The Tides of Inequity

The Tides of Inequity:

Fishing in New Bedford, like most blue collar jobs, is hard work. Amidst masses of swinging metal dredges and the salty spray of rough seas, men must work weeks on shifts of eight hours on and four hours off, sleeping in cramped beds to the roll of ocean waves. Each time the trawl emerges it dumps its living contents on the deck. Tons of fish are then sorted through and the organism of choice is quickly gutted for onboard freezing. Those who work on these metal islands of laborious solitude are presumed silent. The main regulatory agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) does all the talking for them. They use scientific studies of the species, and economic considerations of sustainability, to dictate who should fish what, when and where based—in large part—on the profile of the species population over several tens of years. What scientists are now realizing, however, is that a single profile does not contain adequate predictions of the health of a species. Tuna, for example, can migrate across oceans between separate populations. When we fish Pollock, a major food source among secondary predators, we are in effect hurting the populations of those fish as well.
Perhaps if he had taken a minute from his plots and bar graphs the government might have heeded the words of the old fishermen. They might have told them that the cod he caught forty years ago regularly weighed 150 pounds. They might have told them that his fish by catch, which he has to throw back due to restrictive laws, are often baked to death on the deck before they can be returned to the water. They might have told them that he just wants to make a living, but when NMFS makes higher quota for fish—an action often intended as an economic stimulus—the market value plummets and the fisherman must do much more work for the same amount of money. There exists today, in American society, disconnect between government and the people it is supposed to protect.
Take for example our fisherman. His situation clearly requires special consideration. If too many people engage in fishing practices, then he will find the ocean deplete of its wares. It naturally makes sense them for him to form a coalition with other fishermen in order to determine that the sea is not overexploited. But the aspect that is truly limiting the fisherman is the market itself. Surely, he fishes enough to feed himself in his family. With the advent of industrialization, tons of fish can be reaped from the sea in a single tow. While I am talking about fish in this instance, the principle is certainly the same in other farming, manufacturing or otherwise productive practices. The shoemaker makes more shoes than he could ever hope to wear in his lifetime just as the lumberjack cuts enough wood to make his house one thousand times over. Where does this excess go? In the case of the fisherman about ten percent will go directly to taxes. A similar percent will go to the middlemen, giant factories which store the fish in giant freezers and cart it off to needy restaurants where customers will pay ten times the raw cost required to remove it and transport it from the ocean. The tax money will go to bureaucrats who profess to know about the oceans although have never fished—at least commercially—for themselves. Some will also fall in the pockets of entrepreneurial boat owners who pay more workers to maintain the boat while it is docked, perhaps losing some small percentage in menial repairs of the boat. In the end the man that provides food for hundreds will get just enough to irk a living while others are free to manipulate his wares to their own profit.
From a purely economic standpoint this does not make sense. America consists of hundreds of thousands of unproductive middlemen—people who move money from place to place to their benefit. Over 35000 people alone are lobbyists for corporations whose sole purpose is to woo congressmen into supporting specific causes. A slew of politicians must, by necessity, be present at every level of our federalist government. These men and women are accompanied by thousands police force to maintain the structure of power. Hamilton and Adams would revel at the fact that their government has lasted for such a long time, and perhaps even justify the extreme manpower required for its maintenance. It was widely believed in the past that, following the precedent of Rome, any government which got too big would fall. Given this previous belief, we find enormous clout as Americans in our so-named system of checks and balances. But at what expense? Economists show us that the top one percent of the population owns nearly 35 percent of the wealth. Despite holding only five percent of the population, we are home to one quarter of the world’s prisoners and the entire financial burden that comes with them. It takes simple pragmatism to see that our democracy has its flaws: How can we purport to represent the individual when, through our entire history, our politics has been comprised of no more than two dominant parties? How can our rights be protected when 18 of the top 20 spenders on private interest groups are corporations, while environmental, consumer protection and human rights groups do not even make the top 100?
