Letter on Anti-Partisan Principles for Candidates and Elected Officials

Two problems inspired the aspiration to generate systemic change in my country: gerrymandering and economic exploitation. My interests are to make the gerrymandering of political districts less effective in subverting the wishes of voters, and in figuring out how to permanently bar the exploitation of the majority of people for the unbridled greediness of the wealthiest. Four principles have emerged that can help remedy the two problems (Individualized Equity, Human Rights, Citizens overcoming corporate interests, and Ending Exploitation) and they can be reached by a few unconventional methods. 

The four principles begin with scrapping the concept of equality and replacing it with Individualized Equity. My thinking behind this principle is further detailed in a blogpost, but can be summarized by a few concepts. Equality can never be achieved. Seeking equality is a lie. The pursuit of equality has for centuries been a point of contention between groups, If these groups were not competing to gain status and access over each other, they might not recent each other, and could be more successfully living in harmony. Through democracy, we should be striving for individualized equity, where each person identifies one’s own potential and multi-year goals, and society (with and partially through government) sets up the environment and supports to uplift each person, in their “relational lives.” We have the technology and the intellect to set up systems that serve towards the improvement of each individual, such as big data, programs of equity, and focusing first on serving people who live behind socially-created barriers. The concept of Intersectionality is edifying in this. If we can devise (as an example) housing policies that first aim to serve people living behind the intersections of multiple barriers (such as survivors of domestic violence, those experiencing food insecurity, those who were offered poor educational options, those facing racial discrimination). When successful in serving people at those intersections, then people facing fewer barriers or no barriers could benefit from the same policies. We are not aiming to serve the majority first and later dealing with the outliers. Instead, we validate the outliers’ experiences in devising comprehensive policies at the outset. What is key is that governments and public officials stop viewing citizens through identity groups, and instead see all people as unique individuals.

Second, Human Rights are only advanced by bringing more people to conscientiously express their Civil Liberties in a Civil Society. People can not stand on a street corner and simply cry out for their human rights, and expect to receive that respect and endowment. A Civil Society must exist first between members of a community or a province or a nation. Within such a Civil Society, the citizens must take responsibility for their actions and for their neglect of issues. “Personal responsibility cannot exist without liberty, and liberty will not endure without responsibility.” Their enhanced expression of Civil Liberties will then allow them to advance and nurture the Human Rights of their society.

At this moment in the history of democracies, there is such a fractious nature to our communities and political discourse, that partisans are constantly suspicious of the advances of opposing groups. If the LGBTQ+ community claims a victory, then the Evangelicals see it as a loss in their status and in their political ambitions. If women see gains in proportional income relative to men, the men wonder if their income potentials are relatively diminished. If the Right advances, then the Left is set back, like feet attempting the steps of walking while on a pogo stick. That pogo stick is partisanship. Civil Liberties can not be fully expressed if the opposing partisans decry those who are expressing their Civil Liberties. What is needed is an abandonment of the partisan thinking, and the abandonment of identity politics. If candidates and public officials came forward demonstrating Anti-Partisan Principles, then we could see Individualized Equity and Human Rights both advanced. Anti-Partisan officials would work to advance the individuals within their political districts and nations, and would commit to not shore up the power-seeking efforts of political parties, nor of identity groups.

In line with these first two anti-partisan principles would be a third: the dismantling of corporate efforts to influence ballot measures, elections and voting. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the rights to free speech as people, but this does not mean the corporations are citizens. Our views and laws on campaigning and on donating to election campaigns and to offering a voice on political matters specifically excludes non-citizens. Corporations are non-citizens. Anti-partisan officials would work to end the influence of internationally-owned corporations, end their influence in having any voice in the decisions of the nation’s citizens who are to carry out their elections and vote on ballot measures and candidates for public offices.

This seems quite obvious. Internationally owned corporations aim to increase world profits for themselves, and are not primarily concerned for the best outcomes of our nation. Their intentions are more than slightly suspect. Corporations are fictions, popularized in the 1400's as a way of spreading out the financial risks when the merchant classes wanted to profit from colonization. The owner(s) of a ship could sell shares in the potential profits from exploiting expeditions to the colonies. If the ship was lost, the owners had the money from the sale of shares to better secure their finances. If the ship returned with riches, the ship owners profited the most. How does this origin in colonization suffice in raising the fiction of a corporation to any level of personhood??

Plus, their foreign stockholders may sway a corporation against the best interests of the nation. Such business ventures are not so risky as in the 1400’s sailing expeditions. Corporate profitability is now largely without doubt. Instead of mitigating risks, their efforts in the halls of governments are to ensure greater and growing abilities to exploit the economy and market places and the consumers/citizens, and the systems that are supposed to be enhancing the lives of citizens.  As non-citizens, corporations should be excluded from influencing our voting.  As a second moral conflict, if one corporate officer holds board membership in three other corporations, then that one person potentially may amplify one opinion five times more than other citizens. The interests of these non-citizen corporations is drowning out the opinions of citizens.

One of the bedrock principles of democracy is that citizens can not and should not be alienated from their rights. When the courts provided for corporations to speak on a plain equal to citizens, this did literally alienate citizens from our rights. When legislators at the city, county, state, and federal levels all concede to the opinions of corporate interests over the needs of citizens, they too capitulate to the this alienation of our rights, of the rights of citizens. The only way to reverse this degradation of democracy is to bring in new legislators who will work to reclaim those rights as exclusively owned and exercised by the citizens. Such candidates and such public officials can not be working to shore up the power of parties, parties that benefit from the patronage of corporations, parties that seek out the lobbying efforts and funding of corporate interests and foreign actors. The candidates we need to stand up with these first three principles must be Anti-Partisan.

My fourth principle is the one I have been studying the longest, to end economic exploitation. Again, we must recognize the workings of corporations and smaller businesses as providing the engines, the settings for the creation of value in our economies. They are highly efficient, in locating the inputs, innovations, organizing principles, suppliers, real and financial capital, and THE employees with the talents, skills, work ethic and time to create value within their business enterprises. Please note, that all the inputs, innovations, organizing principles, real and financial capital are inert without the employees who create the value. Even as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) take larger roles within business enterprises, still the employees are the ones creating the value as they work within the settings, settings that may include robotics and AI.

Our economies work primarily because of mutual benefit between the employer and the employee (or between the buyer and the seller). The employee benefits from every “transaction” with the employer by receiving paychecks and other benefits (health insurance, financial backing for retirement and/or disability, price discounts, camaraderie in the workplace, prestige and a sense of contributing, etc.). Within the setting of a business enterprise, each employee can generate value to a greater degree than by working alone, outside such an enterprise. Within that same “transaction,” an employer receives the created value which can be part of a composition of merchandise and/or services that can be exchanged on the market for money. In a successful business, the money generated ought to be enough to pay the employee, and pay for the inputs, innovations, organizing principles, suppliers, real and financial capital, but must also be seen as generating a profit over the expenses. Any business that does not eventually generate a profit will fail to exist, ending the mutual benefit between employee and employer.

