Thoughts on ending injustice

Creating economic and political freedom and justice

Institutional or structural racism has been identified as the cause of significant injustices and social unrest for most of human history. The institution of slavery has been an historical basis for institutional racism, embodied extensively in public, private and governmental institutions. The purpose of this reflection is to present possible remedies to this injustice, with a primary focus on constructive revisions of significant institutional structures in America, including government, taxation, education, and business.

To be sure, this issue goes well beyond the current grievances of the African-American population of the United States. There are other demographic, racial and ethnic groups with grounds for grievances about mistreatment based on ethnicity, skin color, or culture. At the same time, there are some voices among the African-American community who reject some of the arguments as to both the basis for and solutions to racism in America. The focus of this reflection will be on institutional racism as it impacts the lives of African Americans.

Institutional racism v racism. Racism is an attitude of superiority of one race inferred from a person’s behavior. Similarly, institutional racism is inferred from the practices of institutions. If If you want to eliminate racism, you have to educate people. you want to end institutional racism, you have to change the institution. Examples of institutions that have a disparate effect on the poor oppressed are Social Security, public schools (teacher unions), police unions, and private colleges.

Public sector unions. Public unions exacerbate the problem of unions, where workers and management engage in a negotiation in the self-interest of both parties, funded by a third party – the most important party – citizens (in public sector unions) or customers (in private sector unions). The initial mission of a union – to protect workers’ rights – has eroded if not eliminated citizen and customer interests, in both private and public sector unions. Politicians and management can pass on the cost of the negotiations to the customer, which works for some time or if the customer has no alternative supplier of the service. This process as led to the demise of numerous private firms, whose customers sought alternative suppliers. In the public sector, ‘free’ yet inefficient unionized police and public school monopolies leave poor people with no choice, no voice. Politicians, who are supposed to represent the citizens’ interests, have in their negotiations with unions, sold out citizens in return for political support from the unions.

Social Security. Accepting the basic difference in incomes, unemployment rates and life expectancies between whites and blacks, Social Security is a good example of institutional racism. While some like to characterize Social Security is a form of enforced savings, held by the government to fund individual Social Security pensions and to prevent poverty among the retired, Social Security is more of a collectively funded annuity, with some life insurance benefits for spouses and dependents, with a limited relationship between Social Security taxes paid and pension funds received.

Segregation has been replaced by a new form of slavery, where the poor, especially poor Blacks, who were given their freedom through a bloody civil war fought primarily by poor whites, now have the chains of the ‘free’ stuff provided by the plantation state – public education, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, cell phones.

Paradoxes of freedom to choose and fairness

Free to choose what? Political versus economic freedom. E.g., statistics about negative outcomes of single parent household: While people are free to form and to dissolve families, they lack economic freedom (of choice) without sufficient economic freedom, as measured by the ability to afford a choice.

The trend of the past one hundred years has been to TRY to improve economic conditions and opportunity – but not choice – by having the government provide more elements of life to the public (not always to the poor) for free, i.e., government benefits, also termed positive rights (in contrast to negative rights that limit government control over citizens).

Capitalism means that one to win, the other must lose. Cf, Quora, Forbes, or this. John Kenneth Galbraith: Capitalism v communism: In former, man exploits man; in communism it’s just the opposite.

“The fundamental producer of income inequality is freedom.” If you have freedom, you will also have inequality. It’s part of the natural order of things. It does not follow that if you take away freedom you will thereby produce more equality, though that is a logical fallacy (or a cynical rhetorical gambit) employed by socialists.[1]

With 45 million people living in the United Sates who were not born in the United States, one in three people in the United States not speaking English at home, and the vast majority of minority births and child-rearing occurring in fatherless households (see Table 10, below), the lowest income quintile in America faces unprecedented challenges in providing educational and economic benefits to the ‘new poor’. Traditional opportunity in public education has been seriously eroded: Public school systems have students speaking over a hundred different languages, students in homes less able to support education, childhood hunger, ethnic clashes and increased levels and magnitudes of school violence. Families provide the greatest opportunity for success and, in their absence, the greatest threat to income and social mobility.

