Hard Work

American culture tends to assume that people who have a lot—of money, power, stuff, whatever—work hard for it. Maybe they didn't at first; maybe they started off with an advantage... but they have to work to keep it and grow it. And that people who have little must be lazy.

This assumption has deep roots in the Puritan ethic that played a huge role in founding our country. The Calvinists who believed that their fates were predestined and completely unaffected by their actions still saw success and prosperity as signs of their favor from God. And, although their fate after death was already written, they did not seek to anger God by frivolous activities and self-adornment; their asceticism meant that their hard-won profits were re-invested in their livelihood.

But today, while we have shed that asceticism and instead revel in pursuit of worldly signs of wealth—nice cars, big houses, designer clothes, or even less conspicuous consumption such as constantly climate-controlled houses or lights on in every room—we retain the notion that affluence is a sign that you are favored by God. Even if we don't consciously understand it this way, we still implicitly assume that those who have, worked for it; those who lack, deserve it.

We've entered a Bizarro world where, not only do we assume that wealth requires hard work, we actually rate the hardness of work based on the wealth it generates. We think of “flipping burgers” as easy, even as we watch people sweating over fryers, running back and forth to fill orders, and taking flak from abusive customers with a smile on their face. We think, “I would never want to do that.” and yet, we consider it “easy.” We don't think it's easy because we have any reason to think the work itself is not hard to do, but merely because it is low pay. And then in a strange tautology, we think the work should be low-paid because it is so easy.

Consider how hard is the work of a megacorp CEO sitting at a desk larger than my son's bed, in an office larger than the typical American living room, with an en-suite bathroom and multiple assistants for various tasks? To be sure, CEOs do work hard. They often work 60+ hours a week, evenings, weekends, travel away from their family, manage meetings with very powerful people and millions of dollars on the line. Their work is stressful. But when they are taking home millions of dollars per year, how do we compare that to the “hardness” of their work?

On the other hand, consider a man who wakes at 4 a.m. to get ready for his first job. He showers quickly, dresses in worn but rugged clothes, and reports to a shuttle point by 5:30 to go to a far-flung construction site. By 7 a.m., he's doing heavy lifting and working with tools that can maim or kill if used incorrectly. As the sun rises in the sky he starts sweating. The dust kicks up and sticks to his brow. He gets a half hour for lunch, and an occasional bathroom break; he knows they're supposed to give him two 15-minute breaks on the clock, and he knows of union jobs where that happens, but he's never been able to get one. Here, he's an “independent contractor,” hired as a temp with no benefits, no paid time off, no job security. Keep your head down and don't complain; you're lucky to even have a job.

He comes home at 5:30, showers, grabs a bite to eat, and leaves for his evening retail job. If he's lucky, it's in a tipped establishment and he can smile and accommodate his way to more money. If he's unlucky, it's again temp work, seasonal, could end at any moment... and an inconsistent number of hours stocking shelves, ringing up customers, and trying not to take it personally when people yell at him for not being able to meet their every unreasonable demand.

Meanwhile, he barely sees his spouse and children. That's who he's doing this for: working 60+ hours a week at low wages, so that his spouse can work a more flexible job and sometimes show up for the kids' holiday programs and school open houses. But 80 hours a week doesn't cut it anymore for a family of four. If they are compensated for 50 weeks a year (because in jobs at this tier, you don't get vacation time, and sometimes don't even get sick time), at 80 hours a week, at an average of $10/hour (nearly 40% higher than the Federal minimum wage), after payroll taxes they've got about $3,000/month to pay rent (that's not enough income to get a mortgage), buy groceries, put gas in a car or buy a bus pass, pay utilities, buy clothing and school supplies, pay for after-school care, and handle any other expenses that come up – such as a $2,000 emergency room visit or a $4,000 blown head gasket in their 12-year-old car. Health insurance? Savings? Laughable—every dime is spent the second it comes in.

Who works “harder”? That's a ridiculous question; the work isn't remotely comparable. They both work hard. But does the CEO's vastly higher compensation actually cause him to “work harder”? At some point, does more money actually get more product?