The employee is taking advantage of the employer in every transaction, and the employer is taking advantage of the employee in every transaction. There can be mutuality in this relationship.

There can develop points of exploitation in this relationship too. When the profits grow to be so immense, and the employees do not realize proportional gains, there could be exploitation. Where the dividing line is, between take advantage and exploitation, I can not be sure. Owing to individualized equity, defining the point of exploitation may be too difficult. I do believe there is an obvious point at which exploitation can be understood by every citizen.

The manufacture of a pickup truck is highly complex and full of created value. By created value, I mean that employees (working within the businesses of the suppliers) fashion all the parts that arrive at an assembly line, and there is great value in all of those parts. All those parts enter the final assembly line, and after 22 to 25 hours of work, hard and intense labor, has been provided to each truck by a large team of employees on the assembly line, then a completed pickup truck comes out at an average cost of $50,000 (valued in 2024 U.S. dollars). (The selling price will be higher since profits need to yet be claimed by the manufacturing company and the dealership and possibly other businesses). That $50,000 pickup truck represents a great deal of and varied contributions of created value by legions of employees, up and down corporate organizations from around the world.

Wide majorities of citizens might understand that if there is any one person in the economy that claims to deserve a paycheck, claims to deserve a full income package of more than $50,000 per day, that person must be exploiting in some way. How can one person honestly claim to have created enough value from a day’s efforts that would surpass the value of a new pickup truck and provide profit margins for one’s employing business? And even more incredulously, how could such a person claim that same level of income for every day of the year?

Multiplying $50,000 times 300 workdays a year (take two weeks off for vacation and one day off each weekend), an annual income of $15 million per year could be a cap for everyone in the economy. If an individual income cap were instituted for the entire economy, then there would be less reason to exploit the employees, less reason to exploit the customers, less reason to exploit the financial systems that are created to serve the whole nation, less reason to send resources to off-short tax havens, less reason to exploit deficit spending (taxation of future generations without representation – violating another bedrock of democracy), less reason to exploit the halls of government, less reason to exploit the planet and third-world nations and their people. If we change the incentives of the wealthiest classes, then their behavior will change.

Anti-partisan candidates and officials can back multi-faceted efforts to institute an individual income cap. If we moderate the power of Property Rights, then Civil Liberties and Human Rights can gain in their expressions and prominence. The ideal here is not to depend upon philanthropy nor on taxation to reach this income cap. If economic exploitation is the basis for gathering enough money to pay the taxes or to make the donations, then we are not ending the exploitation. Instead, we need to rely upon John Munkirs’ and others’ understanding of how corporate boards have interlocked with each other in the decisions they make. Once a critical mass of corporate boards institute an income cap, then their influence with more and more boards can popularize the income cap. After that acceptance, then governments can codify the standards on an income cap and encourage broader implementations. 

For these principles to come into practice, candidates need to be elected. Seen among other independent candidates, the anti-partisan candidates need to stand out and be supportive of each other without forming a third party. Again, the emphasis is not to empower any party or identity group, but instead to empower the voters (Individualized Equity, Human Rights, Citizens overcoming corporate interests, and Ending Exploitation). Also, anti-partisan candidates cannot be the spoilers in any district elections -- they must be intent on winning! 

In view of that charge to never be a spoiler, anti-partisan candidates will do best in districts that are considered safe for a majority party due to the gerrymandering of that district. Where for years, only one party has been able to win, there the opportunities are richest! Voters who have traditionally supported the minority party candidates will be able leave behind the party that can never win due to gerrymandering, and cast ballots for the anti-partisan candidate with the systemic change promised. Disaffected voters and some independent voters too will support the anti-partisan candidate. And some who have traditionally voted for a majority party can be persuaded by policy stands of the anti-partisan candidate. The majority of votes are within reach for well managed, anti-partisan campaigns. 

In districts where two traditional parties are truly battling it out, let them spend resources on those hard fought districts. That habits of concentrating on a few battlegrounds will allow the anti-partisan candidate to build up support and surprise the most comfortable of office holders, those who are most complacent and expect to give little effort to recapturing their seats. 

You may know of individuals who would like to see and even play a part in systemic change and in truly advancing the ongoing "experiment in self-governance" which was pioneered by 13 colonies that declared independence from the United Kingdom. Please offer input and criticism to the ideas formulated here. Then you might offer the matured ideas to potential candidates for office, in Democrat dominated districts and in Republican dominated districts. I will be exploring these ideas with two groups in particular: The Good Party and the Indivisible. May you have the best of fortune!

Review of Greed as Seen as a "god" in Telling of the Irritated Genie

Jacob H. Carruthers accomplishes a great deal of instruction and explanation of history in his short essay, book, The Irritated Genie: An Essay on the Haitian Revolution. This is the sort of book that every historian and everyone interested in understanding the other side of a historic epoch would thrill at reading and exploring in discussions with other readers, and those informed about this 1650’s through 1820 time period in colonialist world history.

Carruthers is masterful at winding several different themes into the telling of this history. The book truly is PACKED with material to pace through and consider. The dramatic interplay between the Irritated Genie and the Phantom of Liberty became the headliner, as the people of that time period on the island weighed their own personal and family visions versus the leadership. Bookman, Toussiant, Dessalines and others leaders roles are portrayed in the book, including the many heroes, as Carruthers described on page 77: “Indeed, this final phase of the war was fought by all the people of Haiti and while the leaders discussed here are male and well known, there were hundreds, even thousands of leaders and heroes, many of them women.”

Page 80: “What Dessalines emphasized is that the people cannot depend even on their leaders to give and maintain their liberty, they themselves must be committed to it. . . . ‘It is upon your constancy and courage I depended on when I first entered the career of liberty to fight despotism’.” People do have liberty to choose between their own visions and the visions of their leaders. Through history, readers get to decide if the people did well in their application of liberty.

Most troubling to me in my own study of current events and politics is the hatred people have and use as a basis for action towards other groups, and actually limiting the potential of their own groups. Carruthers helps us to see the obviously expressed and acted out hatred of French, British, Spanish, American and other whites upon the inhabitants of the island. Those whites based everything on slavery and upon their understanding of white supremacy. They were wrong. The Black, Mulatto and Colored leaders of Haiti showed the greatest progress in military triumphs when they relied upon a singled-minded, reciprocal hatred that Carruthers found in the speeches of some of those leaders and repeated throughout the book: Race Vindication.

Today, human hatred for other groups is expressed in “dog whistles” and subtly, so Race Vindication can not always be justified. We, today, must find other ways to teach and “love the hatred out” of those who base their lives on any degree of hatred and group discrimination. The inhabitants of Haiti had no other recourse. In the examples Carruthers offered, when a leader did draw back from Race Vindication, the French most prominently and other whites resumed victimizing the Blacks, Mulattos and Colored people. This victimization often heightened the recalled vengeance and hatred tantamount to maintaining white supremacy. Those crimes against the island inhabitants were answered with retribution as the Race Vindication waved again as the flag for that island full of heroes to pursue, as they rose again and again to embody the Irritated Genie.

