If you spend an hour both ways in traffic, and work an average day, 65% of your waking hours are spent in the service of your employer. More, if you take your work home.

Of the time spent laboring at work — loosely 50% of your waking hours — on average, half of that will be compensated in proportion to your labor.

That means that 25% of your waking hours are spent laboring solely for the benefit of your employer.

Meanwhile, while they’re taking credit for half your work, and you’re wasting 25% of your waking hours for nothing, there is no guaranteed benefit to you based on the success of the company, which has benefitted from your labor.

If you choose to take a risk on starting your own business, you will go immediately into debt; meaning a negative balance from your business is guaranteed, and if you make any money a good chunk of that will go to paying debts. Half of all small businesses fail in their first year; 95% over the course of five years.

For a wage employee, the implications of this mean the difference between relative comfort and destitution. For those with existing capital, the risk is placed on disposable income. While the loss of their investment may be unpleasant, it is not devastating. They can take risks, and reap the rewards, precisely because their futures are assured. If their money is based on a trust or an inheritance, any notion that their wealth is in proportion to their contribution to society — or even their cunning — is void.

If they do make money, it will be at the expense of their employees, which they are paying half of what their time and work is worth. The employees, not having an investment in the company (having no capital to invest if they wanted to) will not benefit in proportion to the success for which they are responsible, except at the arbitrary discretion of their employers.

The carrot on the horizon is retirement at 65. The median life expectancy (based on variations in class and race) of an american male is about 75. The last ten years of your life will be your own; your youth will be gone, many friends will have died, and your children will have grown up and left. This is all assuming, of course, that you have a savings. And if you do, circumstances like illness could easily wipe that out.

The reason most people tolerate this disparity, and even admire their social betters, is because they all imagine themselves in that position. Despite the overwhelming improbability of it, they believe they will miraculously transcend their economic class.

The result of this is the rejection of policies that would directly benefit them, though to the slight and manageable detriment of the wealthy. A good example of this is the massive reduction in taxes on the wealthy introduced by Reagan; undermining FDR’s policies which made the so-called “American Dream” — including home ownership, vacations, and retirement — attainable. Other examples include the subsidization of large corporations, for which the rich and poor are not paying proportional amounts in taxes. Lobbying by private businesses has made the will of the common person — 98% of the country’s biomass — irrelevant.

Policies such as free public healthcare could drastically reduce the number of deaths not prevented due to lack of health insurance; which currently stands at 20,000 annually. Not only could it help with urgent and costly medical needs — which throw those families permanently into debt when they couldn’t afford insurance in the first place — but such access would make preventative care feasible, thus reducing the number of illnesses that become critical (and expensive).

Americans spend little time thinking about, and even less doing something about, the fact that this government’s policies, which represent the interests of corporations, are actually responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and bankruptcies every year. They even cheer it on. It’s as though they’re approving of the inclusion of a single life raft on a ship carrying 400 passengers because they each think they’re going to be one of eight people that will be in it.

With inheritance, public subsidies (the bailout), college legacy programs, and cozy relationships with elected officials, the point of contention that makes economic disparities palatable for many Americans — the idea that wealth is always proportional to merit, the basis of laissez faire and free market rhetoric — is fraudulent.

This raises the question of the purpose of an economic system, and for that matter the purpose of a society. The current economic and political systems aren’t the only kind that could have been instituted. If one’s priorities are increasing the margin between the fortunate few and the moribund masses, then the current policies make complete sense. The logic behind what’s essentially a serf being rabidly in support of this eludes me. Businesses like co-ops, where the risks and rewards of shared among the actual laborers, make much more sense to me. A system that places priority on the health and well being of the populace makes sense to me.

Last Modified : December 13th, 2009 Filed under : Uncategorized Navigate : Previous post / Next post