The Spectre of Socialism

In the waning days of the 2008 Presidential Campaign, the McCain message is focusing on wealth redistribution as the threat of a two branch Democratic government. Seeming to stem from the exhausted "Joe the Plumber" device, both McCain and Palin have appealed to working class voters, who might aspire to high tax brackets, to resist an Obama administration that would "spread the wealth around." To this extent, I must agree with McCain/Palin: Barak Obama has embraced an economic program of wealth redistribution, however feeble and limited.

Their argument oversteps approximately here: Obama is a socialist. The evidence is built on the "spread the wealth around" comment made to Joe Wurzelbacher and a boring 2001 interview in which Obama describes the US Constitution's relationship to redistribution. So let's consider three goals of a socialist agenda: 1) redistribution of wealth to workers, 2) state regulation of prices and wages, 3) state ownership of all or most of the means of production.

Certainly, redistribution of wealth is an intended outcome of socialism...as well as liberalism...or free market capitalism. In fact, all popular economic theories claim to create and distribute wealth to most participants. The shock many Republicans are gripped by this week is around a century too late. It was President Lincoln that proposed and signed the Internal Revenue Act of 1862 (creating the IRS and income tax) and 1864 (raising income taxes). This tax, of course, was used to pay for the US Civil War. But the modern form of our graduated income tax was championed by another great Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, in a 1906 speech:

It is important to this people to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes, and the use of those fortunes, both corporate and individual, in business. We should discriminate in the sharpest way between fortunes well-won and fortunes ill-won...I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death...of course, to be imposed by the National and not the State Government.

But it's a slippery slope when you're playing with socialism. If Obama was allowed to return income and corporate tax rates to Clinton-era levels, what would stop him from regulating wages and prices, like a true socialist!?!.....or President Richard Nixon in his 1971 New Economic Policy.

From this Marxist precipice, it would only take a nudge to go over the edge: nationalizing the means of production, which include heavy industry, transportation, energy, and well, banks. Luckily, Secretary Paulsen and President Bush have blazed this trail in using the "stock infusion" power of the "Economic Rescue Package" to buy shares of banks under conditions of limited CEO compensation.

What do these legs of the "socialist" scourge have in common? All were supported by Republicans (some ideologically opposed to intervention) in times of economic crisis. The point is, of course, these men were not socialists, nor is Senator Obama. This is a particularly important fact to me, because I identify as a socialist, and despite his record of supporting the pseudo socialism of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Nixon, and Bush, I voted for him anyway. What a sell out!

But don't fret! If you wish to vote your own socialist principles there are at least two candidates that will satisfy. The Socialist Party USA has nominated Brian Moore, and the Social Workers Party (formerly Communist Party USA) offers Roger Calero!

"The Cake is Baked"

For the superstitious of you, avert your eyes, for I'm about to do some Californi' style speculatin'.
With Obama's numbers leaving orbit, the journalism I've been hungry for is beginning to leak out of the campaign press army. In the next few weeks we'll get to see the moving parts of the McCain campaign and understand how decisions were made, which should tickle anyone with a social-science bone. We may never get the same insights into the Obama campaign until after his Presidency, just as such reflections are only now turning up about the Bush campaigns.

I've never been convinced by the "four more years of Bush" argument, although McCain's economic policies are boiler plate Neo-Reganism. But according to the NYTimes Magazine, the legacy of the Bush re-election campaign had a critical influence a turning point for the one-time Bush opponent. Steve Schmidt (man of many consonants) ran Bush's re-election rapid response team; he is used to making tough snap decisions in the face of unplanned news. It was a lesson he learned from W himself that has echoed in McCain's campaign:

"The strategists at the meeting — including Schmidt, who was directing the Bush campaign’s rapid-response unit — fretted over their candidate’s sagging approval ratings and the grim headlines about the war in Iraq. Only Bush appeared thoroughly unworried. He explained to them why, polls notwithstanding, voters would ultimately prefer him over his opponent, John Kerry.There’s an accidental genius to the way Americans pick a president, Schmidt remembers Bush saying that day. By the end of it all, a candidate’s true character is revealed to the American people."

By this logic Schmidt pushed for McCain to "suspend his campaign" to seize the financial rescue package negotiations, thereby revealing himself to have "the right stuff". More surprising is the other influential figure in this decision: Bill Clinton. Before leaving for Washington, McCain now famously attended a Clinton Global Initiative ceremony. NYT Mag reports that Schmidt reminded McCain of Clinton's advice to him that day: “If you do the right thing, it might be painful for a few days. But in the long run it will work out in your favor.”

The neurotic family that is the McCain camp included "best friend" Rick Davis, speechwriter Mark Salter, and old flame Chris Murphy, none of whom was ever particularly in control or fond of his brothers. While some believed it to be a necessary pick, the adopted sister in Sarah Palin only added to the dissonance in McCain's tone. As they recognize less and less family resemblance, we see social-conservative Palin partisans forming a separate camp of McCain dissenters.

The laundry list of conservatives, and an extended naval metaphor, is summarized by Charles Krauthammer, who makes the case of McCain's Presidency that the campaign itself couldn't seem to articulate. Politico details unattributed views within the campaign on how the comprehensive message was lost, some of which suggest a general lack of management discipline on the part of McCain himself. This raises questions about the actual executive skill and will McCain can muster, in a project full of leaks and power struggles. Consider the question: who "ran" the McCain campaign?

