, privileged groups have systematically exploited and excluded many of their fellow Americans. By delving into the root causes of inequality in America, Categorically Unequal provides a compelling argument for the creation of a more equitable society.

Sorry for the downcast topic on Independence Day--especially for American readers. I hope you don’t shoot the messenger though for I’m just relaying some discomfiting but hard-to-deny realities here. More and more, you and I may just be Working for the Man.