Double Standard REVIEW

Double Standard REVIEW

Double Standard: Social Policy in Europe and the United States by James W. Russell

The National Football League is an organization that places a high value on parity. In any given year, the team with the worst record gets the first pick of every round of the draft (unless they trade that pick away for known talent). Significantly, the better the team finishes in one year, the more difficult their schedule will be the following year, based on that year’s standings. The NFL also imposes a salary cap on each team, making it so that no team can spend more on its roster than any other (although teams do try and find creative ways around this limitation at the edges). The NFL also reserves the right to give teams compensatory picks. Here is how that system works. Each year, players whose contracts have expired can re-sign with the teams they were on, or they can become free agents – players who are allowed to go and sell their talents to the highest bidder. Teams can sign free agents from other teams, and they can let their own free agents go. After that process has concluded, some teams will have lost more talent than they gained, and the NFL will award them a certain number of compensatory draft picks to ensure that no team hemorrhages talent in a feedback loop sort of way (fewer good players, fewer chances to win, fewer chances to get paid more). No team can get more than four compensatory picks. Some teams, if they picked up more talent than they lost, will get none. All these policies are designed to “make things more equal.” To make the NFL more “European.”

Why is it that America’s most beloved game is designed to combat the forces of the free market and capitalism? Because the NFL believes that if some teams get stronger and stronger while others get weaker and weaker, games will start becoming lopsided, fans will stop buying tickets and watching, and advertisers will stop paying big money for ad time. In the NFL, inequality is bad for business and the ideal season would probably be one where every team won or lost every game in overtime and was tied with every other team on the last weekend.

This is instructive because even in an environment where the rules are made to bring about equality (same field, same weather conditions, same neutral refs, same rules, etc.) inequality eventually always wins from year to year. Indeed, in the end, a single team wins the Superbowl and everyone else deals with being one of the 31 other losers. How does this happen in spite of all the ways that the dice are loaded against its happening? It happens because we do not live in a cosmically just world. Some teams select better coaches and better players because their scouts are better scouts. Some teams happen to play schedules that do not serve their best interests (what team from Miami wants to play in Buffalo in a blizzard?) Some teams have to deal with more injuries or more strategically disadvantageous injuries. A star quarterback can go down a few plays into the first game and be out for the season. Sometimes, and this is hard to imagine, some players play harder than other players. Sometimes, all it takes is a wind gust just as a field goal is being kicked in the final seconds. Sometimes, that oblong leather ball takes a funny bounce.

The NFL prefers equity in much of what it does. Nature doesn’t.

But the inner workings of the NFL can also be instructive when thinking about the way that Europe and America structure their taxation and social welfare programs. While the NFL values parity for capitalistic reasons (it believes that it makes more money if games are close and seasonal races are tight) it also knows when to let Darwin make the rules that can also lead to big television contacts and advertising revenues. Even the lowest paid player on any NFL team will make way more than the average fan in salary. The NFL wants to incentivize athletes to try out. According to Reem Abdalzem, the median salary for an NFL player is $860,000 a year. The average quarterback will make over $7 million and the average wide receiver almost $3 million a year. But the top ten quarterbacks average $49 million a year while the average top-ten wide receiver makes almost $25 million. No player on the roster made less than $750,000 in 2023 though that drops drastically if the player gets released or assigned to the practice squad. Being sent to the practice squad can drop you down to a paltry low of $430,000 a year (hardly poverty).

Similarly, the NFL rewards its winners in ways that it does not reward its losers. Each member of a wild card team in 2022-2023 made an extra $41,500 for that game. Winning the Division playoff game got you an extra $46,500. If you win the Superbowl, each player gets an extra $157,000 plus a $30K-50K Superbowl ring. If you lose, you only get $82,000 and no ring. The NFL also grants the two teams with the best record in the AFC and NFC an extra bye week at the end of the season, allowing them to rest up while all the other 12 playoff qualifying teams duke it out for the right to move on.

It would be hard to argue that the NFL is a socialist enterprise. It does not have a great GINI coefficient.