Yet the focus of my review of this book is on the theme Carruthers first details on page 23 based on a speech given by Bookman Dutty:

“Bookman is asserting that white culture and Black culture were diametrically opposed to each other. That is, the motive force of white culture as embodied in his concept of god inspires one of crime, i.e., brutal exploitation of human beings, slavery, plunder, destruction of nature, just for power and wealth and [some] pathological impulse to master everything. Saint Domingue [French name given to the island] was a living example of the correctness of Bookman’s assessment. When Bookman implored the Black group assembled at the celebration of Ogun ‘throw away the symbol of the god of the whites’, he was doing more than spewing forth militant rhetoric, he was setting forth the first principle of Black revolutionary commitment, which had inspired the historic rebellion on the island. The white god inspires one to get as high on the pyramid of power and wealth as possible, by any means necessary, because Eurocentric success is not just liberty in the ordinary African sense but necessitates dominion as an essential ingredient of the good life. . . . As long as the motive force of Black revolt was imitation of the ‘success’ syndrome, revolution was impossible. Thus, ‘throw away the image of the god of the whites who has so often brought us to tears’ was a demand and a warning to those Blacks who had been given privileged positions relative to the masses of Blacks. Those who are motivated by those phantoms of individual freedom were admonished to abandon fantasy and join the true struggle for freedom.”

Bookman and Carruthers are not talking here about a religious god, not talking about the Christian God. They seem to direct their ire at the ethos of Europeans to gain status and wealth through “crime, i.e., brutal exploitation of human beings, slavery, plunder, destruction of nature, just for power and wealth and [some] pathological impulse to master everything.” While hatred against others has moved for us to subtle expressions, our modern world crimes committed to gain status and personal wealth, and “to get as high on the pyramid of power and wealth as possible, by any means necessary” still happen in the open, and what Carruthers offers in the story of Haiti in that respect can be mapped onto our current day culture. There is just as vicious an ethos in the unrestrained quest for wealth in our market economy.

My own study is asking if, today, we can ask those on the quest to claw their ways up the pyramid to #RegulateGreed and join a true struggle for community, civil society and democracy by abandoning the fantasy that is part of conspicuous consumption and seeking status through gross amounts of wealth and income?

Reading from page 31: The aims of some island inhabitants “represented a different philosophy fed by an attitude of the supremacy of the European way of life, including contempt for the Black masses and a desire on the part of these new leaders to retire and live the good life as the whites did.” Yes, some leaders in Haiti were supportive of enslaving the masses of other island inhabitants, with some excuses that rang of the patriarchal ugliness of many white supremacists. The stories are repeated in Carruthers’ book: for some Haitian leaders, if they saw an opening, saw an indication from white representatives, that one’s own aspirations for the “good life” could be attained by walking away from the revolutionary efforts, when they gave in to their individual greed would find themselves dupped into being subjugated by the whites once again. They were not serving themselves by these lapses in judgement and lapses in loyalty, while the fuller revolutionary movements were set back by their acceptance of deceptions.

Page 62 offers a specific example: Toussaint’s “…rejection of certain fundamental dimensions of reality was due to his philosophy – a philosophy that was dictated by a desire to share in the world created by the oppressors.” Once Toussaint reached a plateau in his military objectives, he thought that the French Generals understood that Blacks were fully entitled to the “good life.” He then expected the French to accept him and his programs for equality and liberty. Toussaint accepted their invitation to sail to France. There, he did not obtain an opportunity to represent his people. He was not offered respect in any way. Instead, he was imprisoned and left to starve to death.

Following Toussaint’s extradition to France, Dessalines commanded the armies of Haiti to continue striving towards independence as the Irritated Genie pursuing Race Vindication. Dessalines’ strategy included the total destruction of the coastal cities, leaving the French with little of value to protect and little fortification for their protection. Page 81: “This of course meant sacrifice [for the upper classes of the inhabitants, those who envisioned adopting the European way of life]. The cities were places of luxury and seats of the good life for many – so in burning them to the ground many of the more prosperous Blacks had to sacrifice their homes, their lifestyles. However total war meant total sacrifice. As Dessalines said of his own sacrifice: ‘I have sacrificed everything to fly to your defense – parents, children, fortune, and am now only rich in your liberty.’ (Rainsford. P. 446).”

Once Dessalines succeeded through his philosophy, leadership and strategy to secure independence for Haiti, this level of greed rose up again and seems to have contributed to the downfall of the nation he devised, and this level of greed contributed to his assassination.

Dessalines was growing the public domain of land ownership, under his new government, to the frustration of the previously privileged families. Picking up at the bottom of page 100 and continuing on page 101: “He often queried ‘what of the poor Blacks whose fathers were born in Africa?’ This was the central issue of governance in Haiti and the one which ultimately doomed the Dessalines constitution and brought about his assassination and the chronic disease of Haitian history. The Men of Color and many of the Black military elite wanted to gobble up the property at the expense of the masses. . . . In truth the struggle was between two [groups of] elites who were and are still clinging to the likeness of the god of the whites.”

My assessment is that today the central issue causing the greatest distress throughout nations and societies can be described as that same “chronic disease . . . [where] elite wanted to gobble up the property at the expense of the masses . . . .” The very richest and most powerful people in our world are competing with each other for status and wealth and discarding any respect for the lives of the masses. The masses must labor -- there is no other way to live in our world, there is no chance of substance farming or isolating yourself from the modern economic realities. Laboring in our corporate and market-based world means that the masses are only slightly compensated for the value they create. The economic value created by the masses gets siphoned up into the corporate structures ensuring that the corporations can demonstrate profits and distribute those profits (possible only because of the value created by the masses) are the evidence of economic exploitation that feeds the richest, as they continue the chronic disease.

Taxing the rich to have levels of government redistribute the economic value will not make a difference, as the rich restrain the government to do as little as possible along with the demonstrated inefficiencies of governments. Philanthropy cannot make any dent in the crises created by this chronic disease, since the oppressors exploit in excess and then only offer pocket change attempting to make amends. And the poor cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps when there are not enough resources left over after the exploits of the richest.

Just as Bookman and Dessalines implored the privileged people of Haiti to sacrifice for the betterment of the whole country, by some methods, current societies and nations need to implement systemic changes, changes that have the richest people limit their love of money, while maintaining interest in innovating and leading.

Seven Lessons on Democracy from a Meme

The following graphic provides us seven different lessons, seven specific lessons about democracy and about how we need to rethink our approach to democracy. 

Equity is preferred over equality. That is the lesson on the surface of this meme. We have outgrown Thomas Jefferson's ideal of equality, and equity is preferred. In the US Declaration of Independence, he offered "all . . . are created equal. . . ." and with that, he set for us a goal, a goal to achieve equality by way of this American Experiment in democratic self-governance. Yet we know that he was being dis-ingenuous. His expectation was to have more and more numbers agreeing to pursue equality so that more and more would vote and participate in the revolution to legitimize this new nation. He needed the common shopkeeper to feel empowered to vote and participate and to own this government as much as the wealthy landowner. Jefferson and all the founders of the nation needed the sailors and the day laborers to seek the changes away from monarchies as much as those who were educated in the law and advancing the arguments of the Enlightenment. To call upon all to be equal was emphasizing that all had Liberty, all had the freedom to act and to be responsible for their actions and to see their votes and their contributions as cumulatively building up a new nation.  

