The case of Officer Liang and Akai Gurley

In class, we recently had a discussion over the relationship between African Americans and police officers within the United States. Many of my classmates had notions regarding this topic that I agree with, while some did not. Because of this, my second reaction paper will cover the relationship between African Americans and police officers in the United States, as well as ideas conceived by classmates on how to repair this relationship to ensure the well-being of both African Americans and police officers.

The discussion stemmed from a classmate bringing awareness to the case of Peter Liang, an Asian American cop accused of shooting and killing an unarmed African American man. According to journalist Fuchs, November 20^th of 2014, officer Peter Liang entered a stairwell with his partner, Rafael Ramos, for a “vertical patrol” ( Fuchs, 2016).  During this patrol, Liang heard a noise that frightened him, fired his gun, the bullet ricocheted off a wall, and struck an unarmed Akai Gurley.  Though, Akai Gurley was shot by the bullet, he was able to knock on a resident’s door and tell the resident to call 911.  The 911 dispatcher detailed how to give CPR,  however, neither police officer performed CPR on Gurley. Instead they are quoted to have  argued over calling for help while Gurley “lay dying” (2016).

Gurley, in fact, died as a result of his injuries. As a result, in February of 2016, Liang  was convicted of second-degree manslaughter, assault, and reckless endangerment, criminally negligent homicide, and a count of official misconduct (2016). The one count of official misconduct stemmed from Liang not performing CPR on Gurley. In response to this count, Liang stated that he felt unqualified to perform CPR, as he did not practice CPR at the Police Academy, and his instructors gave those training answers to the exams (2016). In response to Liang’s conviction, the Asian American community was divided by those that supported the conviction and those that did not.

Those in support of the conviction argue that “police violence” which stems from systemic racism will continue not combatted (Guillermo, 2015). However, some groups argue that the murder of an unarmed African American man by an Asian American and the conviction of the Asian American police officer was used as a scapegoat. These groups contend that if the police officer was a European American then he would not have been convicted, as many have been before.

It is from this idea that some of the Asian American groups have, that if Peter Liang had been a white police officer he would not have been convicted that the class discussion stemmed. Because I cannot speak for any member of the Asian American community, it can be inferred that many groups in support of Liang, believe that because some European American cops or European Americans, in general, are not punished has harshly as people of color or cops that are of color when convicting the same or similar crimes, there is an importance placed on the lives of European Americans that is not placed on the lives of people of color. This importance is perpetuated in both the private and public spheres, more specifically and in this case of Liang, in jobs that are deemed uniformed service or public safety service.

From this idea that the legal system fails to punish white cops as it does cops of color who commit the same or similar crimes, that my classmates began to give ideas on how to repair this system. Some inferred that the reformation of the legal system begins in the Police Academy – that certain incentives be given and that requirements to become a police officer are lengthened. I believe that both of these conditions could result in individuals being more equipped to fulfill their duties as a cop without feeling as if they had the capabilities to abuse the power that is instilled in the job title.  Also a furthered education, possibly promoting individuals obtaining a secondary education, would also be another benefit as the individual would have additional knowledge along with what is learned in the Police Academy.

Aside from what can be done to ensure that individuals become police officers who will not abuse their power, classmates also argued that there should be ways for miscommunications and harsh feelings between African Americans and police officers to be resolved. One way to resolve these issues could be programs that allow one-on-one interaction between the two communities which could also disprove any prejudice or bigoted notions one community may have towards the other. This could also be done with other minority groups and police officers, as well as non-minorities and police officers.

In class, my peers also offered their stances on how they believe African Americans should respond to police officers. These responses seemed to stem from the idea that cops are going to act upon racist, bigoted, or discriminatory notions or may have a superiority complex. While some cops may act upon these notions, some will not. Because of this, I was confused on my classmates’ stances, as I perceived it as them believing that African Americans should believe that when pulled over or approached by a cop they should act submissively due to the cop possibly having these kind of beliefs – submissively as in not objecting to any wrongful treatment they may be subjected to.

There were also comments made on acting African Americans making sure they act respectful to police officers. This is definitely needed, but I believe this should be promoted with all individuals, not just cops. These ideas were easier to digest than the ideas suggesting that an individual allow wrongful treatment by a cop by not speaking out, simply because they are a cop. This not only promotes the continuation of unlawful abuse by cops, but allows for animosity to grow between police officers and the public. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this in class discussion and the different stances that my classmates’ had, whether I agreed with them or not. As for the case the encouraged the discussion, I think that certain subgroups within communities are vying for solidarity within themselves and their community and are willing to come together for any reason – whether it be good or bad. I strongly believe that this case, more specifically, the murder of an unarmed minority would also not be such a taboo topic if there was not varied treatment of individuals who have the same job title. By working with both police officers and various communities affected by police mistreatment or anger these groups may have, matters like this could be resolved without contesting the worth of another’s individual’s life.

References

Fuchs, C. (2016, February 11). NYPD Officer Peter Liang guilty of second-degree Manslaughter in Akai Gurley killing. NBC News. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/nypd-officer-peter-liang-guilty-second-degree-manslaughter-akai-gurley-n516796 

Fuchs, C. (2016, February 23). Chinese community divided over NYPD officer's indictment. NBC News.  Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/chinese-community-divided-over-nypd-officers-indictment-n306946 

Guillermo, E. (2015, April 28). Police violence will repeat itself': Asian groups call for accountability. NBC News. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/police-violence-will-repeat-itself-asian-groups-call-accountability-n349601

In this case an innocent person is dead, and the person responsible for that death ought to face punitive consequences.  It seems clear that the death was not intentionally caused, but officer Liang had his gun out of its holster and pulled the trigger when there was evidently no need, and that seems to justify the charge of second-degree manslaughter and criminal endangerment. The fact that Officer Liang did not offer assistance to the man he had mortally wounded seems to justify the official misconduct charge, and perhaps also the criminally negligent homicide. So, it seems to me hardly any fair person could object to these charges being made, and since I haven’t read the court transcripts or attended the court processes, I will just have to trust that the verdicts were fairly reached.

So far, I think there isn’t really any room for dispute, although I suppose some might argue for charges of less serious crimes, or more serious crimes, depending upon their dispositions.  I think the agents of the state tend to make the harshest and most serious charges they can possibly make, because built into the system is the assumption that there will be some sort of plea-bargain and the accused defendant will admit to a lesser charge and spare the state the cost of the full prosecution. 

By the way, CPR usually does not save lives, but it is a criminal injustice for two law enforcement officers to fail to provide the first aid assistance when they have accidentally shot someone, or even intentionally shot someone. 

Should police officers be charged with crimes when they commit crimes?  Of course they should be.  Are police officers frequently given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to get away with justifications for their decisions and actions, and thus escape prosecution and punishment for terrible decisions, reckless incompetence, and criminal behavior?  Yes, probably so.  There is always a problem of “who will police the police?” and this is an inherent crisis in every act of state violence.  The state (largely through its police and military functions) holds a monopoly on the right to use violence, but the use of violence is always a serious matter, and states tend to use more violence than necessary, partially because the people who are allowed to use the violence frequently are frightened, or brutal, or over zealous in their caution to prevent any injury that could be inflicted upon them.    

If police of one ethnic background are treated differently from police of another ethnic background, is this a violation of moral principles?  Yes, certainly it violates the principle that all should be treated equally under the law.  Do European-American police commit reckless acts that get innocent people killed?  Of course they do, and these acts of violence are sometimes recorded and made public.  Are they always prosecuted and punished when they do these horrible things?  No, sometimes they are not, although sometimes they are.  The fact that police are sometimes not prosecuted or punished when they, through incompetence or misconduct or brutal recklessness kill people who ought not to have been killed, is a social problem.  The solution to this problem is to more frequently and fairly prosecute and punish police who deserve prosecution and punishment.  

