I have a confession: I’m a slave. I wear a badge and a firearm for work, but of my own fate I am neither master nor commander.
I also have some breaking news, which may be a bit shocking: if you have a job, so are you.
Think about it: if you have a job, the location of that job dictates where you can live, due to chronological commuting constraints – because you have to get to that job. The amount of liquid capital (as in, salary) you’re paid in exchange for your time dictates where within that distance you can afford to live. Based on the amount of your salary, which was earned with your time and thus can be said to equate to the amount of your time, you fork over for rent or mortgage, the leftover quantity dictates the quality and quantity of necessities and luxuries you can afford – if any. The schedule at your place of employment dictates things we consider basic human rights such as when you can sleep, when you can eat (based on break times), when you can see your family, and what kinds of things you can do for luxury (because some luxury activities may require more time than you have available).
The amount of salary you earn can even dictate who you love. Sure, we don’t have social classes here in Western society, but when was the last time you heard of a Hollywood actor falling in love with a drive-through fry cook? Lawyer and janitor? A politician and an “occupy” activist? We can go ahead and ignore the 84 Lumber founder here as an anomaly – he’s been married to several of his female secretaries. It happens that the top SES folks sometimes get involved with the lower rungs, but not enough that I could even find statistics on it. Unless these folks knew each other before making their money, or one of them is more highly preferable for partnership (Sprecher & Regan, 2002), there’s not much likelihood the prince(ess) would give a second look to the poor farmer’s kid.
Who, then, you might ask, in our capitalist Western society isn’t a slave? Well, outside of the oligarchy which owns our industries (often corporate entities, not even identifiable people) and subsidizes our education system in order to indoctrinate their own preferred ideologies (Bourguignon & Verdier, 2000), essentially no one. The closest we have in the US are the “out-of-work” class, those with neither legitimate gainful employment nor intent to seek such but whom nonetheless draw a consistent and livable salary from the government in the form of welfare (excluding those who’ve paid into the Social Security pension system and now live on the meager fruits of their lifelong labor). But are they really free either? Political parties swap back and forth every few generations it seems as to who are “conservative” and who are “liberal” – but they’re both in charge if not necessarily in control. They dole out resources by vote and veto, thus maintaining the tethers on the out-of-work class who can’t afford to not “vote” their paychecks, and the working class who can’t afford to vote for whichever side promises to tax them less.
The ruling class, our political oligarchy, are relentlessly beholden to the powers that made them: money, and from whence it came. Fail to toe the line, and financial support will wane or be wholly extricated. Ergo, we are both our own masters and our own slaves. We buttress the industries which finance the politicos’ campaigns, whom are then beholden to and regulate industry, and decide how much of the fruits of our labor we get to keep and how much will be seized for redistribution as they see fit (to themselves, infrastructure, and to the out-of-work class).
Right about now, the thought we share is “hang on a minute, bubba. This is an applied social psychology blog. Where in tarnation are you going with this?”
Here’s the intervention: in order to stop the madness, WE have to stop the madness. Just as our forefathers waged a revolution sparked by the principle of taxation without representation, we have to eschew our own interests and realize we are being taxed but not represented now by our own domestic government. We have to stop “voting our paychecks” and start actually becoming involved. By spending some of our (very) finite leisure time on finding out about candidates and incumbents directly – rather than what media hyperbole would have us believe – and using our own power of public veto to emplace representatives who are truly that, we can affect change. In 1900, our government’s spending was at 6.9% of GDP and currently hovers around 40%. Check it out:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/usgs_chart2p21.png
Where is it going? Does it matter? The 12th US Census in 1900 concluded there were about 76.2 million citizens, compared to 309.3 million today (census.gov). In 1900, governance at all levels employed “somewhat more than one million persons” (Fabricant, 1949, p.3) – about 1.5% of the population. Today it sits at about 21.9 million – just under 7.1% of the population. As government gets bigger, it needs more servants to keep its mouth fed. Just like a bigger farm needs either improved technology or more hands to work it, our government (an entity, not a person) needs more to keep itself alive.
By looking to the candidates themselves – their attendance records, their stances on key issues which matter to us, their administrations’ spending habits – we can directly affect change in our system and sow seeds which will later hopefully bear fruit. But if we continue down the road we’re on where the only information we get is from media sources which are not only biased but also parts of the conglomerations to and for which we are slave and servant, we’re going to keep getting more of the same. Go ahead, get hung up on one issue. Toss a candidate out of contention based on spin (yes, I’m referring directly to Romney here, who brought back the failing Bain which later failed again and had taken no salary during his time as a governor previously, and Obama, targeted by “birthers” and his lack of non-government employment) or follow one for the same reason (George HW Bush’s “read my lips” and Clinton’s “definition of the word is” comments come to mind).
I think if we cut the news media – who are essentially all just spin doctors for one side or the other – out of campaigning, and curtail smear tactics beyond reporting verifiable metrics of opposing campaigns and opponents, we’ll actually have an opportunity to get to know candidates: who they are, what they stand for based on what they’ve done in the past (like how many votes they’re present for, actual work experience where they pay taxes, etc.), and whatnot, it would help. But the key variable here is voting. We, indirectly, make policy because we vote the policymakers into place. Granted, they get there with money paid by organizations for which we work who donate profits gleaned from the fruits of our labor, which buys ad time to get their name slathered into our short-term consciousness. Hey, any press is good press (McKinnon & Kaid, 2009) and the more a candidate’s name gets out there, the more likely voters are to remember it when the time comes to push the button (Balmas & Sheafer, 2010).
But if we change our mindset to be aware of things for ourselves, to think for ourselves, and to make up our own minds based on what we think is best rather than who we think had the best narrative, we might find we’re more kindred to the other side of the aisle than we think and less likely to just go with the lesser of two (or three) evils.
Then again, are we? I don’t have time to go into it; I have to get back to work.
REFERENCES:
Sprecher S & Regan PC (2002). Liking some things (in some people) more than other: Partner preferences in romantic relationships and friendships. Social and Personal Relationships 19:4 (pp. 463-481). DOI: 10.1177/0265407502019004048
Bourguignon F & Verdier T (2000). Oligarchy, democracy, inequality and growth. Development Economics 62:2 (pp. 285-313). DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00086-9
Fabricant S (1949). The rising trend of government employment. New York, NY: National Bureau of Economic Research. ISBN: 0-87014-344-1
McKinnon LM & Kaid LL (2009). Exposing negative campaigning or enhancing advertising effects: An experimental study of adwatch effects on voters’ evaluations of candidates and their ads. Applied Communication Research 27:3 (pp. 217-236). DOI: 10.1080/009098899093655337
Balmas M & Sheafer T (2010). Candidate image in election campaigns: Attribute agenda setting, affective priming, and voting intentions. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 22:2 (pp. 204-229). DOI: 10.1093/ijpor/edq009