These wages and rewards make these coveted positions scarce and the competition fierce. Each year, in late April, the NFL draft provides each team with the opportunity to bring in new players from all around the country. The team with the worst record in the previous year picks first and the team that won the Superbowl picks last. The stakes are high and other than the picking order, market rules rule. Choices are made on the basis of intense scouting, draft combines where players demonstrate their skills and athleticism, and a rigorous examination of game tape and statistics. Affirmative action plays no role in these decisions. No one demands that an equal number of Blacks and Whites, or athletes from the South or North or men or women or sexual orientations are chosen. No one has a right to be the first pick in the NFL draft. No one can sue the NFL if they are chosen last.

One might argue that in some ways, the NFL is a European country on steroids and in other ways, the NFL is America on steroids. During any given season, the NFL will not intervene to help out a winless team and it will not intervene to handicap (or tax) an undefeated team. It does not instruct the referees to make favorable calls or unfavorable calls simply because one team is fortunate, and another team is struggling. It does not keep a team that has won nine Superbowls from winning another until a team that has never won a Superbowl wins one. 

To apply this extended metaphor to economic thought, it would be my contention that European models of taxation and social spending may make sense in Europe (and might make sense in some contexts in America). It would be my contention that American models of taxation and social spending may make sense in America (and in some contexts, in Europe). For example, it might make sense for the state of Vermont to establish tax policies and social spending policies akin to what Denmark or Sweden do. But maybe doing the exact same thing at the level of the Federal government would be a terrible mistake. There are 448 million people in the 27 countries of the European Union. There are almost 341 million people in America. Country by country comparisons are not like comparing apples to oranges. They are like comparing oranges to the moon.

Locating that much tax revenue and spending power in one place (Washington, D.C.) would, in my humble opinion, incentivize the worst sort of people to battle for control of that power. Welcome to the swamp. In my view, like the NFL, we should apply economic theories wisely and all along a spectrum -allowing ourselves some pragmatic versatility. “Absolutes,” they say in Star Wars parlance, “are for Sith.”

Recently, I finished reading James W. Russell’s book, Double Standard, a book whose thesis is argued in every chapter: Europe, Russell insists, is a better place to live than America because European countries value equality more than America does. To be clear, while citizens of Europe and citizens of America get to exercise freedom in how they live their lives, Europeans, generally are willing to give more individuals a bit less freedom so as to provide more people a little more equality (and with equality, some additional freedoms – like more vacation time). This can be seen in many statistics cited throughout the book. Some people in America will get better healthcare, better educations, and higher incomes than their European counterparts. Those Europeans who are on the bottom of the European economy will generally get longer maternity leaves, more robust unemployment benefits, more vacation days, higher wages, more State-sponsored childcare, more secure retirements, and numerous other “bennies” than their counterparts in the American underclass.

Russell regards European States as more progressive (i.e. they have made more progress towards Russell’s ideal) and to be sure, Russell believes that his ideal should be everyone’s ideal. He regards America as “retarded” (my word) – in need of more European-like equality. He says that he wants to “bring the United States up to Western World standards of health care, family support, poverty reduction, and other social programs designed to deal with common outstanding social problems.” The dichotomy is clearly drawn. The one system believes in high taxes and high services. The other in low taxes and low services. Russell favors the former. One group is comfortable with inequality and sees it as an expression of nature or the will of Nature’s God that all men be free to be unequal. The other sees inequality as bad and the uncivilized consequence of malignantly designed systems built to defy a generous nature or Nature’s God’s desire to see people living in a cosmically just social harmony.

Here are some specific quotes from the book followed by some of my reflections and questions to give you the gist of how effective the author is at making his case and how ineffective I am at making mine.

-----snip-----

“The Medieval, originally Catholic, notion of social obligation, though, did not make the passage unaltered across the Atlantic, where a culture took root – greatly molded by Protestants – of unfettered individualism, which would interfere with the development of social obligation and state social spending. (p. 13)

I wonder if this is necessarily true. To be sure, in Governor John Winthrop’s sermon on the ship Arbella, A Model of Christian Charity, he does affirm that God chooses some to be poor and some to be well-off but then he goes on to say that if the wealthy do not use their resources to help the poor – if the community of believers is not “knit together” into one body, then God will see to it that the whole enterprise collapses. Might it simply be that the paradigm of “social cohesion” that came across the Atlantic was rooted in the religious community rather than the state (though at the time under Puritan leadership, those were fused)? Is it possible that Protestants believe in social cohesion and resource sharing but prefer to do it in the context of local communities of faith where the people involved are committed to sharing one another’s burdens, not simply to deriving benefits as rights of membership?