Now we've elected a President who definitely “has.” His home glitters, his name illuminates skylines. He travels in the rarefied circles of world leaders and business magnates. He's famous for being rich, and rich for being famous. He can lose $916 million in one year—enough to give every Pennsylvanian in poverty $550—and just keep on chugging.

Does he know what it means to work hard?

Many of us assumed he did. We assumed that it has to be hard work to maintain that empire. But the more we get to know him, the more it seems that he doesn't ever actually do that work himself. Intelligence briefings are boring—go meet with Kanye. Let's take a phone call from Taiwan; it's too complicated to understand why that pisses off China. Rather than finding people with impeccable qualifications and distinction in the relevant field, let's just pick our friends and colleagues, or their spouses, to fill our Cabinet. It would be too much work to do otherwise.

We need to change our understanding of work, and hard work, and how it relates to assets. We need to remember that farm work is hard. Caring for children is hard. Preparing safe and appetizing food is hard. Stopping fires is hard. Chasing down criminals is hard. Cleaning offices is hard. Constructing new buildings is hard. Mining coal is hard. Managing a store is hard. We ALL work hard. We ALL deserve to be able to come home after 40 hours a week, know that there's enough food, that our housing situation is stable, and spend time with our children and partners free of stress and worry. This isn't a rural issue or an urban issue. It's not a white issue or a black issue. It's not a coastal issue or a plains issue. It's not a Boomer issue or a Millennial issue. It is a human issue.

Not Me? Prove It.

Inspired by a screenshot from notallmenarelikethat.tumblr.com, which (apparently) showed  graphic online abuse based on gender, and (apparently) followed up with commentary that said, basically, "We cannot trust men to be allies, and feminism doesn't need them." I didn't read the original post; I've seen enough to get the idea. But I read the reactions of many people very upset at the notion that men would not be accepted as allies. And then I responded:

This reminds me of an experience I had in college. A Sociology professor who thought he was some hot s**t wrote on the board one day instructions that divided the class into different areas of the hall based on race. (Many people sat in the aisles because they didn't identify with just one race, but anyway.)

Then, we talked about race.

It was slow at first, but yes, it had the intended effect: with a homogenous group around you, it was easier to be honest and say the things you're usually afraid to say.

Then one African-American woman dropped a bombshell: "I expect all white people to be racist."

I'd noticed that she seemed generally not friendly, and definitely not interested in talking to me. Now it made sense, and I was offended.

She went on, though. "...because it's been my experience that they usually are, so if I just make that assumption up-front, I save myself a lot of heartache and hassle."

WHOA. That made me stop. Was I aware of pervasive casual racism? More or less, as a concept. It wasn't a part of my daily life, but yeah, I knew it was out there for some people. But I'd never stopped to think about what it would DO to a person.

"So yeah, they have to prove to me that they're NOT racist. And that's just the way it is." And now I know I have to prove it, and I can't expect someone who has lived a life of not-me white people belittling and dismissing and victimizing them to assume I'm any different.

But, dammit, I HAVEN'T had to live a life of people assuming I was uneducated, uncouth, and downright criminal from one glance at my face. So I decided right then and there I could put up with "proving it." It was a really, really small thing in the grand scheme.

So be an ally. But don't get bent out of shape that you have to prove it. Because yes, people have been hurt, sometimes really horrifically, by people "just like you" only not in ways we can't see. And they are simply learning from experience. Give them a different experience, but don't be shocked that they learned from what others taught them. That's just the way it is.

