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Labor & BI: A view from the U.S. Joel Rogers, UW-Madison 13 th BIEN Congress, S ã o Paulo, July 1-2, 2010 . What I’ll be talking about. Labor and BI, in general terms Exceptionalism of U.S. & U.S. labor Hope?. I made some slides for you. Like this slide. And this one. Power corrupts.
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Labor & BI: A view from the U.S. Joel Rogers, UW-Madison 13th BIEN Congress, São Paulo, July 1-2, 2010
What I’ll be talking about • Labor and BI, in general terms • Exceptionalism of U.S. & U.S. labor • Hope?
Pro, con, maybe • Improves power of labor relative to capital, decommodifies labor power, enlarges space for social experiment • Undermines contributory solidarity, existing labor contracts, and worker organizations built on them • That no longer an effective basis of working class organization: • Boundaries of firm less clear • Job-based security disappearing (“precariat”) • Interest not best organized at the workplace underrepresented • Insider-outsider problems in social cohesion
Economic Development A place’s wealth is determined by the productivityof its human, physical, and natural capital, and its local capture of the benefits of that productivity. Productivity is a function of the value of products and services (e.g. their uniqueness, performance, or quality) and the efficiency with which they are produced (i.e., how much output per unit of input). Productivity is best measured not by volume but revenue produced per unit of input (land, labor, capital). Places can compete on low-road (price reducing) or high-road (productivity increasing, with high and equitable local capture) ways.
Taxes 1: supply-side egalitarianism Basic unities: i + w + c = 1; p + w = 1
Worst case? • Integrated global capital responds instantly and punitively to any change in the rate of profit • Rate of profit identical worldwide • Cannot be lowered or raised • So any new surplus goes to the immobile workers who helped produce it Real case Economy still organized in places. Well-organized places, and the high-road infrastructure within them, permits bargaining with capital.
American exceptionalism • No labor party • Little class-based popular politics • Vast wealth, military power, and waste • Religious, violent, anti-urban America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization. — Wilde
Inequality Gilded Age New Gilded Age Great compression Great divergence Middle class America
Inequality decomposed Top 1% takes 23% of income. Top .1% ($1.7M in 2006) takes 9 percent – twice share in UK (4.7%), five times share in France (1.6%)
Dynamics of bargaining Capitalist strategy & labor strategy Social efficiency Labor power (density + centralization)
U.S. labor • Membership defined as firm majorities • “Contracts are us” • Fragmented structure, silos of solidarity, little horizontal coordination • Dependent politics Frankly I used to worry about the membership, about the size of the membership. But quite a few years ago, I just stopped worrying about it, because to me it doesn’t make any difference. — Meany
One answer • In a hundred years, all new people! • Antecedents even in U.S. labor … What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures. — Gompers • Open source and ongoing membership recruitment and maintenance • High road program • Functional role at the workplace
Obviously • Current system no longer “delivering the goods” • People getting better (tolerance, environmentalism, international concern) and more open to alternatives • Hold of neoliberal market orthodoxy weaker, need for public goods more obvious, waste of present system more evident • Science advancing at near “singularity” rate, and innovation finally moving into government • Scalable “high road” alternative available Basic problem in U.S. is lack of democratic confidence. Basic reason is not internationalization, but domestic political failure, owing to lack of organized investment in relevant political infrastructure, itself owing to lack of clear leadership.
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) • Largest US anti-poverty program, bigger than TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), Food Stamps, other • Refundable tax credit, tied to earnings —“make work pay” by eliminating “poverty traps” • Expanded under Clinton; plan to expand further under Obama • More contested today than in the past, in part because of growth, in part because of growth in partisanship
Political infrastructure: CBSM4 • Communication: among leadership, to and from base, with the mass public • Blood (new, i.e. youth): recruitment, training, placement, etc. • Message & program: something simple and positive to say to about what we should be, and a few things to get us closer that • Messengers: many people running for office and talking in public, showing message discipline, shared frames, talking points, etc. • Models: models of what works at scale and can be replicated • Money: patient but demanding capital – long-term but experimental and performance based, prepared to withdraw on failure or non-performance • Service centers: on a variety of functions best organized in one place to realize economies of scale and scope; think leadership academies, policy shops, centers of campaign expertise, media support centers, etc.