“If societies need many types of needed skills, then it may be arbitrary to reward some over others.”

Free-market capitalists would argue that what people get paid is not arbitrary - that it is based on supply and demand, talent, performance, production, and profitability. NFL teams certainly do not believe that they are “arbitrarily” paying their quarterbacks fifty times more than their practice squad players. James Russell is a professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Maddison. Does he intend to say that the difference between what he is paid and what a Community College faculty adjunct is paid is an arbitrary decision? This is the problem with certain strains of progressive thinking. The logic of the argument always seems to stop at their door. James Russell would not be pleased to find a community college adjunct salary in his next paycheck. He would find a way to argue that his advantages were not arbitrary. The logic only applies to other people’s work.

“Group identity took overwhelming precedence over individual identity. The individual apart from the group was a modern notion.”

This is an interesting assertion. It may be so. It may be that human beings are primarily social creatures and exist as individuals only on the peripheries. But it is interesting here that the author is relying on a rather conservative argument. That we should “do things now like we always used to.” That we should not rely on “modern notions.” In this case, “modern” is not good. New is not better. And progressive is not progress. His assertion that at one point, the impulse to act on behalf of the tribe was overwhelmingly (his words) more powerful than it seems to be now is also convenient to his political ends. Does history or archaeology show this to be certainly so? I find myself wondering if the tension between the individual and the collective is just as intense now as it has always been from the beginning.

“Those - including contemporary neo-liberals – who hold that the motive of individualistic self-gain is an innate human quality, believe that the best social and economic orders are those that maximize individual freedom to gain without regard for others.”

A bit of a sleight of hand here. It suggests that if someone prioritizes the individual’s interests over the collective’s that somehow the collective’s interests are reduced to zero in their minds. This is true in the most egregious of cases perhaps, but I don’t know anyone who goes to bat for the priority of the individual who would apply some zero-sum calculation to render the importance of the community null and void. Would this not be a case of “an imposed binary”? Would this not be like me saying that because Russell favors the collective, he wishes to obliterate the individual? Would that be fair?

“To argue that, to the extent that welfare states promote egalitarian distribution of goods and services such as healthcare, they destroy the motivation to work is to reify, to consider as inevitable and unchanging, the variable and creative possibilities of human nature itself.”

This argument is worth looking at closely. He seems to argue that humans are capable of flexible thought. We have a certain plasticity in our neural wiring and therefore, we cannot argue, as conservatives do, that we are HARD WIRED to be self-interested. But must it be true that we are HARD-WIRED to be altruistic? Can we not wire ourselves for either outcome? Does history suggest that idealism is all that is needed to make human communities more selfless and altruistic and responsible? Specifically, does history demonstrate that Russell would get the results he promises if only systems were reformed in the ways that he suggests?

“Therein lies the rub and flaw in the system, according to Marx: the primary goal of the capitalist is to produce commodities from which they can reap profit rather than to produce goods that are useful to society. If a society needs something that would be useful, but it cannot be produced at a profit, it will not be produced under pure laissez-faire conditions.”

Russell notes that libraries are a good example of things that are useful but not profitable (perhaps because they compete with bookstores?) I wonder what some other good examples of “useful things that are not profitable things” might be added to the list? Of course, what troubles the conservative here is that a professor from the University in Wisconsin is claiming an ability to declare for an entire society what is and is not “useful.” In his mind, a library is clearly useful and another bar in Madison Wisconsin (or a top ten quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) is not. Not all would agree. This is how markets work.

“If there is a contradiction between production for usefulness and production for profit, there is by implication also a contradiction between distribution of goods, according to need and unregulated market distribution of commodified goods according to the purchasing abilities of consumers. A woman with several children to care for, will need a larger house more than will a single male. If, however, the woman has less income than needed to afford the house, whereas the male has enough income, it will be the purchasing ability of the male, not the need of the woman, that will dictate who gets the house.”

