It’s like a foreign language

One thing that is truly depressing about our current era is that it is virtually impossible to have a conversation anymore about issues of national importance. To take a position on something is to invite immediate attack and its become just about impossible to hold a semi literate conversation in a bar or other such public venue. Primarily because strangers who don’t agree with you, rather than keep their thoughts to themselves will rise up and try to join your conversation.

So the safe thing to do is not talk about anything. You can’t talk about politics, you certainly cannot talk about women.

Sports is safe, up to a point. A lot depends on where you are. However if sports is not really your thing, which for me, it is not, what options do you have left.

Travel? Maybe depending on who your audience is, they may not want to hear your story.

So, you just try to avoid conversation unless you know that the arc of hearing your voice is safe. And even then-it may not be.

There is also the problem of common language. Turn on Fox News and you will hear you’ll hear pundits blasting illegal aliens, radical Islamic terrorism, and corporate regulations. In this year, you will repeatedly hear the words Socialism and Deep State. The words religious liberty will get used a lot too, and in discussing the Supreme Court the word originalism gets used a lot.

The problem is, that as used by certain people, the words do not mean what they seem to, especially socialism. Paul Krugman talked about this a while back when he examined the country of Denmark.

U.S. conservatives — like Fox’s Regan — continually and systematically blur the distinction between social democracy and socialism. In 2008, John McCain accused Barack Obama of wanting socialism, basically because Obama called for an expansion of health coverage. In 2012, Mitt Romney declared that Obama got his ideas from “socialist democrats in Europe.”

In other words, in American political discourse, anyone who wants to make life in a market economy less nasty, brutish and short gets denounced as a socialist.

Krugman’s point is that social democracy and socialism are two very different things. And in American political discourse, the terms get used interchangeably. They should not be.

Social democracy is an enabler of free markets. A strong social safety net allows people to make market choices. Unregulated markets do not translate into greater freedom. Professor Krugman again:

The other claim, however, has been that free markets translate into personal freedom: that an unregulated market economy liberates ordinary people from the tyranny of bureaucracies. In a free market, the story goes, you don’t need to flatter your boss or the company selling you stuff, because they know you can always go to someone else.

What Robin points out is that the reality of a market economy is nothing like that. In fact, the daily experience of tens of millions of Americans – especially but not only those who don’t make a lot of money – is one of constant dependence on the good will of employers and other more powerful economic players.

…..the idea that free markets remove power relations from the equation is just naïve.

And it’s even more naïve now than it was a few decades ago, because, as Irwin points out, large economic players are dominating more and more of the economy. It’s increasingly clear, for example, that monopsony power is depressing wages; but that’s not all it does. The concentration of hiring among a few firms, plus things like noncompete clauses and tacit collusion that reinforce their market power, don’t just reduce your wage if you’re hired. They also reduce or eliminate your options if you’re mistreated: quit because you have an abusive boss or have problems with company policy, and you may have real trouble getting a new job.

But what can be done about it? Corey Robin says “socialism” – but as far as I can tell he really means social democracy: Denmark, not Venezuela. Government-mandated employee protections may restrict the ability of corporations to hire and fire, but they also shield workers from some very real forms of abuse. Unions do somewhat limit workers’ options, but they also offer an important counterweight against corporate monopsony power.

Oh, and social safety net programs can do more than limit misery: they can be liberating. I’ve known many people who stuck with jobs they disliked for fear of losing health coverage; Obamacare, flawed as it is, has noticeably reduced that kind of “lock in”, and a full guarantee of health coverage would make our society visibly freer.

But you can’t talk about that anymore with people and even if you did-there is no guarantee they would understand it. And that’s a shame, because America is at a point where it needs to have a decent discussion on these and other issues.

I doubt it is going to happen.