It is hard not to regard such questions disdainfully given an American education which is indoctrinated with our own supremacy. But it is clear that these problems are not restricted to our country but are, perhaps, best exemplified by it. Rome had Caesar, England had kings, Germany had Hitler and now we have an upper echelon of politicians, on the short leash of wealthy interest groups, who seek to exploit the masses and use the police force as the physical assurance of their power. The impossibility of all of this to the average reader comes through the conception that this exploitation is conscious—it isn’t. The true danger of our political system and perhaps any political system in general lies in the potentiality and eventuality of corruption and exploitation. Should our government be interested in seizing totalitarian power, however, the world which we might imagine has striking similarities to our own.
The people would first be penned like cattle into giant cities, where they would be both reliant on governmental regulation and easily controlled in the event of an emergency. Highways, like arteries and veins, would allow the passage of officials through every conceivable area. Think: it is now possible for someone to get a speeding ticket from a helicopter, or for an unknowing target to be easily followed through interstate boundaries. Industry would be partitioned into ever smaller tasks. A man who simply picks the strawberry or builds the computer chip knows nothing of the workings of the system as a whole, and thus cannot utilize it to his benefit. This specialization of labor allows easy exploitation by the bourgeois and—according to Noam Chomsky—denies the development of “material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person.” Put yourself in the seat of an F/A-18C Hornet flying over Baghdad in 2003. With the pressing of a single button each pilot had the ability to level buildings and houses, along with nearby civilian bystanders. From his seat in the sky, with the simple task of pressing a button at a predetermined time, which would then drop a heat-seeking missile set to fly on a predetermined route, this soldier could not possibly be expected to understand the moral implications of his actions on Iraqi families. While it is an extreme comparison, it can also be said that many of the lawyers, politicians, business owners and other paper-pushers living under the mantra that you have to work hard for your money cannot possibly understand the precarious and scary nature of life at the bottom of the financial food chain.
If government then truly wanted to gain totalitarian control of its people, it would then use the institution of war. Marching into war is not only a means to protect and acquire resources for the state as a whole; it also has the internal effect of ostracizing anyone who does not believe in the war as ‘unpatriotic.’ To truly understand the necessity of war in the current organization of society we must consider the formation of societal group. A natural community is molded around the basis of natural and practical associations. For want of meat, the bread maker may have, for example, given the hunter some of his wares in exchange. Nowadays, people seem to think that money is the natural evolution of such exchanges. We have come a long way since the days of our nomadic ancestors. Where before man needed vast tracts of land on which to hunt and scavenge food, a similar nutritional output is now supplemented by mechanized agriculture taking, according to Peter Kropotkin, only “one thousandth the space.” He further notes that such technological developments have enabled feats which could never have been possible without them: “What would become of out mines, our factories, our workshops and our railways without the immense quantities of merchandise transported every day by sea and land?” Now, a logical evolution of such developments would be the enrichment of society as a whole. When we examine the actual situation however, we realize that the wealth we have amassed is split disproportionately. The group we have formed is no longer based on the needs of the masses, but instead on the wants of a few.
What Peter Kropotkin called ‘apprenticeship,’ that is, the employment and exploitation of other people, has become the only means by which to make reasonable amounts of money. It is not the fisherman, farmers or miners who get rich but the boat owners, produce factories and mineral speculators who are able to manipulate the proletariat’s hard work for personal gains. In reality, these people—like politicians—give no tangible contributions to society. They do not perform physical labor. Nor does it make sense to apportion fish, produce or minerals for maximum gain to anyone but the person who is dividing these goods. A household which needs more fish because, for example, it has more children or lacks essential fats in its diet should not be required to work more for their need than the others around them. Minimum wage is a tool of the elite, making those who perform some of the most essential tasks in this country labor harder for the basic goods which he and his family needs to survive.