This is a crucial question. Is Russell arguing that in all economic decisions, need should trump purchasing power? Should, for instance, need for an education matter more than ability to pay tuition when considering who gets to attend the University of Wisconsin where the author is employed? I guess I find myself wondering if Russell has selected a part of the economy (housing) to critique when he might not care for the result of the same theory being applied in his own occupational back yard? That said, the question is still a legitimate one. What role should need play in the acquisition of any resource? And what happens to the justice argument when we apply this to the past. Did American colonists, who vastly outnumbered Native American populations deserve to get Native hunting lands because of their greater need? Was this just? And would this new rule not make “neediness” the most desirable of traits to cultivate? And is not the cultivation of neediness something that we seem to be working on as a cultural mission these days? This is not to say that need should play no role in determining who gets what. But not even the author would argue that it should be the exclusive concern – not when the issue at stake was his own well-being.

“In order for a society to function well, its state has to oversee and regulate the division of labor – the true purpose and function of the state, according to Durkheim.”

This of course is an assertion of political axiology and authority. “According to Durkheim,” the true purpose and function of the state is to “regulate the division of labor.” According to the free market crowd, the market itself does that. The “true purpose” of the State, to them, is to protect people’s liberties, properties, and rights. These are deep disagreements. Which side do you come down on? Or can both purposes be in a state’s job description? Can this be a question only resolvable by democratic processes? Or should it be resolved by the fiat of the ruling class?

“One of his great insights was that individuals function better when their social conditions are well structured, and relatively predictable. When people can know with relative certainty what to expect, they can plan accordingly. But when the structures to which people are accustomed sharply change or disappear, as they often do in capitalist development, people have a hard time adapting to the new conditions. It is an adaptation process that can be exceedingly stressful and resulting in physical and mental illness, and in extreme cases, suicide.”

I think the author makes a good point here. People do better in stable systems where change is incremental, and it comes predictably.

Robert Frost makes this argument in his poem, October:

O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!

But underneath Russel’s progressive argument for stability, a case is being made for conservatism (is not the desire to keep old things the way they are until we must change at the heart of what conservatism is by definition?) Russell’s suggestion that State power never introduces radical change in the way that market powers do seems unsupported by the evidence. Is it not entirely possible for a new administration to come in and change all the rules by executive order? To print or borrow a ton of money? To massively impact the rate of inflation by overspending? To significantly cut or increase social spending? To start an unexpected war? To cancel millions of people’s debts? to significantly raise or lower taxes? To introduce or do away with massive regulatory controls? To ban fracking or make oil deals with Saudis? To shut off illegal immigration or to open the border and allow millions of people to come in? In other words, is it fair to say that market forces are always massively disruptive to continuity while state forces n ever are? Can both be true or neither true at different times? And is it possible that centralized states can be the greater offenders in this regard?  

“In socialist societies, with public ownership and rational planning, industry would be oriented to the good of all of society, and facilitate the achievement of an all-around, socially quality.”

One need only read some of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novels to sap the dirt right out from under this idealism (Gulag Archipelago, In the First Circle, or Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich). Or, if strapped for time, read George Orwell’s Animal Farm where “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Cube was a socialist state. Can we look to Cuba for a government that was “oriented to “the good of all society?” How about North Korea? The Soviet Union? Poland? Czechoslovakia? Naturally, opponents of socialism will point to Cuba and Communist China and the Soviet Union and North Korea. While fans of socialism will point to Sweden and Denmark and Canada. My jury is still out, but I tend to be more amenable to socialist ideas the closer to my home the nexus of power is. They are like teenagers who are likely to behave better when they know you are right upstairs.

“American social policy is much less developed.”

This is a theme that Russell keeps coming back to. “Less developed” and “more developed” are however, in the end, value judgments - like “more beautiful” and “less beautiful” or “funny” and “funnier.” There is this thing called “the eye of the beholder.” But for the sake of argument, if I agreed with Russell that the less inequality in a society, the better it is, where would that end if not at the point when there was absolutely no inequality? Is there a line – a limiting principle – that James Russell would be willing to draw? Would his assertion be true only up until the point where it started equalizing pay between full professors at UW and adjunct faculty at CCV? Does one not owe it to the reader to declare their limiting principle - where the march of progress must march no more?

“The state can also increase effective demand by using progressive taxation to redistribute some income downward.”