But, do we always know when police have acted in a way that deserves prosecution and punishment?  No, we cannot always know.  Sometimes actions that seem terrible may be justified and excused.  Sometimes actions that seem excusable and justified may really be terrible and worthy of prosecution and punishment.  There will be ambiguity in many cases.  When there is ambiguity, bias can infect the decision-making processes, and that means European-American police may get the benefit of the doubt (a preference for being very selective and avoiding errors of sensitivity) while Asian-American or African-American police may be held to higher standards (a preference for tolerating more errors of selectivity and avoiding errors arising from not being sensitive enough).

However, bias is something that influences probability, and in single cases, I doubt we can really know if bias is working its devilry. We know there is bias when we can show patterns or probabilities that are tending toward unfair differences for members of groups.  If three or four European-American police are given a benefit of the doubt and one Asian-American officer is prosecuted and convicted, we do not have a large enough sample to be certain whether bias is at work.

So, what is the proper response when bias may be causing an injustice, but we are not certain whether it is?  Sometimes we ought to protest and make a loud noise about the potential for bias and the real threat of bias, even when we are uncertain that bias exists, because it would be an injustice to wait for better evidence of injustice.  Other times, we ought to wait and see, and delay our protest until we are more confident that we can demonstrate a pattern of bias or injustice.  How do we make that decision?

The mixed feelings about the death of Akai Gurley and the conviction of Officer Liang is probably rooted in the mix of complicated moral issues.  Police do seem to have a bias against African-Americans, and this bias certainly has caused some deaths of innocent African-Americans and African or Caribbean immigrants. That’s an outrageous injustice.  Sometimes police are not prosecuted or punished when they ought to be, and that another insult to our sense of justice.  Officer Liang may have been made a scapegoat, and may have suffered greater punishment than he deserved, in an attempt to diminish the public outrage over the behavior of many European-American police who had committed similar or worse acts of homicidal incompetence, and if that is so, then that is yet another tragic injustice that might reasonably stir up our hot indignation.

The problem comes, I think, in comparing relative injustice.  Here is an injustice that seems clear, and here is one with ambiguity, so should I disparage the injustice shrouded in a veil of uncertainty in a comparison to the injustice that is clear and evident?  Here is an injustice that seems worse to me, and here is another injustice that seems not as evil to me.  Should I dismiss the smaller injustice and point instead to the greater injustice?  Here again, we have no clear moral certainty.  Yes, some injustices are much worse than others, and we ought to put greater effort into correcting those greater injustices.  But sometimes the relative level of misery and injustice is approximately similar, and then, what is the point, what is the objective, what is the goal of using our minds to discriminate between which violation of the good is the worse?

Inspiration from the Civil Rights Era

For this reaction paper, I would like to reflect off of the Civil Rights Era.  The Civil Rights Era has always interested me, and we happen to be talking about bits and pieces of it in our Culture, Race and Diversity class currently. 

In preparation for the tenth session in our policy class, there are some links about the Civil Right Milestones.  Just learning about all the aspects of this time and how mistreated blacks were is mind-blowing.  Watching videos of black men being beaten or hosed just for walking down a sidewalk and not moving out of the way for a white person is absurd.  But for these men and women to fight for their rights and get the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 is uplifting to me. 

When going to the Civil Right Milestone link, I learned quite a bit I did not know.  One thing that caught my eye was the Attica Prison Riot.  For one, I cannot believe (which it still happens today) that people are so mistreated, especially within the prison systems.  For minorities who were arrested (for minor offenses), put into those prisons for long periods of time and had to live in, as stated in the text, “inhumane” living quarters is saddening.  

Learning even more about the March on Washington was also great.  Last semester we read John Lewis’ books March. What I did not realize was that the March on Washington was supposed to happen in 1941. In the article, it states that the march was called off after Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to ban discrimination by defense industries or government entities, but then, two decades later, the march continued again.  The march actually happened in 1963 to show racial unity and racial harmony. They also wanted to show support of the Civil Rights bill.  And to think, all of this happened due to prejudices against somebody’s color. 

Your reaction essay demonstrates the importance of understanding institutions and heritage when we consider problems in our society and how to address them.  The bravery of the civil rights workers and the brutality and racism of those who opposed them can inspire us today to work for what is right and just even in the face of people who do not see aright the injustices we want to correct. The misery of the prisoners, and their defiance in Attica Prison, and the cruelty and homicidal rage of the people who put down the prison uprising also can remind us that it is quite possible for persons labeled as “criminals” to act with greater humanity than the persons we would tend to label as “heroes” in certain situations. Persons in prisons are routinely depicted as subhuman monsters and brutes in our popular culture, but in too many cases the system that puts people into prisons and treats prisoners as garbage is the real example of monstrous brutality.

It’s also important to note that even though it seems that good triumphs over evil, and our civilization enjoys progress, the darkness has never yet shown signs of being entirely and utterly defeated, and the human tendency to dehumanize the “other” and treat members of the out-group with contempt or hatred or complete apathy keeps coming back to threaten us with new forms of devilry and violent mischief. The marches must be rescheduled or held again.  The people must rise up and make their voices heard.  The people who stand for decency and justice must act, and support group efforts to defeat the darkness again and again, no matter how often it rises up to threaten human rights or social justice.

Good reaction essay.  Studying our history and the heritage that gives us what we have today illuminates our thinking about the problems we still face and the actions we may need to take to avoid the disasters and injustices of the past.

War on Drugs is a sociopolitical masterstroke

The following paper is in reaction to the class discussion we had about mental health and substance abuse. I have chosen to write a brief reaction paper positing a plausible motive behind Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party’s mental health and drug policies, which led to the defunding and the eventual shut down of numerous mental health institutions and substance abuse treatment centers in the early 1980’s. 

In my opinion, The Reagan Administration and The Republican Party defunded and shut down mental health institutions and substance abuse treatment centers in the 1980’s not only because they wanted the private sector to take over the care and treatment of such individuals but also because they wanted/needed such people to be seen wandering the streets and committing crimes to give Americans the impression that the streets needed to be cleaned up.

Think about it: The Reagan Administration declares a so-called war on drugs, pointing to images of mentally-ill poor people on the streets doing drugs, while he implements policies which lead to the release of hundreds of thousands of such individuals on our nation’s streets. The Reagan Administration then grants amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, many of them said to be mentally ill cast outs from the island of Cuba. Then, at the very time that this war on drugs was declared, it seemed to many people who I have spoken to about this issue who lived in the inner-city during that time that there was an influx of cocaine in the city during those years, not a drop off as one would expect during a so-called war on drugs.

Having said all that, the war on drugs has obviously not been a failure. The Republican Party accomplished its goal of increasing the private sector’s role/responsibility in caring for mentally ill people and substance abusers, while also conducing to the probability that such people would invade the streets and scare the citizenry into supporting their policies, which ultimately involved transferring many of those mentally ill substance abusers out of one institution into another, with the added benefit of being able to criminalize and lock up the boogeymen who supplied them with the drugs.

The war on drugs is not a failure; it is a sociopolitical masterstroke.

In the 1980s the federal government and most of the states did not adequately fund the community mental health centers that were supposed to become the agents of delivery for mental health policies, including everything from prevention and community wellness to long-term residential care for people in each center’s catchment area. 

Your reaction treats the government and the Republican Party as if these institutions were persons with fairly simple motives and logical processes, but of course this is a necessary generalization or abstraction, since we know that policy-making processes and political parties and governments are all aggregations of hundreds and thousands of individuals, with each individual having a variety of mixed and sometimes contradictory motives and goals.