A two-parent family (see Table 10, below) with an employed adult provides a sound foundation for personal and family prosperity. See also: Current population survey detailed tables for poverty.

“I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, to I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” President Barack Obama

Excessive accumulation of wealth—being greedy—is often and rightfully considered antisocial and immoral. Students of the Christian scripture know that Jesus upbraided the man who intended to “build bigger barns” to contain his enormous wealth, but he did not criticize the would-be barn-builder for creating the wealth. Similarly, Deuteronomy 8:18 encourages us to “remember then, it is the Lord, your God who gives you the power to acquire wealth” while Isaiah 1:17 is typical of the many places where all are urged to “learn to do good . . . hear the orphan’s plea.” It is the disordered love of wealth, not the creation of wealth that is the “root of all evil.” Tax codes that discourage wealth creation cannot claim the moral high ground.[2]

NOTE: Don’t confuse charity, compassion or generosity with government benefits.

Matthew [25:14-30] "His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

"Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Pope Leo XIII in 1878 recognized the inherent problems with socialism while praising the natural law of capitalism based on private property.

For, while the socialists would destroy the "right" of property, alleging it to be a human invention altogether opposed to the inborn equality of man, and, claiming a community of goods, argue that poverty should not be peaceably endured, and that the property and privileges of the rich may be rightly invaded, the Church, with much greater wisdom and good sense, recognizes the inequality among men, who are born with different powers of body and mind, inequality in actual possession, also, and holds that the right of property and of ownership, which springs from nature itself, must not be touched and stands inviolate.[3]

Statistics

1. Mean differences in average income between whites and females or African Americans confirms/proves discrimination.

a. Again, public education, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, cell phones. Plus Medicare, Social Security, unemployment compensation, disability payments, pensions, and insurance payouts. Personal and institutional charity distributed $427.1 billion[4] in 2019, compared to $617 for the 2019 base budget of the Department of Defense, plus $69 billion for war funding.[5] Including the total of cash and non-cash benefits to poor households, measured in terms of the price/cost paid by taxpayer-funded (i.e., government) programs, changes the story dramatically. Most notably, the ‘poor’ (low or negative net worth) are often single, unmarried people aged 24-30, while the ‘rich’ (high net worth) are many of those over the age of 65.

Segregation has been replaced by a new form of slavery, where the poor, especially poor Blacks, who were given their freedom through a bloody civil war fought primarily by poor whites, now have the chains of the ‘free’ stuff provided by the plantation state – public education, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, cell phones.

The recent reassertion of the demand to reparations for descendants of slaves is highly problematic on several counts, not the least of which that the recent protests that converted into violence against people and property, combined with the tax impact of the pandemic make the idea of government funding of any level of reparations impossible. There are also the political problems involved with the legislation needed to effect reparations, and the personal and court arguments that would persist in terms of assigning responsibility for the payments. Better that the nation address economic inequality across a spectrum demographic groups, one that addresses past injustices and institutionalizes the justice. There must also be an accounting for taxpayer money spent over the past fifty years on benefits provided to these same groups and budgeting for the future by converting free government benefits into free choice decisions. This is perhaps the best if not only way to reduce or eliminate institutional injustices, i.e., fix the institutions. And this includes the institution of marriage.

Disempower state-controlled education by making public education a personal choice and responsibility

· $15k annual educational vouchers per person, ages 4-18, or 6-21.

· Allow people to opt into the institution (public school) or take the voucher

· Funds come from current public education budgets, by directing the funds to parents, not institutions

· In determining possible reparations, account for all previous and projected expenditures that serve any oppressed group.

Get higher education out of the wealth transfer and financial aid business by changing the nature of college tuition

· Set tuitions based primarily on the direct costs of educating a student rather than on a revenue maximization model.

