The other day I had a debate with a math student. He defended the mathematical soundness of the Laffer Curve and, by extension, the efficiency of supply side economics. Maybe the Laffer Curve has theoretical soundness, but it’s never been shown to work at levels of taxation like ours. Furthermore, there’s a real human cost when attempts have been made to try to make it work here. That’s even provided that the people keeping so much money in lower taxation actually keep it in the same curve. If we’ve learned anything from Mitt Romney and his Cayman residing millions, it’s the one glaring human reason as to why the Laffer Curve will never work anywhere. As for “efficiency”; let’s just say that my friend had a limited understanding of what that word means in the field of economics. These points were all lost in the morass of my friend’s Math Chat.
I realized that if I was going to be debating this sort of thing in the future, I needed two things: 1) more mathematical competence and 2) to learn how to parse the moral failings I find in right wing views on economics. This guy wasn’t even aware of when he was including morality as a consideration and when he was dismissing it. Largely, his arguments reflected a selective morality that aided the aims of the 1% very well.
In macroeconomics the presence of morality as a consideration is an either/or proposition. It’s either among your factors or it is not. To try to subtract the human element in macroeconomics is folly. By definition, humans will always be a part of economics. But, even if attempted, neither can it be done in half-assed measures. If morals are subtracted only for the needy then what you’re really arguing is that some pigs are more equal than others. After all, entire societies thrived on piracy for centuries. Call a Viking “jealous” and he’d just laugh and run you through. There’s nothing novel about greed by theft, no matter who is doing the theft by some different, less violent method – like appropriation of the infrastructure through more favorable taxation. Also, there’s hardly anything “revolutionary” about classism or feudalism.
I’ve got a headache-inducing long haul for the first of those tasks. In order to be accepted into a grad program for Economics, I now need to complete the intermediate levels of math. Calculus III, here we come.
For the second of those tasks, I’ll need the guidance of my Quaker heroes. These are Friends of times past who made their very lives into powerful testimonies for their principles. Of these long ago Friends, none were more fierce than Elias Hicks. Born in Rockaway, NY in 1748 to non-Quaker parents, Hicks “became convinced” (the Quaker phrase for “converted”) in his 20s. By age 27, he had become a recorded pastor in his Meeting and widely respected for his messages which were long enough to be considered sermons.
Hicks and his followers were responsible for a schism in American Quakerism in the late 1820s; one that occurred largely on theological grounds. However, among others in the Society, there were concerns regarding Hicks’ methods as well. Many considered his confrontational manner on the topic of slavery to be unbecoming for a Friend. He called out wealthier Friends for being complicit in the sin of slavery through their passivity. In a well-known treatise published in 1811, he likened the slaveholder to a highway man; a controversial analogy for the time. In the same work, he called for a consumer boycott of goods made through slavery, one of the earliest social cause boycotts in American history. If any single person could be credited with having been responsible for the end of slavery in the State of New York in 1827, it’s Hicks.
Yeah, Elias Hicks is my dude. He never apologized for his methods. Slavery was the greatest evil of his time and fighting a great evil calls for strong methods. In my time, the human propensity for greed has once again reared its ugly head. The adverse effects on the Have Nots are myriad. If the 99% of my own wealthy society are struggling for food and healthcare, it’s easy to infer just how much worse life got for the globe’s 99%. In light thereof, it’s hard to contain my moral outrage at people like Mitt Romney and those who support him, like my math geek friend. I’d love to channel Elias, that Mean Ol’ Quaker, and make a difference with my thundering ways.
However, in the process of my convincement, I’d also come to be enamored of a Friend named John Woolman. Woolman lived a generation before Hicks. He was born to a Quaker family in Northampton, Burlington County, NJ in 1720.
When he was 23, Woolman experienced an “opening” (the Quaker expression for an epiphany, but regarded as a spiritual experience) on the issue of slavery. He was asked to write a bill of sale for a slave. He did only after much objection to his employer about how it offended his principles to do so. Later, when he was asked to write a will leaving a slave to an heir, he went to the testator and convinced the man to free the person instead. Woolman would spend the rest of his life working towards the eradication of slavery, one slaveholder at a time. In his time, there wasn’t any agreement even among Friends on slavery. Woolman began his mission with Friends, convincing many of them to free their slaves and then, to turn their backs on an economy furthered by slavery. He took on personal boycotts of slave made goods. When he visited slaveholders, he paid the slaves who waited on him. “Conduct is more convincing than language.” – Woolman wrote in his journal. Through the rest of his life, he made this concept evident.
Woolman never lived to see the eradication of slavery in NJ or even among Friends, but it is inarguable that he made a difference in individual lives. To the individual slaves freed as a result of Woolman’s persuasions, the world was, immediately, a better place. On this topic, I am often reminded of a quote from the Talmud (Jerusalem):
“Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” (Sanhedrin 4:1 [22a])
Leaving the world a better place than I found it was the incentive for having joined the Society to begin with. If I could make that kind of difference, I would be eternally happy. My math skills; they’ll grow. Eventually my academic record will be made up of credentials that earn my spot in a program. But what of the second task? How, in my writings, am I to process the moral question? Like Hicks – thundering in demand and full expectation that this is regarded a valid factor for consideration? Or Like Woolman – quietly living by example, persuading one Have (or fanboy) at a time to change their ways?
Without the Hicks method, what effect can the Woolman method have? For the modern American conservative, the appearance of a moral base is to be worn much like a designer accessory. Witness Mitt Romney’s regular temple attendance, purporting to worship Heavenly Father in one breath and, in the next, condemning the rest of Heavenly Father’s children to want, accusing them of “jealousy” and divisionary tactics if they complain of their situation. One can buy a conscience through controlled donations to carefully chosen “charities”, turning a willful blind eye that many of those organizations are as inefficient as the government they claim to be so incompetent.
But without the Woolman method, what’s left save empty moralizing? In the 18th century, people may have fretted about the fate of their eternal souls. In the Western world, this isn’t much of the case any longer, particularly among the 1%. The Haves don’t seem to worry much about divine judgment, but their wannabe fans hate temporal judgment with a passion. They don’t much care for the consequences their quests for more money, status and power will bring. In response, these fans will dismiss the validity of such judgments entirely. Or, like Romney, they make it all very one sided – accusing the judges of “envy”, a moral judgment in itself.
Slavery’s end in New York in 1827 came only as a result of majority agreement that slavery was a practice worth banning. Convincing individuals – one at a time, if need be – was a necessary element in order to achieve that end. In our time, equitable taxation – that is one that is proportionate to the wealth extracted from the use of it – will only be achieved when individuals like my Math Geek bud can be convinced that morals are an inextricable part of the macroeconomic equation. How can that be achieved through example? No number of Bill Gates – quietly immunizing entire generations in South America on his own dime – can equal the influential power of a someone decrying the fallacy of an Amoral Market with the time tested examples of heroin, weapons grade uranium and kiddie porn. Morals have no place in economics? Really? Bullshit.
Or is that sort of thing turning off the very people we need to persuade? Not the 1%, who, if they are fighting equity now will go to their graves clinging to their last dime as their “right” due to all of their “hard work”. It’s their fanboys and girls – those who would fancy themselves wannabes and also-rans – we need to convince. I know that no amount of loud moralizing ever got me to review any prior viewpoint. Only meeting someone who walked the walk ever influenced me.
It seems clear that both methods are needed, but which would be more effective in which ways? Certainly I have time to figure that one out. After all, I’ve got lots of math to get through first.