And who decides what to pay for minimum wage? This is done by the politicians, who sit on the unchallenged pantheon of US history and the rhetoric of ‘freedom.’ Those who would question the actions of the government and the dismal nature of their situation are indoctrinated with the history of the United States—one which is apparently built on freedom and equality. In truth, the founding fathers were simply fighting to protect their own property from their English counterparts, and cared little for the protection of those beyond upper class whites. It is no surprise that the abolishment of slavery in this country came years after similar abolishment by other countries in the Western Hemisphere, and that many of the founding fathers used slave plantations to accrue their vast wealth. It is equally unsurprising that president George W. Bush would lead the US into an occupation of Iraq despite the disapproval of the United Nations Security Council. While no attempts in this paper will be made to prove conspiracy, it is interesting that the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq were used as a main tenet to justify its occupations, and that despite the urgings of Cheney, Bush and Blair such weapons were never found. Indeed, wherever this lie sprung from, it is clear that it was necessary to mobilize popular support for the war. To go a step further, such popular support—whether through our war of independence, the civil war, the Cold War, the World Wars and even the beginning of the Iraq and Vietnam wars—have bolstered public support ratings for the president in power.
Thus, war is yet another vehicle by politicians which is necessary to maintain both the institution of state and the division of wealth within it. Much of the government support by US people is contingent on the idea that they are being protected from outside powers. Ironically, the fear of invasion drops a veil over the mental and fiscal poverty of the US people. Only 15 percent of the public has been estimated to care about government enough to get involved, and only about half of those who werew voting age turned out to the 2008 presidential elections. Compare this with a turnout of about 80 percent in some areas of Iraq during the February 2009 local elections, despite a climate of killings and other intimidation to keep citizens from the polls. The fact is that government and poverty in America function together to form a bloc of people which is content to side with the country in issues of war, presuming personal protection, but that work too hard to learn enough about their government to know that they are being exploited.
And when those in the bottom financial tier of society do finally realize that they are being exploited, the means by which they act are uncoordinated and unproductive. Despite only holding five percent of the world’s population, this country is home to nearly one quarter of its prison population. Here is one of the only nations where a beggar, blue collar worker or a hard working immigrant can regularly witness those who are wealthier than he is. Paradoxically, these wealthy people are the ones that are protected by the law. If the worker does not think his wage is adequate, or if the beggar does not respect the laws of the local government to keep from sleeping in a certain affluent neighborhood, these people will be promptly put in place by the system that purports to protect him. Policemen are mostly necessary to maintain the current inequities in society. After all, aren’t most rational crimes committed for want of something possessed by another? It is not unexpected that the greatest proportions of criminals come from the poorest areas in America. The boat owner is never arrested for taking the lion’s share of his fisherman’s profits—although the fishermen certainly would be if they tried to retain them.
So what of the fisherman? Together with his proletarian brothers he must rise to the cause of social equity. He must come to realize that the work which he does is no less valuable than the administering of his local governor. In fact, it is more so. Why does he need the governor if the fisherman can produce his own wealth? Why associate with political agencies when he is best equipped to know the state of his own industry? Why labor 18 hour days only to fall prey to those who are more adept at using the pen and paper? He does not need the lawyers or the politicians or even money and property for that matter. Despite the fact that one human being will never truly be able to understand the consciousness of another, we all seek, according to Max Stirner, four basic assurances in our lives outlined by the Greek poet Simonides: “Health,” “Beauty,” “riches acquired without guide” and “the enjoyment of social pleasures.” We do not need an infringing government to obtain these pleasures. Instead, we need mutual cooperation.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon told us that production is proportional to labor, not property. This is ever evident in the growing amount of wealth possessed by the upper echelon of American society, none of whom make their money with physical labor and all of whom employ others to make the money for them. Politicians make their money, for example, by exacting a tax on those who labor to make a living. After exacting their tax, these same politicians expectedly act to keep this same form of wage labor, which directly benefit them, active in society. A loop has thus been formed which has gradually made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The irony is that, rather than some desert-riddled African country with little agricultural potential, the United States is a nation with immense agricultural and manufacturing development. Our GDP of 14.6 trillion dollars would hypothetically yield enough excess money for every person in the US to make nearly 50000 dollars of profit per year. If this does not sound like a lot, consider that this money represents a gross product, calculated after all essential purchases have been made. Consider too that, despite having the highest GDP of any single country in the world, the United States spends the largest percentage of this GDP on the military. This reiterates the point that military is necessary with disproportionate division of wealth. It also reiterates the point that a good deal of the wealth which is made on the backs of hard-working Americans falls under the discretion of a powerful political class.
