Dr. King, Full Employment, And Some Provocative Wage Trends (Demo)

On August 28, 2013, Jared Bernstein writes in The Huffington Post:

There’s a ton of interesting analysis out in recent days on the quite explicit though often under-appreciated economic thrust of the March on Washington that took place half-a-century ago today.

I found economist Joe Stiglitz’s discussion of Dr. King’s influence on his work to be particularly resonant. As I pointed out here, a seminal part of my own education in this regard was recognizing the importance of full employment in boosting racial economic outcomes, and learning how important this connection was to Dr. King’s own work, both in the 1963 March and even more so in the Poor Peoples’ Campaign he led a few years later.

Stiglitz and others note the lack of black progress on many key variables: income, poverty, wealth, employment. Richard Reeves adds an important and trenchant analysis of the black mobility gap. I agree with these facts, but want to add an additional, simple point which is in danger of getting overlooked: the evidence shows the Dr. King was right. Full employment is a substantial part of what it will take to achieve economic justice.

Unfortunately, Dr. King’s vision was limited to the notion that “full employment” was the solution to the income inequality that was evident increasingly during his years as an advocate for economic justice. Dr. King was trapped in the limited vision that the ONLY way to earn an income is through a job and was oblivious to the reality that the reason rich people are rich is because they OWN the wealth-creating, income-generating non-human productive capital assets of companies that produce the products and services needed and wanted by society. Dr. King failed to recognize that tectonic shifts in the technologies of production would exponentially destroy jobs and devalue the worth of labor, as the non-human factor of production––human-intelligent machines, super-automation, robotics, digital computerized systems––replaced the need for human worker input on the scale necessary to support “full employment.” What Dr. King should have advocated is “full production” with EVERY American empowered with the equal opportunity to acquire ownership in the formation of FUTURE PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL ASSETS, paid for with the earnings of the capital investments.

Likewise, President Obama and the Democrats have failed the American people, especially the poor and propertyless who are increasingly dependent on ever-lower-paying jobs, taxpayer-supported welfare financed through tax extraction and national debt, and charity.

The Democrats have yet to declare CONCENTRATED OWNERSHIP of the non-human productive capital assets of American enterprise as the main culprit to the inability of the 99 percent to expand and strengthen their source of income and increasingly become “customers with money” to purchase the products and services the economy is capable of producing. Never has ANY Democrat, during their political career, used the term “ownership” of the means of production to educate the electorate of the necessity to OWN productive capital assets. And without a clear understanding of the problem and a goal projection, there can be no successful PLAN to correct the income and wealth inequality that has resulted ever since America entered the age of the Industrial Revolution, when the nation began its shift from labor intensive production to non-human physical productive capital means of production. Such assets, due to the unjust structure of a plutocratic financial system, allows the ownership class to continually monopolize ALL future productive capital investment –– ownership channeled into fewer and fewer people.

The Democrats never have advocated that we must respect the traditional understanding of private property as a natural right, inherent in each person, albeit limited in its exercise. They have failed to declare that the reliance on “past savings” as the only source of financing for economic growth necessarily means that only those people who can afford to cut consumption and save significantly will receive the benefits of economic growth as investor owners instead of wage or welfare recipients.

The Democrats have never once pointed out that as job destroying and labor-devaluing technology advances and the scale of economic growth becomes too expensive for the resources of average people, only the rich will own the enterprises that generate the bulk of production. This is the greed or “hoggist” capitalism that is practiced in America. Everyone other than the rich who own capital is limited to wages or sub-economic microenterprises, unless the rich decide to be generous and voluntarily surrender some of their wealth so that others can own productive capital, too.

The Democrats are part of the problem in that they have stepped into the ranks of those who, within this “past savings” paradigm, see as the alternative to having a few rich people monopolize ownership to change what “ownership” means. By changing what ownership means, the State (whether the central government or the local community) decides what and how much of the fruits of ownership go to those who hold legal title, and what and how much is distributed in some fashion to others in the local community or the nation at large. This makes title a meaningless concept, abolishes private property, and is socialism, by whatever label.

The Democrats need to acknowledge that if we restrict financing of economic growth to what can be withheld from consumption out of what has been produced in the past, we are necessarily trapped into either monopoly capitalism (concentrated private ownership of productive capital) or socialism (concentrated State ownership or control of productive capital).

The Democrats need to see that there is a way out: a source of financing economic growth that does not depend on how much consumption can be reduced.

Instead of using the present value of past reductions in consumption to finance economic growth, it is possible –– even preferable –– to finance economic growth using the present value of future increases in production. In other words, shift from a “past savings” system, to a “future savings” system.

The focus needs to be on OWNERSHIP CREATION, not JOBS CREATION, which has been the Democrats’ pitch thus far. Instead the challenge is to reform the system to provide equal opportunity for ALL Americans to acquire ownership of FUTURE wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital assets with “FUTURE SAVINGS” (earnings) generated by the investments. Thus, over time EVERY American citizen will be able to accumulate a viable, income-generating capital estate portfolio to provide a second income to their wages earned from job employment or provide a sustainable income without the need to be employed in a job or dependent on welfare or charity.

For solutions see “Financing Economic Growth With ‘FUTURE SAVINGS’: Solutions To Protect America From Economic Decline” at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=9206 and at http://www.nationofchange.org/financing-future-economic-growth-future-savings-solutions-protect-america-economic-decline-137450624 

Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm

This should have been the message that the Democrats should have delivered on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

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