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Me Over We
COMMENTARY
Privatizing Social Security: 'Me' Over 'We'
By Benjamin R. Barber,
Benjamin R. Barber, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, is the author of "Jihad vs. McWorld" (Ballantine, 1996) and other books.
Social Security privatization has been vigorously challenged on both economic and technical grounds. It has been said again and again that privatization increases risk for prospective retirees without solving the long-term Social Security financing shortfall (if there actually is one). It has been argued that privatization is merely a scheme to divert money from the Social Security trust fund for speculative stock market investments. And it has been noted that it creates new costs (portfolio management, government oversight) without being able to guarantee workers future retirement benefits.
Yet the most profound cost of privatization has been wholly ignored: the systemic cost to our public way of life. By turning a public social insurance and pension policy into a private bet in which personal and private decisions determine who does well and who does badly, we do irreparable harm to our democratic "common ground." After all, one of this nation's greatest public goods has been its promise to give every working family a guarantee of support at retirement, or in case of disability or death. This promise, offered to all citizens, wipes away all the distorting traces of class, race and gender that often play out so dismayingly in the private realm. You cannot simply take justice out of the public realm and put it into the private realm without fundamentally weakening the democracy on which the very possibility of justice depends.
Conservatives ought to recognize even more quickly than liberals that privatization — whether of education, housing or Social Security — makes us less of a public. It diminishes the republic — the res publica, or public things that define our commonweal. It turns the common "we" into a collection of private "me's." It opts for market Darwinism, in which smart investors prosper but others lose, rather than social justice as its organizing principle. It demeans the "us" by turning "us" into "it" — the big, bad, faceless government bureaucracy. And it privileges the private and individual by appealing to market liberty, as if people could really be free one by one or as consumers alone.
Private market liberty is not political liberty; it is only personal choice. It may generate private benefits ("I want an SUV!" or "Give me 100 shares of EBay!") but offers nothing for the common good (a fuel conservation policy, for instance). It is as citizens that we pay our Social Security taxes, and it should be as citizens that we enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Yet privatization tries to convince us that the consumer is simply another, more efficient, form of the citizen. The citizen who votes with her dollars rather than her ballots. But dollars don't deliberate. They don't seek common ground. They are not bearers of empathy and imagination. As education consumers in Chicago or Washington, we can select the "best schools" for our children, but as citizens we need public schools that help make us all public citizens. As consumers in Los Angeles, we can choose among hundreds of automobile models, but only as citizens can we make the choices that create a public transportation system serving all.
Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: It dissolves the bonds that tie us together. The social contract takes us out of the state of nature; it asks us to give up a part of our private liberty to do whatever we want in order to secure common liberty for all. Privatization puts us back in the state of nature where we possess the natural power to get whatever we can but lose the common power to secure everything to which we have a natural right.
Private choices rest on individual power and skills and on personal luck. Public choices rest on civic rights and common responsibilities. With privatization, this administration is trying to seduce us back into the state of nature, where the strong dominate the weak and anarchy ultimately dominates the strong and the weak, undermining security for both. Under these conditions, Thomas Hobbes reminds us, we are perfectly free to do as we choose, but as a consequence we live lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Not an ideal recipe for social security.
The Social Security entitlement should not be toyed with and altered in accord with today's economic fashions. It is an emblem of civic membership and a reflection of the benefits that come with the responsibilities of citizenship.
For us as individuals, privatizing Social Security is probably a bad bet on technical grounds. But for us as citizens, it is a certain disaster. As prospective retirees and private consumers we may want to argue about it, but as citizens, if we care about our democratic republic, we are bound to condemn it.
--Benjamin Barber
Benjamin Barber is a friend of the Democracy Cell Project. In the coming weeks, DCP Editor-In-Chief, Dick Bell, will be interviewing Mr. Barber and other noted political writers, including Howard Zinn and Joe Conason, for the Podcast section of the DCP. To visit the Podcast section and learn about Podcasting as an effective state-of-the-art tool for democracy, or to down load one of our current selections, please click here.
