How about we make the workers into shareholders?

At The Claremont Review of Books, William Voegeli--friend and occasional nemesis--acknowledges popular discontent with capitalism, and intriguingly suggests that can be fixed by making capitalism something people do--as opposed to something that happens to people. Most intriguingly, he suggests giving workers a stake in their companies by tying wages--in part or in whole--to the success of the enterprise. He suggests that labor unions have been the biggest obstacle to such an arrangement:

"The greatest monument to the illusion that employees can and should prosper regardless of the economic condition of their employer is the rusting ruin that's the American labor movement. In Which Side Are You On? (1991), labor attorney Thomas Geoghegan lamented that the failure to take the biggest equity position it could in the industries where it represented workers "was the longest-running mistake in the history of labor, the unwitting, almost Gandhi-like renunciation of power." Geoghegan's explanation is that unionists were so strongly committed to the idea that workers and employers' relationship had to be adversarial that they never accepted the possibility of it being collaborative. "The attitude in labor was: collective bargaining is for adults, stockholder meetings are for kids.""

Perhaps. And maybe I'm too cynical. But I think it might be difficult to persuade management and ownership of companies to share equity with their workforces--especially in the 21st century, when those workforces can be outsourced or replaced by high-tech robotics that can do the jobs of several humans, often faster and better. If there is popular discontent with capitalism, it's partly because workers perceive that they're not seen by management as collaborators--and perhaps not even quite human, but as balance-sheet entries that can all too easily be eliminated to fatten a company's margins. Maybe these issues can be resolved, however.

In any case, I'm also intrigued that Voegeli's capitalist response to the crisis of capitalism doesn't sound hugely different from that of actual self-described socialist Harold Meyerson, who regularly extols German-style industrial capitalism--in which workers are well-represented on governing boards, and thus have some skin in the game of the enterprise--as a solution to what ails us. There are some distinctions between their approaches, to be sure, but the underlying concept is sound: To restore capitalism, and confidence in capitalism, workers must be given a clear-cut stake in its success. After 30 years of watching the middle class stagnate while top incomes soared, that change in approach would be welcome indeed.

What does social science prove about gay marriage?

David French says that liberals are so committed to gay marriage that they'd be in favor even if it demonstrably harmed children of gay marriage:

"There could exist definitive social science that homosexual families produce — on average — worse outcomes for their children than heterosexual families, and the fervor of the gay-marriage advocates would be undimmed. After all (and like no-fault divorce), the case for gay marriage has never been about the welfare of children, but instead, the fulfillment of adults.  "

At risk of saying, "I know you are but what am I?": Does anybody really think that the mass of social conservatives would drop their opposition to gay marriage even if definitive proof existed that children did better in gay families? I think the mass of opposition to gay marriage is rooted in religious beliefs—people believe it to be morally wrong—and field research probably isn't going to persuade them otherwise. The emphasis on "the welfare of children" is the fighting ground mainly because it offers a secular reason to oppose gay marriage—though advocates undoubtedly believe it to be true, because they believe gay marriage is morally wrong. But if the child welfare argument weren't available to them, they'd find another objection. We all have our predispositions, but contra French, liberals aren't any more committed to theirs than conservatives are.

Let's raise taxes to pay for our wars

Walter Pincus makes a sensible suggestion:

"Given today’s situation, why doesn’t President Obama link his request to restore Clinton-level taxes on the wealthy to the $88.5 billion requested for fiscal 2013 to pay for continuing the war in Afghanistan and counterterrorism efforts worldwide? That Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, the supplemental appropriation created to fund Iraq, Afghanistan and other military actions abroad, is expected to continue as long as the United States has troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas confronting terrorists. 

For planning purposes, the Congressional Budget Office sees the OCO account running $44 billion a year through 2022. 

What about Obama, Romney or even hawkish members of Congress introducing a special excise tax on telephone calls or even Internet usage or ending some tax loopholes to pay that $44 billion a year. Taxes have been used to pay for America’s past wars going back to the War of 1812 — except for Iraq and Afghanistan."

There's an old saying: "If you want less of something, tax it." Since we have an all-volunteer military, the vast majority of Americans don't feel the effects of their country being at constant war around the globe--a situation that's persisted long enough now that most of us simply don't pay close attention anymore. Explicitly linking Americans' tax bills to those wars might give them some skin in the game--and force officials to justify their actions instead of relying on inertia to continue military operations. Which is why no such tax will be passed, probably. But it's galling to see some folks try to cut Social Security and Medicare while feeling little obligation to pay now for the wars we conduct.

The French bookselling model: Nice idea, but bad for readers

French Bookstores Are Still Prospering - NYTimes.com: 

"Since 1981 the “Lang law,” named after its promoter, Jack Lang, the culture minister at the time, has fixed prices for French-language books. Booksellers — even Amazon — may not discount books more than 5 percent below the publisher’s list price, although Amazon fought for and won the right to provide free delivery. 

Last year as French publishers watched in horror as e-books ate away at the printed book market in the United States, they successfully lobbied the government to fix prices for e-books too. Now publishers themselves decide the price of e-books; any other discounting is forbidden. 

There are also government-financed institutions that offer grants and interest-free loans to would-be bookstore owners."

Notice who wins in this scenario: Publishers and booksellers. Readers? Not so much. It's readers who benefit from price competition, after all.

