The "Grievance Industry"

[paft.livejournal.com]

Many years ago, just after the end of Reagan’s first term, I was listening to a local Talk Radio host, Ronn Owens, doing a sort of “summing up” of the Reagan administration so far. He brought up Reagan’s question, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and he said, “I gotta tell ya. Yes, I am. And everyone I know is better off too.”

Ronn invited his mostly white, middle-class listeners to weigh in. One after another they lined up to chirp about how well they were doing in Reagan’s America.

Then, he got a black caller, who informed the host, “I’m not better off. I’m not better off at all. In fact, things have gotten worse. And I don’t know one single black American who’s not doing worse.”

“Oh now sir,” Ronn said, with the air of someone calming down a hysteric. “don’t you feel you’re being a little myopic?”

I guess the farsighted, non-myopic approach would have been for the caller and all those other black Americans to think happy thoughts about how well Ronn Owens and the other white folks were doing, rather than focusing on their own petty concerns.



There has long been in the United States mainstream the unspoken assumption that a poor, female, gay, non-Christian or non-white person voting in his or her own interest is a form of whining rather than common sense, even though the stakes for these voters tend to be higher than the concerns of wealthy folks who don’t want to pay those extra taxes that could price them out of that second house in the Hamptons. The rule of thumb is, apparently – if you have a real grievance influencing your vote, like “I could lose my healthcare if the Republicans have their way” or “I could end up unable to afford birth control or unable to get access to an abortion” or “As a black American, I don’t want a guy who’s taking advice from Charles Murray deciding policy that’s going to affect my kids” or “My family could go hungry” or “I could end up in jail for having consensual sex with another adult” or “this guy wants to pass legislation that would endanger my right to vote” you are part of the “Grievance Industry.” And that’s a bad thing.

This attitude has recently been kicked into overdrive by the passing of ACA. The right wing is now in full panic mode over the horrifying discovery that people like being able to afford healthcare and are not going to like having that access taken away. Worse, these same people will actually vote in favor of their own physical and civic well-being. The right seems to think this is awfully unfair, and they believe it’s even more unfair for Democratic politicians to point out to these voters how much is at stake.

Joan Walsh at Salon puts it beautifully:

So let me make sure I understand. Telling your voters, accurately, that Republicans are trying to make it harder for them to vote, and are blocking action on pay equity, the minimum wage and immigration reform is unfair “grievance politics”? Likewise, any effort to deal with the scandal of $1 trillion in student loan debt? Oliphant compares it to the grievance politics practiced by Republicans under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But that form of grievance politics mainly relied on inflaming white voters’ fears of cultural and racial change with false or highly exaggerated claims about Democrats. (emphasis added.)

The difference between accusations that are accurate and accusations that are highly exaggerated or quite simply untrue is apparently unimportant, as far as some in the media are concerned.

I mean really, it’s all about whether or not they make people get all emotional. All that arm-waving and emoting about “I want to cast a ballot” or “I want my heart medication” or “I don’t want to end up homeless after my unemployment benefits run out” is JUST like those Republicans who said that black people were going to take over and John Kerry didn’t deserve his medals and gay people were going to kidnap your little boy and marry him. So vulgar!

Why can’t people directly affected by these policies stop horning into conversations that should really be conducted as abstract conundrums over cocktails at a DC reception?

*

Comments

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Indirectly? sure.

But to characterize this as a "war" on all women is nothing more than a cynical ploy designed to rile up the social justice warriors.

[paft.livejournal.com]

You don't think most women are affected by the attacks on reproductive health? On Planned Parenthood? Are only lesbians and single women affected by the attempts to reduce access to contraceptoin and abortion?

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

I love it when they talk about "rights" as if they really understood the word. It's always good for a laugh. "My body, my choice! Your wallet, also my choice!" Too funny.

[paft.livejournal.com]

We gals just don't know what rights mean, eh?

