American Political Cultural Values and Solutions to Poverty
Chapter 4 discusses the political culture of the United States, its fundamental principles, and the demographic and economic trends–such as immigration and globalization–which have had profound effects on the practice of American politics and American political culture in general. In discussing the fundamental principles of American political culture, the authors rightly attributed some of our political culture to the principle of individualism (i.e. self-ownership and self-reliance)–from which individual rights emanate, of course among other things. However, in a subsection on poverty the authors write “the poverty rate is unlikely to fall much unless there is sustained job growth, especially in jobs that will be available to low-skill workers who make up the bulk of the poor.”
This quote seemed inconsistent with the fundamental principle of individualism and self-reliance that the authors later ascribe to American political culture, as it shifts treats poverty as a problem with our economic structure rather than an individualistic one. I will not argue that poverty is not a structural problem (I believe that often it is); instead, I will argue that considering poverty to be a problem with the structure of our economy rather than with the agency of individuals is inconsistent with the American principle of self reliance.
What struck me about this quote is not the fact that it treats the impoverished as the victims of our political-economic structures, but, instead, the way it seemed to approach the solution to poverty. The authors seemed to be saying that what was needed was more low-skill jobs so that low-skilled workers could have work, and, to me, this sounded tantamount to the government simply handing out jobs. My first thought was “what about education?” In fact, I wrote this in the margin of my textbook. To me, waiting around for the government to find you a job opposes the principle of self-reliance, while increasing government spending on education (i.e investing in American human capital) in order to attract higher-skill work remains consistent with the principles of self-reliance and equal opportunity. It would also increase American standards of living and decrease economic inequality by equalizing opportunities and improving the aggregate skill of our labor force, thus, reducing poverty over the longer-term in a much more significant way than temporary government unemployment relief.
The American economy is already passing down lower-skill work to countries with lower wages in order to cut operating costs. Trying to hold on to these jobs can never be anything more than a short term solution. They belong somewhere else, and they will help those in lesser-developed nations more than they will help low-skill workers here.
This was one of the few things in Bernie’s agenda that I really appreciated–its focus on raising American wages by investing in education. However, the protectionist trends in public opinion seem to suggest this is not the route we are headed. In any case, I believe that improving the level of skill of our labor forces by investing in education is more consistent with the values of our political culture than autocratic unemployment relief like the Public Works Administration.