There really is no simplistic solution to the inequities, lopsided privileges, and economic principles which drive and maintain capitalism. I grow weary of either side of the spectrum on this topic arguing that it’s a black-and-white issue. As I said earlier on this or another thread, as an economic system, capitalism is by its nature based on inequality and designed to maintain economic class differences. It can also be argued (on the positive side) that that’s what drives the engine (the desire to move from a less privileged position to a more privileged one) and keep an economy healthy enough to promote job creation.
Societies, ancient and modern, which have suffered less from inequality of result, have been those in which there was an informal but voluntary commitment (non-governmental) to provide for all – to notice who did not have enough, and correct that out of personal donations, assistance, etc. One of my students this year wrote about a solo trip of his to a country in South America. He was struck by how no one in the village he visited was ever homeless or hungry, because the residents voluntarily saw to that – not rich residents, mind you. We have also the obvious example in the Book of Acts, of voluntary sharing, based on moral (non-governmental, non-coerced, non-taxed) commitment. And the result of that was similarly that no one was imperiled.
We have competing principles operating in this country:
The support of individualism, individual initiative, and individual responsibility
versus
The habit of government, since the late 1960’s, to assume responsibility on a massive scale to simply “those in need” (not always specifically defined – the point that others here have raised)
The principles of capitalism, emphasizing disparity of income in the reality of profit, which cannot exist without cheap labor relative to company income.
versus
The principle of universal economic opportunity, which theoretically assumes that anyone from any economic class can become the privileged CEO someday of the same company for which he might have worked on the low end.
The principle of hard work and initiative being rewarded in a relatively free economic system
versus
The reality of profit being grossly aided by non-work (speculation, stocks, profit margins, earnings expectations, “futures,” etc. – principles not necessarily intrinsic to individual effort or output)
As to the latter ^, I know posters are going to say that CEO’s of highly profitable companies deserve every penny in their lavish paychecks. I disagree. Compensation is of course decided by members of the company itself, such as its Board of Directors, but the rationale for the compensation is largely based on the speculation built into capitalism. The CEO, and the company itself, often benefits at least as much from luck as from good management. That is also the nature of capitalism: luck and randomness.
We have an additional problem in this country because of our size. A distant federal government is not in a position to serve the locally needy poor, who most often fall through the cracks of gov’t assistance. (Often, the most clever & practically-educated are the ones who can benefit from gov’t assistance: they know how to do it, and/or have associates who can show them how. That is an additional layer of inequality, by the way.)
The smaller the community of awareness, the greater the possibility that no one will go without who does not choose to go without. And this is really the applied principle of social justice anyway. I think this would be the best social justice initiative ever, and the Catholic Church could lead the way in suggesting such an informal operating principle: Rich communities voluntarily “adopting” the needy neighboring community by setting up centers of assistance, safe shelter, and employment/training initiatives, including a policy of hiring such neighbors in their own companies (only where feasible). The economic principle is much more directly tied to the underlying capitalistic principle of opportunity, in that way. It also addresses much more: it literally ‘invests’ the communities in each other. It reduces divisions between economic classes, by personalizing the arrangement. Most importantly, from an economic perspective, it reduces (but does not eliminate) the social ills that arise from deprivation and which ironically threaten wealth itself, on a small and a large scale.
Everyone benefits from generosity; often the givers themselves benefit emotionally and practically in ways they never imagined. I would like to see giving much less corporately and governmentally driven it is now. I don’t relate to the “community giving” of the mega-companies like Starbucks and McDonald’s. And I think there are more people like me than not. But next door? Yeah. I have seen that totally involve and commit people who previously were cynical, like understandably many on this thread are.