Recommended by our anti-television blogger:
Just a reminder that the next Sixty Minutes s will be airing a program on the systemic problem of rape in the military, and how the military has pretty much done nothing to stop it. In fact the Pentagon has admitted there are least ten serial rapist currently on active duty.
From the women I have heard from since first writing about Jennifer, I would say it is a lot more than just ten. At the very least, there are a serious number of men raping women in uniform--so much for taking care of your own. Men in U.S. uniforms are responsible for an outrageously high number of rapes everywhere they are
The 60 minuets program Sunday will include an in debt interview with Jennifer Dyer who was a victim of a military rapist--while undergoing pre-Iraq deployment training. Jennifer became of casualty of this BushCo war of choice in Iraq without ever setting foot in Iraq.
Here is the link to the articles on and about Jennifer and what she had to endure at the hands of the Army after reporting what had happened to her. http://oldamericancentury.org/jennifer.htm
Two days Before Christmas Jennifer received an honorable discharge from the Army. In March, 1st LT Michael Hall, 278 Regimental Combat Team, will face a General Courts Martial for her rape.
Behind what happened to Jennifer, then after embarrassing the military on the internet and then in the corporate media, the DoD has opened an investigation.
Earlier today, CNN aired about two minuets of Sundays broadcast on 60 min. and from what I saw, it is going to be more than worth watching, as the issue of rape in the military is grossly under-reported to say the least.
Let us hope the investigation spurred by this will do what all the other "investigations" have not--stop this systemic problem of rape in the military. Regardless, we must keep bring this to the attention of the public as in the end it will only be non-stop pressure for the body public that bring this to an end.
RECOMMENDED BY http://www.oldamericancentury.org
& I like to support that site because it's run by 2 hard-working guys in Iowa including a disabled vet & they support it just by selling t-shirts.
They have an especially awesome satirical but serious logo.
What should be top stories but instead are minimized:
02/18/05
Five U.S. soldiers were killed in separate guerrilla attacks in Iraq, the U.S. military said Friday, three in or near the northern city of Mosul, one north of Baghdad and the fifth south of the capital.
02/18/05 AP: Iraq coalition shrinking
One thing, though, is clear: The coalition is shrinking. "I expect to see the coalition countries begin paring down their forces as they complete their contributions," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee this week.
#3 - need more coverage of the Afghanistan abuse story
Conservative Political Action Conference story -
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/19/cpac/
Rove, Cheney, Zell Miller & all the rest
and ..
This is the weblog of a lefty kid who went to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
http://www.campusprogress.org/page/community/blog/VisitorFromEarth
Does Social Security Need Saving?
Before we rush to fix Social Security we need to ask does it need to be fixed? President Bush says "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style ... I'm going to spend it for what I told people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security ... " Bush indicated he will start with Social Security "We must lead on Social Security because the system is not going to be whole for our children and our grandchildren." But I ask again, do we need to change Social Security and the answer is, I think not. We do need to save it from President Bush! Read on.
Every year the Social Security and Medicare Trustees report on the current status and projected status of the funds over the next 75 years (1). They report that Social Security funds will cover expenditures until 2042 when they will require taxpayer supplements. This is hardly a crisis (2). The situation for Medicare is much more grim but that is not our subject here.
Social Security is much more than a retirement program. About 30% of SS funds go to support widows and orphans (provides support to families who have lost their breadwinner and that have minor children) and those with disabilities, limiting their ability to work. The balance (70%) is distributed as income on a sliding scale so that low income earners receive a high investment yield and those at the top SS wage receive a low yield. The intent of the SS law is to provide a minimal living wage even to the lowest wage earners, subsidized by higher wage earners. Obviously if high wage earners are allowed to take their money out they can get higher yields but who will then pay the subsidy to low wage earners and the costs for disability and widows and orphans? One third of SS beneficiaries depend on this income for 90% or more or their retirement income. 40% of total retiree income comes from SS, the largest single component. The administration of SS is very efficient, taking less than 1% of every dollar.
