• About
  • Documentary Films
  • Index
  • Nota bene
  • Protect and Serve
  • Readings

Lumpenproletariat

~ free speech

Lumpenproletariat

Tag Archives: basic income guarantee

The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (2011) by Dr. Kathi Weeks

12 Tue Apr 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Civic Engagement (Activism), collective bargaining, Feminism, Global Labour Movement, Marxian Theory (Marxism)

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Autonomous Marxism, basic income guarantee, Dr. Karl Marx, It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World), Max Weber (1864-1920), productivism, socialist humanism, socialist modernism, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The Ramones, wage labour

220px-8hoursday_banner_1856LUMPENPROLETARIAT—British songwriter Bernard Sumner has often written some of the more thoughtful lyrics found in popular music, embedded in a social consciousness informed by his upbringing in 1970s post-industrial Manchester.  In “Turn My Way” (2001) Bernard Sumner (joined by Billy Corgan) sings:

I don’t wanna be like other people are
Don’t wanna own a key; don’t wanna wash my car
Don’t wanna have to work, like other people do
I want it to be free, I want it to be true

There’s a sense of utopianism, which can be traced through such popular song lyrics rejecting work. [1]  Yes, we honour labour as a means to an end, but not as an end in itself.  We don’t celebrate work for its own sake.  Creativity and self-directed activity are quite distinct from capitalist modes of production predicated upon profit motive and capital accumulation.

Since we know that unemployment through automation is increasingly rendering more and more people redundant within capitalist modes of production, we’re confronted with a choice as a society:  Do we criminalise the redundant, or involuntarily unemployed?  Or do we liberate them?

For some time now, the eight-hour work day has been taken for granted.  But it was fought for and won under great sacrifice.  As Americans (and others) are increasingly facing longer work hours, Dr. Kathi Weeks argues that we need to imagine life beyond work in order to challenge the constraints to conventional thinking and imagining around what makes life meaningful.

In her book, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (2011), Dr. Kathi Weeks makes a case for shortening the working day to a six-hour day without a pay cut, as our forebears did when they fought and won the right to shorten the working day to an eight-hour workday in the 19th century.  She joined free speech radio’s Against the Grain to discuss her book, The Problem With Work, and to challenge conventional thinking around the romance of labour and the virtues of self-directed activity.  Listen (or download) here. [2]

Messina

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Against the Grain]

AGAINST THE GRAIN—[12 APR 2016]  “Today on Against the Grain, more than a century ago, the Industrial Workers of the World, or the IWW, called for the four-hour workday.  Should we be considering something similar now?

“I’m Sasha Lilley.  We’ll air my conversation with Kathi Weeks about why radicals need to envision a world where work is not central to our existence.  She’ll also talk about cutting the workweek.  That’s after these news headlines.”

[KPFA News Headlines omitted by scribe]

SASHA LILLEY:  “This is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.

“Liberating work from its exploitative nature under capitalism has been a central tenet of the radical Left.  But what about liberating our lives from the centrality of work?  Work may be necessary.  But should it be at the heart of our vision for the future?  And what would be the political consequences of demanding shorter work hours in the here and now?

“The Autonomous Marxist tradition has championed the refusal of work.  And, today, I’m joined by Kathi Weeks, who brings together Marxism and feminism in arguing that we need to rethink the place of work in our imaginings of life after capitalism.  She also argues that, in the present, we should fight for a significantly shorter workweek without a cut in pay and for a guaranteed basic income for all.

“Kathi Weeks teaches Women’s Studies at Duke University and is the author of a number of books, including The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries.  That’s published by Duke University Press.

“Kathi, could you begin by describing for us the history of the work ethic under western capitalism?  How has it evolved?  Why has it been so central?”  (c. 7:54)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Well, I mean, I trace it back, in the book, to Max Weber‘s famous study in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.  And he identifies, kind of, the original formulation of the work ethic as the Protestant work ethic.  And he talks about how it creates some of the conditions conducive to early capitalist development.  So, it promoted really hard work and long hours from one class of people—workers—and frugal saving on the other side.  So, that made it possible to produce capital in that moment.

“But, over time, I think the work ethic has evolved and changed slightly.  I mean in some ways it remains the same.  In all its forms, the work ethic sort of preaches the value of work as an end in itself, not just a means to other ends.  it preaches the importance of hard work as not just an instrumental activity, but a kind of highest calling, an ethical duty as what we should organise our lives around, as what we should invest our identity in.

“And I think that element of the work ethic remains similar across time.  The supposed reward of all of that activity sort of shifts.  I mean it’s no longer sort of, as it was for Weber, a matter of the anxious Protestant being sort of assured of being among the elect, or the saved.

“It’s not even, any more, the industrial version that promised that one could pull oneself or one’s family up by their bootstraps and sort of climb the class ladder through this activity.  And I think that today it’s much more about being able to develop your capacities as an individual.

“So, I mean what’s promised by these activities shifts.  But I think that the basic insistence on work as an end in itself, rather than just an instrumental activity remains the same.”  (c. 10:16)

SASHA LILLEY:  “You’ve just been describing the centrality of the work ethic within capitalism, particularly in the West.  But work itself—the process of work itself—seems to be pretty uninterrogated, both, within academia in many ways, also for people at work, they feel frustration often.  But they see it as an individual problem.  Why do you think it is that we have such a hard time getting a handle on work in our lives, our relationship to work?”  (c. 10:49)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Yeah, I just find that such an interesting problem.  You know I have a couple of ways getting at it.  But I think it remains an open question.  And I think of it in terms of why work is not more politicised than it is now in some ways.  I mean it’s strangely depoliticised.  And, yet, work is where most of us experience direct relationships of domination, you know, between bosses and employees and among coworkers.  Work is an incredibly hierarchical structure in most sites.

“So, I mean I think it is an interesting question why we don’t want to interrogate more the actual, everyday experience of work.  And, again, I think it is in part because we treat work as—we don’t really think of it in terms of a system.  We think of it in terms of this job or that job.  And we measure one job in relation to another job.  But we don’t really think about the similarities among jobs or think about work as a system, let alone as a system of domination, that it gives employers power over employees.  And that’s crucial to how most of us experience work.  And, yet, we don’t think of it as a site of power relationships, that should be evaluated for their justice or lack of justice.  (c. 12:13)

“And, again, I find that an interesting puzzle.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “We’ll probably speak more about this in the course of the hour, but how do you define work?  Are you speaking of just paid labour?  Does unpaid labour fit into this?”

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Yeah.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “What is work in your definition?”

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Yeah, I mean, again, it’s a good question.  And, generally, when I talk about work, I tend to focus more on the privileged model of wage labour because I think that’s how we understand work popularly.  But I think what counts as work is constantly being debated.  It’s certainly something that feminists have long debated, you know, why forms of unwaged work are not counted as work.