This paper has intentionally not mentioned the word anarchy until this point. While certain facts make it logical to criticize the American government, the actual act of doing so is often considered sacrosanct. A similar situation occurred with the development of religion, where thinkers such as Galileo were isolated from society and punished for questioning that which had been practiced for so long. While laws of free speech increase our ability to be radical, it is no secret that outspoken activists such as Noam Chomsky will never be able to gain political clout under a public assured of their government’s validity. A paper containing word ‘anarchy’ cited as a legitimate viewpoint is often outright rejected. When someone is labeled as an anarchist or a communist, ingrained stigmas often preclude any chance at intellectual consideration. However, like the Kantian revolution in Europe, which pushed towards a more liberal and personal conception of religion, our idea of government is changing. Better education systems mean that blue collar workers are now educated to the point that they can realize when they are being exploited. The Iraq and the Vietnam War were two of the most protested wars in the history of the United States, with Iraq being a cornerstone because the occupation was protested before it actually occurred.
It is only a matter of time before the masses come to the widespread realization that it is the government who needs them to survive, and not the other way around. We ask of the fisherman to not be scared. Do not join Afred Huxely’s “growing army of hopeless alcoholics” and cigarette smokers who use legal drugs to cope with the inadequacies of society. Instead, realize that we would not need these things—taxes, drugs and a concern by hard-working people over their own survival—if we did not allow government. True, much of current warfare has been attributed to industrial developments such as the necessity of oil. But it is also true that the Amazon, before the advent of steam engines and logging companies, was ravaged by fires and axes to clear vast tracts of land. It is true that even before the European ‘civilized’ the Americas, tribes such as the Mohawks and the Huron engages in vast battles resulting in the death of thousands. These facts indicate that destruction, war, and many other activities detrimental to society are not the product of recent developments in society but rather corrupting political institutions.
Industrial development has actually, as previously mentioned, resulted in a much greater output of wealth per input of human labor. The only reason why such developments have led to a discrepancy in wealth is the ability of our political system to facilitate the existence of vast corporations. Rather than give the money to the constituents at the bottom of their production, corporate giants are able to ensure their wealth by investing in lobbyists and political campaigns. Our political system thus inherently caters to the individuals in power, with no regard towards the actual work that occurs.
Perhaps it is the realization of this governmental inadequacy which will finally drive intense structural reformation. Who are our presidents, governors, legislators and bosses, the proletariats will ask, to decide that one hour of our work is less valuable than one hour of their own? Some perceptive members may ask what these authority figures actually do in the scheme of things. It may begin to look, for some, like those in power are simply shuffling money around so it fills their own pockets. It may occur to others that the crime rate would decrease if less people lived in want of basic necessities. Whatever the realization, it will soon become clear that most of America’s public is subject to financial exploitation despite working hard days and long hours, and that such exploitation inhibits their chances for a content existence unperturbed by worries of basic survival. It is this type of realization, if anything in the history of the world, which kindles the fires of rebellion.
So maybe the fisherman will write a pamphlet. Or maybe, while this paper’s author certainly would not encourage it, he will pick up a gun and shoot someone who he sees as an obstacle to his survival. We must remember that such violent actions are often, contrary to popular opinion, the result of the simplest of motivations. A wolf whose kill is infringed by another seeking to feast off his efforts will invariably attack his counterpart and attempt to retain his meal. While the world of human associations is perhaps more elaborate, our contentedness and means to survival have always been aspects that we are and have always been willing to kill and die for. We must then not look at the fisherman, who may or may not engage in armed conflict, as a crazed individual. He is instead one part of a wave of eventuality, borne of a self-imposed state of inequality for which wide scale rectification is the only answer.

Introduction

Everyone knows that something is wrong in America, especially those working at the bottom of the financial ladder. I am creating this blog in an attempt to share my own ideas and elicit those of others. I hope that, with a little luck and a lot of help, I can raise awareness about the state of our current government. Let me know what you think.