Consider this: The list price of "Do Not Ask What Good We Do," Robert Draper's new book about the House of Representatives, is $28. If America had a French-style book law, nobody in the country could sell the new book for much less than that. Here, though, you can buy it from Amazon for $18.10--$13.50, if you buy new from one of the third-party sellers who operate on Amazon's site. I bought the book for $15, its Kindle price; in France, I'd perhaps have still paid $28, a printing press price for a cloud-based book.

What France's model does is price lower-class readers out of the market for new books; they have to wait until such books show up used. And that's not culturally crippling, I guess. But if you're somebody like me, with finite resources but a great desire to read current books, the French model would be a real hardship.

The alternative argument, I suppose, is that readers benefit when booksellers and publishers remain financially healthy to keep producing and selling books, and that's true enough. But that benefit is indirect--and keeps prices high enough that it's easy to speculate that France, for all its love of books, is actually selling fewer than it could or should because it keeps prices propped artificially high.

Today in Philadelphia Police corruption: Yes, *that* dumb

Philly cop charged with selling heroin: 

"THE IDEA to start selling heroin apparently wasn't dumb enough in the mind of young Philly cop Jonathan Garcia. 

The 23-year-old had to go and do it on duty. 

In uniform. 

Across the street from the district headquarters where he was assigned in Point Breeze."

In fairness: There is no John McNesby quote defending the guy.

Death of football watch: Why 'Friday Night Lights' isn't quite as much fun

A New York Times feature on how even professional football players are saying they won't let their kids play, for fear of long-term health problems:

"Jay Coakley, a sports sociologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said: “Football is really on the verge of a turning point here. We may see it in 15 years in pretty much the same place as boxing or ultimate fighting.” 

In other words, less a lucrative American colossus and more a niche sport beloved for its brutality."

On a related note, I (finally!) watched the pilot episode of "Friday Night Lights" last night, after years of hearing worshipful hubub from my friends. I was particularly struck by an early scene in which Taylor Kitsch's character--having shown up to practice half-drunk--is put at the center of a circle of teammates and tackled by each of them, taking turns, while the coach yells at him for his transgression.

The coach in the series is supposed to be a good guy. And the scene is meant to be a tough scene. But something has changed in the six years or so since it first aired: The scene felt cruel. Like I was watching "Hostel" or "Saw" or some other movie in the torture porn genre.

Granted, this is the same episode that (spoilers!) sees the star quarterback paralyzed with an in-game neck injury: "Friday Night Lights" doesn't shy away from the idea that the game is inherently violent. What's striking, though, is that after the kid is carted off the field, the game resumes, and we're treated to an underdog-comes-back story designed to give us goosebumps. And through the first two episodes, at least, nobody questions whether the game is worth the sacrifice of a young man's life and health. It's a tragedy, yes, but...tragedies happen?

Hey, it's just a TV show. And I intend to keep watching, for now: I'm told it's a good show that isn't about football, but which is set in a football milieu. OK. But the culture has shifted ever-so-minutely since these episodes first aired. Given what we know now about brain injuries and the number of football players who have committed suicide, it's initially hard to see "Friday Night Lights" as anything but the gasp of a dying era, and a dying sport.

Nash Keune's misleading numbers on the food stamp program

At NRO, Nash Keune asks why the food stamp program is still growing if unemployment is coming down:

"In 2000, only 17.3 million people were on food stamps. That number has ballooned to 46.6 million. Of course, it makes sense that participation in a countercyclical program would increase during a recession. But the number of people using food stamps has grown much more than the participation in other similar programs. For example, Medicaid spending increased 27 percent during the recession, while food-stamp spending has jumped 110 percent. 

Conversely, as the unemployment rate has come down in the last couple of years, the participation rates have actually jumped. From FY 2009 to FY 2011 the number of people receiving food stamps increased by 11.2 million even while the unemployment rate declined modestly. Even according to the rosy economic predictions of the Congressional Budget Office, the number of people on food stamps is projected to drop back only to 33.7 million by 2022, a time in which the unemployment rate is expected to fall to 5.3 percent. This projection of 33.7 million recipients is still slightly higher than the number of people on food stamps in the heart of the recession in 2009, and it’s almost twice the number of recipients in 2000."

It's true that the unemployment rate has declined somewhat, though it's still more than double the 4 percent unemployment rate that existed in 2000.  And even that number is misleadingly optimistic, since the workforce participation rate is incredibly low right now—lots of unemployed Americans have simply given up trying to find a job, since they aren't finding a job.

What's more, even as the unemployment rate has declined slightly, America's poverty rate has continued to climb: 2009's 14.3 percent poverty rate was the highest since 1965. Then it went up to 15.1 percent in 2010. That was about 46.2 million people living in poverty—a number that corresponds pretty closely to Keune's 46.6 million on food stamps, no? 


Yes, but Medicaid spending has increased at only a quarter the rate of food stamp spending! Well, sure. And the explanation for that is easy: Except when emergencies strike, people can and will put off medical spending when they're poor. But you gotta eat.

The unemployment rate on its own is an insufficient indicator of whether people need the food stamp program; just because you have a job doesn't mean it pays well. The poverty rate is probably a better indication of our national need.

In any case, it's telling that Keune cites a "declining unemployment rate" while never specifying the size of that decline. Maybe it's because the jobs situation is still much worse than it was in 2000; it's clear the need for food assistance remains high as well.