Consent of the Governed

First, a Facebook Friend posted this link:
12 Facts That Will Blow Your Mind – Federal Employees And Members Of Congress Are Getting Rich While Those Of Us Who Pay Their Salaries Suffer

So I had a few responses. Here they are, as commented on the thread:

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#1: What's the source of her money? Just her salary as a Congresscritter?
#2: The Federal Government employs doctors, dual-PhDs, and people at CEO-level responsibility for government agencies. $150k a year is *low* for those types of jobs.... Do we want all the inmates in our Federal prisons to be seen by doctors who can't get a "real" job? Is that in the interest of public safety?
#3: ...which is why we need campaign reform. You can't become a member of Congress without your own war chest.
#4: there were 4,434,431 US government employees (including uniformed military personnel) as of 2009 (http://www.opm.gov/feddata/HistoricalTables/TotalGovernmentSince1962.asp). So that's an average of $100,000 in *total compensation*... which includes things like military pensions, health benefits, etc. The typical ratio for benefits to compensation in the non-profit sector is 25%; it's probably higher for government jobs, as our military members and many civil servants have excellent benefits (like fully-paid health care or actual pensions rather than just 401ks). So then we're talking about more like an average salary of $75,000... including 1.3 million active-duty military members, thousands of doctors, etc.
#5: ...because we want the "average American" crafting legislation and advising on foreign policy? the average American can't find Germany on a map. Let's instead talk about how many people are making *far* below "average".
#6: ...so? The right of labor to organize is protected by law, for good reason. Wal-Mart employees aren't. Who do we want in charge of spending our tax dollars?
#7: Again, we need campaign reform. These people were rich long before they became electeds.
#8: We're complaining because people got raises? How many people were making $140k in 2005? $140k in 2005 is $156k now, just due to inflation.
#9: Don't know much about this issue. How much insider trading do members of Congress do? Which members of Congress have had legislation put before them that would make it illegal and refused to vote for it? What about the current legislation in the works... does it address the issue?
#10: And what's the difference in responsibility? You can slip the matre'd a ten-spot and get a table faster... do we want that at the IRS? The airport? Our prisons?
#11: I'll agree that benefits in the private sector suck.
#12: I want to invest in what they did. How much of that was real estate, btw? And how much did they lose in the crash?

This is an incredibly biased, misleading, and destructive way of looking at isolated pieces of information context-free to try to just get people against government. Get the *whole* story; don't let the pundits make your opinions for you.

The OP then asked an insightful and useful question for such a dialogue, which was (paraphrased; I haven't solicited permission to quote anyone) "What does government mean to you?"

So, here it is... again, as posted:

Government is a social contract among the governed. In a hypothetical state of nature without government, there is only natural and acquired power. Natural power is attributes like strength, beauty, and intelligence, which can be used to ...acquire power. Acquired power consists of things like resources, loyalty, or fame.

In the state of nature, those with less natural and/or acquired power (usually highly correlated) are consistently at a disadvantage to those with more. As social creatures, we depend on each other for not just the "extras," but bare survival... people cannot be healthy and whole in isolation. But in the state of nature, there is little one can do to prevent antisocial behavior on the part of someone more powerful. An individual lacks second-strike capacity: if I kill you for your food, you are now dead and can't take action against me.

So we form alliances. Ten people with less power can create a social contract, and best one person who is more powerful than each of them individually. Eventually, even the powerful realize they are better off by engaging in and complying with the social contract.

Modern government has come a long way in developing methods of negotiating and re-negotiating that contract, but in the end, it's still the same thing. Government is made up of people. We agree. We don't all, individually, agree with everything "government" does, but we all agree to be bound by the decisions of government, because we are better off than if we "go it alone." As social creatures, we are infinitely healthier and better-off in alliance than isolated.

When "government" is misbehaving, it's our job, as those who imbue government with its power, to find out why and fix it. To me, an awful lot of the issues we face today can be addressed by reforming campaign finance, so that people, rather than money, elect our government. I also think we need to get back to truth-telling; we seem to have no power to stop those with the acquired power of fame from just flat-out lying to influence people's opinions on the job of government. This causes them to vote, again and again, against the interests of themselves and most people, to the advantage of a few.

The social contract is breaking down. We don't fix that by breaking it further, but by remembering that these people only have the power to damage us because WE GAVE IT TO THEM. We can choose to give that power elsehow, too

...Never mind that "elsehow" doesn't appear to be in my browser's spelling dictionary. I like it.

For anyone who wants to know more about the social contract and the state of nature, start with Hobbes's Leviathan. Rousseau also did a lot on this. I had to read this stuff for some Sociology class, you should too. ;-)