Jefferson's deficiency was that he did not think that equality included women, nor Black Americans, nor people of the First Nations of America, nor people with disabilities, and so many other groups were excluded from his conceptions of who deserved equality. He, and the systems of governance and the laws that followed only expected property-owning, able-bodied white men to be granted equality with each other. We have obviously outgrown that conception of equality. As we approach 250 years of attempting to reach equality, we can see that equality can never be accomplished (lesson 3). We need to discard that goal for our nation (and all nations), and substitute in another goal, equity. 

Equity means that people get what they deserve as fellow humans. Equity provides all with decency and respect as afforded by their nation's highest aspirations and wealth. Equity means that people get what they need in pursuing their "relational life" potential (credit to David Brooks' video at https://youtu.be/iB4MS1hsWXU?si=i06vohQlew16K1PT), more opportunities and greater freedom. Some have called this the American Dream, but we can see that claiming ones own potential through equity can be applied to every Democracy on the planet. From this meme, we understand that equality is not serving us well enough. Equality is not serving every voter because every voter doesn't want the same thing. Every voter doesn't want to achieve the same outcomes for their lives. Equity is a fitting substitute.  

Lesson 2: Equality actually leads to wasted resources, government waste appearing high among the wastes from the pursuit of equality. We are producing services and products through our governmental offices that not all people want. What some people find are wastes of time from our government, inefficiencies from governments. Those are "at the moment" wastes. 

Lesson 3: Much worse than wasting materials and time in a moment, the quest for equality has created horrible disappointments for numerous citizens of our nations. These types of disappointments lead to wasted futures. In contrast to Jefferson's supposed hope that more and more people would feel empowered through equality, instead people wish to drop out of our systems of government because of the disappointments created and repeated. Our understanding of the importance of equality has led to apathy and fewer people wanting to be involved or be served by governments and their agencies. "Why participate in such systems????"

The models we have for delivering equality are actually delivering disappointments on a regular basis to too many of our citizens. We have  been trampling future potentials with our quest for equality, and the systems are delivering a loss of faith in community and governmental efforts. The mandate to offer equality has nearly blinded our agencies from seeing the actual needs of many citizens. Our agencies and the following of our laws requires that all people are treated the same, when individuals need to be seen for their widely varying needs. You would not offer an adult serving of steak dinner to an infant who requires mother's milk or nutritious formula. The call is for equity, not equality. 

Meanwhile, people are understanding that equality was never an attainable goal. Equality was always some aspiration to be reached by future generations. If we want to offer more satisfaction in our lives, we need to offer equity so each person can reach short-term goals and actually reach the "relational life" potential that each person sees in their image of their future self.  Knowing this, we can more easily scrap the sayings of "Equality before the Law" or "Equality through Affirmative Action" or "Equality is the soul of Liberty." Pretty much all that we have considered the bedrock of our laws and government can be critically reviewed knowing that equality can never be reached. How differently will we pursue the writing of laws and governmental programs if we are aspiring toward equity, and turning the efforts and expected outcomes to the needs of each individual citizen?

Lesson 4: The drive for equality leads to over supplies in our economy, over supplies of things that people do not even want. Think of all the substandard housing projects standing inside of major cities, or training and dead-end jobs offered to the unemployed, or platitudes offered to those who are economically destitute. Think of the services from unemployment offices, when people need better counselling and appraisals of the hiring markets and career futures. What equality efforts create are products that are valued less than the cost to produce and distribute them. The term of "underwater" has recently come into use for people who own houses that are worth less than the mortgages that financed those purchases. For how long have government agencies been "underwater," costing more to serve the public than the value of what results? 

Lesson 5: The very idea of equality rests on a way of thinking, a paradigm that says people can be divided into groups. Then if we deliver equal services and goods to each group, then our government services have done enough to fulfill its roles. These classifications of groups seemingly exist regardless of the needs of the individuals, regardless of the problems being solved.  This is the error of Identity Politics.

With Identity Politics, if the Blacks wish to achieve equality, that equality is measured against what the majority race is achieving. But wait! In our nation, there is too much of a belief in the zero-sum game. If Blacks advance in comparison to whites, then by the zero-sum game's rules, that means that whites have lost something: status or standing or something in comparison to the Blacks. The same thinking would apply to women advancing in comparison to men, or for people with disabilities advancing with comparison to people without disabilities, or with Gen Z advancing when compared to older generations, or when rural citizens advance in comparison to urban and suburban citizens. And worst of all is the expression of Partisan Politics as a form of Identity Politics. The Republicans see a win for the Democrats as an automatic loss for their party. By all means available, the Republicans must thwart the efforts of the Democrats at scoring any win. And the Democrats can think the same and act the same towards Republicans. This is tearing apart our experiment with self-governance.

The problem with Identity Politics in applying the ideal of equality is the actual mentality of Identity Politics. If the public is led to believe in the idea of 'us against them', then we can not advance as a nation. Instead we can merely pivot in place like a person trying to walk while standing on a pogo stick: right foot advances only by pushing back the left foot, then when the left foot advances, the right foot falls back, repeated over and over through successive legislative sessions of pivot and pivot. 

If Identity Politics bleeds over to the application of equity, over to systems meant to deliver equity, then equity too will fail the citizens/voters/people. The systems needed to face today's challenges can not simply group people together based on some external markers, regardless of the people's needs and desires, and then call it equity when offering equality within the Identity Groupings.

We must give up on the concept of Identity Politics. We must stop ourselves from identifying one's own success with the success of a group, or possibly more importantly, thinking the defeat for a group as being a defeat for oneself. 

These are five lessons of rejection, lessons that tell us what not to ascribe to, what not to aspire to. We can reject equality, and we can reject Identity Politics as it applies to equity. Can we find in this graphic a positive lesson? Can we discern some directions and understandings about what democracy can be aiming to achieve? 

Lesson 6: If we wish to rule out the quest for equality, then historians and sociologists tell us we must replace such a central promise with some other promise. Individual Equity can be such a replacement promise. We have the intelligence and we have the technology to offer Individual Equity. Examples are available from commercial businesses, and from some government initiatives, just as IEPs (Individual Education Plans) are offering in our school districts. 

My own family shops at one grocery chain, mainly. That grocery chain no longer expects us to clip coupons out of the newspaper. Instead, they use our purchasing history to understand unique features about our household and future buying patterns. With that individualized data, mixed into the big data they collect on thousands of customers over millions of shopping experiences, the grocery chain can deliver to our household the coupons and the special announcements that meet our equity, individualizing what our household receives as different from the services provided to other customers. 

With Individual Education Plans, a classroom teacher, or a diagnostic specialist, or a parent/family member can call for special attention for an individual student. The IEP calls together a support group for that one student, including the student as a fully endowed member in one's own support group. With diverse information and with promises of specific roles being fulfilled by the support group members, the student receives an insightful assessment, plans for effective services and instruction tailored to the student's needs and goals. Equity can be achieved in short-term measures and in reaching for long-term visions. 