There are a variety of moral foundations that would inspire most people to be concerned about drug addiction.  For some people, the rule of obedience to legitimate authority makes them concerned about drugs since they believe God or the government forbids drug addiction and abuse. For others, the rule of purity informs their emotional rejection of drug use, since drugs or intoxication are unclean or impure.  Some are motivated by a sort of conservation ethic, seeing a waste of talent and potential when others abuse or become addicted to drugs.  For many people, a care ethic motivates them to oppose drug use, since persons who become addicted to drugs or abuse them are often hurt, or harm others.  With so many moral reasons why people might want to control or forbid how others alter their minds through alcohol and other chemicals, we tend to forget there could be other motives. 

When Marx said religion was the aspirin of the masses (he actually called it opium, but he meant it in the sense of a painkiller, not a drug of abuse) he was pointing out that powerful elites might prefer people to escape from harsh realities by turning to drugs.  This was a point in Huxley’s Brave New World in which all the people were constantly taking mood altering drugs to improve their feelings, or in Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep where people were turning a dial and pushing buttons on a machine to give them experiences of different moods and outlooks.  People who have a strong liberty ethic might also approve of allowing others to use all sorts of drugs, since the use does not directly cause harm to others.  

You are adding to this list of possible motives for allowing or encouraging drugs by suggesting that some people considered that if drugs were widely available, this would create fear and destruction, and in a climate of fear and destruction, people would turn to political parties that offered law-and-order policies.  This is exactly the strategy of some terrorist groups, who seek to create chaos with terrorism to undermine the authority of governments and make common people so desperate and hopeless about the government’s ability to protect them that they will turn to the terrorists as saviors who can put an end to the chaos. The question is, is it plausible that a significant number of Republicans could have had this sort of mentality, really plotting to use the tragic disaster of homelessness, persons with mental illnesses unable to get treatment or services, and an influx of cocaine into poor communities in order to turn people toward a more traditional value system and a political party that promised law and order?

My rule is to generally assume that when people follow courses of action that lead to terrible consequences, they are most likely to be motivated by ignorance, stupidity, or cognitive biases that prevented them from seeing the harm their actions would cause.  I think callousness and lack of empathy is the next most likely cause of evil policies, following ignorance and stupidity.  Malicious intent or long-range strategies to win personal gain are also possible, but I think they are rarely good explanations when simple ignorance, stupidity, cognitive biases, or indifference and contempt are more readily available as explanations.

Mental health clinics weren’t adequately supported because Republicans (and many Democrats) had other priorities that were more important, including lower taxes, economic growth, decreased government size, military spending, and so forth.  Persons with mental illness, who would benefit from well-funded community mental health services, just aren’t very important to the political parties, at least they are relatively unimportant compared to the needs of that military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about, or the goals of the wealthiest and most powerful people, who generally want lower taxes, a smaller government, and a growing economy, and consider these goals more urgent than public safety nets to provide a decent life for every person suffering from a mental illness or disability. 

Yes, there were some interesting connections between drug dealers and CIA informants back in the 1980s. Most famously, the president of Panama was both an informant for the CIA and a major drug trafficker.  But I think the Hitz report showed that the CIA was mostly guilty of not aggressively investigating the drug connections of some informants and local partners, but was probably not guilty of actually directly using the drug trade to raise money for their support of various thugs and terrorists in Central America. 

Persons with mental illness are brave

Reaction Paper 2

The video of Elyn Saks from youtube.com that we viewed in class caught my attention and I had many thoughts and feelings regarding the video. So much so that I went home and shared the video with my fiancé. We discussed the video in depth and he shared new insights with me. Watching a woman who is so successful and yet a woman who suffers from a mental illness that many would fall broken to. Her strength is grand and inspiring to watch, her story needing to be heard. 

The idea that a person with a mental illness cannot succeed professionally or in any aspect of their lives is obscene and unneeded. Did she struggle when the illness was at its worst? Yes, of course she did, but she rose above with the help of psychotherapy. The ideas of those she spoke with, regarding mentally ill persons reflects the views of many of the population. Many believe that those who suffer with mental illness don’t mind being strapped down, but those restraints are often uncalled for, and the persons with mental illness are still humans. She pointed admitted how she isn’t so different from those people being strapped down to control them because she suffers as well, but in the  eyes of people who don’t know about her mental illness, it seems she could not be anything like those who suffer mental illness; her higher education and status in society makes it seem impossible that she too could suffer from a chronic and severe condition. It seems like it surprises people to hear about members of society who are in higher paying positions that suffer or have suffered in the past from mental illness. 

On the other side you hear about common professions where a mental breakdown is almost expected such as those known as celebrities or those in the media spotlight. Britney Spears broke down and shaved her head when the pressure became to much. Kurt Cobain committed suicide and has gone down in history with Heath Ledger and others, and after each breakdown or suicide there follows a few days of absolute shock, but then come reports of how those who were close to the person watched them slide downhill and break before their eyes. 

To many people it’s okay to place a person who suffers from mental illness in a box, and leave them isolated from the majority of the world; yet those who battle an internal illness of the mind may be the strongest in society. Imagine fighting your own thoughts every day just to get out of bed, or eat a meal, let alone drive to work, spend upwards of nine hours there dealing with tasks and other people, drive home, shower, care for other family members, go to bed, and do it over again the next day. Or consider the person who goes to therapy every other day after work to keep in control of their life. Imagine the person who has panic attacks just by walking into a room where there are people and must now lead a discussion group. There are people who “suffer” mental illness every day and those people are the ones who are pushing the world to work and keep progressing. Maybe it’s time to call those with mental illness out to run our world. 

Eric’s comment:

You make some important observations here.  

1) Mental illness is frequently overlooked because it does not always manifest in ways we easily perceive. Thus, persons who appear to be very successful or high status may suffer from mental illness without people being aware of their struggles. 

2) We have a tendency to dehumanize persons suffering from mental illness, subjecting them to unnecessary restraints, or dismissing them as dangerous, or as failures.  However, persons with mental illness may use more courage, fortitude, and mental strength in their inner lives than those who sail along through life without the problems associated with facing a mental illness.

3) Social work values force us to consider how persons with mental illness may be good role models, or we may use our social work perspectives to see that persons with mental illness offer strengths that could make contributions to others.

4) Sometimes when people have mental health problems, the people around them don’t know what to do for them.

I would like to point out that for most people with mental illnesses, a cure would be most welcome.  the fact that anyone must endure a chronic and severe mental illness is a great tragedy.  Of course we may find some ways to appreciate the nobility of how people cope with mental illness, and their struggles against diseases of the mind may give people opportunities to accomplish things that make a great different in their lives.  In some sense, all problems in our lives are cases that allow us to demonstrate our quality, or help us grow and develop. 

 Persons with a mental illness are perhaps very much like people with the flu, or persons with cancer, or persons with heart disease.  They may recover or enjoy a cure, or they may suffer for the rest of their lives.  But, just as almost everyone sometimes has a physical illness, diseases of the mind or brain abnormalities strike almost everyone at some point.  Depression or some related mood disorder, or an anxiety disorder, or a substance dependence, or a learning disability, or some other sort of mental illness, perhaps mild and not especially dramatic as a source of impairment to functioning, afflicts almost all of us at one time or another.  The psychotic disorders tend to be the most florid and interesting, although personality disorders and dissociative disorders are quite intriguing as well. Sometimes when people speak about persons with mental illnesses it seems they really only mean these sorts of things.  

A student reaction paper. The student is not impressed by any presidential candidates.

This is a student reaction paper about the 2016 presidential elections.  This was written in March of 2016.

