Robert Reich, professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and former U.S. labor secretary, talks to “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer about what a Romney-Ryan ticket would do to the economy.
“It’s much worse than what we tried under George W. Bush. The tax cuts that Ryan wants to provide to the very rich are multiples of the Bush tax cuts. The cuts in services and in programs for the poor are much more onerous than anything that Bush ever, ever contemplated,” Reich explains.
Reich attacks Paul Ryan’s proposed budget.
“He wants to take Medicaid and essentially give it out to the states with almost no federal support at all. … He wants to turn Medicare into vouchers whose worth doesn’t even keep up with the projected cost of increases in health care. … In every respect, this budget takes from people who are vulnerable and gives to the people in our society, the small number, who are already wealthier than they’ve ever been — ever — in history.”
Professor Robert Reich addresses JOB CREATION but not OWNERSHIP CREATION. Reich’s term “wealth” should be termed productive capital as it represents the non-human factor of production embodied in the income-producing assets of business corporations. As time marches on, the tectonic shifts in the technologies of production will continue to destroy jobs and degrade jobs in terms of wages and salaries. Yet this is not presented and discussed.
Neither is the critical importance of OWNING productive capital as a future source of personal and household earnings discussed. (See “Skilled Work, Without The Worker” at http://foreconomicjustice.org/4311/skilled-work-without-the-worker/)
The Republican and Democrat models fail to recognize that when productive capital means replaceinglabor workers as the major suppliers of products and services, labor employment alone becomes inadequate because labor’s share of the income arising from production cannot provide the progressively better standard of living that technology is making possible. Labor produces subsistence at best. Capital can produce affluence. To enjoy affluence, all households must engage to an increasing extent in the ownership of productive capital.
It is imperative that leaders seeking new solutions and the national media, such as The New York Times, cease the opportunity presented by the 2012 presidential election to implement effective programs for expanded ownership of productive capital, and address the problem of education on this subject.
Soon, industrial monopoly capitalism will reach its twin goals: concentration of productive capital ownership among the elite ownership class (with temporary low taxable capital earnings at 15 percent made permanent, thus preserving exactly those provisions of the tax code most responsible for millionaires paying tax rates considerably lower than those with a fraction of the income) and work performed with as few labor workers and the lowest possible wages and salaries. The question to be answered is “Then what?”
Of course, to reach this twin goal will require “investment.” The term “invest” sounds good on paper or in speeches, especially when justified on the basis that investment will create JOBS. But the reality is that no one is addressing the CONCENTRATED OWNERSHIP of the income-producing assets that result from investments under the current financial system. Such assets created by investment are the result of tectonic shifts in the technologies of production, which is the real reason, as well as outsourcing, that jobs are being destroyed and degraded in terms of wage and salary levels. Until a Romney or Obama address this BIG ISSUE, unemployment and welfare roles will dramatically expand. It is only through future investment with the stipulation of simultaneously broadening private, individual ownership of income-producing productive capital––the non-human means of production embodied in human-intelligent machines, superautomation, robotics, digital computerized operations, etc.––that we will be able to enrich EVERY American’s life.
As a nation, we continue to ignore the possibility of democratizing future ownership of labor-displacing productive capital technologies and rising ownership incomes as a market-generated means of eliminating wage slavery, welfare slavery, debt slavery and charity slavery for the 99 percent of humanity. Binary economist Louis Kelso argued that the Keynesian model fails to recognize that “when capital workers replace labor workers as the major suppliers of goods and services, labor employment alone becomes inadequate because labor’s share of the income arising from production cannot provide the progressively better standard of living that technology is making possible. Labor produces subsistence at best. Capital can produce affluence. To enjoy affluence, all households must engage to an increasing extent in capital work”
For decades employment opportunity in the United States was such that the majority of people could obtain a job that could support their livelihood, though in most cases related to a family, it required the father and mother to both work, if they aspired to live a “middle class” lifestyle. With “Free Trade” those opportunities began to disintegrate as corporations sought to seek lower cost production taking advantage of global cheap labor rates and non-regulation, as well as lower tax rates abroad. This resulted in a chain reaction forcing more and more companies to out-source in order to stay competitive (thus the rise of China, Indiana Mexico, and other third-world nations economies).
At the same time tectonic shifts in the technologies of production were exponentially occurring (and continue to do so), which resulted in less job opportunities as production was shifted from people making things to “machines” of technology making things, The combination of cheap global labor costs and lower long-term invested “machine” costs has forced the value of labor downward and this will continue to be the reality. Our only way to far greater prosperity, opportunity, and economic justice is to embrace technological innovation and invention and the resulting human-intelligent machines, superautomation, robotics, digital computerized operations, etc as the primary economic engine of growth.
But significantly, unless we reform our system to empower EVERY American to acquire, via insured capital loans, viable full-ownership holdings (and thus entitlement to full-dividend earnings) in the companies growing the economy with the future earnings of the investments paying for the initial loan debt to acquire ownership, then the concentration of ownership of ALL future productive capital will continue to be amassed by a wealthy minority. Companies will continue to globalized in search of “customers” with money or simply fail as exponentially there will be fewer and fewer customers to support their businesses worldwide. Why, because the majority will be disconnected from the income derived from the non-human means of production that is replacing the need for labor workers.
Education is not the solution, though it is critical for our future societal development. But except for a relative few, the majority of the population, no matter how well educated, will not be able to find a job that pays sufficient wages or salaries to support a family or to prevent a lifestyle which is gradually being crippled by near poverty or poverty earnings.
Already, GDP growth is at a near standstill. Lowering taxes on the wealthy ownership class will not much impact this reality because they will not invest unless their are customers to create demand. This will continue to be the reality unless we reform the system to connect the majority of people to the property rights of the non-human production of products and services while simultaneously spurring economic growth, and entitle them to the earnings of capital (dividends, interest and rent) as a second income source to supplement their earnings from their labor in the short-term, with the long-term lifetime goal of earnings from capital ownership being the primary source of their income. This is the ONLY way to strengthen individuals and empower them to become personally responsible for their lives and not depended on taxpayer redistribution and national debt to sustain welfare support, open or concealed.