“So, I don’t want to limit it to waged work.  But I do wanna highlight that when we talk about work, we usually mean wage labour and that wage labour becomes the standard for what we count as work.  So, I kind of slip between a focus on just wage labour and also a more expansive understanding of what work is.”  (c. 13:15)

SASHA LILLEY:  “So, your book, The Problem of Work, draws on a couple different traditions.  It draws on Marxism; it draws on feminism and traditions within them.  But the traditional Marxist critique of work has two basic, or central, elements.  There’s, on the one hand, the critique of exploitation—the extraction of surplus value.  And, then, on the other hand, there is a critique about alienation, that work is alienating, that it degrades our skills and makes us separate from our actual work process.

“So, the idea within Marxism is that in a society, that would be socialist or communist, the idea would be to free work from its oppressive aspects and make it joyous.  You have a different take on how work should be in a more utopian society.  What are your problems with the Marxist critique, as traditionally conceived?”  (c. 14:11)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Well, I mean I think the problem with both of those versions of the Marxist critique is that they leave that work ethic uninterrogated.  That is: Work could live up to what the ideology says, if only work were not a site of exploitation and alienation.

“So, I think its critique of work is incomplete, to put it mildly.  So, I draw on other traditions also within Marxism, that I think try to take aim, both, at a system of organisation of production, but also the ideology of productivism—so, not just work, but also the ethics and our ideas about work, that support and encourage us to invest in work.

“So, one tradition, that I’m very interested in is the tradition of Autonomous Marxism.  And there’s a kind of slogan, that’s central to most iterations of Autonomous Marxism, and that’s been the refusal of work.  And, at one level, it’s sort of self-evident.  You know, refusing work is—the strike is an example of refusing work.  But in another, like, more theoretical level, the refusal to work is really an attempt to try to think much more critically about, both, the present world of work and the ethical discourse, that helps to sustain it.

“So, the problem, from this point of view is not just that work is exploited or that  our work, our labour, is alienated.  It’s really that the critique has to go farther.  It has to extend to the ways that work dominates our existence, the way that work is over-valued.

“And I think that this one tradition of Marxism really wants to take the critique much further—beyond just the critique of exploitation and alienation.”  (c. 16:07)

SASHA LILLEY:  “And I will ask you more about some of these different contending perspectives.  But I just wanna ask you:  What does the refusal of work mean?  I would imagine most listeners would say: But wait a minute.  So many people are out of work.  Why would we wanna refuse work?  What does it really mean?  Are you talking about a society where no one actually works?”  (c. 16:29)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP] ”  (c. 18:50)

SASHA LILLEY:  “And I’ll ask you more about the whole feminist dimension of this argument a bit later on.  The programme is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  And I’m speaking with Kathi Weeks about her book, The Problem With Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries.  That’s published by Duke University Press.

“So, I want to just stay a little longer with the Marxist tradition.  And you were saying that you’re drawing from the Autonomous Marxist tradition, particularly, which a lot of these ideas swirled around in Italy in the 1970s, intersected with feminism.  But, sticking with the traditional Marxist critique, you mentioned a moment ago the notion of productivism, which I wonder if you could explain.  It’s something, that you locate within Marxism, but also within other ideologies and radically different political outlooks.  What is productivism?”  (c. 19:52)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP]  ”  (c. 20:35)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Within Marxism, you locate two traditions where the lack of interrogation of work, as you see it, leads to what you deem insufficient solutions or visions for a new utopian society.  One of them is socialist modernism.  And the other is socialist humanism.  I wonder if you could explain both of those and what they are, and then why you have problems with the solutions, that are on offer within those two traditions.”  (c. 21:05)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ” [SNIP] ”  (c. 24:11)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Well, within Marxism, work isn’t just, I think, simply about the productivist aspect, that you mentioned.  But you could also argue that work has been seen to be the kind of center of people’s social and collective power, that having work is important because it gives you a collective strength in being brought together in work, which you don’t have under capitalism, as an individual.  Also, within work, there may be even sort of creative or utopian potentialities.  How do you respond to that argument in favour of the centrality of work?”  (c. 24:49)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “I would respond by saying I haven’t seen much evidence of people’s being empowered through work as workers in their opposition to the present organisation of work.  I support it entirely.  But I think that we need to try to think about additional ways to politicise work and to fight for change.

“And, so, one of the reasons that I’m interested in this kind of politics of work, that’s really a critique of the over-valuation of work and also the way that work dominates our lives and also our imaginations and sociality is I think we can construct a more powerful coalition of activists.

“I mean in some ways, instead of, rather than focusing on only the employed, or employed in only certain kinds of industries, or employed who have access to unions, there’s a way to think about some of our common problems with work.

“I mean I think the people who are employed, underemployed, and also overworked all have an investment in this critique of work.  And I really wanna think about constructing a politics of, and against, work, that can draw in more people, that can speak to a range of people’s problems with work.

“I don’t think it’s the province of a specific class formation, as it’s been understood at this point.  I think that there’s a possibility to provoke other kinds of activism across some of these traditional divides of union/non-union, employed/unemployed, waged workers/unwaged workers.”  (c. 26:40)

SASHA LILLEY:   “Kathi Weeks is my guest.  We’ll return with her after this music break.”  (c. 26:45)

“It’s Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)” by The Ramones

SASHA LILLEY:   “You’re listening to Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  And I’m joined by the author of The Problem with Work.  Her name is Kathi Weeks.  And she teaches Women’s Studies at Duke University.  She’s also the author of Constituting Feminist Subjects.

“And we are talking today about the issues around a politics, that puts work at its center.  She’s arguing for more utopian possibilities.

“So, earlier in the programme, you spoke about the Italian feminist autonomist Marxist traditions, which were connected up in the 1970s efforts for wages for housework.  And I wanna ask you more about your critique of feminism, as it relates to work.  But I wonder if you could tell us more about what the wages for housework campaign actually was—wages from whom, for example—as a way of looking at this dimension of your argument.”  (c. 29:55)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP]  ”  (c. 34:04)

SASHA LILLEY: “Does feminism have its own—and, of course, I’m generalising when I say feminism; it’s obviously a broad category—but outside of the Marxist-feminist tradition, that you’ve been talking about around wages for housework.  Does the feminist tradition have its own politics related to an embrace of the work ethic?”  (c. 34:24)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP]  ”  (c. 36:32)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Is there also the danger within feminism that, when work is subject to critique, it often gets contrasted to work time and family time, that, you know, we need to allow people to have time with their families.  And, so, the whole notion of the time when one isn’t at paid labour that it is seen through that familial lens?”  (c. 36:55)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:   “Yes and, again, that’s another reason why I find wages for housework so refreshing because they insisted that a family was within—not against or outside—the system of work, that it is part of the general economy.  It’s where work is organised and work takes place.  It’s just happens to be mostly unwaged work.

“So, the idea that family would be refuge from work and that family is something we should be balancing with work is something that I think that they critique quite well because family is another side of work.

“So, I think they wanna sort of include the critique of family in a larger critique of work and try to think in different ways about what we want outside of work and that we might want time for families and other kinds of relationships of care and sociality.  But family, you know, it’s not limited to this institution of the family.”  (c. 37:55)

SASHA LILLEY:   “Well, let’s talk about what we want outside of work.  You just said that, although you have found the Wages for Housework campaign of the ’70s to be very stimulating in your thinking.  But, ultimately, Wages for Housework is not enough.

