My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

The Powerball drawing attracted lots of media attention last week. Or, as some people think of it, their retirement savings plan was in the news.

That sounds sad and desperate, which it is. Lottery preys on people with lower incomes, especially through daily games and scratch-off tickets. Players are also disproportionately minorities, and many are gambling addicts chasing dopamine highs from winning.

Winning the lottery is obviously lucky, but other wealth often comes with a fair amount of luck, too. Having good health. Not getting into accidents. Not being laid off from work or downsized. The greatest luck of all is probably good genetics and home environment while growing up, including ability to do well in school, pay for college and use any connections one’s parents can provide.

A common misconception among conservatives is that liberals want equality of outcome. What liberals really push for, though, is equality of opportunity. This means kids having a safe, supportive home, healthy environment and access to quality education. It means people achieving their potential and at least having a basic level of security but hopefully attaining much more if they’re able.

We have so much wasted potential in the United States. The large and growing gap between the wealthy and everybody else represents enormous inefficiencies. So much talent and ingenuity is thrown away because people never get a reasonable chance to develop them. Without a few lucky breaks, they fade. With a few bad breaks, they too easily tumble.

A second way inequality is inefficient is that people who have high incomes save big portions (38 percent among the top 1 percent), whereas people with less income spend all or most of it, creating more of a multiplier effect. A less unequal distribution of income and wealth is better for the economy because more people have more to spend, which boosts demand. Consumer demand (not tax cuts for the top) drives job growth.

Even if a person doesn’t have luck, they at least have freedom, right?

Maybe. Does a person have true freedom if they can barely afford basic necessities? Is it freedom to live in dread of extra expenses that inevitably arise? Can one be free if starting their own business is too risky because individual health insurance is too expensive? Does one have freedom if going back to school means taking on loads of debt?

I see freedom as rooted in economic security, as did Franklin Roosevelt. Today’s Republicans, however, see freedom as an absence of government in our lives. What this means in practice is that regular people are having their hard-won protections from capitalist predations peeled back, layer by layer.

The decline of unions, the repeal of Glass-Steagall banking regulations and the stagnant minimum wage are examples of working people losing protections, and these all contribute to rising income inequality.

A few transformational Republicans have been committed to freedom in terms of equality of opportunity: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. This commitment is based on the Declaration of Independence, which states “all men are created equal” and have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Lincoln upset the social order of the South by freeing African-Americans in slavery. Teddy Roosevelt busted trusts, fought political corruption and recognized the rights of organized labor for the first time. Eisenhower’s Chief Justice appointee, Earl Warren, presided over the Brown vs. Board of Education decision which ended legalized school segregation during his first term in office.

Today’s Republicans prefer to talk about the Constitution, which is more focused on protection of property. This has been the pitch of Republican politics since Reagan took office in 1981, and it has strikingly increased inequality. Today, 43 percent of children born in the bottom quintile (fifth) will remain there as adults, and 40 percent of children born in the top quintile will keep that station.

As a consequence, the U.S. has fallen significantly behind Denmark, Finland, Norway and Canada in social mobility. Those are the lands of opportunity for children who don’t grow up in privileged households, not the U.S.

It’s not completely irrational in these conditions, then, to see the lottery as the most likely way to a better life.

More effective, though, would be to vote for politicians who are committed to equality of opportunity. Lincoln, T.R. and Eisenhower have no prominent heirs in the Republican party today. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back soon.

In the meantime, Bernie Sanders is the best choice for anybody hanging on in the middle class or struggling to reach it. It’s no accident that Bernie has received the most individual donations, mostly small sums, of any candidate in history. Why rely just on luck when one can use their political power to improve everybody’s chances? Vote.

 

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.