In another striking example from our governments, the America's with Disabilities Act provided for equity in the building of public spaces and buildings. When public servants and officials finally realized that our buildings were creating barriers to people who were living in wheelchairs, then we could see that the barriers were the problems! Disabilities are not causing problems, the barriers we erect as a society are causing the problems. By providing appropriate and dedicated parking, by designing ramp access, automated doors, and wide doorways as the norm, when providing bathrooms with adequate space, the ADA compliant buildings were actually serving all people better, not only advancing the needs and opportunities of the people with disabilities. Parents with children were better served. People temporarily dealing with painful joints were better served. People walking hand-in-hand were better served. Security measures were better served, and those working to serve the public were better served. 

So many of the instances where people need equity are about looking to see what barriers are keeping them from their potential.  Delivering services of equity improve the lives of all people. We need not aim to serve the majority and let the others catch up -- no, we can serve all when we think through the lens of Individual Equity.

Lesson 7: The ideal of equality from the 1770's seems to be well served by the assembly line that was adopted in the 1920's. The model of the assembly line became the way of approaching many issues throughout our society. Materially, the assembly line that Henry Ford incorporated into his car manufacturing provided equality to each vehicle: equal attention, equal parts, equal service. Analogously, for vast majorities who went through education systems, basically as children moved along the assembly lines in grades, the expectation was to have the same curriculum poured into their minds. If the education did not take, then the system supporters could blame the children for failing. The supporters could excuse themselves from seeing that the system was failing the children. Might similar types of self-imposed blindness have occurred for systems that delivered drivers' licenses, unemployment services, housing assistance, vaccinations; in government services and bureaucracies widely?

The seventh lesson is that we need a complete change to our way of thinking, and systemic changes throughout our society if we are to divorce ourselves from those first numbered five false promises that have formed a basis for democracy over the past 250 years. Each of us needs to stop thinking of people in their manufactured Identity Groupings, and stop ourselves from characterizing every challenge as 'us against them'. We are not living out a movie of bad guys versus good guys. We are not attempting to walk while standing on a pogo stick. We are in community with each other and we need to see that our community lives are very complex and each individual has potential and barriers that are absolutely unique from other individuals. 

To lead us into this Systemic Change, I believe we need Anti-Partisan business and agency leaders, and elected officials. To define the Anti-Partisan, let us first give examples from our elected officials. Currently, the major parties are a refuge for politicians. They can find safety in numbers, and can turn to national leaders to layout some overarching platforms and legislative goals for their followers. Then the parties compromise with each other. This system works to build the power of the parties, and each candidate and elected official needs to commit to building the power of the parties. Party Politics is a subset of Identity Politics and relies upon Identity Groupings. 

The Anti-Partisan candidate would not contribute to building up the power of any national party, but would rather work to build up the potentials of the individuals living in ones district. Driven by the goal of reaching Individual Potential, the Anti-Partisan candidate would work to set up systems of big data to understand how best to serve the individuals. Part of the data collected would be in understanding the barriers that intersect in people's lives, and design programs and legislation that better allows government services primarily to serve people who are living behind those intersections of barriers.  No longer would programs be designed to serve the majority first (as defined by identity groups), but rather the primary aim would be programs that reach behind the barriers. If programs can genuinely and successfully serve the people who are "outliers" from the majority, who are living behind multiple barriers, then those programs will succeed in serving all citizens, all people. With the support of such systems, within community settings that amplify individual potentials, then each person can aim to reach ones goals, within individually determined time-frames, and we can see the rising tide in the rise of all individuals.    

Similar outcomes can be extrapolated to workplaces and employment, and to the services provided by the non-profit world and by the government agencies. 

a path toward Systemic Change

The Reverend Dr. King would have said something like: 'Oh, my friends, our aim must be not to defeat Mr. Bernard Arnault and his family, not to defeat Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison or Elon Musk. Our aim must be to defeat the evil that’s in them [the evil that is in the systems supporting exorbitant income gaps]. But our aim must be to win the friendship of Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison and Elon Musk. We must come to the point of seeing that our ultimate aim is to live with all men as brothers and sisters under God, and not be their enemies....'

In 1957, Dr. King laid out four lessons for overcoming oppression. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/mlk_birth.html 

We need to apply Dr. King's lessons in bringing about systemic change. We will not succeed by simple-mindedly taxing the rich, nor by following the Democrats' formula, nor by defensively hiding from change like Conservatives! Dr. King's lessons can be applied, and we can reach for systemic change by reaching for the following goals. 

1. Let us overcome identity politics (also called partisan politics). In identity politics a win for the others is seen as a loss for me. Scrap identity politics! Individual equity and reaching for individual potential should be universal aims, not equality among identity groups. We will never reach equality for all identity groups. The battles between identity groups simply means that society is endlessly pivoting. The goals of governments at all levels and of communities need to center on improving the settings for reaching individual achievements and on enriching the possibilities of the lives of people. Meanwhile, for a person to reach one's potential does not cancel out the possibilities of any others. Unlike the unending quest for equality, individual equity is possible based on each person setting and reaching goals within yearly spans, and incrementally coming closer to the ideal version one envisions for oneself. 

2. Corporations are not citizens of any one nation, they are owned internationally. We do not allow foreign citizens to advertise and campaign on ballot measures and elections. Those are meant solely for the nation's citizens. Stop the corporations from influencing our votes too. Drive out their money! Their money and their intentions are directing our nation to do the bidding of corporate investors. Our governments, our legislatures and agencies need to bound to the best interests of the citizens.

3. Achieve an annual income cap, possibly at $15 million per person. With a 100% tax on all earnings after the first $15 million per year, we can change the incentives throughout the economy. No one will want to pay such a tax. What employers had ear-marked for excessive income can be kept by businesses. Then businesses can efficiently use that money in smart ways, smarter than governments can do with the money. And if no one pays the tax on earnings above the income cap, then governments will not get those funds. Those funds (at one time meant for excessive incomes) will also perform for the full economy, rather than being secreted off to some tax haven, stashed away without any productive outcomes.

4. Human Rights can be strengthened in a Civil Society where the exercise of Civil Liberties are encouraged. Thomas Jefferson was wrong to suggest "All . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain, inalienable rights . . . . " God did not give out rights during the lifetimes of Yosef (interpreter of dreams) or of Moses or of Jesus or of Mohammed or of Martin Luther. God did not change and God did not give out rights in the 1770s. People demanded respect from monarchies, and when citizens demonstrated they could be responsible when exercising their Civil Liberties, then Human Rights evolved. Those Rights evolved out of civil societies where civil liberties can be exercised. That is why human rights are in doubt in Myanmar, and Russia and Yemen and North Korea. God is not forsaking those societies. They have not achieved civility, so human rights are in doubt.