 I myself would not argue this. There does come a point in an economy where the workers do not make enough to buy the products made by the factory owners. When a few people are getting way more resources than they earn or need or can spend – when they start using those resources to start buying political power so that they can rig the system and get the IRS, the FBI, the DOJ, the Department of Education, the Commerce Department and Department of Transportation and the Social Security Administration and the Fed and the military to do their bidding, redistributing “some” income downward makes sense. Personally, I favor doing this by incentivizing rather than forcing the behavior desired. I would support a plan to give more tax breaks to companies with more egalitarian approaches to profit sharing with employees. I would support a plan that required companies to be more transparent with their own employees and with the consumers who buy their product or service about where money flowed. But I would apply this to governmental agencies as well. People need to see the environments in which they make decisions.

“All historical forms of conservatism based themselves on one or another agency of stationary inevitability – God, nature, land, or the market – which are seen as inevitable forces that humans should not attempt to alter.”

Would you agree that an inevitable force should be labelled as such? I mean, I would not want building regulations that were based on an assertion that gravity had a different force than it does. How does one figure out what an inevitable force is without experimentation and honest assessment. Is this not the advantage of letting fifty different states experiment with fifty different approaches? Where is the evidence for the argument for centralizing all this power to redistribute wealth into one executive or legislative or judicial branch – a redistribution of wealth and power that would limit rather than expand experimental approaches?

“On a per capita basis, there is one representative for every 96,000 citizens in the United Kingdom, 110,000 in France, and 722,000 in the United States. The US ratio is over seven times as large.”

Bingo. And this is why I am less inclined to send more taxes to Washington and leave less for States, local governments, religious bodies, service organizations, non-profits, charities, and families. I would be curious to know why the author favors sending more of the nation’s spendable income to an institution (Congress) that is far less representative than European counterparts (by a factor of seven) and obviously way more vulnerable to being coopted by the wealthy few?

“Modern social, and welfare policy starts, like all social and welfare policies, with the reality that the normal workings of the economy are insufficient to meet the needs of all members of the population. It distinguishes between the welfare that can be provided by the normal workings of the economy, and that which must be supplemented by the family, the state, and charity. In very general terms, American social policy attempts to minimize supplementary state participation in welfare delivery, while European policies rely more on the state.”

That is a paragraph loaded with assertions right there. Russell states his perspective as though it were “reality.” As though his “map is the territory.” He is suggesting that the earnings that families make should always be regarded as “supplementary” to the sustenance they derive from the public coffers, rather than the other way around. This is a tautology – like saying that the Red Sox are the best team in baseball because no team is better than the Red Sox. Russell conflates what is done with what ought to be done or ought not to be done. He is arguing that what is good for the people of Denmark must be universally good no matter if the political entity in question is the size of Rhode Island or China.  I do not wish to have a job that supplement my income. I prefer to have a job that my tax dollars can supplement when needed. And that is the way I prefer it for everyone. I think the end result is not perfect but I think it is better.

“Whereas the medieval Augustinian – founded catholic doctrine, saw the poor as part of the organic community, to whom the more economically fortunate we’re obligated to extend charity, the Calvinist saw the poor, as deserving their fate because it was predestined by God. This religious view would take an eventually secular form in American cultural development, viewing the poor as undeserving of charity or state aid because their fate was evidence, not of God’s disfavor, but of their not having an unchallenged work ethic or other necessary moral qualities.”

Are the poor, poor because the poor do not really want to be rich if it requires effort and time? Or are they poor because the rich do not really want them to be rich since they would not make as much? Or can both be true?

“Three Cultural values of particular importance emerged out of the originating conditions of the United States: individualism, limited egalitarianism, and a suspicion of the state.”

Suspecting our government has been a ubiquitous feature of American history. We suspected England’s Catholic monarchs and then its Hanoverian monarchs (George III). We suspected Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. John Adams was suspected when the Alien & Sedition Acts were signed. Thomas Jefferson was suspected when he declared war on England. Andrew Jackson was suspected of handing over the government to the radicals and ruffians. James Polk was suspected of wanting to expand the slavery system when he provoked a war against Mexico. Franklin Pierce was suspected of being pro-slavery as was James Buchanan who Abe Lincoln thought was laying the groundwork for legalizing slavery in all states. Abe Lincoln was suspected of wanting to emancipate all the slaves when he was elected. And so on and so on. Why all this suspicion of “the State”? Is it not because we have given it so much power while giving it so little oversight and demanded so little transparency and accountability? Is it not because we have “progressively” granted Washington D.C. an ever-greater percentage of our resources and autonomy while it grants us ever-diminishing information about what it does with those resources?