“So, in terms of what you’re proposing as an alternative to our work-centered lives, you mention two things, two reforms of sorts.  One is a basic income guarantee.  And the other is a 30-hour workweek without a cut in pay.

“Let me ask you, first, about the basic income guarantee.  How would that work?  Why do you support it?”  (c. 38:32) [3]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Well, a basic—I mean there are many, sort of, proposals out there for how we imagine a basic income.  As I imagine it, it would be an income, that would be paid unconditionally to individuals.  And it’s designed to sort of establish a kind of minimal floor, below which income would not fall.  Um, if it—you know, again, there’s different versions of this.

“If this income is so small that people would be forced into work, all it does is sort of subsidise low wage labour in some ways.

“But, if it’s an income, that someone could possibly live on, independent of work, it would enable people to—maybe not completely independent from the wage system, but less dependent on its sort of present terms and conditions.

“So, I think it might give workers some bargaining power to demand better work in some ways.  It provides support for all of the different kinds of unwaged work and for workers, that are precarious at this point.

“And I think it also, then, provides some relief for those who are forced into family relationships in order to be part of another income-pooling unit.

“So, I think a basic income would provide—again, it probably wouldn’t enable most people to be free of the wages system.  But I think that it would allow people some measure of relief to be not tethered to it so tightly.”  (c. 40:12)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  [SNIP]  (c. 42:00)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  [SNIP]  (c. 45:00)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  [SNIP]  (c. 49:00)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

[SNIP] (c. 59:59)

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

“Turn My Way” by New Order

***

[1]  Of course, various songs come to mind, which reject work:

  • “I was looking for a job and then I found a job / And heaven knows I’m miserable now…”  —”Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” (1984) by The Smiths
  • “I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day…” —“Rock and Roll All Nite” (1975) by Kiss
  • “You can take this job and shove it/I ain’t working here no more…” —“Take This Job and Shove It” (1977) by Johnny Paycheck
  • “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…”  —“Maggie’s Farm” (1965) by Bob Dylan
  • “I don’t work / I just speed / That’s all I need / I’m a lazy sod…”  —“I’m a Lazy Sod” by The Sex Pistols
  • “You and me, all we want to be is lazy…”  —“Lazy” by Suede
  • “You thought you’d come and amaze me, honey / You thought you’d come on and amaze me with your money…”  —”Money” by Suede
  • “How many insults must you take in this one life? / I’m in prison most of the day…”  —”Don’t Talk To Me About Work” by Lou Reed
  • “Everybody’s working for the weekend…”  —“Working for the Weekend” (1981) by Loverboy

[2]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Against the Grain, this episode hosted by Sasha Lilley, for Tuesday, 12 APR 2016, 12:00 PDT.

[3]  Also see a previous article on the concept of a basic income guarantee for all, which includes notes on the more concrete Job Guarantee Programme, which is promoted by proponents of Modern Money Theory (or Modern Monetary Theory):

  • “Sociologist Dr. Erik Olin Wright On A Guaranteed Income for All“, 5 APR 2016

***

[Image entitled “8hoursdaybanner 1856” by not known via Wikipedia; it is believed to be public domain.]

[14 APR 2016]

[Last modified  00:15 PDT  15 APR 2016]

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Sociologist Dr. Erik Olin Wright On A Guaranteed Income For All

05 Tue Apr 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, collective bargaining, Global Labour Movement, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), Sociology

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Against the Grain, basic income guarantee, C.S. Soong, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Dr. Erik Olin Wright, Dr. John Henry, Dr. L. Randall Wray, Dr. Philippe Van Parijs, Dr. Stephanie Kelton, employer of last resort (ELR), federal job guarantee program, Goldfrapp, guaranteed income, heterodox economics, KPFA, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, Modern Money Theory, New Deal, New Economic Perspectives, Pacifica Radio Network, taxation, transcript, UMKC, UMKC heterodox economics, unconditional basic income (UBI), University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Utopia, utopian socialism, Works Progress Administration (WPA)

319px-ErikOlinWright.2013LUMPENPROLETARIAT—One of the more inspiring and important developments in modern economic theory is modern monetary theory, or modern money theory.  Understanding how modern money works today in a post-gold standard world, when sovereign currency issuers, such as the USA, can employ modern money for public purpose, we come to find that such a federal government can never go broke. [1]

Along similar lines, Dr. Erik Olin Wright has joined free speech radio’s Against the Grain to discuss the concept of a basic income guarantee. [2] Listen (or download) here. [3]

Messina

***

[Programme summary from KPFA.org archive page]

AGAINST THE GRAIN—[5 APR 2016]  A number of thinkers and activists on the left have embraced the notion of a basic income paid to all without means testing or a work requirement. Erik Olin Wright argues that a generous basic income would contribute to revitalizing a socialist challenge to capitalism. He also distinguishes the version of UBI that he supports from that pushed by some on the right.

Erik Olin Wright
https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Against the Grain]

AGAINST THE GRAIN—[5 APR 2016]  “Today on Against the Grain, what if everyone was entitled to, was guaranteed, a basic income, so they didn’t have to work to live?

“I’m C.S. Soong.  Erik Olin Wright, a sociologist and leading radical thinker, makes a case for an unconditional basic income—after these news headlines with Mark Mericle.”  (c. 1:06)

[KPFA News Headlines omitted by scribe]  (c. 5:45)

“From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  My name is C.S. Soong.

“It may sound weird.  It may sound utopian.  But an unconditional basic income is what many people have been advocating for years.  You would not have to work to get this income.  Everyone would be entitled to it.  And, in some scenarios, it’s enough to live on.

“So, what explains the appeal to many on the Left of the basic income?  Why have some conservatives and libertarians embraced the idea?  Would the economy collapse because most people would stop working?  And to what extent would the adoption of an unconditional basic income facilitate or fuel a transition away from capitalism?

“Erik Olin Wright is a leading proponent of a basic income and a prominent radical scholar.  He’s a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  And his books include:  Understanding Class; Alternatives to Capitalism; and Envisioning Real Utopias.

“When Erik Olin Wright joined me in KPFA’s Berkeley studios, I asked him when the notion of a basic income first caught his attention.”  (c. 7:03)

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ”  (c. 8:30)

C. S. SOONG:  “So, in titling their paper The Capitalist Road to Communism, were they suggesting, then, that something could be done within the framework of capitalism to move society in a communist direction?”  (c. 8:46)

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 10:00)

C. S. SOONG:  “So, what would an unconditional basic income, what would it, basically, entail?”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “Alright.  Well, the first thing to note is that the idea of unconditional basic income comes in a variety of flavours.  And, depending upon which flavour, it means different things.

“For some people, an unconditional basic income is really a bare minimum survival income.  You know?  To use a kind of metaphor, you don’t starve if you have a basic income.