WE NEED SYSTEMIC CHANGE like these principles would usher into our nations. Let us tear apart the dominate partisan politics that aim to advance their own parties more than advancing the best interests of their citizens, allow #RegulateGreed to redirect the economies, and #Aim4Equity, individual equity in all that our governments do for citizens.  

What are the orgins of Human Rights?

 

               We should doubt the theology espoused by Thomas Jefferson. In the US Declaration of Independence, he wrote, “…all…are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We can be critical of this assertion that rights are a gift of the Creator.  

               God was not handing out such gifts, not before or after Yosef was first interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, and especially not as Egypt brought nation after nation into slavery. God did not hand out such gifts as Moses led the Israelites out of bondage. The people of Jesus’ time knew little of the freedom of self expression, nor of freedom from fear and want. God did not hand out such gifts during the life time of Mohammad. Nor when 95 theses were nailed to a monastery door. Over all the ages, God has been a constant and has not changed. We need not believe Jefferson who, during the era of the Enlightenment, thought that human rights appeared from the hand of a changed God.  

               And why would we reduce human rights to the status of mere gifts?? All of us have been through the practices of gift giving. When the wrapped package first appears, the recipient acts humble and shows some level of disbelief. The pretty wrapping is dispensed with and the shock and wonderful excitement and gratitude are expressed. Finally, the gift is laid aside, to be put away later on. When the gift is brought back out, the occasion is a special time, not “every day,” and the giver is praised again for the gift. We should not be treating human rights like we treat physical gifts we have received! Human rights are to be part of everyday life, are to be recognized with us at all times, they are something more than a gift.  

               Around December of 1948, speaking about the adoption of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Hernán Santa Cruz of Chile, a member of the Declaration’s drafting sub-Committee, wrote: “…a consensus had been reached as to the supreme value of the human person, a value that did not originate in the decision of a worldly power, but rather in the fact of existing—which gave rise to the inalienable right to live free from want and oppression and to fully develop one’s personality.”  

               From Santa Cruz’s grasp of the matter, rights come into existence simply when a person exists. Are human rights actually provided to every human?? Are human rights hanging in the air at all times, around every human? Let us ask the people of Myanmar in the year 2023. Or ask the people of Russia as they are expected to serve a war that does not benefit but a few Russians. Or check in with those fleeing violence and desperate want in Central American countries as they begin the arduous and unpredictable immigration to the north. Or look to those people living through the strife of Sudan and Ethiopia. Do any of those people see human rights hanging in the air to be enjoyed simply because they are human? Or has God forsaken those people, this omnipresent and omnipotent Creator??

               As gifts or as flowing from the very existence of humans, these both appear to fall short in the role of giving us an origin of human rights, and begs the question, “If we can not be sure of their origins, how can we be secure in protecting and advancing human rights?” 

               From the history of the British Isles, I want to recall the importance of the Magna Carta. This is the start of "a worldly power" that eventually led to human rights. In effect, the Magna Carta was an effort by the noble families to pressure the British King to treat them with civility. Those noble families had suffered from whimsical and indifferent decisions from the King. In their Magna Carta, they demanded that the King stop mistreating them in that way. They were calling for a civil society between the royal family and all their noble families. In the course of their history, the House of Lords was created, in effect expanding the civil society on that exclusive level of community between ruler and nobles. Later a House of Commons was created, giving law-making abilities to a Parliament in British history, again advancing a civil society to even more of that island's population.  

               When Jefferson and his committee drafted the US Declaration of Independence, their demands were actually the result of more than 12 years of efforts to have the mother country in the British Isles treat the colonists better, to treat them in a more civil manner. Since the King and the Parliament were unwilling to heed those requests, the representatives of 13 colonies declared their separation from the colonial power, so they could explore self-governance and the creation of their own civil society.  

               Along with advancing the ideals of what a civil society could be, in each of these historic cases (Magna Carta, Parliament, US Declaration of Independence, UN Universals Declaration), those who demanded to be treated with civility also accepted some growing responsibilities. The responsibilities could be described along different dimensions. Through the Magna Carta, all those noble families promised each other that they would not abandon the principles they had set forth there. If some families had relinquished responsibilities, then the monarch might have moved back to their previous mistreatment of them all. By forming a Parliament, the Lords and the Commons agreed to rules of decorum and how they would stand behind the decisions they agreed to as a body. Building on independent decision making, the United States formed a brand new country that became a model for governments around the world, governments that wanted to aspire to self-governance and overthrow dictators and authoritarian forms of government. By taking up these never-ending responsibilities, those who were experimenting with self-governance, were exercising their civil liberties.  

               The existence of a civil society and the ongoing exercise of civil liberties then appear to be the source of human rights. Nations and other regions of people who cannot depend upon civil society, most probably will not find human rights, nor can they predict when their rights will be reliable. Plus, if no-one is free to exercise their civil liberties, and take responsibility for maintaining the civil society, they too might question how solidified their human rights are.  

               Meanwhile, if a civil society is strong, is reliably based on the institutions within it, and if people do routinely and intentionally exercise their civil liberties (unlike gifts you only bring out for special occasions), then the human rights can be offered to even those who can not exercise their civil liberties: infants, those with severe disabilities, new immigrants, people punished by living in cages, etc. 

               From this understanding of human rights, we need to concentrate our self-governing efforts on strengthening and maintaining our civil societies, and we need to recognize the importance of exercising civil liberties and responsibilities. 

Morality not Economics determines when exploitation happens

 

In the science of Economics, is there any way to measure the difference between take-advantage and exploitation, a demarcation between the two, a way of knowing when take-advantage turns into exploitation? I have never seen the articles that mark where the difference is. Yet we know that exploitation goes on in the economy. How do we know when it happens?

We can define take-advantage. The entire market economy works on a basis of take-advantage. When I go to the grocery, I could buy all the ingredients to bake my own loaves of bread. Those loaves would probably cost me $5 each, with my own efforts, my own kitchen, my own dishes to be washed, etc. They would never be as consistently sliced and good as those available from the grocery bakery aisle. The grocery sells loaves of bread for $3.50 each. So I take advantage of the grocery every time I buy a loaf a bread. The loaf of bread that is worth $5 to me sells for so much less than that. 

In that same transaction, the grocery takes advantage of me, the customer, and in a sense every customer. The grocery buys loaves of bread from a bakery, possibly at $2.50 per loaf. So the grocery is making a dollar of revenue greater than the cost of the loaf of bread. This is not profit, just revenue over cost. The grocery still needs to pay for rent, equipment upkeep, employees and their benefits, utilities, and more to keep the business going. Eventually, when all the sales of a week or year are measured against all the costs, the grocery does need to record a profit. If there is no profit, the grocery will go out of business.  The point is that throughout the market economy, every transaction is possible when both the buyer and seller can expect to take advantage and come away with an economic benefit. Think of it, even the bakery takes advantage of every grocery because the loaves of bread they sell might cost them $1.50 each to produce.