“In part because of the strong commitments to individualistic freedom, Americans have been unusually suspicious of state activities to promote social welfare. Many object to having to pay taxes to support state social programs. Despite paying the lowest tax rates in the developed world, many continually complain that they are being overtaxed.”

I find myself wondering if the author is taking into account local, State and Federal taxes? And if he is taking into account the amount of money that Americans give to charities and non-profits that Europeans do not give? And how does the American contribution to European defense factor into the equation here? Would we have more funds available for social spending (and Europeans less) if the defense of Ukraine was completely up to them? But more than that, I find myself wondering if maybe we suspect our government more than people in Denmark suspect theirs because Denmark’s governments are not in the habit of launching decade long wars on sketchy justification – of using their positions so that their relatives can make millions of dollars, or of staying in positions of power until they are in their eighties and nineties – or using their insider information to invest in the stock market? Etc. etc. etc. 

“Social policy evolved differently in Europe than in the United States, because of a greater willingness to rely upon the government to counteract the natural tendencies of unregulated private economies to generate poverty, unemployment, inequality, and other social problems.”

 It is hard to resist rephrasing this. A bit tongue in cheek.

“Social policy evolved differently in the United States than in Europe, because of a greater willingness to rely upon the individual, the family, the church, and the local government to counteract the natural tendencies of unregulated socialist states to generate poverty, corruption, oppression and other social problems.”

That is how a conservative would frame this same issue.

“In contrast, state interventionist approaches to social problems start from the explicit assumption, theoretically, articulated by Marx and Durkheim, that the market is inherently incapable of satisfying, all economic and social needs.”

Indeed. Free-markets are demonstrably incapable of satisfying ALL economic and social needs. But clearly so are communist systems like Marx’s. The author argues here that proving that a system cannot achieve cosmic “perfect” justice is evidence that it ought to be rejected. The conservative counter-argument would be that in a world of fallible humans, no systems can achieve cosmic justice (that is “perfect” equality” with absolute freedom) and that systems that redistribute wealth by fiat are even worse at it. No matter what system you set up, there will always be relatively poorer and richer people in it. [See my argument about the NFL in the introduction]. The question has always been “How poor is it worth everyone in a collective getting in order to achieve the perfect equality of that collective?”

“The more citizens can attain necessary, goods and services as social rights rather than by virtue of market performance, the less worrisome, anomic, and stressful their daily lives become.”

This is another case of denying trade-offs. Why stop at necessary things? Why not guarantee luxuries as rights as well and eliminate all stress? I find myself wanting to ask James Russell how this works in his world of academics. Would it not reduce stress in his students’ lives if he were to promise them all A’s the first day of class – Nay, if all freshmen were promised degrees right out of the gate. Why not declare high grades and full credits a right since the elimination of stress is a worthy goal? Would it not reduce a lot of stress if there were no economic differences between faculty at UW and faculty at CCV?

“The principle of equality of opportunity . . . is fully consistent with and can lead to social inequality. It implies that social inequality will be an inevitable future and outcome of competitively structured societies. The principle of equality of opportunity reduces to equalizing only the starting points – not the outcomes – of the competitive struggle.’”

It is hard to state it more clearly than that. But more than saying the principle of equal opportunity “can” lead to social inequality, one should assert that it absolutely will. Fundamentally, Americans have been more willing to trade equality of outcome for freedom to work towards a better outcome. It is to that end that America attracted so many ambitious entrepreneurs who knew that they could do better here than they could in their collectivist-loving homelands.

“Contemporary, conservative, liberal, and socialist ideologist differ in terms of how much inequality they believe can be allowed to exist in the capitalist system, without provoking unacceptably high economic, social, or political costs that would be system threatening.”

I am not sure that conservatives favor inequality. They just favor freedom and a rule set that makes inequality more likely as a consequence of something it values more.

“Using the social distance measure, the richest 10% in the United States receive an average of 6.4 times (compared to the much lower 3.8 times in Europe) the income of the poorest 10%.”

