Bumper Sticker installment for Labor Day

 I'm going to skip ahead on bumper sticker to match the occasion:

 

"Capitalism lifts people up from poverty."

As usual, I'm not sure exactly what the implication of this is supposed to be. In grand historical terms, it is true that human material well being has increased enormously since the advent of industrial capitalism in the 19th Century. That is the economic system that converted fossil fuel into the astonishing technological development and material infrastructure that distinguishes the modern world from all of previous history. But it doesn't seem to be much of a political point. Nobody on the left or right disputes that. There are people who don't think it was worth it, but only a tiny fringe of radical environmentalists literally wishes to undo it. (And Ted Kaczynski is dead.)

 

The story is a bit more complicated in that the Soviet Union achieved rapid industrialization,  albeit at the cost of brutal oppression and mass murder. But it's economy then stagnated, and hasn't done a whole lot better under its present regime of crony capitalism. China achieved rapid economic growth only when it abandoned Communism, although the government role in its economy is still much greater than the countries of the West. But I don't think the bumper sticker is intended as an assertion about world history.

If we take it as an assertion about present day public policy, within the boundaries of reasonable alternatives, it seems utterly vapid. There is far more inequality and widespread poverty in the United States today than in the democratic socialist European countries. Despite the term, these countries do of course actually have capitalist economies, but they regulate capitalism differently than we do. I won't give you the one hour lecture on why Economics 101 is bullshit. But I will say that even if you accept all of the assumptions the professor and the textbook push on you -- none of which are actually true, but I'm stipulating -- the theory produces no conclusion at all about whether the outcomes of the mythical Free Market™ are just. Right now the wealthiest 1% of households own half of the world's wealth, while the poorest half own less than 1%.  This is almost entirely because of capitalism, since Cuba and North Korea don't account for a significant share.

The main reason for poverty is that people are stuck. They don't have the resources to get themselves out of it, and the market just doesn't provide enough decent paying jobs. To correct a very widespread misconception, the vast majority of poor households have at least one working member, or they are elderly or disabled. Working in Walmart or McDonald's, or cleaning offices at night means you're participating in capitalism, but it doesn't lift you out of poverty. 

You know what does? Union jobs. Workers need power to match up against the capitalists. Solidarity forever.