Even with employment, the market economy works because both employers and employees take advantage of each other, otherwise the relationships would not be formed. The employees provide their labor, skills, connections, loyalty and so many other possible qualities while creating value for their employers. They receive pay, but pay that is less valuable than what the employer measures as each employee creates. 

for each employee:
paycheck < value created

For the employers, each employee needs to create enough value to justify the paychecks they receive. In fact, if an employer sees that an employee is not pulling ones weight, not creating enough value, then the employer could be expected to fire that employee. An employer can not expect to lose money from an employee not contributing enough, not creating enough value for the business' success.

If the economy were that simple, based only on take-advantage transactions, then we would not expect to ever have recessions or busts or contagion bank failures? Exploitation happens when a person takes home pay excessively greater than the value one creates for their employer without any consequence for that exploitation. The results from systems of exploitation are those economic failures that are occurring so many times within one lifetime. Yet again, how do we measure where the line is crossed between take-advantage and exploitation? 

Exploitation happens when:
individual paycheck >>> value created

There are extreme cases we could identify as exploitation. If those examples can lead science and society to identify the systems of exploitation then ways could be found to possibly reduce the number of economic disasters, or they could be less severe, or . . . how much better? 

Here is an example. When all the parts are gathered at the start of a truck assembly line, there are fantastic amounts of value in the parts themselves. All the metallic alloys, all the tinted, tempered glass, the wiring and electronics, the different forms of plastic, the leather and other materials are all valuable, each on their own. Then think of the design and coordination required between all the parts, think of the engineering value to make the precision parts that integrate into so many systems in the truck. There is value in the designs, for the interior of the truck cabin, for the exterior lines and aero dynamics, for the powerful engine, for the dependability of the braking systems, etc. So many people have contributed their employment in creating value in the safety tests and in the inspections before the parts go into the assembly line. Remember too that modern truck models have variations to make them more attractive to different segments of the buying public. All of those and more considerations go into the value of the parts before the assembly begins. The assembly process itself can take as long as 25 hours for each truck, 25 hours of effort from all the diverse, coordinated and highly skilled teams, robots, automated paint sprayers, more inspectors, plus the utilities required by the assembly plant. In the end, a new pickup truck could cost as much as $50,000 to simply roll off the assembly line. (This is not a reference to the sales price, which would include transportation costs for the final product, and mark ups by the manufacturer and by the auto sales company.) The cost of producing the new pickup truck stands for all the contributions from so many sources, laborers and history, resulting in a $50,000 valuation.

What if there was a person who expected to be paid more than the value of a new pickup truck every working day of a year? Could any of those assembly team members, or anyone who sees the true value of their combined efforts in making a truck, could any such person stretch their imaginations to believe there is anywhere a person who creates more than the value of a new pickup truck, creates more than $50,000 for one’s employer and for the whole economy, every working day of the year??  The comparison is difficult to grasp. 

Could there be a situation where:
paycheck > $50,000 per day = value created by individual per day ??

Let’s be generous. Let’s imagine that a person works so hard and with such talents for 10 hours in each of 300 days a year. That would be an extraordinary, even superhuman effort! Such a person would get two weeks of vacation and only one day off each weekend, but work all the other days. That would allow for 300 days of work in a year. And if deserving of that level of pay, that person would take home more than $15 million per year. Does that level of pay then seem to fit the take-advantage level of market transactions? Or does accepting pay greater than $15 million per year sound like exploitation? Does such an paycheck mean that the individual is exploiting other employees, or exploiting earth systems, or exploiting the financial systems of banking or stock exchanges or some other community system?

In the vocabulary of some Economic theories, people may earn wages or may earn rent. In a sense, if a person invests in publicly traded stocks, and then sells the stock for a profit, those Economic theories might label those profits as rent. And if those profits are highly excessive, they would still be labeled as rent. The definitions offered by this essay are to suggest that maybe there is exploitation if pay rates and incomes for an individual actually total to more than $15 million per year. If the individual did not create value for the economy on levels in excess of $15 million per year, then that person is not participating in the economy through take-advantage transactions, but is exploiting some system or systems, and expecting other people to create enough value to allow for excessive pay rates and not allowing those who did create the value to be compensated for what they created.

If that conclusion is possible for profits from the sale of stocks, then similar arguments can be made about salaries in excess of $15 million per year, and for those who are paid by multiple companies to combine different sources of pay to exceed $15 million per year. If an executive for one corporation receives more pay by sitting on three boards for other corporations, could there be exploitation? With one set of knowledge, that person is assisting four corporations to garner value from extensive numbers of employees who are not being paid for all the value they create. Instead the value from underpaid employees is synergized and siphoned up to be paid to board members and executives and individual investors, adding to systems of exploitation.

To be more specific, John Munkirs studied and wrote about the Interlocks between Western corporations and industries that create organically operating Central Planning Mechanisms. The Interlocks result from every corporate board needing members who are aware of some facets of the suppliers and their plans, and of the customers and their plans. So customer corporations and supplier corporations offer the most strategically valuable members to have on a corporate board. Not only do those corporations have relationships with each other, their very decision models require that they interlock with each other, coordinate to ensure that each corporation around those Interlocks is succeeding. If one corporation starts to fail, it could mean an interruption in the supplies of other corporations. So if there is exploitation occurring, the Interlocks work to ensure all are creating exploitations and benefiting financially.

If some chain of morality could start to question the exploitation, then could the interlocks start a process where more and more corporations agree to work against exploitation?

An influential enough customer could possibly start this questioning of the exploitation. The governments of self-governing societies could require a cap on individual incomes from among those who sell to the governments. If defense contractors, and utilities, and state-sanctioned monopolies, and medical providers, and other industries that rely so heavily on government contracts and purchases could be brought to accept individual income caps, then their interlocks with other corporations and industries could reach some critical mass and start to undermine the systems of exploitation.

This does not suggest that corporate boards and executives give up any fiduciary responsibilities. The corporations and industries should continue to compete in the market economy and collect revenues greater than costs and demonstrate their capacity for profits at the same level as before any individual income caps. But since those corporations will not be paying their board members and executives and individual investors as much money, the corporations will have to find other uses for those funds. Simply put, those funds could be used to investigate where exploitation had been occurring, leading to stopping most forms of and systems of exploitation. Gender pay gaps could be ended. Greater safety, accident prevention and advanced training could be sought. Innovations could be developed. Those funds that use to line the pockets of top executives, or that were destined for overseas tax havens, could be repurposed as the corporations and business sense sees as profitable and beneficial to the long-term life of their companies. The emphasis would not be so heavily focused on short-term profits, but rather on long-term sustainability of the companies. Those executives who hit the income ceiling have no incentive to exploit right away in gaining another million dollars personally. They do have the incentives to ensure that for years to come they reliably reach that earnings ceiling every year. That in itself would be a systemic change to benefit individuals who are no longer in a “rat race”, benefit their peers, companies and the larger societies. Plus, we might see less volatility in the macro-economy.

A review of the book The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

 One of the mistakes that Karl Marx made was in predicting that the proletariats would rise up to supersede the bourgeois. The proletariats do not act as one body. Within the proletariat class, individuals make their own choices and move on their own timing. Some individuals aim to become part of the bourgeois. Some individuals have no ambitions about raising their own status or raising up their cohort. The possibilities for individuals are just so numerous and the class as a whole could never rise up to dominate the employers, land-owners and business elite.