“Most progressives, who embrace the idea, think of it as a more generous idea, that a true unconditional basic income enables you to live at a culturally-acceptable decent standard of living, which would include, therefore, enough income to have recreation, but a kind of no frills version.  So, you can perfectly, comfortably, get by with it.  But, if you really want to live a more extravagant lifestyle, then you have to earn additional income one way or another.

“So, that’s how I like to think of it.  Certainly, for the purposes that I defend an unconditional basic income, it’s above a survival level.” (c. 11:14)

C. S. SOONG:  “And who, in your idea of a basic income, who provides this income and how often?”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “Well, income means it’s a flow.  So, it’s more of a practical than a principled question of whether it’s providing it, so to speak, on a weekly or monthly basis.  Some versions give you an annual lump sum.  I think that’s probably not prudent, just because of people’s incapacity to budget well.

“So, [chuckles] you know, you think of it as a paycheck.  So, paychecks typically come on biweekly or monthly bases.  It would be a flow of income along those lines.  (c. 11:49)

“It’s provided by the state.  And it’s paid for through taxation. [2]  Everybody gets it, everybody.  Bill Gates gets an unconditional basic income.”

C. S. SOONG:  “It doesn’t depend on whether you work or any other criterion.”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “Right.  Crucially, it doesn’t depend on how much money, how rich you are.  The unconditionality has, both, a moral component—you don’t have to be a good person to get it—and it has an economic component—it’s not means tested.

“Now, of course, the taxes needed to pay for an unconditional basic income for Bill Gates are gonna go up by many orders of magnitude, more than the basic income he receives.  So, Bill Gates would be a net contributor.  And there’s lots of details about how that works.

“One should think of it in the same way we think of unconditional, or used to think, perhaps, of unconditional basic education.  Everybody gets it.  Some people are net contributors.  That is, their taxes go up in order to pay for public education by more than they receive in public education.  But that’s seen as okay because it’s a public good; and it makes for a better society, if everybody gets a basic education.

“Well, a basic income has a bit of that character.  Everybody benefits from it, even if you’re a net contributor because it creates a different kind of society, a society in which everybody has enough to live a morally decent, or culturally acceptable, standard of living.”  (c. 13:20)

C. S. SOONG:  “So, what impact would an unconditional basic income have on people’s ability and inclination, really, to take a job, to go into the labour market and work for money?”  (c. 13:37)

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “Well, let me first clarify one other detail about the design.  And that is who gets it.  So, we said it’s unconditional on means testing or on virtue.  There is still the question of whether, for example, it’s a citizen’s income or a resident’s income.  That is, anybody who lives in a country, anyone under the jurisdiction of a state should get it.  And, if it’s a resident’s income, does it include undocumented workers?

“Now, to some extent these are practical questions, rather than principled questions.  I mean practical in the political sense.  It’s pretty hard to imagine an unconditional basic income ever passing, you know, even in pretty progressive places, that would include illegal residents.  Everybody agrees that tourists shouldn’t get it.  [chuckles]  You know?  [SNIP]

“I think, on principle, it should go to everybody who’s in the economy, in the labour market, in the labour force.  That the question of how you deal with the illegal migrants is a separate question, which needs resolution.  We need ways of dealing with that.  But that the moral principle of an unconditional basic income is precisely that anybody who is on your territory participating in the economic life of your society should unconditionally have their basic needs met.

In the most fundamental sense, I think an unconditional basic income should be for everybody in the world.  I mean I think you should have a goal of a basic income.” (c. 15:18)

C. S. SOONG:  “Mm.  M-hm.  Yeah.”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “And it should be globally distributed.  Well, that’s certainly not on as a practical political move.”  (c. 15:25)

C. S. SOONG:  “Erik Olin Wright joins us in studio.  He is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading radical thinker.  I’m C.S.  And this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  And we are talking, today, about unconditional basic income, which Erik has written a lot about and thought a lot about.

“So, yeah, back to this question of jobs and the necessity of having a job.  So, if the basic income, the unconditional basic income gives you, provides you with, kind of, a culturally-acceptable no frills existence, then is the whole idea that people would no longer need to go out onto the labour market?”  (c. 16:11)

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “The idea is that you don’t need to go into the labour market to get your basic necessities.  So, in the United States, roughly speaking—and, you know, it varies from place to place because of cost-of-living—but think of an unconditional basic income as being in the $12- to $15-thousand-dollars-a-year range, roughly speaking, which would mean if, um, two adults live together, they have a household income of $30,000.  You’d have to think through the details of children.  You know?  Do you get a partial income?  How do you do it?  Again, those are important details. You can put those to the side.

“So, just take a couple.  $30,000 dollars in most places in the United States, you can live okay.

“But most people probably want more income than $30,000.  So, there’ll be at least some reason why many—I think most people—will want to gain additional earnings.

“With an unconditional basic income, as soon as you earn additional income, you start paying taxes on the additional.  There’s no, the unconditional basic income isn’t taxed.  It’d be, kind of, directly.  If all you live on is the basic income, you don’t pay taxes, income taxes, on that.  But you start paying taxes on any earnings above your basic income.

“The tax rates will be higher.  You have to figure out exactly where the cut point is, where you become a net contributor, rather than a net beneficiary.

“But there’s no disincentive to work.  That is you’re not—the first $10,000 you earn above your basic income is not gonna be taxed at 80%.  You know, it’ll probably have a 15% or 20% income tax rate on the first $10,000 you earn above a basic income.

“So, the first thing to note is there is not a disincentive to work.

“And it’s only people whose life plans are consistent with $15- or $30 thousand, in a couple, whose life plans are consistent with that level of earnings who will say:  That’s all I want.

“Now, there will be people, certainly, for whom that’s true.”  (c. 18:15)

C.S. SOONG:  “But, if they think that way, that is a disincentive to work.  I mean a lot of people are worried that so many people will take themselves out of the labour market that the economy might even collapse.”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “So, just to be kind of technically precise, a disincentive means you’re punished if you work.  This would—”

C.S. SOONG:  “Gotcha.”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “—mean a lack of an incentive to work for them.  Right?  So, they don’t feel any incentive to work ‘cos they feel no need to work.  But there’s no disincentive to work.

“With means tested anti-poverty programmes there’s an actual disincentive to work because you lose your benefits if you work.”

C.S. SOONG:  “Right.”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “Okay.  Well, there’s no disincentive, then, to work.

“Yeah, so a basic income is an unworkable plan if it’s the case that the large majority of people really have as their deepest longings to be couch potatoes.

“So, you know, if the human spirit, contrary to what many of us believe, is really profoundly lazy, in the sense that we don’t care about creativity—we don’t care about making a contribution to our world and leaving our stamp in some way or other, we really just wanna watch soap operas—so, if that is what we are at our essence—you give people $15,000 dollars and everybody stops working—the system collapses.

“Well, I’m being sarcastic.  You know?”

C.S. SOONG:  “Sure.”

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “This is a caricature.  There will be some people, though, that will absolutely live a life of leisurely indulgence.

