Labor & BI: A view from the U.S. Joel Rogers, UW-Madison 13 th BIEN Congress, São Paulo, July 1-2, 2010.

Labor & BI: A view from the U.S.

Joel Rogers, UW-Madison

13th BIEN Congress, São Paulo, July 1-2, 2010

What I’ll be talking about

• Labor and BI, in general terms• Exceptionalism of U.S. & U.S. labor• Hope?

I made some slides for you

Like this slide

And this one

Power corrupts

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Absolute PowerPoint?

Just can’t be good

Labor & BI, in general terms

Pro, con, maybe

• Improves power of labor relative to capital, decommodifies labor power, enlarges space for social experiment

• Undermines contributory solidarity, existing labor contracts, and worker organizations built on them

• That no longer an effective basis of working class organization: – Boundaries of firm less clear– Job-based security disappearing (“precariat”)– Interest not best organized at the workplace underrepresented– Insider-outsider problems in social cohesion

Three public philosophies

Economic Development

A place’s wealth is determined by the productivity of its human, physical, and natural capital, and its local capture of the benefits of that productivity.

Productivity is a function of the value of products and services (e.g. their uniqueness, performance, or quality) and the efficiency with which they are produced (i.e., how much output per unit of input). Productivity is best measured not by volume but revenue produced per unit of input (land, labor, capital).

Places can compete on low-road (price reducing) or high-road (productivity increasing, with high and equitable local capture) ways.

Three public philosophies

Basic unities: i + w + c = 1; p + w = 1

Taxes 1: supply-side egalitarianism

Taxes 2: Tax universalism

Three public philosophies

Worst case?• Integrated global capital responds instantly and

punitively to any change in the rate of profit• Rate of profit identical worldwide• Cannot be lowered or raised• So any new surplus goes to the immobile workers

who helped produce it

Economy still organized in places. Well-organized places, and the high-road infrastructure within them, permits bargaining with capital.

Real case

Where we want to be

Exceptionalism of U.S.

American exceptionalism

– No labor party – Little class-based popular politics– Vast wealth, military power, and waste– Religious, violent, anti-urban

America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization. — Wilde

Exceptionally low public spendingCountry Total taxes

as % of GDP Country Total taxes

as % of GDP

Australia 30.6 Luxembourg 41.8

Austria 43.9 Mexico 16.0

Belgium 45.7 Netherlands 42.1

Canada 38.2 New Zealand 35.6

Czech Republic 40.4 Norway 41.6

Denmark 50.4 Poland 35.2

Finland 46.2 Portugal 34.3

France 45.8 Slovak Republic 35.3

Germany 37.7 Spain 35.1

Greece 37.1 Sweden 52.2

Hungary 39.2 Switzerland 34.4

Iceland 36.3 Turkey 31.3

Ireland 32.3 United Kingdom 36.3

Italy 43.3 United States 28.9

Japan 26.2 EU average 41.6

Korea 23.6 OECD average 37.3

Country Total taxes as % of GDP

Country Total taxes as % of GDP

Australia 30.6 Luxembourg 41.8

Austria 43.9 Mexico 16.0

Belgium 45.7 Netherlands 42.1

Canada 38.2 New Zealand 35.6

Czech Republic 40.4 Norway 41.6

Denmark 50.4 Poland 35.2

Finland 46.2 Portugal 34.3

France 45.8 Slovak Republic 35.3

Germany 37.7 Spain 35.1

Greece 37.1 Sweden 52.2

Hungary 39.2 Switzerland 34.4

Iceland 36.3 Turkey 31.3

Ireland 32.3 United Kingdom 36.3

Italy 43.3 United States 28.9

Japan 26.2 EU average 41.6

Korea 23.6 OECD average 37.3

Middle class America

Great divergence

Gilded Age

Great compression

InequalityNew Gilded Age

Top 1% takes 23% of income. Top .1% ($1.7M in 2006) takes 9 percent – twice share in UK (4.7%), five times share in France (1.6%)

Inequality decomposed

Missed productivity dividend

Social efficiency and labor organization

Dynamics of bargainingSo

cial

effi

cien

cy

Labor power (density + centralization)

Capitalist strategy & labor strategy

U.S. labor

• Membership defined as firm majorities• “Contracts are us” • Fragmented structure, silos of solidarity, little horizontal

coordination

• Dependent politics

Frankly I used to worry about the membership, about the size of the membership. But quite a few years ago, I just stopped worrying about it, because to me it doesn’t make any difference. — Meany

Union density 1890-2008

Hope?

One answer

• In a hundred years, all new people! • Antecedents even in U.S. labor …

What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures. — Gompers

• Open source and ongoing membership recruitment and maintenance

• High road program• Functional role at the workplace

Obviously

• Current system no longer “delivering the goods”• People getting better (tolerance, environmentalism, international

concern) and more open to alternatives• Hold of neoliberal market orthodoxy weaker, need for public

goods more obvious, waste of present system more evident• Science advancing at near “singularity” rate, and innovation finally

moving into government• Scalable “high road” alternative available

Basic problem in U.S. is lack of democratic confidence. Basic reason is not internationalization, but domestic political failure, owing to lack of organized investment in relevant political infrastructure, itself owing to lack of clear leadership.

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)• Largest US anti-poverty program, bigger than

TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), Food Stamps, other

• Refundable tax credit, tied to earnings —“make work pay” by eliminating “poverty traps”

• Expanded under Clinton; plan to expand further under Obama

• More contested today than in the past, in part because of growth, in part because of growth in partisanship

Political infrastructure: CBSM4

• Communication: among leadership, to and from base, with the mass public

• Blood (new, i.e. youth): recruitment, training, placement, etc.• Message & program: something simple and positive to say to about

what we should be, and a few things to get us closer that• Messengers: many people running for office and talking in public,

showing message discipline, shared frames, talking points, etc.• Models: models of what works at scale and can be replicated• Money: patient but demanding capital – long-term but experimental

and performance based, prepared to withdraw on failure or non-performance

• Service centers: on a variety of functions best organized in one place to realize economies of scale and scope; think leadership academies, policy shops, centers of campaign expertise, media support centers, etc.