Finally, the earliest signs of the Maverick's own feelings are in the Washington Times (ironically founded by the Unification Church, no seriously). Thursday, McCain indicated that the state of the race was the result of the eight-year, three-branch Republican administration: "We just let things get completely out of hand." In what should become a seminal interview, McCain decries Bush Admin. spending, signing statements, executive privilege from investigation, and Wall Street favoritism; this is the kind of unequivocal break with Bush that he only feigned before the third debate.

How do you know you've run out of message options? Well, here it is, Obama wants to tax special needs kids.

"Provide for the General Welfare"

Today I spent a few hours at the Lebanon, TN Oktoberfest fall festival. I was peddling my petition for affordable health care (no not socialized/nationalized/Canadian/gummint health care). I encountered the same kind of resistance I've come to expect at public events in suburban TN. Many of these local critics strike a profile very similar to our friend Joe (no not that Joe).

The concerns (politely) of folks in Labanon have three themes (again politely): 1) The bailout, 2) Illegal immigration, 3) Welfare.
The first two are held captive by too many myths and images to list in one note. "Welfare", however, is a grandfather to the list of conservative populist complaints. Its reemergence coincides with the high heat of the Presidential race. "Welfare" and "Socialism" are now appearing in McCain campaign talking points, in reference to Senator Obama's tax plan.

Of course this is only an analogy; Obama does not advocate expanding Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (the actual program of "welfare"). A broader definition of "welfare" could include:

1. Supplemental Security Income from the Social Security Administration to the disabled (commonly "disability").
2. USDA food aid to Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
3. Housing assistance from HUD

But returning to TANF, the program most are referring to when they decry welfare, what are the images these folks have in mind? When the myth is compared to the reality, we may find much less to worry about in the welfare system than, say, corporate tax evasion or petroleum subsidies.

The welfare roles are growing every year.
TANF was created to replace AFDC in 1996 after "welfare reform". That year there were 12,644,915 recipients. By 2000 there were 5,943,450 , in 2004 there were 4,783,887, and in 2007 there were 3,949,009. So TANF has shrunk by roughly 75%.
In budget terms, the Administration of Children and Families (which operates TANF) appropriated (not including hurricane relief) $17,058,625,000 in 2006...and the very same amount in 2008.

People don't get jobs so they can stay on welfare.
TANF's allows only 2 years of benefits without proof of work. The lifetime limit of benefits is 5 years, including time spent working.

Food stamps are wasted/used to buy vices.
Using an income formula, food stamps are available to families up to 130% of the poverty line (around $1,900 per month for a family of 3). The average food stamp benefit works out to $3 per person, per day. To put that in perspective the average US pack of cigarettes is $1.18. How much was lunch today?

Women have children to have more benefits.
The data to debunk this would be a long project, but the image of the welfare mother is evaluated in 1999 UCLA research. It will make you think twice about how journalists and faux journalists discuss welfare, gender, and race.

A Word on Inspirations and Purpose

I've decided to start this new journal for two basic reasons: first to record my academic (and hopefully professional) projects in sustainable economic development and also to stay in touch with as many as possible when I'm working away from home.

The title I have adapted from a Wendell Berry poem Do Not Be Ashamed. Until this year I had not read Berry, though I had meant to for a while. In preparing for my internship at the Maya Mountain Research Farm, I have been reading his collection of essays The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. Within ten pages, I was impressed by his sense of unapologetic conviction, that only an involved farmer could claim when discussing our relationship to (e)arth. He speaks as a partisan on behalf of our humane instincts and history that challenges the consumerist conventional wisdom. His voice is outside the narrow discourse of ownership (not stewardship), competition (not cooperation), and care (not exploitation).

I could repeat his philosophy for volumes, but when he encounters questions of practical steps toward sustainable social change two related themes emerge. At the most fundamental level, our social reality is determined by personal choices and experiences. As a young student, whose agricultural experience is limited to small scale gardening, this is a challenging idea. It is especially bad news for "experts", perhaps Berry's least favorite title. This is at the heart of why I am going to Belize and what I hope to do after graduation. All the journals and books in the world can't teach me the reality of a farmer or her community.

His second theme is no less challenging. Berry questions the potential of generalized solutions to problems that are perpetuated by individual thought. Conservation organizations, many of which Berry is a venerated member, are not the best hope for social change because they are another division of labor. Instead of changing ones lifestyle to agree with ones convictions, a contribution to an organization of conservation "experts" or "advocates" is sometimes used as an offset, even a penance. Institutions, to Berry, are shaped by culture which in turn is expressed by individuals and families. Changing the head of the EPA might affect a standard here or a regulation there, but the real threat to sustainable farming and the unrelenting threat to the earth is our alienation from it. As a student of government and institutions, this challenges my reflexive dependence on organization and legislation, to think more broadly about our culture and my own lifestyle.

Over the next month I'll have a lot to think over. The tension between my interest in the "theory" of sustainable agriculture and need for experience will be playing out for sometime. I won't hold my breath for any conclusions on the concepts I've only started to hack into above, but maybe I'll get some vague direction, before too many bills need to be paid.