Again, what is the limiting principle? At what ratio of rich to poor does Jame Russell believe we can allow ourselves to relax? Is he willing to declare all U.S. College faculty worthy of a right to equality in the benefits they receive for their work? Why not start there as a demand rather than in some industrial sector where he has no concerns?

“Underlining the American conservative view is the belief that people are fundamentally responsible for their fate in the competitive struggle. The best way to end poverty is not through a state-sponsored hand out to the poor, but rather through reforming the part of their defects in motivation and educational preparation, so as to enable them to compete effectively in the market.”

 Fairly stated but incomplete. I know no conservatives personally who oppose any and all handouts or supportive measures. I tend to think that conservatives simply object to the obligation to care for those with self-inflicted needs (or pretended).  

“Where the latter is the goal, teachers, job, counselors, social workers, and other middle-class professionals, increasingly become direct beneficiaries since the anti-poverty programs finance their livelihood. “

James Russell has put his finger on something here. He is intimating that people who work in the helping professions will have a personal interest in tax-payer funded programs that will hire them to do social work in much the same way that an NFL football player might favor a tax-funded  new football stadium or a truck driver would like to see investments in more and wider highways. We all favor government spending in our sectors of the economy. I, for example night favor subsidies for college students because I am in line for that gravy. Some would argue that this is “saying the quiet part out loud” here. Is it?

“The fundamental shortcoming of the conservative approach is that it is not possible for an unregulated market economy to eliminate relative market income poverty, and the social exclusion it causes. That can only occur on the disposable income level and only after substantial redistribution. The unavoidable reality is that government action is the only available means for mitigating the extent to which the competitive market struggle results in the negative social outcomes of relative poverty and social exclusion from the society as a whole “

Assume for a moment that we were to grant some government enough power to guarantee equal outcomes for 350 million people. How much power would that be? And what would be done with that power besides making 350 million people equal? Eliminating relative market income inequality is impossible. They could not even do this in Soviet gulags where the power to accomplish such a dream was unlimited. So why discard an economic theory simply because it cannot do what no theory can do? The argument should be over which system is better? Not over which system is perfect.  

“Taxation, then, is at the center of poverty reduction, for it provides the largest potential source of revenues for anti-poverty programs. The more tax revenues there are, the more it is possible to fund poverty, reduction, transfer programs. Whereas citizens can decide individually, whether to donate to charities to help the poor, citizens cannot decide individually, whether to pay taxes that are used to help the poor.”

This is why Vladamir Lenin insisted that the kulaks (capitalist farmers who opposed the collectivization of their land) had to be taken out and shot. And then there is the question of which systems raise more taxes? The systems that tax people less per person or the systems who tax people more? [I am always reminded of an Ottoman tax policy that taxed people for how many fruit bearing trees they had (because it is impossible to hide trees). The end result was that millions of people cut down their orchards and in the end, the government got much less revenue than they got before the tax). And we must always go back to the lessons of history. Does history demonstrate to us that governments who tax for certain stated purposes *always* use the taxes for that purpose?

“The market has proved to be a poor provider of those services at affordable prices, causing the need for state action.”  

Lets look at the cost of college tuition since the government started stepping in and making college tuition more affordable. What lessons have been learned?

“With the increase in the number of two income families, childcare programs have become increasingly necessary.”

What is the primary driver behind the necessity of two-income households?

“University degree holders in the United States labor force do in fact receive 60% more income, the nondegree holders, whereas European degree holders receive just 33% more, reflecting the more equal distribution of income in their societies.”

It would be interesting to live in a society where you did not have to worry so much about the return on the investment when making educational decisions. I wonder if it would lead more people into the development of themselves as humans rather than simply as wage earners and tax-payers? Notice how easy it is for me to agree with Russell when I can see the advantages that would accrue to ME as a result of strategically directed progressivism?

“With the exception of Dutch specialists, American physicians are the worlds highest paid. On average, they receive nearly twice as much income as their European counterparts.”

Is this why doctors from all over the world come to work in the American healthcare system?

“Instead of being a right, health insurance is a reward reserved for those who work. It is treated as a commodity that is available only to those who perform adequately in the market place.”

 It is always interesting to look at how a right asserted becomes a right protected? What are the relative merits and drawbacks of linking care to contribution in human societies?