“Philippe Van Parijs, one of his earliest and terrific pieces on this is called ‘Should Surfers Be Fed?’  ‘Should Surfers Be Fed?’  And it’s basically raising the standard big objection to basic income that it will mean that people who work hard and generate the income that gets taxed for a basic income will be subsidising beach bums.”  (c. 20:13)

C.S. SOONG:  “But you could, certainly, maybe, with a basic income you could be a beach bum; but you could also be productive in a way, that’s not profitable to you—right?—that doesn’t involve working for money.

“So, for example, you talk about, you’ve written about care-giving labour.  And the fact is that many care-givers are not compensated at all.  Well, this will allow them to do work.  And, you know, this is not couch potato work.  So, they’ll do work.  That kind of work, they won’t have a job for money, for pay.  And, so, how does that work in the context of basic income and to what extent is that a positive thing in your eyes?”  (c. 20:53)

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “Of course, it’s an absolutely positive thing.  [SNIP]  And it would lead to an absolute expansion and enrichment of the arts.”  (c. 23:46)

C.S. SOONG:  “What about the situation of paid workers?  [SNIP]  ” (c. 23:47)

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  “(c. 26:01)

C.S. SOONG:  “I’m C.S.  This is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  Erik Olin Wright joins me.  He is Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  And he’s author of many books, including Understanding Class, Envisioning Real Utopias, and Alternatives to Capitalism: proposals for a democratic economy with Robin Hahnel.

“And I, and Erik, want you to know that many of Erik’s books are available for free online.  We’ve put a link on our web page at KPFA.org.  Just go to KPFA.org/programs and click on Against the Grain; and you’ll find a link to Erik’s website, where you’ll find PDF links to many of his publications.

“So, essentially, what you’re saying is that workers have more power, they have greater leverage in relation to employers under a system with unconditional basic income.  And is that part of the reason?  Well, how big a part of the reason that you support unconditional basic income is this?  That there are unequal power relations in society and that an important goal of movement for social justice ought to be to adjust and transform those power relations.”  (c. 27:22)

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  “Yes, certainly.  [SNIP]  ” (c. 29:10)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 30:14)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 32:11)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 33:38)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 37:29)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 38:39)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 43:42)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 51:44)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 53:25)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

DR. ERIK OLIN WRIGHT:  ”    [SNIP]  ” (c. 56:38)

C. S. SOONG:  ” [SNIP]

[SNIP] (c. 59:59)

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

*

“Utopia” (2000) by Goldfrapp

***

NEW ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES—[7 JUN 2016]  NEP’s Pavlina Tcherneva speaks with Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal about Basic Income Guarantees.  You can view the segment here. [5]

Learn more at NEW ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES.

***

[1]  The topic of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), or Modern Money Theory, is something, which we’ve been lagging to present on Lumpenproletariat.org.  (Your author has published some articles on MMT at MediaRoots.org some years ago.)

MMT presents many emancipatory implications for the working class, such as the use of modern money for public purpose, or beneficial public spending at the federal level, which is conducive to full employment, such as a job guarantee programme, and more.  Technically speaking, if President Obama (or any administration) understood, or acknowledged, MMT, we could implement a job guarantee (or an income guarantee), which could end involuntary unemployment today.  As heterodox economist Dr. L. Randall Wray, a former UMKC professor of mine, teaches us, it’s not a lack of economic options, which prevents full employment, it’s a lack of political will.

As another of my UMKC professors, heterodox economist Dr. Stephanie Kelton, teaches us:  There are no fiscal constraints.  The only constraints are real resource constraints.  Dr. Kelton is a Chief Economist for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign and priorly served as the Chief Economist for the Senate Minority Budget Committee under Bernie Sanders. [4]

In the following video, Dr. Stephanie Kelton discusses MMT, mainly as it applies to the national budget deficits, debunking the myth that budget deficits are necessarily bad for the USA’s economy.  But Dr. Kelton also discussed the job guarantee programme and the basic income guarantee, among other things, which could be addressed by MMT (as emphasised by the transcript excerpt below).

“The Angry Birds Approach to Understanding Deficits in the Modern Economy” by heterodox economist Dr. Stephanie Kelton (University of Missouri-Kansas City), November 2014

[Transcript excerpt by Messina for Lumpenproletariat, Dr. Stephanie Kelton, and Dr. John Henry, who taught Dr. Kelton as well as your author]

DR. STEPHANIE KELTON:  (c. 56:48)  “We could be doing useful things [with an understanding of modern money].  Right?  We’ve got infrastructure, that’s dilapidated, falling down.  The civil engineers tell us we need to spend $3.6 trillion dollars to repair ports, bridges, water treatment facilities, schools, hospitals, national parks.  The whole of our national infrastructure is given a grade of D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers. And we’re told we ought to spend $3.6 trillion to get it up to snuff.  We could do that.  We have tons of people who are out of work, mechanical skills, construction, and so forth.  We could do that.

“We could enhance retirement schemes, instead of attacking them, undermining them, and trying to weaken them, to cut benefits, and so forth.  We could make it safer, more secure, more generous.  We could do that.

“We could deal with climate change.

“But the question, now, is always:  How are you gonna pay for it?  We’ve answered that question[—by understanding how money works in a modern economy].

“We could help students cope with student debt.  Many people believe there’s a crisis with student debt in this country.  Now, student debt is surpassing credit card debt.  There’s over a trillion dollars of student loan debt out there.  There are lots of politicians who—well, not lots.  There are some politicians who are working to promote legislation to help alleviate student debt burdens.  There’s even a movement to strike the debt.

“There are ways to help young people, who are struggling with student debt, who, as a result of all that student debt, are postponing household formation.  They’re living at home longer, so they don’t get their first apartment.  They don’t marry.  There’s so many starting everything later.  And it’s delaying a lot of spending in the economy.  It’s got a lot of hedge fund managers, quite frankly, and others quite worried about future consumption and how robust the economy’s going to be going forward because of the student debt.  (c. 58:52)

[Addressing Inequality]

“We’re hearing a lot about inequality.  Right?  Since 2009, when the U.S. officially left recession and went into recovery—okay, we’re in recovery mode; output is growing, income is growing—90% of all the income gains over that period of time since 2009, 90% has gone to the top 10%.  Within that category, to the top 1%.  Within that category, to the top point-one percent [i.e., 0.1%].  And within that category, to the top point-zero-one percent [i.e., 0.01%].

“If we continue to distribute income gains in this way, where the income gains are going to those least likely to—”

AUDIENCE:  “—spend it—”

DR. STEPHANIE KELTON:  “—and most likely to—”

AUDIENCE:  “—save—”

DR. STEPHANIE KELTON:  “—and, especially, save in the form of—”

AUDIENCE:  “—[inaudible].”

DR. STEPHANIE KELTON:  “Well, no.  They like real estate and stocks and stuff like that.  Right?  And, so, they buy assets.  And this tends to push asset prices higher, which has a lot of folks, including Janet Yellen, worried that we are, the Fed has been creating bubbles, asset price bubbles.  (c. 1:00:03)

“And the problem with bubbles is, it’s nice to ride a bubble up.  But when the bubble pops, there’s a lot of collateral damage.  Okay?  So you’re hearing a lot.