McGhee does a splendid job of describing and narrating some individual choices made by white citizens in the United States who continue to confound analysts. She notes that white citizens do not seem to understand the economic and social costs they are creating for themselves, hyper-exemplified by the filling in of swimming pools when communities decided to prevent Blacks from attending those community venues rather than allowing integration. McGhee has realized the limits of research and numbers in convincing people to act in their own best interests. The neo-classical economics view of rational decision making to maximize utility has been dashed against American rocks. Philosophers, writers and researchers need to pursue some other understanding of American consumer/voter’s psychology. “…questions of belonging, competition, and status {are} questions that in this country keep returning to race.” (page 9) Joe Bageant in his 2008 book Deer Hunting with Jesus and in other essays added other insights on the ways so many white citizens make purchase decisions, will campaign, rally and vote in ways that are counter-productive to their own best interests. I can highly recommend Bageant to McGhee!

So very similar to Michelle Alexander’s historical prespective in The New Jim Crow, McGhee identifies that the plantation owners and employers of the 1600s antagonized the distrust between racial cultures in order to have those of European descent accept lower and lower pay, and to marginalize those of African and of Native American descent into enslavement. ”Whatever form these rationales took, colonizers shaped their racist ideologies to fit the bill. The motive was greed; cultivated hatred followed.” (p. 23) Surprisingly, she also finds a contemporary of Cassius M. Clay (1810 – 1903) to argue against the institution of slavery. While Clay is praised as an abolitionist, McGhee’s example in Hinton Rowan Helper was an outspoke racist. In 1857 Helper noted in his publications that the Northern states invested a multiple times more in public goods and community services, enhancing the life of Northern citizens. Comparing the number and character to those public goods for Southern states, Helper blamed the institution of slavery for sapping the desire to improve their communities with libraries, public schools, transportation improvements and other ventures. Since the plantation owners had free labor through enslavement, under-educated white citizens who did not participate civically, and their only markets were international, the Southern decision makers and politicians could ignore public improvement efforts.  McGhee draws to a conclusion that the mindset seems to have continued into the 21st century.

As a counter point, in the 1850s, Cassius M. Clay (as described by Ronald White, Jr. in the book A. Lincoln: A Biography) saw slavery as leading to a strange monopolization of valuable skills. When Clay returned from New England where he amassed his own fortune, he saw in Kentucky that the poor whites were being offered no marketable skills, the Black enslaved people were becoming the master craftsmen in all arts, and the plantation owners were ignorant of these ramifications from their dependency on slavery. Clay then marshalled his academic skills and found that the US Declaration of Independence needed to be revived and brought it’s democratic principles to the forefront in his arguments for abolition. Clay’s thinking and arguments impressed Abraham Lincoln so much that he too adopted the Declaration of Independence as the base for his arguments against spreading slavery into the territories west of the Mississippi River.

Unfortunately as her thesis question, McGhee might have better pursued multiple causes and multiple answers instead of early on in her book asking for one answer, “what is the stubborn belief that needs to shift now for us to make progress against inequality?” (page 10) There is not only one stubborn belief. According to the vote count for Trump in 2020, there may be as many as 75 million stubborn beliefs to identify and rectify.

She did find some value in the concept of a zero-sum game. Yes, according to the evidence presented by  Michelle Alexander and by McGhee, the early plantation owners did set up a belief system that persists today. If one class of the population gains, then another class is losing to the same degree. Academically and historically and statistically we can dismiss such an absolute view of trade-offs. Yet many of those white citizens can not dismiss it so easily. Many are still of the mindset that status can be more important than financial well-being. Many of McGhee’s stories demonstrate how whites will sacrifice financially/economically in the hopes of maintaining their perceived status above the racial minorities.

This zero-sum game means that if whites can not advance in some way for themselves, they must at least hold back the progress for the fuller society as a way of ensuring the racial minorities do not have greater opportunities to advance. Plus, McGhee’s evidence can be explained by a defensive nature to the actions of white individuals. More and more stubborn beliefs can be found and compound the complexity of these racial issues that McGhee uncovers throughout her book.

Meanwhile, I suggest that the Plutocrats and the extravagantly rich in the United States are still framing political problems as a zero-sum game to the conservative voters and to those economically struggling white citizens. The owning class still benefits from having the racial classes in clashing culturally, morally and physically against each other. Yet, that zero-sum could be turned against the Plutocrats. Our GDP has grown by less than 6 percent per year since 1985. For the foreseeable future, the GDP can not grow at any faster pace. There will be no exponential growth in the near-term. So our economic situation is a zero-sum game. If the top 10% of households take home 50% and then 52% and then 54% of the GDP in successive years, then the bottom 90% of households must be getting lower and lower proportions year after year. Based on such a seemingly-endless fear of losing out more and more every year, then the 90% can concentrate on the singular topic of income inequality and find ways to rectify that injustice.

Why is it an injustice?? According to McGhee and Michelle Alexander, the inequality in the Americas was started by plantation owners pitting racial groups against each other. Much of the racial strife we have experienced can be traced back to that zero-sum game invented by the earliest colonial Plutocrats. If we can place the racial groups on equal terms economically and remove the perceived threat for the white citizens, then possibly we can remove much of the future racial injustice. That is one facet of the injustice.

Another facet of the injustice is that the richest people can only claim such high incomes when they take advantage of and even exploit the employees who actually create the values that are sold by the businesses. I have identified this as Capillary Action in Micro-Economics. When a business hires an employee, that employee must create value in order to keep the employment. Specifically, each employee must over time create more value than the dollar value of one’s paycheck. If a particular employee is creating less value than one’s paycheck, then the business is losing money on that one employee. Every business owner knows that such a scenario is financially unstainable and such employees will need to be replaced or else the employer will go out of business. When employees coordinate with each other and equipment and inputs to create more value than the business’s costs, then the employer gets to accumulate the extra value as profits to be reinvested in the business or to be pocketed by the employer, owners and investors. That kind of advantage is acceptable because in a sense employees are taking advantage of the owners and investors who are facing the financial risks involved in running a business. The exploitation comes when employees are mistreated and denied fair compensation for the value they are creating, which leads to excessive earnings for owners and investors. Society could define what is excessive and exploitative, and how it rises to the level of injustice.

Eccentric incomes are also possible when customers and natural resources and financial systems are exploited. The Plutocrats usually are not being paid based on the value they create, but rather based upon their capital investments leveraging opportunities for exploitation.

In light of such injustices, the moral fight can be to #RegulateGreed with an income cap on all individuals. Or we might #RegulateGreed by setting an enforceable ratio so that top earners in any company can not earn more than say 300 times that of the lowest paid employee. If the top earners want to take home more money, then they will have to raise the pay of the lowest paid employees by the same proportion. Or other ideas can surface to #RegulateGreed. These types of direct actions to combat income inequality may eliminate the references to zero-sum games as employers and employees see their combined success as tied to each individual’s success.