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

No, not at all. Clearly, some women do understand. Some of them are libertarians. I believe there have already been complaints raised in these threads about over-generalization. I believe I was being sufficiently specific when I mentioned which of "you gals" I meant: those who loudly proclaim property rights for themselves but not for others. If the shoe fits, you're welcome to try it on.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Referencing 'you gals' isn't sufficiently specific, but it is sufficiently derisive, scornful and disrespectful toward all women to let us know that as long as your shoes fit, you don' give a rats ass if everyone else goes barefoot.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

If you look carefully, and actually read the comment to which I was responding (do try: it's only one little line) you will see that paft used the collectivization "we gals," implying that I meant that no member of the set "we gals," presumably the set of all humans possessing two X chromosomes, possessed an understanding of the concept of rights. I was pointing out her over-generalization. If you have a problem with the set label, take it up with her, as it was her usage choice, not mine.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Apparently sarcasm isn't your strong suit.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

It's difficult to teach sarcasm to a Mises.org-talking-point dispenser machine.

[paft.livejournal.com]

In what manner are those of us who advocate for access to abortion and contraception "proclaim(ing) property rights for (our)selves but not for others?"

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Again, over-generalization. It is not the set of all advocates for "access to abortion and contraception" who are proclaiming property rights for themselves but not for others; it is the subset of those who are disingenuously, or ignorantly, conflating the concept of expropriation with the concept of "access." They are not the same things. Invoking a property right while demanding expropriation is contradiction.

[paft.livejournal.com]

m: Again, over-generalization.

It's your over-generalization, not mine.

m: it is the subset of those who are disingenuously, or ignorantly, conflating the concept of expropriation with the concept of "access." They are not the same things. Invoking a property right while demanding expropriation is contradiction.

Once more, in English? I realize that jargon is a very handy way to obfuscate viewpoints that don't stand up to scrutiny, but I'm going to have to ask for a least a bit of lucidity here.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Let's simplify, and clarify then:

You attempted to imply that I was indicting the entire set of all women as being ignorant of the concept of rights. I wasn't. After an addtional exchange of comments, you attempted to imply that I was indicting the entire set of "those of us [women] who advocate for access to abortion and contraception" as being guilty of the error. Again, I wasn't. I myself, a man, would agree that "access" to abortion and contraception are legitimate in the sense that nobody should be in the position of forbidding them.

The set of people who I do claim are engaged in contradiction are the members of the set, male or female, who claim that they have the authority to take from others through the political system in order to fund their "access" to abortion and contraception. You have the right to speak freely; you have no right to demand that I purchase you a megaphone. There is no justifiable legal authority to forbid the sale of abortion services or contraceptives. There is also no justifiable legal authority to demand that other parties be forced pay for these goods and services or to otherwise provide them against their will. The decision as to whether or not to provide or withhold in this instance is justifiably entirely with those who hold individual property rights to such goods and services.

The people who are demanding that some people be expropriated (robbed via taxation) to pay for the contraception and abortion choices of others are demanding that a property right in their own bodies be respected, while at the same time, attempting to deny the property rights of those from whom they intend to steal. That is contradiction. "My body, my choice," and "my wallet, my choice" are both rooted in the same ultimate right to property.

[paft.livejournal.com]

IOW, if a woman is unable to afford contraception, or the cost of an abortion, she's just plumb out of luck. And since she may very well also be unable to afford food for her unwanted children, or shelter, or education...

Luuuuuvly society you envision there.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

So when a married woman earns less than a man for the same work (assuming same seniority and performance) it doesn't matter? Are you assuming that her wages are just 'pin money?' What if she is the primary wage earner as compared to her husband?

What about the single mother? Do not her children benefit if she is paid the same as a man doing the same job?

As for single women, and yes, I am one, if I am paid less than a man for doing the same work, do you think that this is magically compensated for by 'ladies drink free on Thursday nights'? Or perhaps you imagine that I get a discount on my mortgage payments for being single. And why do single men not get paid less as well? After all, they aren't raising families and yet we don't wave away their need for income.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Assuming that the work is the same and all other things being equal yes it does matter.

The problem is that they usually aren't. If you're going to compare Coffeeshop Barristas to Crab-fisherman, as those aggregate graphs so often do, of course the crab fisherman are going to get paid more. An honest assessment would require breaking down the wage differences by industry, position, hours etc... But that's a lot of work that's not getting voters to turn out on election day.

As for the rest,

The single mother deserves exactly as much consideration as any other employee. She may get more or less than what she deserves but that's a seperate issue.

