In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ethical philosopher Immanuel Kant asserted a “categorical imperative” that determines whether an action is right or wrong: “I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” In other words, if you wouldn’t want everyone to do it, or (in the case of the distribution of benefits and burdens) wouldn’t want everyone to get it or avoid paying it, whatever the consequences, then one cannot morally do it, get it or avoid paying for it oneself. By asserting the right to do, get, or avoid something oneself without considering the consequences for others, one makes an exception for oneself, and that is morally wrong. Kant’s ideas fly in the face of what some politicos say in response to anger at “special interests” – that everyone and everything is a special interest, with none having any greater claim than any other. Not so. There are those who only want for themselves what could work for everyone, and those who want something just for themselves that others would be sacrificed for them to get, with the latter including just about everyone associated with the government of the State of New York.
I point this out not to bore the reader with something out a college philosophy class, but in response to and inspired by comments by Ed Ott, the executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council, as reported by the New York Times. “Going forward,” he said, “if we don’t raise the standards for the lowest-paid workers in the city, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of them, our own levels that we achieved — of wages, pensions and time off — they’re not sustainable.”
A noble sentiment, given the alternative generally found in the union movement. The problem is that in some cases, the very benefits members of some unions — notably New York City’s public employee unions — have either achieved or demanded, notably in being paid as much or more to work fewer days and years, are only sustainable because others are paid less to work more and longer. If the others were not paid less and did not work more, the dollars earned (or received in retirement) by members of those unions would not go nearly as far. In other cases, such as basic health care, universality is sustainable, but only if those who receive virtually unlimited health benefits now were made to pay more (in taxes) or accept some constraints. They have not been willing to do so.
“Mr. Ott sees two working classes in New York: a unionized one that is doing well and a nonunion one that is struggling to get by.” But working people and consumers are one and the same at different times of the day. One reason that the unionized class is doing well is that it has the freedom to shop where it wishes for goods and services, getting the most of the least. Those in the non-unionized sector — and even unionized industries where there is competition — must do more and/or accept less in return, or see those in the unionized (or executive) class take their business elsewhere, and get nothing.
Those with power, in contrast, are taking money off the top that the powerless have no choice but to pay. These include executives who sit on each other’s boards and vote for each other’s pay packages (the most powerful union of all), public employee unions who control the state legislature, or older g-g-generations in general who seem to be all that matter politically.
Take one union “right” I wrote about in a recent post — the right to work and provide benefits for other people for just 20 or 25 years, retire, and have other people pay to support you while do not work from age 50 or 55 on — for another 25 or 30 years. For one or more years living off others in retirement for every year worked, in other words. If the unions really believe in that as a general principle rather than a special deal, they should advocate changing the full-benefit Social Security retirement age, now 67 for younger generations (though likely to rise), to age 50 or 55. And be willing to have the payroll tax rise as high as it has to in order to pay for this — instead of 6.2% each for the employer and employee perhaps it could be 20% for the employee (leading to lower take-home pay) and 20% for the employer (leading to much higher prices for everything that isn’t imported), for example. And everyone would have to live with less to pay for it.
Would any public employee union advocate this for everyone, rather than just for its own members? Consider that right now any individual could decide to retire at age 50 or 55 merely by reducing their own standard of living low enough, before and after retirement, and saving enough, that they could live on the savings thereafter (or until Social Security kicks in). How many do so? It is one thing to live extremely simply in the hope of attaining a live of leisure in the future. It is another to force others to do so.
A better example is health care. Many members of public employee unions — and the executive class — enjoy unlimited health care at an unlimited cost. Much of this is paid for directly, or indirectly, by the government, which is to say taxpayers, including less well off people who get nothing, as I wrote here. But if health care were made universal and those who get nothing got something, those who get everything would have to give something up. That’s why most of the labor movement backed Al Gore, who said universal health care would be too expensive, in favor of Bill Bradley, who was I favor of it, in the 2000 Democratic primary.
Subsequently the union movement split in two, and though I don’t follow these issues closely, it appears at first glace to be the “I’ve got mine jack” coalition against the “what about the rest of us?” coalition. I’m pretty disgusted with unions in general, but if I had to be in one I’d rather be in the Unite to Win group. I’m not sure which side Mr. Ott is on. I can guess which side DC37, which sucked money out of my paycheck during the time I was with DC37, is on. Prior to paying for the 2000 pension enhancement for those cashing in and moving out by agreeing to a 15% pay cut for new hires.
Mr. Ott’s comments seem to assume that “our own levels that we achieved” are funded by taxes, and may become not “sustainable” in a political sense unless everyone has them. But in fact they are not sustainable in an economic sense, so high would taxes have to rise. How about in the private sector? As a Marxist urban and regional economics professor one said in a lecture, you can only be rich if others are poor, because if everyone earned a million dollars a year who would agree to work as a domestic servant? And if anyone did, how much would they charge, and who could afford it?
Most union members probably don’t have nannies, housekeepers and landscapers, but they probably do go out to restaurants and stores. Imagine that everyone working in those fields made a minimum of $20 per hour, with early retirement and health care benefits that pushed their total cost to $40 per hour. How much more would restaurant meals and haircuts cost? And if forced to pay those higher prices, wouldn’t those who are “doing well” according to Mr. Ott be doing less well?
As for the top executives and their pay packages, their argument is that they have earned it because while they become better off so do shareholders, due to all the “shareholder value” and economic activity they personally create — billions worth all by themselves, it seems. Thus, argue the apologists, their compensation is moral according to John Rawls Theory of Justice — the incentives created by the ability to obtain massive wealth benefit the less well off. Are the apologists referring to all the shareholder value created at financial firms in recent years? We are going to see how much value has actually been created in business, and how much has merely been redistributed. And then, due to investment losses in public employee pension funds, we will see what those early retirement pensions really cost.
So am I opposed to lifting the well being of those at the bottom? Just the opposite. Those reading my posts know I am in favor of universal health care, and in favor of raising the minimum wage (indexing it to inflation, if Social Security for the retired is going to be indexed for inflation) for everyone, not just for those working for businesses with government contracts and others with special connections, as public employee unions often propose.
What I am disturbed at is the tendency for those who already have more to demand more still and pretend that no one will be sacrificed to pay for it. To demand a level of extreme pay, if they are among the rising number of plutocrats, and absence of work, if they are public employee union members, that cannot be made universal, thus violating the categorical imperative. It is infuriating when those who already have good deals demand even more, and then pretend that those less well off will actually benefit, because these benefits will spread to others later. And later. And later. And later.
Do they really believe everyone in the United States could work for just 25 or 30 years without the standard of living being much lower than they also insists on? People’s demands need to be reasonable. Perhaps the government could afford for everyone work to three years for every year in retirement, but not one.
Remember, two kinds of people are getting richer – top executives who sit on each other’s boards and vote for each other’s pay packages, and retired public employees represented by unions who increasingly control state legislatures. Everyone else is getting poorer, particularly younger generations, including newly hired public employees allegedly represented by those same unions. And many of the increased riches for the winners are in the form of deferred and hidden benefits, including unbelievable pensions for top executives that Roger Lowenstein, in While America Aged, called “unconscionable.” And much of that hidden and deferred benefit, including pension income in New York not matter how high, is not taxed or taxed less than the wages and self employment income of the young and working poor.
“Unless we lift the floor, the ceiling is going to collapse,” another labor leader representing the less well off told the Times. Well, some are only on the ceiling because they are stepping on those on the floor. And they seem to want to get higher still by stepping down harder and harder. They claim to oppose each other while they are up there, but the evidence suggests otherwise.