Reaction Paper 1

I decided to write this reaction paper on the election that is currently capturing public attention.  I have had many different reactions to this election due to the fact that I find it to be somewhat of a joke.  Politically the things that America is letting go on right now are embarrassing, and are also beginning to spark many different controversies.  

In the presidential election, we have Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and a series of other candidates.  These candidates are all fighting to become the President of the United States, but they are all lacking in some department of what I feel—or better yet, what America feels—a president should have when it comes to their demeanor and the way that they go about what they are doing to make America better then what it has been in the last 20 years.   

The major reaction that I have towards this election is the fact that it has been a very clear case of racism and bigotry that has been tolerated.  Starting off with Donald Trump, Trump has put people down in ways that I never thought would be imaginable for a presidential candidate.  Saying things like, if elected he will build a wall so that, Mexicans can stay where they are and won’t cross the border. Even after saying something so wrong, he is currently leading in the polls.  Thinking about this, I say I believe that the reason Donald is leading, is because he is saying all the things that some people want to say, but feel that it would be completely inappropriate, which it is. 

Hilary Clinton is the first woman to ever run for presidency.  She brings a lot to the Democratic Party that could be useful to America, but the reaction of the public is not so positive when it comes to a woman being in office.  I feel that nobody really takes her seriously when it comes to actually stating the issues.  People believe that she’s not really sure of what she wants to bring to the table when it comes to her becoming president. 

One of the favorites of the election is Bernie Sanders.  He is clearly one of the best candidates for the job.  But, he has had some negatives about his campaigning.  Bernie is an active member of the Black Lives Matter movement and trying to get free college education, but I think with him he speaks before he’s thought what he’s saying completely through.  Yes, it is perfectly fine standing with the Black Lives Matter, I feel that you cannot be so pro black that you are anti-white or any other race.  Becoming the president is a serious action, and you have to take in the account of all of the people who live in America, not just the black ones.  Then, when it comes to the free college education, I feel that that is a great thought, but it’s not logical.  Being the president takes logical thinking and thinking that taking millions of dollars away from colleges is going to be the solution to the lack of education that is prevalent in the states today, he is wrong.  Because, even after free college, there will still be that hand full of people who don’t want to go to school. 

All of the things that I have stated in this paper are how I am reacting to the presidential election that is going on this year.  Although I did not go into extreme detail about all the candidates that are running, I feel that I brought a lot into play. 

You have examined the three candidates that seem most likely to actually get into the White House next year.

You perceive that candidate Trump says terrible things, but many of the people who like him want to say those things, and they support him because he is giving voice to what they feel. Keep in mind that Mr. Trump says all sorts of things.  Many of the things he says are outlandish, crude, stupid, ill-informed, and false.  Many of the things he says are true, inspiring, accurate, clever, or honest.  I suspect some of his followers are paying attention to the good stuff he says and ignoring the bad stuff.  Also, some people like the good stuff and the bad stuff. Essentially, he is building emotional support with a narrative about how terrible political leadership has been, and how dishonest the press is, and I think many Americans will agree with those two points.  It is easy enough to dismiss Trump based on the the odious and obnoxious things he says, and his seeming personality disorder, but

You perceive that people don’t take Hilary Clinton seriously.  I wonder where you are getting that impression?  Do you look at political polling? She seems to be the most likely person to become our next president.  You report that people perceive her as being unsure about what she wants to accomplish when she gets to the White House.  That is an interesting observation.  Do you mean that she is mainly defining herself in opposition to the Republicans?  That is, rather than talking about what she could accomplish, she is promising to continue what Obama has done, and defend us from Republicans?

You think Sanders does not think through what he is saying, and may speak without carefully considering his words.  He seems pretty consistent from me.  It seems to me he is saying essentially the same stuff he and other Democratic Socialists have been saying ever since the 1970s.  As for taking money away from universities, I believe his policy idea is to have taxpayers give universities the money that normally would have been collected from students.  The “free college” would be paid for by taxpayers rather than students and their families.  Perhaps students and their families would still pay fees, or costs of housing and food and textbooks.  Presumably there would be some sort of a policy for keeping Universities prevented from raising tuition to ridiculous amounts.  By the way, the State of Illinois currently has policies that give “free education” to certain persons (especially veterans), but those free educations are not funded, meaning that, exactly as you imagine, the public universities must educate those students without any tuition revenue from either the taxpayers or the students.

Your reaction paper does not mention Jill Stein, who was on campus giving a speech earlier in March.  She is a presidential candidate for the Green Party.   

Policy Paper about untrained animals and trained service dogs

Here is an example of a policy paper (where the assignment was to write about a policy with analysis or advocacy that was appropriate for an audience of someone in government who might support or oppose a policy or might alter the way a policy was carried out):

Dear Congressman Lipinski:

I have been a resident of Illinois for 33 years.  I am a constituent in District 3, which you represent.  I have followed politics for many years and find it interesting how the local, state, and federal governments work.  It is interesting how policies are implemented but not re-enforced when people break them.  I am a blind person trying to re-enforce the laws that have been in place or have been revised to make it easier for those who have disabilities who have service animals.

I am writing to you in regards to the American with Disability Act (ADA) laws and policies that concern guide dogs and laws that are in communities such as the one I live in.  Under the ADA policy guidelines service dogs (and in my case a guide dog) are defined as “dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained and certified to perform these tasks.”  These dogs are trained for whatever the related circumstances may be and again, they are trained and certified to do the tasks to assist those who need their services to be as independent as possible.

Recently, many people are claiming that they need their dogs for emotional anxiety, stress, and comfort support.  These dogs are untrained in any way or certified to be in public places and under the ADA law these dogs do not qualify as a service animal.  However, they are allowed to be in public places just like the service dogs, because there is no way to police which are true service dogs and which are not.  These untrained dogs are proving to be a distraction to the trained service animals.  Currently, it is against the ADA laws for establishments to request documentation for the service animals. I believe this should be changed. Owners should be required to produce certification for their trained animals upon request. These documents do not have to have the owner’s disability marked in any way on them, but can still provide establishments proof of their training and certification. Uncertified dogs should no longer be allowed to be in public places and interfere with the jobs of trained service animals. Public establishments need to be able to enforce this, as well.

I am a concerned blind resident who has a service animal in your district and have had numerous encounters with other community residents with their dogs and in public domains regarding my service dog.  Trying to explain to these residents and store owners the laws and policies for service animals and emotional support animals are two separate entities.  Nobody wants to listen or obey the laws that have been established.  I am concerned that my guide dog will be attacked by untrained dogs or unable to perform his duties as my guide.  I am very concerned that if the laws are not re-enforced and people who bring their emotional, anxiety, comfort dogs into public areas where they are not allowed will make it very difficult for those who have certified trained dogs to access public stores, malls, transportation, work and many other facilities. That will be devastating to the handicapped community who uses these service animals to be productive in society.

In Illinois and in the district where I live these new revised laws need to be promoted and implemented throughout the community.  I have taken some measures through the village I live in, but it is not enough, because a small number of residents do not see and hear the issues and concerns of what can happen to service animals that have been subjected to distress from other animals.  My concern is that it will take a tragic incident that could have been avoided to make a difference or change.

I would like to work with you on promoting and implementing new laws for the whole community on service animals in order to help protect everyone involved.  There may be some upset people, but this needs to be addressed and ratified for those who really need certified service animals to be a productive part of society.

Benjamin Powell's Presentation on the Virtue of Sweatshops.

Here is a reaction to a lecture you may view at the UIS on demand video website.  The lecture was given by Benjamin Powell, and the topic was sweatshops.

• Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy by Benjamin Powell – February 23, 2016

Points to consider in the sweatshops presentation by Benjamin Powell:

Much of the appeal of the lecture comes from the point Dr. Powell makes when he asks about how much you can pay a worker for a day’s work when that day’s work adds $2 to the value of your product. The correct answer is you cannot pay the worker more than $2. Dr. Powell claims that in some places the efficiency of workers (as determined by local infrastructure, not by the skills of the workers) are much lower than in America, and therefore labor is less expensive in those places, and therefore manufacturers will prefer to have labor-intensive operations moved to those low-labor-cost places.

Dr. Powell is obscuring the issue. The efficiency of the worker (how much value the worker adds to the product through processing) isn’t so much the deciding factor; the real issue is how much lower than their efficiency the worker can be paid. There will always be a ratio of labor cost to labor efficiency. If a worker is paid $1 per hour and adds $2 of value to the products that worker is processing each hour, the worker is essentially doubling the capitalist investor’s money. If a much more efficient American worker can add $20 of value to the products that worker is processing each hour (ten times more productive than the third world worker), but must be paid $16 per hour for the labor, the capitalist investor is only getting 120% ($1.20 for every $1.00 spent on labor). Capitalist decisions to invest in overseas production is based not on lower labor costs, but on the lower ratio of labor cost to labor efficiency or value. If workers in a poor country must be paid greater than $1.60 per hour when their productive enhancement of the products they handle only increases value $2.00 per hour, it will be more profitable to hire American workers at $16 per hour who add $20 of value.
On average, employers everywhere pay their workers less than the value those workers add to the products the workers are producing. Partly this is because money must be extracted from the workers’ pay to cover the costs of operating a factory (managers, administrators, custodians, physical plant maintenance, insurance, paperwork related to conforming to safety and anti-pollution regulations, and so forth). Partly this is also because capitalists must have a reasonable expectation that the return on their investment will exceed what they could get elsewhere… that is, if you could earn 10% interest in some safe investment with government-backed securities, you would have no reason to invest money in a more risky proposition (owning a factory) where your return on investment would give you 5% interest. (By the way, employers do not always under-pay their workers to cover other costs related to business operations and the expectations of profit; it is quite possible that some workers are over-paid for their contributions to the firm, often because of cultural expectations or business customs, and it’s only on average when we sum up all the wages of all the workers and compare this to the overall gains of the entire enterprise that we must, in the long-term, always find labor costs below the gains in value).

A key moral and economic argument against sweatshops isn’t that the wages are low. The argument is that there is a “fair level of exploitation” related to the quality of the job and the efficiency of the worker. It is not the case that workers are paid $1 per hour for producing $2 of value to their employers… that is actually a fairly normal ratio, and is, for example, better than the ratio of compensation to value received by professors at UIS. The problem is that in the same countries where wages are low, local elites and capitalists and the government work together to ensure that the ratios between labor costs and value added are much lower. A worker may add $3.30 per hour in value to the product and receive 33¢ per hour in compensation, a ratio of labor-to-value that gives investors about $10 of value for every $1 in labor costs. An argument on fairness and social justice would claim that their ought to be a ceiling to this ratio, perhaps with different ceilings in each society based upon its level of development, but in no society should the ceiling to this ratio exceed some number. Perhaps in a poor country the fair ceiling is $4 of value to $1 paid to the worker, while in a medium-income country the ceiling ought to be $3 of value to $1 paid to the worker, while in a wealthy country the ceiling ought to be $2.50 of value to $1 paid to the worker. But, everywhere, there ought to be some sort of natural limit to how much exploration is still acceptable, and the argument by anti-sweat-shop activists should be that a number that allows reasonable profits without obscene exploitation ought to exist, that “good factories” in poor countries will be able to pay it and still make profits, and “sweatshops” will pay less than it.

For example, let’s say a factory in Sri Lanka or Burma is producing jackets, and a typical team of ten workers can sew 50 jackets per hour, and the pre-sewn parts of the jacket are worth $50 ($1 of materials for each jacket) and after being sewn, if sold to the domestic market from the factory door, each jacket could be sold for $3. This means that those 10 workers took in $50 of jacket materials and produced $150 of jackets by sewing during that hour. That means that the workers added $100 of value in that one hour. As there are ten workers in this team, that means the workers each added $10 in value per hour to those jackets. The argument against sweatshops is that there ought to be a minimum standard of how much those Sri Lankan or Burmese tailors are paid, and if the ratio is $1 paid in labor to $10 given in value, the wage ought to be about $1. In America, with better equipment and more machine tools, it might be possible to run a factory that assembles and sews jackets with 10 workers taking $500 of jacket materials and producing 90 jackets per hour that could be sold for $9 per jacket (materials worth ten times the value of the materials used in Sri Lanka or Burma to produce 90% more jackets that could be sold for three times the price). That would a case of workers turning $500 of materials into $810 of jackets, for a value gain of $310 per hour, or $31 per worker. In America, those skilled workers, working in a highly mechanized plant, might be paid $15.50 per hour. The company could be quite profitable with this arrangement, but the investors would only be earning $2 for every $1 invested in labor, and they would also have higher costs for conforming to regulations or purchasing and maintaining the equipment that allowed their worker to make 9 higher-quality jackets per hour per worker while workers in Sri Lanka or Burma could only produce 5 lower-quality jackets per hour per worker. The investors could make far, far higher profits by investing in jacket production in Sri Lanka or Burma where $1 invested in labor gave $10 in value. It’s not the $1 per hour wage in Sri Lanka or Burma that attracts investors compared to the $15.50 per hour wage in the USA; it’s the ratio of $10 value gained to $1 invested in the labor costs that makes Sri Lanka or Burma attractive.

Now, Dr. Powell is saying something very non-controversial when he says that investment in poorer countries where wages are lower can give higher profits to investors, and therefore it happens. He is also correct that historical evidence confirms that as investors compete to attract low-wage workers in poor countries, wages in the poor countries will rise and working conditions will improve. If labor costs are lower and productivity is similar, or if productivity is lower but wages are much, much lower, we have a situation in labor called “competitive advantage” or “comparative advantage” and investment will flow into labor-intensive production in places with a comparative advantage in low-cost labor. Some places where wages are low relative to productivity of workers are naturally going to attract foreign investment in labor-intensive production. In the example I gave, American workers were able to produce nearly twice as many products per hour than their competitors in poorer countries, and their products were of higher quality so that the lowest prices that would be paid for those products were also three times higher, and in raw terms, the factory owners in America were getting $15.50 more in value than they were paying in labor compared to the $8 in higher value compared to wages in Sri Lanka or Burma. Yet, the ratio of cost to value was what made Sri Lanka or Burma a more attractive place to invest in the jacket factory ($9 for $1 is much better than $31 for $15.50, which is $2 for $1). 

