IT'S OK TO BE ANGRY ABOUT CAPITALISM

The short answer is: he's on about bringing the American people better jobs, health care, and education. Of course, to do that he has to stay in office — which gives cynical people an opening to say he only wants to get elected.

If you care to check it, you likely will find that people who say Bernie only wants to get reelected are the people who do only want to get elected. Or that the people they want to help are among the elites, the top 1 percent of Americans, not the poor and middle class.

Here I aim to present a summary of why Bernie wants to do this, and what he wants to do. I'll start by summarizing the economic history of America since World War 2.

At the end of the Second World War, Europe was devastated. America's economic power was unrivaled, and there was a profound sense of respect for the workers whose labor had contributed so much to victory over the Axis Powers. That led to a greater dedication to economic justice: strong labor unions, lifetime employment with generous benefits, and all stakeholders — not just shareholders — entitled to a share of corporate profits. The benefits included health insurance, and often reimbursement for education costs. Education generally was far less expensive, and the GI Bill helped veterans acquire skills that led to professional, high-paying jobs. Families supported comfortably by one male breadwinner while the wife stayed at home raising the children were common. That lasted until the late 1970s, as many sources have documented.

The balance of power began to shift then. It has now shifted greatly. Corporate CEOs now earn 400 times the average salary in their company. Employee productivity has continued to increase, but employee wages have not kept pace with these gains, as they did during the postwar period. Companies are discarding their employee benefits. Their mantra now is that the company's first duty is to the shareholders. Thus, stock buybacks which raise the share price are the rule, while overhead costs are cut where possible. This attitude leads to incentives to move factories overseas, where wages are lower, or to hire undocumented workers who are paid less than the federal minimum wage. Treaties with other nations (e.g. NAFTA) support these moves.1

A corporate ethos that puts executives and shareholders at the top of the pyramid, and considers employees disposable, also has little respect for the environment in which those employees live. Corporations have fought every environmental remediation measure, proclaiming it ruinously costly. They must be forced to adopt measures such as cutting particulates from coal-fired power plants, even when they don't pay the health-care costs those emissions impose. This is the origin of "sacrifice zones." People who live near polluting factories cannot afford to live anywhere else; and when the pollution makes them sick, taxpayers pick up the tab.

The problem can be captured in five bullet points:

• Income and wealth inequality run rampant in America, threatening civil unrest.
• Health care costs twice as much per capita as in other developed countries, for worse outcomes.
• Millions of people have no access to health care, and millions more must balance medical costs against food, energy or housing.
• Education has become less effective at producing well-rounded citizens, or even well-trained workers.
• Consolidation and tribalization of mass media mean that an every-larger share of the public gets a distorted picture of current events.

We can see how serious the situation is in what never made it through the year-long negotiations over President Biden's Build Back Better bill.

• Paid family and medical leave, which would have allowed new mothers to bond with and care for their infants. (Originally 12 weeks, it had been whittled down to four before being discarded entirely.)
• Free community college.
• Dental and vision coverage.
• Lowering prescription drug prices.

There's been lots of hand-wringing over this from Democrats, and lots of cheering from the other side of the aisle — the side occupied by "the party of life" — for holding spending down. While there is a good near-term case for the deleted measures, improving education is the long-term solution to a host of problems. Here's what Bernie has to say about that.

There is an upside to keeping the most of citizens poorly educated. It makes them less likely to see through schemes that put them at a financial disadvantage. One example is having to work 2 or 3 minimum-wage2 jobs in order to afford health care. This is an upside for business owners who overvalue short-term profits. They ignore the counter-arguments, which are compelling.

My goal for this page was to condense Bernie Sanders's case into some tables. I was only partially successful. But here is what I came up with.

Health Care

This table compares per capita health care costs in five developed nations.

Here is a comparison of life expectancy for neighboring low- and high-income parts of two areas in the United States.

As you consider this information, and the rest of what Bernie Sanders's book has to tell you, remember this: one major American political party wants to keep things exactly as they are.

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Copyright © 2023 Christopher P. Winter. All rights reserved.
This page was last modified on 14 May 2023.