The On-your-Ownership Society
I think it’s fair to say that “freedom” and “ownership” were two of the big ideas that President Bush is trying to pound into the frontal lobes of the American people these days, since he can scarcely open his mouth without uttering one of them. The way Bush and the GOP faithful speak of these things, they are not just good ideas to aspire to, but words imbued with awesome and mystical significance. And like those troublesome bits of the Bible that go on and on about justice for the poor and the weak, they are to be repeated with awe and reverence so often that they are drained of their common meaning, detached from their social context and elevated to the status of incantation. Or perhaps, they more resemble the mantras repeated by a hypnotist as he’s trying to lull his patient into a pliable, semi-conscious state.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with either concept. Freedom is something we all aspire to in our way, and I think we can all agree that it’s better to be an owner than a piece of property. The problem here is making the connection between the Platonic realm of ideals in which Bush seems to operate, and what’s really going on with his policies and proposals.
Freedom, for example, is rather vague and open-ended. I find most conservatives use it in the sense of “freedom to make money without regulation.” It is usually conservatives rather than liberals who speak of the “limits of freedom” and the “abuse of freedom” when it comes to such things as freedom of speech, demonstrations and protests, distasteful art, and minority rights. In fact, it’s hard to think of any aspect of social policy where either side couldn’t be formulated as a “freedom from x” or a “freedom to y.” Without distinction or clarification, the word itself drifts off into meaninglessness, leaving behind a vaguely pleasing fragrance. And using the term “freedom” to describe what’s going on in Iraq? You couldn’t torture the language any more if you put it in Abu Ghraib for a year.
Ownership has greater meaning, but is more contradictory. The antebellum South, for example, was an “ownership society,” but I don’t think that’s what Bush has in mind. I own lots of stuff, including my own business. It’s got plenty of great perks over the 9-5 routine, like working from home, the ability to deduct routine costs from my taxes, the opportunity to sock money away in a SEP-IRA, and to structure my income in all kinds of fun ways because I’m incorporated.
In theory, anyone in America could do what I’m doing. Some do, but most don’t. And why not? Why would anyone want to work for someone else when they could get these great advantages by being self-employed? Because it’s cold out here, that’s why.
No one pays for my health care, no one guarantees my salary every month. If I don’t get work on my own, I don’t get paid. If I don’t collect from recalcitrant clients, I don’t get paid. If someone decides to screw me over because I’m small and powerless, I don’t get paid. Fortunately, I’m fairly good at what I do and this hasn’t been a problem lately, but in the early part of my career (and still, for many smart and well-qualified colleagues), being the master and commander of one’s own craft more often resembles sailing on the crest of a tsunami than being the cruise director of the Love Boat.
I cherish the independence more than I value the stability, and the circumstances of my life permit me to make that choice. But it’s not for everyone. It’s not even for most people. If you have a family, or fixed costs, or lack any of the multitude of skills necessary to be successful as an entrepreneur, the predictability of working for other people is a far preferable situation. I don’t disparage working stiffs; I don’t expect everyone to be like me. I’m pleased ownership is an option, since it suits me, but it would be ridiculous to make it a requirement.
It’s a fact of human nature that, if fed a steady stream of Horatio Alger stories about hard work and entrepreneurship, most people will eventually look in the mirror and see the next Donald Trump. It’s also a fact of human nature – and a fortunate one – that there’s only one Donald Trump and precious few like him. Like roulette, freedom and ownership in the capitalist sense produce a few big winners and lots and lots of frustrated losers.
In the business world, this is tolerable since it has many other benefits for economic growth and innovation. Business also has mechanisms for spreading risk and replacing unproductive parts. At the individual level, people don’t have that option. If you make a bad economic decision, you can’t take a “one-time charge against earnings” and absorb a stock-price hit. If age, disease or circumstance reduce your ability to compete in the workforce, you can’t outsource the unprofitable unit.
In my situation, with all my “freedom” and “ownership,” I feel this acutely every day. There are some risks I am willing to take, because taking them is necessary to achieve my goals. But perhaps because I live with more day-to-day financial risk than most people, I am not eager to assume “ownership” over aspects of my well-being over which I have no control. Being responsible for so much gives me a realistic view over what is beyond my power or beyond my competence. Because I’m already in a position that many people aspire to, I am far more aware of the drawbacks and far more skeptical of policies that attempt to force more risk onto people, especially when the rewards are unlikely to be substantial for the great majority.
There’s a reason that we as a country chose to socialize the costs and the risks of aging and poor health through Social Security and Medicare. These are predictable and inevitable problems of all human beings, regardless of their skills, foresight, and competence. Dying of preventable disease or spending old age in the indignity of poverty are not fates anyone would choose. At the same time, insuring against them for all people, rich and poor, is a task ill-suited to a free market whose sole objective is maximizing returns on investment. That’s not a criticism from the Left – it’s a statement of fact. Capitalism doesn’t work on qualitative metrics. The returns on Social Security are measured in “social security,” not individual prosperity. Free market ideologues seem to have a really hard time getting their minds around that concept.
Back in the 1930s, America had the wisdom to finally realize that, without impacting the fundamental aspects of free market capitalism and private property, there are some things that benefit from communal ownership, and some degree of risk that can only be effectively shared across the entire society. Private ownership and privatization were specifically rejected as a model not because the New Dealers were a bunch of Communists, but because those approaches were insufficient to address the problems of universal pensions and universal medical coverage for the elderly.
We learned that lesson and built a solution that works. But it works in part because society agreed to accept the reduced efficiency of government management in exchange for the guarantees that only the social contract between government and its citizens could provide. Getting people riled up about the “low returns” on Social Security and the fact that the program provides a benefit rather than an asset to recipients is distracting at best and disingenuous at worst. It’s like suggesting airlines should save money by having passengers fly the planes, and then rallying support by convincing people that being a pilot isn’t so tough (plus, think about how cheap that ticket to Hawaii will be!).
Ownership can be a wonderful thing, same as freedom. But the freedom to die in a car bomb attack, and the freedom to slaughter your ethnic and religious enemies (and be slaughtered by them) isn’t anything that deserves American support. Neither is a scheme that takes away hard-earned comforts and certainties from the aged and infirm, and replaces them with the cold whims of risk, all in the name of “ownership.”
11:10:40 AM 
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