“European countries with social insurance or national healthcare systems also allow supplemental private insurance to be sold. If the United States uses government-based insurance to partially compensate for the failure of the private market to find it profitable to cover all citizens, then European countries allow private insurance companies to make businesses out of providing coverage for gaps in national coverage. From the point of view of citizens, purchasing supplementary private insurance as a way of topping off their basic plans.”

 If I understand this correctly, Russell is saying that in Europe, your basic insurance is given to you, and you buy extra private insurance if you want additional security. In America, this is reversed. You buy your basic insurance with your work (usually) and the government steps in to fill in the gaps when insurance through work is not possible (due to age, or unemployment, or disability, etc.) What are the long-term social and economic consequences of taking one of these two pathways? Are either of these options equally sustainable over the long run?  

“The reason why Western European countries have significantly less income, inequality and poverty is precisely that their governments are more willing to alter market outcomes. They collect relatively more taxes and use them more aggressively to finance social programs that do more to close the gaps. Reducing those gaps in turn has beneficial effects that ripple through the society and lessen the gravity of a range of other social problems.”

Does the author ever consider the ripple effects of his own progressive policies? What are, for example, the long-term impacts of encouraging dependency? We know that Progrtessives see the benefits of their policies. Do they ever see the unintended consequences? (Same question can be addressed to conservatives). Are we picking our poison here, or is there just one poison?

“The problem with the conservative American approach is that it wishes to move back to exclusive, self-reliance and freedom, and is therefore reactionary. If Americans need to recognize and put at the forefront the values of community, social, cohesion, and social inclusion, Europeans need to maintain and strengthen their commitment to those values and necessities. The problem with capitalist development is that it will, according to its own logic, move in the direction of values that are consistent with the narrow logic of the market mentality, in which each person competes to maximize individual gain. For social policy to achieve social cohesion and inclusion, it must be willing to temper that internal economic logic, and the only institution that is strong enough to counter that logic is the state. Successful, progressive social policy, must therefore be lodged in state action.”

 Is “reactionary” a bad word”? Is it not simply a tendency that all people have who feel that they used to be better off under an older system, to want to go back to that system? Where does social cohesion come from? Can it be created and enforced by taxation if the cohesion is not there to begin with? Meaning, can you obligate people to treat strangers in California and Vermont as family if they do not feel themselves to be so already? 

“The more that national income is distributed as social wages – that is, as socialized and equalized benefits – the greater the progress towards social equality.”

 Again, how has this worked in places like the Soviet Union or China? Why has it failed in places where it has failed? Why has it succeeded in places where it has succeeded? And is America a likely place for it to succeed? Or is this a project for Sates and local communities to experiment with?

“The logical agency to strengthen the social bonds of the community is the public authority or state, because it is composed of the institutions that belong to the people or community as a whole. Partial interests motivate all other agencies – including private businesses, private, charities, and non-governmental organizations. Only the state has the potential to be motivated by the interests of the entire community. This remains true, despite neoliberal, laissez-faire attempts to denigrate it as an appropriate agency for addressing social problems with suitable social programs.”

Consider the record of some of the previous Presidential administrations. Consider Richard Nixon’s use of governmental power. Consider the way that the Clinton’s used their Clinton Foundation to get rich. Consider the money that Donald Trump’s family made from their public service. Consider the way that Joe Biden’s family has made millions of dollars from their connections to his office. Consider the ways that Senators and Congressmen have gotten rich from their use of the levers of power and their insider information. Do we not have justification for laughing at James Russell’s assertions about the benevolent disinterest of political power? Can we not at least chuckle? Or at least smirk? Does Russell’s argument only work in a world of principled office seekers and incorruptible office holders? i.e. a world different from the one we inhabit?

“For sure, states most often have been captured by personal interest, and have not represented the interests of the entire citizenry. For a state to reach its potential, it therefore must be substantially democratized. It must substantively, and not just in form, represent the interests of the entire society.”

So, the question is, must we have a moral government of honest saints before we can have a progressive government? Or does governmental integrity have to come sequentially before the power is granted to that government?

Epilogue:

“That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the old serpent that says, “You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. . . . Our government was not established that one man might do with himself as he pleases, and with another man too.” - Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Douglas Debates

Question for Comment: What are the moral implications of choosing which organizations or social groups to practice socialism in? Is it a legitimate moral  position to assert that one's communal commitments are reserved to the individual who makes the commitment?