Economic security is hard to find in a global economy with outsourcing of jobs and a volatile stock market. Talk to ENRON workers who lost all their retirement when ENRON stock dropped to zero; or most recently employees of insurance giant Marsh & McLennan who saw their stock drop by half its value. Too many employees have seen their retirement savings decimated when their company stock has dropped. Most of us are unequipped to deal with the uncertainties of the stock market and we need one certain income source in retirement; that income is SS.
And President Bush has never answered the biggest question of all: where do the transitions costs to private social security accounts come from? If a portion of SS taxes is taken out and put in private accounts that will leave a hole in SS income that must be filled, a gap of from $1 - $2 trillion depending on the specific privatization plan. Where do these funds come from? Although this is a critical question, the President has given no hint of an answer. Will he add more debt to the already record breaking deficit or add new taxes, or some of both?
Social Security is probably the most successful government program ever devised. It has helped reduce the poverty level amongst retirees from 30% in 1960 to 10% now. It works extremely well with a very low overhead. It must not be ruined by a bad plan from a President eager to please those Wall Street minions who stand to gain.
1. A summary of their report can be found at: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html
2. The 2004 Trustees' report states that income will finance 73% of benefits after this date. This is a solvable problem. Remember that these projections are subject to considerable uncertainty as can be observed by looking at reports for earlier years.
Robert H. Linnell
Here are links to the information the ACLU obtained via the Freedom of Information Act r/t Human Rights abuses:
http://www.aclu.org/International/International.cfm?ID=13962&c=36
I am heading up to Canada this weekend so will be interested to see what the mood is. Last time I was there, two of their military had been killed in Afghanistan (9 months ago) & their coffins were shown in color on front page of all their papers.
I had all my Kerry stickers on my car so people were asking, "What can we do to help?!"
The dollar has gone down about 20% since then.
Great piece by Benjamin Barber. It seems that the common ground, the coomon good, the community, is losing ground in the current political climate. Clearly me over we is winning. Aren't these the lessons we're suppose to learn in kindergarden--that to have a successful society we have to think of the group, not just ourselves?
I've been thinking of this because I'm working on a lesson for an adult Sunday School class on the Environment and the Bible--caring for God's earth--and I keep running into this same issue. Whether it's thinking of others in society or other species on the planet, some people just don't seem to want to release their grasp of "Me, me, me".
I think Geroge H.W. Bush said it clearly in the context of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro -- "the American lifestyle is not up for negotiation." We are not going to consider how our own actions effect others. Me over we and US over them. Ah, if only life were so simple. What happens when we finally realize that we are all in the same boat--the same planet, the same atmosphere, the same watershed, the same economy, the same stock market, the same poorly-funded old folks home?
What's Their Move?
Paul Waldman (11:02AM)
http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200507#1516
One has to wonder just what they're thinking over at the White House Office of Strategery. The President's big second-term agenda item, Social Security privatization, is floundering before there's even a real proposal. They must be working on ways to pull a rabbit out of the hat. But how?
Let me do some speculating. In the last couple of days Bush has signaled his willingness to consider raising or lifting the $90,000 cap on income subject to payroll taxes. Besides basically fixing the Social Security shortfall (depending on your economic growth predictions), this is something progressives have long favored. But it also violates the First Commandment of Bush Tax Policy, which is, thou shalt work to make the rich pay less in taxes. Lifting the cap would actually raise taxes on the wealthy, something it's hard to imagine Bush doing.
So what's up? Perhaps Bush is thinking that he can offer lifting the cap as bait to win over enough Democrats to get a private accounts carve-out, thereby giving up something in order to accomplish the larger goal of starting the dismantling of Social Security. He can then not only take a sledgehammer to the New Deal, but be able to claim credit for "saving" Social Security, now that everyone acknowledges private accounts do nothing to address the shortfall.
I don't know if this is what they're thinking, but if it is, Democrats need to hang tough. Is lifting the income cap a good idea? Absolutely. But it's not worth allowing a private account carve-out to get it. Don't get suckered.
Many thanks for Benjamin Barber's insightful piece.