Our National Disease
By Michael Beard
The 2022 midterms are behind us, but the many issues on the ballot or championed by the candidates are still with us: perennial problems like gun rights or the economy and newer ones like election denial. Republicans dreamed of a red tsunami, and Democrats put out warnings of the coming doom of democracy. Libertarians and other third parties just hoped for a good showing, with some sharing the delusions on par with Toronto Maple Leafs fans since 1967, or Dallas Cowboys fans since the early 1990s, that this is their year.
Now that the dust has settled, most people agree that the Supreme Court decision on Roe this past summer was a huge factor in turnout. While abortion is important on its own terms, the issue is also a symptom of the disease that is quietly killing the American experiment. The sickness is treating people as commodities. In one sense that sickness is nothing new: people have always been tempted to reckon themselves as having greater value than this group or that. That temptation helps to empower a lunatic fringe that scapegoats others. Unfortunately, that fringe has taken over both of the two major parties in America and is on full display every election night. Most of us are happy to let the lunatics run the asylum to keep the other bunch of lunatics from gaining control.
Beyond electoral politics, though, you can see the broader disease of commodification in both the headlines and everyday life. Take college and professional sports. With car, sneaker, and sports drink endorsements on the line, scouts and agents are looking at middle schoolers to try to pick out the next Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, or Wayne Gretzky. Kids are treated as a brand before puberty. While they may make millions during their careers, there is a cost, both mentally and physically. Until that pro contract is signed, these kids are groomed to play through the pain because someone might steal their dream of playing professionally. Career-ending injuries can wreak havoc on them psychologically. Meanwhile, colleges or other institutions make millions off their talent. Like college students in general, they are just a number unless the institution can monetize them–in that case, they become honored alumni.
Corporate America shows us the same problem. Labor ultimately creates all wealth, but you wouldn’t know it from the way our executive and shareholder class behaves. All the while, Congress passes legislation to guard execs from any responsibility for poor, and in some cases, unethical decisions. Just like politicians and law enforcement, CEO's are given their own form of qualified immunity. The trickle-down effect that hasn't worked in economics, seems to work just fine for blame. Blame has been poured upon the poor, workers, and immigrants like waterfalls. Wages have stayed stagnant for decades until a pandemic forced companies' hands, and even then the complaint is that “no one wants to work anymore.”
An October 2021 report by the Economic Policy Institute stated that the average American CEO makes 399 times more than their median employee is paid.1 A BBC report a few years earlier came up with a figure of 265-to-1 in a BBC article in 2019. Most other nations, with the exception of India and the UK, were less than 200-to-1.2 The employees in many of these countries are also given more time off work, and parental leave for new mothers and fathers. When it comes to commodifying employees for profit, the US truly is exceptional.
So what can we do about it? One important goal is to work toward changing the conditions of ownership and economic power. More employee-owned businesses, for example. This puts the profit in the hands of those who create it, and a company’s success will then depend on their ability to do what is right for the group. The Mondragon family of companies in the Basque country of Spain has ridden out every economic downturn since their founding in 1956. They have not only survived, but thrived. Decentralized decision making empowers those who have the most skin in the game, rather than an executive class with few shared interests with workers or the communities they operate in.
Supply chain problems have dominated the headlines for years now, so there are many political reasons to bring back manufacturing to the United States. Ultimately, Mondragon and worker cooperatives like it offer us the best model to do so in a way that reverses the trend of putting profits over people. In addition to the jobs it creates, the co-op model can help produce better environmental and social policies, as the owners are part of the community.
In education, labor–even, in many ways, abortion–the American priority is the profit motive. Until we see the inherent worth of all of us, our problems will continue to mount. Each of us is important, not just the privileged few or the extraordinarily talented. There are many ways we need to put that truth into practice: one of them is to recognize that “trickle-down” economics has failed miserably. When prosperity bubbles up from the bottom instead, we can begin to repair the damage that commodification is doing to our national soul.