From an employer's perspective women tend to be more resource intensive than men. In general, they take more vacation days, have higher health-care costs, and tend to be more averse to both risk and hardship. All of these factors potentially effect the employer's bottom line and it would be irrational in to see them reflected in the hiring process.

[paft.livejournal.com]

s: The problem is that they usually aren't. If you're going to compare Coffeeshop Barristas to Crab-fisherman, as those aggregate graphs so often do

Which aggregate graphs do this? Cite please.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Any time you see one of those graphs with labels like average income of women under 25 vs. average income of men under 25.

Women are over-represented in some industries, medicine, HR, education/child development for example, and under-represented in risk-intensive trades like crab-fishing. Any aggregate graph looking at the genders as a whole is going to be effected by this disparities.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Cite.

Please.

A specific graph.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Most of them, including the president's 77% claim.

But this one from the wikipedia entry for

[paft.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry but there doesn't seem to be a link here. Can you try again?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Sorry HTML acting up.

Most of them, including the president's 77% claim (http://www.whitehouse.gov/equal-pay/myth#top).

But this one from the wikipedia entry for "Gender Pay Gap" in particular.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Keep pretending that this is not the case:

A study commissioned by the United States Department of Labor, concluded that "There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent."[4] The study also concluded that while in principle more of the wage gap could be explained by differences between the groups, the data that would be needed to account for additional factors were not available.

Wikipedia article: Gender pay gap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap)

You are attempting to use political means to blot out some aspects of reality that you don't want to face. Inconvenient facts like female executives considered as a group typically working for companies that are, on average, smaller and worth ten percent less than the average worth of all companies. So tell everyone how it is "more fair" to rob people who work at more valuable companies and give their earnings to people who work at less valuable companies.

How about the problem of the average male executive being five years older, with five years more experience than the average female executive? Are you now going to tell us that it is "fair" to steal from someone who is older and who has more job experience and give that person's earnings to someone younger, with less job experience?

Face it: what is being advocated here is to use the political system to expropriate from people with one X chromosome so that the loot can be given to those with two. Your advocacy is just as prejudicial as you claim the condition you are trying to rectify is, if not more so, because it is, of necessity imposed in a manner that is even more arbitrary than the problem it supposedly addresses. It is idiocy on stilts, on its face. If the wage gap does not exist, and is merely an artifact of applying statistics to an horribly uncontrollable data set then your proposed "solution" is nothing more than self-serving crime masquerading as a "correction" for a problem that does not exist. If, on the other hand, there is a definite, identifiable, "wage gap" that is not arbitraged away by economic competition, then it must be the case that there is a detectable, nearly universal, even among women preference for hiring males at a higher wage than women, for whatever reason and identifying it's cause is merely self-serving speculation. At any rate, in this latter case, how do the redistributionists intend to use a system that functions ostensibly through preference, the political system, to correct a problem which they assert exists because of...wait for it...preference? It is a astonishing that "lib-progressives" could remain in ignorance about how "conservative-fundies" get elected. Pot, meet kettle.

It is understanding what politics is that let's people see why yes, there certainly are politically organized groups of men who probably really do want to pass laws keeping women, as a group, "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen." It's called collectivist, tribal warfare. When you make war, you get war. When you attempt to use the law to expropriate others because you have been unable to achieve something fairly, through voluntary cooperation in the market, others will use the law to expropriate you right back. Frankly, those who use the political process to expropriate others, male or female, are merely getting what they deserve when what goes around comes around. My objection is that those who do not want to use the political system to "play war" against others are suffering collateral damage. This is not to mention the capital consumption and economic market damage that results from indulging redistributionists in their gross moral onanism.

[paft.livejournal.com]

m: You are attempting to use political means to blot out some aspects of reality that you don't want to face. Inconvenient facts like female executives considered as a group typically working for companies that are, on average, smaller and worth ten percent less than the average worth of all companies.

Even within large companies, female workers tend to make less than their male co-workers in the same positions.

And presuming the claim about female executvies working for on average smaller companies is true -- why do you think that is?

m: How about the problem of the average male executive being five years older, with five years more experience than the average female executive?

Why do you think that is?

You spew words like a frightened squid spews ink.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

why do you think that is?

You already answered this with your own citation.

Because, on average, they work less hours.