With some products, the technology is such that the maximum productivity is approximately the same in the poor countries as it is in the wealthy countries. Let’s imagine a product where, with the best factory using the most up-to-date technology a worker in Sri Lanka can produce 10 per hour and a worker in the USA can also produce 10 per hour… there are almost no efficiency gains at all in the USA. In such an industry it is natural that production will move to poorer countries. If the cost-of-living in India or Sri Lanka or Burma or Kenya is such that we can pay workers $0.65 per hour in the local currency and they can produce approximately the same quantity of goods at approximately the same quality level as what we could get from American workers paid $15.50 per hour, then of course India and Sri Lanka and Burma and Kenya will get the factories. The moral argument against sweatshops is this: if the efficiencies of the workers are about the same, and the quality of the goods is about the same, then there ought to be a society-imposed constraint on the level of extraction of profit from the workers. If the American workers paid $15.50 per hour are generating $31 in value per hour, and the workers in poor countries are also generating something close to $31 in value per hour (let’s assume it’s about $25 in value per hour), then the ratio of wage to value can be somewhat better for the capitalist in the poor country, but not obscenely so. If the workers generate $25 of value per hour, a wage at American levels of profitability ($2.5 to $2 value per $1 of labor) might be somewhere between $10 and $13, and for a medium-income country like Mexico or Turkey or Romania ($3.5 to $3 value per $1 of labor) the wage might be somewhere between $7.50 and $9, and for a low income country ($4.5 to $4 value per $1 of labor) the lowest wage might be between $5.50 and $6.25.
The argument against sweatshops is not that wages are lower. The argument is that while wages ought to be lower, they are too low. In the example above where tailors working in a factory in a low-income country were generating $10 of value per hour making jackets, perhaps the fair wage is $2.00 or $2.50 per hour, and in fact they are only paid $0.50 or $1 per hour. In the example above where the value given was $25 per hour we suggested with a 4-to-1 ratio ceiling the wages ought to be around $5.50 to $6.25 per hour, but perhaps the workers are only paid $2 or $3 per hour.

Dr. Powell’s whole argument is based on the idea that the “market” will make employers bid for good workers and raise wages up to levels that support adequate profits while simultaneously raising wages locally. The counter-argument he never addresses is that the “market” is distorted by artificial constraints on worker’s ability to sell their labor to higher bidders and constraints on factories and investors preventing them from raising wages. That is, in these poorer countries non-democratic tyrannies enforce low prevailing wages and prevent workers from asking for more, and also prevent investors from paying more. Wages do increase, and conditions do improve, but that process is artificially slowed or temporary halted by unfair practices in which elites, capitalists, and investors work together to use intimidation, murder, wage-price fixing (at artificially low levels) and so forth to keep ratios of wages to value of labor in a realm where profits are obscene.

If there were international standards of acceptable limits to the ratio of wages to labor value, the poorer countries could compete against the wealthier countries, jobs would continue to flow to the poorer countries, and investors would continue to make more profits from labor in the poorer countries, but wages would be relatively higher (low skilled worker might make $2 per hour rather than 50¢ per hour in the poorest countries, and more highly skilled workers in more modern factories in poor countries might make $5 per hour rather than $2 per hour). All Dr. Powell’s arguments in favor of low-wage work in poor countries would still hold true, but workers would enjoy immediate dramatic improvements their quality of living, paid for by reductions in capitalists’ profits from super high levels to merely high levels.

One of his counter-arguments is that exploitive wages (say, paying 50¢ rather than $1 or paying $2 rather than $5 per hour) is a better situation for workers in poor countries than no foreign investment at all. There are two problems with this argument. First, he has created a false dichotomy. The correct anti-sweatshop argument isn’t that there should be no low-wage factories in low-wage countries taking advantage of the comparative advantage in labor costs. The correct anti-sweatshop argument he should be addressing is that low-wage factories ought to be forced to adhere to international standards of how much labor can be exploited, and those standards ought to be instituted to counteract tendencies of local business owners in the third world from extracting too much profit from their workers. If low income countries are permitted a $4 value to $1 labor cost ratio as a minimum standard, they will still have an advantage over nations where the prevailing ratio is $3 value to $1 labor cost. And, even if the ratio of value to labor is held the same everywhere (at, say, $3 to $1), the factories in poor countries will still have a comparative advantage in production where labor efficiency is about the same in their country as it is in high-wage countries.

The second problem with this argument that sweatshops are better than nothing is the lack of any valid moral argument behind it. The argument that there ought to be limits to exploitation, and that free societies ought to only trade with societies where these limits to exploitation are set and enforced, is a moral argument about defending workers from excessive profit-taking by capitalists. The argument that investment and competition ought to be allowed anywhere because it raises the standard of living in the poorest places is amoral, and would lead to competition between free workers and oppressed workers so that societies that allowed the oppression of workers would have trade advantages.

For example, if America still had slave labor in the south, profits would be higher in the south, and poverty would be higher there as well, because free labor would experience depressed wages due to competition with slave labor, and slave labor would be poorly compensated). In such a situation, Dr. Powell’s argument would be that we ought to encourage investment in the slave-holding south because the increased investment there would create competition among slave-holding capitalist factory-owners to improve the productivity of their workers, which in turn would create a demand for improved conditions for their workers (better food and medical care, and perhaps shorter hours if it turned out that workers produced more in 50 hours of labor per week than they did in 70 hours of work per week). Dr. Powell’s amoral “moral” argument for investment in the south would also claim that greater wealth from the increased production in the south would generally improve the standard of living throughout the south for both free labor and slaves. Without the investment, Dr. Powell would claim, the slave-holders could just continue with their traditional styles of production and the south would remain in poverty and the slaves would remain miserable in a stagnant economy. Or, take his pro-sweatshop argument to Nazi work camps. He might argue that buying the products of Nazi work camps kept up a demand for the products of those camps, and gave the Nazis incentives to not exterminate the workers. If we hadn’t purchased the products of the labor camps, the workers would have been liquidated by the Nazis, and so there was be a moral imperative for us to purchase the products of those camps. By creating a false dichotomy between the bad situation of supporting hyper-exploitation of workers and investing nothing in job opportunities (even in slavery, even in Nazi work camps, because we will ignore the conditions of the workers in the camps as compared to any absolute moral standard and only compare it to the relative standard of having no investment for new work opportunities for those workers), Dr. Powell gives us an amoral situation that allows us to ignore a range of moral considerations about the means of production because we are narrowly focusing on only the moral argument that something is relatively better than nothing.

The alternative to Dr. Powell’s amoral argument is to make a moral argument that we ought have free trade with free societies that enforce labor and environmental standards with which we agree. High tariffs or outright bans on trading with unfree societies where ratios of value to labor gave obscene profits to local capitalists would direct foreign investment into societies where liberty prevailed and ratios of value to labor compensation did not exceed standards of human decency. This would allow the benefits of free trade to raise standards of living in the poorest free societies, and would prevent the growth of wealth and power among the elites and capitalist classes in the unfree poor societies. Such a situation would create an incentive for elites and capitalists in the unfree societies to adopt universal labor standards and liberate their people so that they could participate in trade and gain the benefits from free trade.

Dr Powell described Hong Kong as one of the societies enjoying the greatest freedom. He claimed that this freedom allowed economic expansion and great wealth in Hong Kong. This is a half-truth. It is true that in 1997 when Hong Kong was taken by the dictatorship in Beijing, the per-capita GDP of Hong Kong was higher than the GDP of the colonizing country, the United Kingdom. It is also true that there is tremendous wealth in Hong Kong. However if we look at standards of living using medians rather than averages, we find that Hong Kong people have had worse conditions than the British. Poverty, and the living conditions for those who are in poverty or near it, are very bad in Hong Kong, and have always been so. Much of the wealth in Hong Kong is not generated in Hong Kong through it’s “free economy.” Instead, money flows out of the dictatorship ruled by Beijing, where great fortunes are amassed but private property is not secure, and this money ends up in Hong Kong, raising prices and inflating the incomes of the professional classes and investors and all those in the upper end of income and wealth distribution. So, Hong Kong has become a safe haven for China’s wealth. Hong Kong is also a tourist destination for Chinese and others in Asia. So, the concentration of wealth brought by visitors and outside investors creates a very high per capita GDP and average personal income and wealth in Hong Kong, but among the lowest half of the population, life is not very good at all. And, Dr. Powell’s suggestion that the cost of living in Hong Kong is not very high seems ridiculous. Hong Kong is ranked by Mercer’s as the second most expensive city in the world for cost-of-living. The most expensive city in the USA is New York City, which ranks 16th in the world. Hong Kong is more expensive in terms of cost-of-living than even Zurich or Geneva. The “freedom” in Hong Kong is not very good. If the institutions were democratic, the working classes would have greater power in the legislature, and minimum wages would increase and the welfare system to protect the poor and working classes would expand. However, Hong Kong is not free, and it does not have free elections to select the majority of its legislative body or its top administrator. The executive leadership in Hong Kong is appointed by a dictatorship installed by a military take-over of China and perpetuated by a police-state based in Beijing that imprisons, tortures, and kills opposition. Lately, journalists in Hong Kong who criticize the regime in Beijing have been kidnapped and removed from Hong Kong to face an unpleasant fate in China.