“We could address income inequality.

“We could institute a federally-funded job guarantee programme modelled on the WPA, the CCC, the National Youth Administration, the New Deal programmes, raise incomes from the bottom up, that address inequality.

“People talk about a basic income guarantee.  You hear a lot about that now.  Just give everybody money.  Right?  No matter how much money you have, we’ll give you money, too.  Everybody gets a check.  It’s Oprah.  You get a check.  And you get a check.  And you get a check.  But Bill Gates gets a check.  Everybody gets a check.”

AUDIENCE:  “[laughter]“

DR. STEPHANIE KELTON:  “The problem with that scheme is that, while it gives more income to those at the bottom, it gives the same amount to everyone else.  So, it’s a ratcheting up of everyone, which does nothing, of course, to deal with inequality.

“But, if you focus on those at the bottom, the unemployed, the least skilled and so forth, and you guarantee employment with benefits and so forth, you’re lifting incomes for those at the bottom and reducing inequality.  So, there are just lots and lots of things, that we could do.

“But if we don’t do them, if we don’t do them and we continue to have government pull back its contribution, the only way that we’re gonna keep this economy going, the only way the game is gonna continue and the pieces are gonna go around the board is if we have bubbles—because bubbles work for a while; the problem is that eventually they pop—debt—we can have the private sector leverage back up.  They did this in the late ’90s, the mid-to-late ’90s and into the 2000s.  We borrowed like crazy.  We took the equity out of our homes.  We borrowed against perceived increases in wealth because stocks were booming and so forth.

“We can drive this thing with private-sector debt for a while.  The trouble is that, too, tends to end badly.

“We can focus on trade with the rest of the world.  Well, we’re just gonna dig ourselves out of this by reversing our trade deficits.  We just need a weaker currency here at home.

“You can try all this sort of stuff.  These are not good solutions.  There’s a better way to do this.  But we’ve gotta get the thinking right.  We gotta get the thinking right.

“And, so, it’s okay to have differences.  It’s okay to have parties, who disagree about the proper role for government, priorities, spending versus taxes.  But we want the disagreements to move in the right direction.  We don’t want them to say:  We need higher taxes and less spending.  We want them to fight over whether to have lower taxes or more spending.  That would be, at least, a debate, that is moving in the right direction.

“So, it’s not that we all have to think exactly the same way.  But, if we get the thinking right, somewhere in the middle, we might end up okay.  (c. 1:03:06)  [SNIP] “

[SNIP] (c. 1:18:37)

Learn more at NEW ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES.

*

“L. Randall Wray: Time for a New Approach for Unemployment” (2013) (University of Missouri-Kansas City)

*

Also see, among others, economist Dr. L. Randall Wray on modern monetary theory:

  • Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment (26 JUN 2006) by Dr. L. Randall Wray (UMKC)
  • Modern Monetary Theory: A Primer On Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems (2012) by Dr. L. Randall Wray (UMKC)
  • Employment Guarantee Schemes: Job Creation and Policy in Developing Countries and Emerging Markets (2013) edited by John J. Murray and Dr. Matthew Forstater (UMKC)
  • The Job Guarantee: Toward True Full Employment (2013) edited by John J. Murray and Dr. Matthew Forstater (UMKC)

Also see related Marxian concepts, relevant to understanding modern money, such as:

  • value-form
  • use value

Also see NewEconomicPerspectives.org.

On the costs of capitalist imperialism

“Part #1: Dr. John Henry is a UMKC professor of economics focusing on the history of economic thought. He is the author of two books and numerous articles. He had taught at California State University-Sacramento, and at Cambridge and Staffordshire, England. John shared the view of the inadequacy of economics to quantify the costs of war.

“On March 19, 2012, the ninth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war the American Friends Service Committee organized the community forum “Legacies of the Iraq War /Lessons for U.S.’s Iran Policy” at UMKC, Kansas City, MO. Panel members commented on the human, economic and political impacts of the Iraq war on Iraq and the U.S. They offered an analysis of U.S.- Iran relations, shared comment on how Iranians view the conflict and how identified lessons the U.S. should take from Iraq to guide U.S.- Iran policy.”

“Part #2”

[2]  Sociologist Dr. Erik Olin Wright, as a utopian visionary, offers welcome alternatives to the current capitalist modes of production hurting the working classes the world over.  Unfortunately, Dr. Wright’s analysis doesn’t reflect an interdisciplinary approach utilising literature in the field of economics, so he errs in his understanding of taxation and public spending.

Apparently, Dr. Wright lacks crucial knowledge of Modern Monetary Theory, or Modern Money Theory, which is relevant to his utopian work because it would correct some of his misguided economic assumptions, such as Dr. Wright’s assertion that a guaranteed income for all would have to be funded through taxation.  As heterodox economist Dr. Stephanie Kelton teaches her students and audiences around the world:

Taxes don’t pay for anything.  All modern money exists as an IOU.  When the government prints a US dollar, it essentially prints an IOU, which—since the USA has gone off the gold standard—entitles its holder to get another US dollar or pay one dollar’s worth of tax liability.  Dollars are no longer backed by gold, so one cannot hand in dollars and convert them to gold.  So, when taxes are paid, those IOUs used to pay those taxes are, effectively, extinguished.  Indeed, when US dollars return to the USA’s system of central banks, they’re shredded.  So, taxes don’t pay for government spending.  What actually pays for government spending is a sovereign currency issuer’s ability, such as that of the USA, to create its own currency out of thin air and use it for socially beneficial purposes.

Outside of Dr. Wright’s lack of knowledge of modern monetary theory, a survey of which would greatly benefit his analyses, he contributes welcome and radical concepts capable of shifting conventional wisdom.

Ultimately, Dr. Erik Olin Wright, essentially, advocates for society adopting the rules of the Monopoly board game, as an ideal for society.  Everyone who passes Go gets an income allowance to allow them to keep playing the game of life within a capitalist mode of production until the wealth concentrates in such few hands that all but one player is driven into destitution.  But Dr. Wright argues that a guaranteed income, within a capitalist mode of production, would only be a part of a longer-term process of building alternative structures to capitalist relations, which could be capable of gradually undermining capitalism.

Dr. Wright seems to follow the logic of a guaranteed income along moral and ethical lines.  Unfortunately, his lack of knowledge of modern monetary theory leads him to fall prey to the conventional understanding of public spending, i.e. the myth that the federal government needs to collect taxes in order to spend the money it creates out of thin air.  Citing MMT, Dr. Wright’s argument would be stronger.  But nobody told Dr. Wright that taxes don’t pay for anything.

[3]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Against the Grain, this episode hosted by C.S. Soong, for Tuesday, 5 APR 2016, 12:00 PDT.