· Any tuition funds applied to financial aid produce a tax credit for the full-paying student. Alternatively, prohibit use of tuition dollars for aid, allow parents to make voluntary, tax-deductible donation to the aid budget.

· Eliminate not-for-profit status of colleges. Tax income from endowments.

· In determining possible reparations, account for all previous and projected expenditures that serve any oppressed group.

Provide universal health/medical care insurance

· Provide estimated average $7500 annual medical care voucher for every citizen.

· Allow open market for healthcare insurance plans.

· Funds come from federal and state funding for Medicare, disability, etc.

· Increase the healthcare income tax (currently for Medicare)

· In determining possible reparations, account for all previous and projected expenditures that serve any oppressed group.

NOTE: Size and Scope of the Social Security Disability Program, 2018

Disability benefits were being paid to 11,420,528 people, including disabled and dependents. Monthly benefits to workers in 2018 were $10,532,470,000.

· Supplemental Security Income payments were another source of income for about one out of seven disabled beneficiaries.

· Workers accounted for the largest share of disabled beneficiaries (86 percent).

· Average age was 55. Men represented less than 51 percent.

· The largest category of diagnoses was diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue (33.2 percent).

· Average monthly benefit received was $1,233.70.

· Supplemental Security Income payments were another source of income for about one out of nine.

· The number of people receiving disability payments is up from 2 million in 1970 to 11.4 million in 2018, a 500% increase in a period when the population has increased less than 100%, meaning increasing more than five times faster than the population.

· The percent of those with disability payments is highest in the southeast and lowest in the Midwest.

Provide income security for the elderly

· Eliminate mandatory Social Security taxes for worker and the employer. Allow people to stay in the current SS program, at their option.

· For those not in the SS program, provide universal basic income to those over the age of 70 who are not earning any other source of income, including income from savings and retirement plans.

· Return all Social Security taxes paid (both the individual and the employer share) and end person’s eligibility retirement benefits.

· For the young, option to accept a modified Social Security program or avoid paying to not pay individual or Social Security taxes.

Making marriage and family matter

Politically and culturally incorrect. Confirms traditional roles of each parent, creates obligation for at least one parent to support the family; sometimes it is easier for one parent to walk away. It is probably not possible to celebrate diversity, the modern family, single parenthood, and alternative lifestyles to traditional heterosexual marriage.

Most important are the often well-intentioned but even more often misguided policies and practices of liberal politicians and government agencies who claim to be assisting the poor and oppressed while actually perpetuating or increasing the problem to the benefit of a welfare industry where as much as 70& of the funds directed to eliminating poverty go to those directing poverty programs.

Wisdom from African American thought leaders

Good intentions of the welfare state: https://youtu.be/1s2Ishme9P0

The promise of Black politicians: https://youtu.be/RJ4KdPnkHM4

Two more ideas

Kiva

Increase the incentives for people to lend fairly to microenterprises and the poor.

Social entrepreneurship

Teach a person to create a business with a social output.

Concluding thoughts

The current social unrest is more of a class, cultural, political and economic conflict than a simple racial division. Any solution needs to be broader in scope than racial justice. The issue is justice and human rights, including equal opportunity, due process in the legal system, and political and economic freedom.

One basic truism in the world today when it comes to a simplification of the global poverty dilemma and it is this: In developed/rich countries, the primary driver of poverty is sex outside of marriage. In poor/less developed countries, the primary driver of poverty is sex within marriage.

For a more comprehensive, satirical summary, see the census table data on poverty. An example follows below.

[1] Roger Kimball. Why the left hates freedom. http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2015/10/18/why-the-left-hates-freedom [2] Lorenzi and Hilton. Spreading the wealth. Society, 2009. [3] http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/L13APOST.HTM [4] https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2019-americans-gave-427-71-billion-to-charity-in-2018-amid-complex-year-for-charitable-giving/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States