Dr. Powell showed a comparison of wages in the sweatshops to the prevailing wages in the surrounding economy. Some of the wages in so-called “sweatshops” were much higher than prevailing wages in the local economy. I think Dr. Powell is probably correct that these are unlikely to be real sweatshops. They could be. Perhaps the prevailing wages in that area give investors $10 value to $1 labor cost and the better wages in the so-called “sweatshops” are merely $5 value to $1 labor cost, still excessively exploitive, but not as bad as the prevailing practices. A problem here that Dr. Powell correctly addresses is that too many Americans, ignorant of economics, condemn all low-wage factories in low-wage countries as sweatshops. However, when Dr. Powell shows his graph, there are some places (in Thailand and South Africa, for example) where wages in the sweatshops are far below local prevailing wages. In those cases, he explains, he found that the sweatshops were exploiting refugee or immigrant labor (e.g., South African factories might hire economic refugees from Zimbabwe, and Thailand’s factories might hire refugees from Burma). In these cases, the factories could presumably make decent profits paying the prevailing wages, but pay much less than the local prevailing wages because they have a special power over their refugee immigrant labor force. This is sweatshop work at its worst, because the wages are excessively exploitive. The free market is not working here, because the employers are using a special workforce they can exploit and control.
Dr. Powell’s point is that the refugee workers are relatively happy, as they would rather work for their capitalist employers in South Africa or Thailand compared to the working situation they would face back home in Zimbabwe or Burma, or on the farm. He has again made the same logical error of a false dichotomy. The choice should not be for these workers to either work back home for 35¢ an hour or work in South Africa or Thailand for 75¢ per hour when prevailing wages in South Africa and Thailand are $2.50 per hour. No, the choice should be between working for 35¢ back home or working for $2.50 per hour in South Africa or Thailand just like all the other workers in their community. The problem isn’t the one Dr. Powell pretends it is, that anti-sweatshop activists complain that factories pay 75¢ when they should be paying American wages of $12 per hour. No, not at all. The problem is that the factories pay 75¢ per hour when wages in that area are supposed to be $2.50 per hour. And, a further problem might be that wages in South Africa and Thailand at $2.50 ought to really be about $3.00 or $3.50 per hour, given fair ratios of work value to labor compensation.

Dr. Powell keeps misstating his arguments by arguing the point that wages that are far below western standards are okay. That is already something every serious economist agrees with. Dr. Powell assumes that wages and conditions in the lowest wage factories are set by competition in the capitalist marketplace, but his own data disprove this. If factories can pay much less than the prevailing wage by exploiting refugees, then clearly something other than pure supply and demand are at work. If the market was working as Powell asks us to imagine it does, wages should be fairly similar, and there shouldn’t be cases of some workers being paid one-third the prevailing wages. In the case of the sweatshops where pay is much lower than local prevailing wages and the workers are refugees, it’s clear that capitalist are collecting “rents” (unearned windfalls) by exploiting their workforce’s precarious legal or social situation. A similar situation happens more widely in unfree poor countries where local capitalists and elites collude with foreign investors and use the local police or criminal gangs to intimidate workers and keep wages low.

Dr. Powell’s argument that labor unions do not raise wages is false. He uses historical data to show that wages did not increase suddenly when unionization was made legal. This is not be the correct way to examine the effect of unionization. The correct way to measure the influence of unionization is to examine the wages of unionized and non-unionized labor in similar labor pools within the same economy over the same historical period. For example, today in America, workers in comparative occupations with comparable skill levels make significantly more if they are unionized and engage in collective bargaining than if they are not unionized. And, there are spillover effects, where average wages in highly unionized job sectors are higher, even for non-unionized workers in those fields. Examining total wages in the whole economy when unionization becomes legal would make sense if as soon as unions were made legal almost all workers joined unions and started collective bargaining. In fact, when unions were legalized, it still took decades for union membership to grow. It is a fact that strong USA wage growth between the 1940s and 1970s was associated with a higher rate of unionization than has been present in the past few decades when wages have been (after adjusting for inflation) stagnant while unionization has declined.

Dr. Powell mischaracterizes the argument against child labor, by presenting a false dichotomy between children being allowed to work in sweatshops (or contributing to household income by helping with take-home work brought home by parents who work in sweatshops) versus the alternative of children working in agriculture or traditional non-sweatshop occupations (perhaps goat herding, food preparation, child care). The argument against child labor is that every government on earth rules a society with enough wealth to provide universal education for children from age six or seven up through age 15 or 16, and therefore children ought to devote time to education rather than labor, and the jobs where children aged 6-15 are working out to be taken by adults. Unless there is only frictional unemployment of 3%, any job taken by a child could have been taken by an adult. Non-market forces allow employers to exploit children more thoroughly than they may exploit adults, and protection against child labor is a necessary antidote to the ability of employers to wield these pressures on a vulnerable workforce, and an important protection for adult workers so they need not compete against children for jobs. 

 It may be true that many children are kept out of school to work on the farm or in family enterprises, but this is a separate problem, involving the state’s ability to both ensure a minimum level of food and housing security and simultaneously enforce compulsory universal education. Dr. Powell’s solution is to say that in the poorest societies, where people are food insecure, child labor helps ensure enough income to prevent malnutrition, and therefore ought to be permissible. This is only true if we start with an assumption that the state could not possibly secure a distribution of enough food to guarantee minimum standards of nutrition and housing to the entire population while also providing education for all children in some age range going up to the level where employment seems legitimate (perhaps at age 15 or 16). If state could collect and redistribute resources to provide universal compulsory education and a minimum standard of food security, then the “problem” ought to be defined as the state’s failure to do this, and promoting child labor as a “solution” to the existing conditions is an argument that takes the premise that the state cannot achieve universal food security and elementary education as a given. I contend that in every country on this earth there are sufficient resources to provide universal food security and elementary education, and child labor is therefore unnecessary. Thus, Dr. Powell is wrong to suggest child labor is a solution while ignoring the problems of governments failing to provide minimal standards of universal access to food and education. He would probably counter that allowing child labor is feasible and pragmatic, whereas forcing governments to effectively distribute resources to achieve universal food security and education is only feasible in theory, and realities on the ground would prevent this from happening, so it is more moral to look for a plausible solution (child labor) than to work toward a goal (universal food security and elementary education) that cannot be achieved without decades of slow improvement in government administration and local practices. I reject such arguments because I reject the moral relativism implied within it. Human rights, such as the right not to be malnourished or starve, and the right to education, belong to all people, even people living in countries with corrupt and inefficient governments.