[4]  See media reports, such as:

  • “Bernie Sanders’ connections with two UMKC economists runs deep“, by Mark Davis, Kansas City Star, 29 MAR 2016
  • “MMT and Bernie Sanders” by L. Randall Wray, New Economic Perspectives, 20 NOV 2015
  • “Sanders adviser talks econ policy, politics” by Natalina Lopez, Yale Daily News, 17 NOV 2015  [N.B.:  This campus and its journalism completely obfuscated the most revolutionary aspects of MMT.  In fact, somehow, no mention is made of MMT at all.]
  • “Watch Out, MMT’s About, As Bernie Sanders Hires Stephanie Kelton” by Tim Worstall, Forbes, 12 JAN 2015  [N.B.:  This journalist seems, however, to have never read of any of the literature on modern monetary theory (MMT), for he confuses and distorts the concepts, creating strawmen to attack and make possible his empty critiques of MMT.]

[5]  Link to Bloomberg video clip, “The Argument Against Basic Income”, 7 JUN 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-06-07/the-argument-against-basic-income

***

[Image “EricOlinWright.2013” by Aliona Lyasheva used via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0]

[6 APR 2016]

[Last modified  20:32 PDT  7 JUN 2016]

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

UCTV | Elaine Brown: New Age Racism

03 Mon Nov 2008

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Fascism, Anti-Racism, Civic Engagement (Activism)

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

basic income guarantee, David Gilbert, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (b. Michael King Jr. 1929–1968), Elaine Brown (b. 1943), Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice, Mumia Abu Jamal (b. 1954), reparations, Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald, UC Television, UCTV, unconditional basic income (UBI), universal basic income (UBI), World Bank

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—America needs more sincere, honest, plain-speaking people, like Elaine Brown, to end the gaslighting in our society.  Don’t we?  And Elaine Brown is funny as hell, too, especially when she drops acid remarks upon her predominantly white, liberal audience. Occasional images of white ladies, aghast, are hilarious, no offense. I love all people, including white people. But the points Elaine Brown makes are so matter-of-fact, that she seems like a relic from another era, before people lost the courage to speak freely. She’s like an outspoken free-thinking person from the 20th century speaking to domesticated, defanged, and complacent 21st century liberals. I might be wrong. That’s just my reading of the room.

Like Fred Hampton, who organized the original Rainbow Coalition, to organize working class black, brown, and white people against the evils of capitalism in a “proletarian revolution”, Elaine Brown is also speaking to everyone, including expressing solidarity with all oppressed peoples, from Native Americans onward.

Their struggle is our struggle. And what about the Chicanos in the fields of California? Our friend, Cesar Chavez, who was a very close friend of the Black Panther Party, and all the others, that we knew that were in the barrios of Los Angeles. How can we talk about our freedom, if we aren’t talking about the freedom of the Chicano people?

Elaine Brown (c. 59:30)
<p value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">Elaine Brown challenges our conventional notions of American history and so-called "race" relations. Dr. King's legacy has been carelessly, if not maliciously, watered down over the decades. We have to admit our school books have never thought it was age-appropriate, evidently, for the youth to learn the truth about Dr. King, beyond an abstract, toothless <em>Dream</em>. Dr. King's actual analysis and conclusions are too often obfuscated, snuffed out. If we can't even talk about the things Dr. King talked about toward the end of his life, than not only have we not advanced since the time of Martin and Malcom, but we may have even regressed. For example, Elaine Brown reminds us that Dr. Martin Luther King's 1963 <em>Dream</em> was not just an affective abstraction, but a very real call for truth and reconciliation, which could most powerfully be symbolized by material testimony, legislation, and financial reparations. The entire question of reparations, of a guaranteed income for all Americans, was buried, along with Dr. King's abused corpse. Elaine Brown points out that Dr. King always called for reparations for blacks, especially by 1968, which is what the Poor People's Campaign was all about.Elaine Brown challenges our conventional notions of American history and so-called “race” relations. Dr. King’s legacy has been carelessly, if not maliciously, watered down over the decades. We have to admit our school books have never thought it was age-appropriate, evidently, for the youth to learn the truth about Dr. King, beyond an abstract, toothless Dream. Dr. King’s actual analysis and conclusions are too often obfuscated, snuffed out. If we can’t even talk about the things Dr. King talked about toward the end of his life, than not only have we not advanced since the time of Martin and Malcom, but we may have even regressed. For example, Elaine Brown reminds us that Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 Dream was not just an affective abstraction, but a very real call for truth and reconciliation, which could most powerfully be symbolized by material testimony, legislation, and financial reparations. The entire question of reparations, of a guaranteed income for all Americans, was buried, along with Dr. King’s abused corpse. Elaine Brown points out that Dr. King always called for reparations for blacks, especially by 1968, which is what the Poor People’s Campaign was all about.

Messina

***

UCTV—[3 NOV 2008] Activist and author Elaine Brown, the first and only woman to lead the Black Panther Party speaks on issues of race with reference to her new book New Age Racism. She discusses the Black experience throughout American history and the issue of reparations for all descendants of slaves.

Series: Voices [5/2001] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 5720]

“Elaine Brown: New Age Racism” by UC Television (YouTube)

Learn more at UCTV.

***

[Notes and transcription by Messina for Lumpenproletariat, UCTV, and Elaine Brown]

(c. 59:35) “Their struggle is our struggle. And what about the Chicanos in the fields of California? Our friend, Cesar Chavez, who was a very close friend of the Black Panther Party, and all the others, that we knew who were in the barrios of Los Angeles. How can we talk about our freedom, if we’re not talking about the freedom of the Chicano people? (Who used to call themselves Spanish, until they decided to go ahead and come on home, like black people did. You know? It used to be ‘negroes’; it became black. It used to be Spanish. ‘No, I’m a Mexican, a Chicano. I’m proud of that.’ And we helped to form the coalition that helped to initiate the Brown Berets in Southern California.

(c. 1:00:12) “And how can we be free, if the Puerto Ricans are languishing in the sweatshops of New York? And, so, we organized with the Young Lords and said, ‘Their freedom is our freedom.’

(c. 1:00:24)  “And how can we be free, if the Chinese people, driven to the west coast like dogs, are not free in America? We can’t be. So, we formed a coalition with the Red Guard.

“And how can we be free, if poor whites are living in Appalachia and never got the drill that we were never their enemy. We can’t be. So, we formed a coalition with the white Patriot Party—not to be confused with the SDS intellectuals on the campus.  The white Patriot Party armed young whites, talkin’ about the same agenda, that we had, revolutionary change in America.

(c. 1:00:52)  “How can we be free, if women in this country were living like dogs and less than human beings?  So, we said that the direction of women’s liberation was our liberation.

“How can we be free, when gay people are oppressed in this country.  We say gay liberation is our liberation.

“And we set the agenda and the goal and vision, that was truly inclusive.  It wasn’t multicultural.  It was truly inclusive because we understood that our liberation had to come with the iteration of all human beings, who are oppressed and alienated and otherwise ostracized from this society.