Dr. Powell never considers the example of Cambodia when it was ruled by the United Nations. While under United Nation administration at the conclusion of a civil war, the nation of Cambodia had western labor standards fairly well enforced, and therefore had high wages and good working conditions, compared to its competitors in Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, and Southern China. Because Cambodia was at the time under United Nations administration, the European Union and other western countries gave it favorable trading status with very low tariffs. Wages were low compared to European and developed economy standards, but there weren’t many sweatshops, working conditions were relatively good, and wages were higher than the sweatshop infested economics of the dictatorships in Vietnam, Laos, and China (and better than in the oligarchic capitalist feudalism of the Philippines). This experience with Cambodia suggests that a similar situation could be created, where poor countries could prosper without sweatshops (but with many low-wage factories). What is required is a political willingness in the West to give favorable trading status to low-income countries that have good labor standards and laws prohibiting sweatshops and the worst exploitation. One reason this doesn’t happen is that capitalist elites, who tend to have more power everywhere, even in Western democracies, prefer to have free trade with societies where the ratio of their investment dollars to worker productivity and value is more suitable for high profit-taking. Since dictatorships constrain the ability of workers to agitate through political processes (minimum wage and pro-unionization laws) or strikes, it is dictatorships where the ratio of labor value to pay is much higher and profits are correspondingly higher. Free trade with China and Vietnam and Mexico, where labor is relatively powerless, tends to be very popular with elites who can make investments in production in such societies. Favorable trade agreements tend to be decided partly by the profitability of trade with the treaty partner, rather than the civil rights and human rights and environmental policies of the treaty partner.

Dr. Powell also tends to believe that capitalism and efficiency maximizing is the ultimate end. However, in a democracy, the majority of the people might decide to have some other ultimate end toward which they assign higher value than economic efficiency or profitability. If the majority of the electorate are wage-earners, and they prefer to elect politicians who will institute trade policies that prevent direct competition between free American workers and the workers who are subjected to dictatorships that prevent their collective bargaining for higher wages and better working conditions, then that is the better policy, because better policies are the policies that reflect the will of the citizens. If Dr. Powell succeeds in convincing a majority of the electorate that they will enjoy a better society and a fairer world if trade barriers are lowed and American workers enter direct competition with low-paid workers in societies that prevent the democratic pressure for wage standards and working standards and environmental standards, then we can have the sort of free trade world he prefers. But, I think it highly unlikely that most Americans will want that. Such a world would drive down wages in wealthy societies. Wages in low-income countries would remain lower than would happen if free trade was restricted to only societies where workers had democratic rights to demand welfare systems and wage standards and pro-union legislation through democratic political processes. In other words, free trade with dictatorships and undemocratic societies would generally slow the spread of human rights and civil rights as profitability of worker exploitation in less democratic societies helped prop up the local anti-worker anti-democratic elites.

 The “free market” is not a thing we find in nature. It only exists to the extent that the public sector, the government, creates conditions that allow something that approximates the theoretical free market. In actual fact, the free market is always distorted. In societies without freedom, the market is distorted more powerfully by elites and dictators and their henchmen in the police forces or criminal gangs. In societies with freedom the market may be distorted by workers who elect politicians who create welfare security and social insurance and wage standards and laws promoting unionization and workplace safety and pollution control.

Dr. Powell supports his arguments with surveys of workers in sweatshops, where various improvements in working condition are offered and workers are allowed to say how much lower they would allow their wages to be in order to enjoy those benefits. Again, Dr. Powell is starting from a premise that the free market has already created a situation where sweatshop employers are making profits so low from their workers that any improvement in working conditions would necessarily require a reduction in wages. That is how the case is presented to the workers to demonstrate that the workers value wages above workplace conditions and benefits.  

The actual situation is that employers in sweatshop conditions could substantially raise wages and improve working conditions and still continue to make profits with higher returns to investment than they would expect in high-wage economies. Sweatshop owners have such an advantage over their workers in negotiating wages that they can set wages at levels so low that workers would face malnutrition or homelessness if they received any reduction in wages, and therefore, they are unwilling to trade off any reduction in wages (increased chances of malnutrition or homelessness) for any workplace improvements or benefits. However, if workers were given choices where they were aware of the profits made by their employers, saw the alternative investment opportunities available to their employers (where they would shift their investments if wages became too high), and were asked what mix of wage increases and improvements in working conditions they would like and what corresponding reductions in profitability to their employers they would take to get those improvements in wages and working conditions, the workers might have a very different answer to Dr. Powell’s surveys. They would probably squeeze out every bit of extra profit their employers were making, to a point where the investors were still making profits in excess of what they could earn in alternative investments, but the excess was reduced to almost nothing, and the “extra excess” of profit-taking was distributed to the workers as wages and improved working conditions, rather than remaining in the concentration of profits extracted by local sweatshop owners and their foreign investors. Dr. Powell makes the false assumption that almost nothing substantially additional can be taken from the owners, and builds this premise into the questions he asks the workers.

The critical mistake Dr. Powell and conservatives or libertarians like him make is that they assume as a premise that the free market works and investor profits are so low that they cannot afford to improve the conditions or pay for their sweatshop workforce. The correct anti-sweatshop argument is that this is not the case. Rather, sweatshop owners perpetuate political and economic situations where the “free market” is distorted so that they can accumulate extremely high profits, and they do this partly by creating political realities in which workers are not free to create institutions that would protect them from excessive exploitation by sweatshop owners. For example, sweatshop owners, foreign investors, and local elites might all cooperate to consolidate land ownership and remove substance farmers from land where their small cash crop and subsistence crop farms had given them a relatively good life and freedom. The many small holders would be replaced by large plantations that are more efficient, but formerly independent small land-holders would now become landless workers dependent upon selling their labor to earn their livelihoods. Sudden land consolidation and buy-outs of small farmers would create a sudden surge in the unemployed workforce, raising the supply of labor relative to the demand for labor, and lowering wages. In this situation, foreign investment and local investment should create new factories to take advantage of the labor force, and wages should rise. In fact, wages do tend to rise in this case. But, whereas in a free market factories would boom and wages would boom, in actual practice, the government, local elites, and foreign investors can create new factories and hold down wages by fixing labor prices artificially low. Factories boom and average incomes boom, but almost all the income goes the factory owners and investors, and median wage growth for workers is very slow.  The owners can do this by paying traditional (very low) wages and pressuring other employers to join them in giving only minimal wage increases. Governments might attract foreign investors with assurances that wages are at a certain low level and will not rise suddenly. Local contractors with sweatshop factories might all agree to pay certain wages and not substantially raise wages. The government might work with local factory owners to intimidate or murder workers who lead attempts to organize and demand higher wages. Dr. Powell pretends this doesn’t happen. In fact, it does happen. It has happened over and over again ever since the days of guilds and feudalistic labor laws, and if Dr. Powell had any familiarity with labor history he would know many examples of how wages were artificially depressed by collusion among elites and factory owners.

Dr. Powell and other libertarians and conservatives who love free markets and capitalism are correct that free markets tend to have many beneficial effects. Clearly, capitalism and free markets will tend to create helpful economic growth, which can directly reduce poverty, or can be redistributed to reduce poverty. So, everyone should have some respect for the uses of free markets and capitalism. But, free markets and capitalism are human institutions, and there will always be human interest groups who seek to use law and physical coercion to shape the human institutions of the marketplace. Geographic variations in the cost of living, prevailing wages, and even perhaps the acceptable moral standards of what can be tolerated in the ratio of labor value to wages paid, will create situations where some labor-intensive production probably ought to move to lower-wage locations. Jobs where the ratios of compensation to value-of-labor are extremely advantageous to workers and less advantageous to investors will tend to migrate to places where those ratios are more favorable to investors and less favorable to workers. But, the distortions of the market that allow local elites and foreign investors to establish production with egregious ratios of profit to labor value are distortions that we ought to oppose. Sweatshops are examples of this sort of unfair distortion of the labor market. Fair distortions of the labor market in which democracy allows workers to elect representatives to the government who will set limits to exploitation and create alternatives (they may be low-wage labor alternatives) to sweatshops, are the sort of market distortions we ought to encourage.