“But the society would have to change.  You know?  Capitalism really has to go.  We can’t have one guy owning as much as a hundred million people.  We really know one human being is really not worth a hundred million people.  We want to change the paradigm, and very much like Dr. King did, because many people said that Dr. King, at the end of his life, started talking like a Black Panther.  And he was.

— snip —

(c. 1:02:54)  “Even though he said himself in 1967, after the Detroit uprising and so many others before, he said:  Look, how can I tell these young blacks and urban Americans to stop throwing Molotov cocktails in this country out of rage?  How can I talk to them about the nonviolent resolution of conflict when their very country will send them to resolve conflict with violence?  With some innocent people in Vietnam?   Only to come home and be oppressed in their own country?  No.  I cannot.  And I will not.

“He says that.  But we erased that from the books.

“But, in 1968, what was Dr. King doing?  He was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign.  This was not about the Memphis Garbage Strike.  This was about the Poor People’s Campaign.  And what was the Poor People’s Campaign about?

“The Poor People’s Campaign was he tells us in words, in written words, on film, everywhere, he says:  Look, in ’63 we talked about the check hadn’t been cashed.  And in ’68, we gon’ cash the check.  We goin’ to Washington to cash the check.  And we’re not leaving until it’s cashed.

“Now, what does that mean?  It means we’re talking about reparations for blacks.  We’re talking about guaranteed income for all people in this country.  We’re talkin’ about universal healthcare for everyone.

“These were the words, that he said.  This wasn’t some [abstract] dream or fantasy.  They were very concrete issues.  And, worse, redistribution of wealth.  They forgot that stuff—maybe ‘cos it’s been written out.

(c. 1:04:17) “So, that vision of his, of ours, was lost, especially when that bullet entered his brain and took his life because that left a gaping hole not only in the blacks in this country, but also the entire country.  So, we slid.  And we’ve been backsliding quite a bit since then.

“And we are right back where we started.  Why are blacks poor?  What’s the problem?  The problem is a failure of will.  And a failure of commitment to really talk about a country, and to make the commitment, that Thomas Jefferson gave lip service to.  And that, of course, being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and those kinds of ideals.

“So, what the Black Panther Party attempted to do—and what that history [shows]—what that history gives us is an opportunity to look back at a vision and what happened to it.  And where do we want to go in this country?  Do we really want to be so divided along these lines?  And, more importantly, do we black people and other poor people want to be equal? 

“Or do we want to have the right to beat up Rodney King?  Or do we want to be Colin Powell, killing 400,000 people in Iraq in the name of oil interests and, specifically, George Bush’s oil interests?

“Is that who we really want to be?

“Do we want to have the World Bank own the entire continent of Africa?

— snip —

“Do we really want to oppress the entire world?

— snip —

(c. 1:06:19)  “And, so, we have to get back to a vision of who we really are.  And that, I think, is in memory of what Black History Month ought to do for us—and not let us get side-tracked onto these special cases of these entertaining negroes, which is what I call them, because they really don’t have any other role to play.  The same role, that slaves had many, many years ago, which was to entertain.”

(c. 1:06:40)  “And, so, in closing, I will say this 

— snip —

(c. 1:07:42) Q&A

A young white guy asked about an education reform issue.  Elaine Brown reminded the young man that the American educational system was never designed for liberal education, but simply to train workers, to teach them how to more effectively recognize the 8 o’clock bell and the 5 o’clock bell.  Admittedly, she ran roughshod all over his question, bringing up everyone from Che Guevara to the Battle of Seattle to Rodney King.  The young man followed along patiently.  Then, she did come back round to his question, in earnest, but tried to convey the complexity of the question.  

“Yes, education should be free.”  If only Elaine Brown knew about MMT. 

“All teachers should have starting salary of $100,000 right now.”  Audience applauded.

Then, Elaine Brown cited Jonathan Kozol, a “personal friend” of hers with a healthy critique of liberal illusions and divisive politics, which turn blacks against Hispanics.  She cited the they’re-taking-our-jobs trope parroted by some blacks, when we haven’t had any jobs in the black community since 1973, she quipped.

“So, I don’t have the answer.  But I’m telling you that your commitment will deliver the answer to you.”

The young white guy felt unsatisfied, so he proceeded to ask another question about higher education.  Elaine Brown interjected that early childhood education and elementary education was more important a priority because poor children are being woefully deprived.  She said it’s all about funding.  “I don’t know where you’re gonna get the money,” she lamented.  Again, if only she and the young white man and Jonathan Kozol, while we’re at it, if only more people knew about MMT.  We wouldn’t be asking the question about where do we get the money.  Of course, if we’re not careful, without a strong political base ready to mobilize on the unraveling of the MMT secret, the state will simply appropriate the reality of MMT for its own unaccountable agenda to the detriment of the people.

(c. 1:15:42)  The next interlocutor, a black guy with dreads asked about reparations, but expressed skepticism about the possibility of reparations in America.  Brown agreed that reparations will never come from the benevolence of white America, but insisted they’re required.  In passing, Brown sharply condemned the South African Truth & Reconciliation hearings in South Africa, rebuking them for putting Winnie Mandela on trial.  “They should have been ashamed.”

But the U.S. hasn’t even had any Truth and Reconciliation hearings at all.  “The Germans, at least, acknowledged a crime existed.”

— snip —

“There’s plenty of money for reparations.”

— snip —

“But I think black people have to force this issue.”

— snip —

Elaine Brown comes to the same conclusion as Malcom X, Frantz Fanon, et al. and other survivors of narcissistic abuse:  You don’t turn to your abuser for understanding, sympathy, or justice.  You carefully and safely, walk away and leave.  But when it’s in your own home, in your own country, in your own nation.  The abused must seek legal justice from an outside, neutral third-party, i.e., an international court of justice.

(c. 1:20:59)  “Why we are still looking for justice in the courts of America is always shocking to me.  It’s like: Is there any clue here that the courts are not operating in your favor. They’ve dismantled every single thing, that served our interest. It’s so dire.

— snip —

(c. 1:24:35)  Next question from the audience, a young white woman, who was shown in the audience during the talk, looking overwhelmed.  She asked, how do we deal with all of the divergent single-issue movements and identity politics without diluting our own cause?  Elaine Brown’s answer is honest.  It takes a lot of hard work, finding like-minded individuals, and then building an organization.  It’s not fun.  And it often has few rewards.  But it’s how the Black Panther Party was started, by just a handful of individuals.

Elaine Brown went on to remind the audience about the political prisoners, still languishing in jail today, such as Mumia Abu Jamal and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald.  I would also add David Gilbert among many others.  These upright Americans are languishing in prison simply for engaging in activism, like we teach our kids to do in civics class, like the young white woman in the audience was asking for advice to do, to follow in the footsteps of the many upright Americans of the 1960s and ’70s, perhaps.

— snip —

[end of notes/transcription; see video link above for the full remarks by Elaine Brown on UCTV…]

***

[1 JAN 2020]

[Last modified on 1 JAN 2020 at 11:03 PST]

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
%d bloggers like this: