What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
What I recall from elementary school was something like one man, one vote. Some are strong, some are good in sports. Some are more important, and some know they live on the wrong side of the tracks. We do not all like or admire one another. But everyone needs self-respect. To the extent that some feel inferior or ashamed, we are a wounded society bleeding our strength away.
Community, like patriotism, suggests a kind of bonding, along the lines of one for all and all for one. We all have interdependent memberships, and, we hope, roles that confirm our contribution to the economic team.
There are truly no self-made men. We do tend to measure our value by the income we generate. Often the unemployed feel shame. Mitt Romney goes so far as to suggest his success earning money qualifies him for fame, and the presidency.
Especially since the Citizens United ruling, money has the capacity to call the shots, to pull us together or to tear us apart. Because some people hold more dollars than others, one vote per voter gets eroded.
Humans bonding is a function of working together, not an ideological one. Who has not heard of Brothers in Arms? Why do soldiers returning from war so often express a desire to rejoin? Such bonds show how we are hard-wired to respond emphatically to other humans.
We are a social species. We function in groups. We learn from one another. Our strength is in our congregate communities, but our pride is in our individuality.
The first state of development, according to Erik Erickson, is learning trust. That enables our deepest need, which is for intimate attachment. We live in and depend upon having a place in our society, but we call ourselves individual human beings. Our individual need is to belong and have value in the eyes of others.
Our development as people requires a blossoming mutuality between self and others, learning how to depend on others and how to be dependable. We have to find our worth in relation to others, and to prove ourselves worthy in their eyes. We need to be smart enough to be humble, and vulnerable enough to care about the welfare of others. That is empathy.
But it is getting harder and harder to fashion these cut-out patterns of material into wearable costumes. Small towns threaded through hill and dale are no longer vibrant communities.
Too often our children have to move away to find the job they need, if they can find one at all. In many ways the stresses we face are beyond individual control and beyond any local capacity to remedy.
The export or failure of manufacturing jobs is a prime example. This is not just an economic cycle; it is a global phenomenon where work itself is exported to low-wage countries, dunking many into poverty and raising a few into prominent wealth.
An example pushed by the powerful: "Right to Work Laws." RWL is a total misnomer, where everyone has a right to work _ for less, in a race to the bottom. A more socially responsible drive would be for the living wage. The equity of a healthy community requires input from all sides, and that really means the right of labor to organize.
Healthy societies must support mechanisms to redress the huge inequities of power and wealth. To pretend that every employee is a stand-alone free agent, negotiating his employment individually, is farcical. Labor has historically been exploited, even child labor not so long ago.
It disturbs me, therefore, to hear Romney extolling the self-made man at the expense of the team. A quarterback can't win the game alone. We need to build the dimension of community into the recipe of success. We need to strengthen our communities with intelligent planning.
Equity needs to be mutually beneficial, and the sensible way is for labor to be represented in the boardroom, as is done in several other countries, so that teamwork for profit, efficiency, stability and security are knit together in working partnership with similar goals and varieties of roles.
William Masters can be reached at wmasters@thedailystar.com. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Daily Star and its editorial board.
Columns
A quarterback can't win the game alone
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
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My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
Ask any hospital administrators if they've ever heard of a closed hospital in New York state that has ever been re-opened. They will say, "Impossible." In a half century of going through records you can't find any.
Continued ... - Catching a whiff of 'Vermont Vapor'
- Selections from the virtual mailbag
- Recalling days of 'Doughnut King'
- Opera great's visit still a thrilling memory
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My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
- Cary Brunswick
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We've become our own worst enemies
The past month has been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
Continued ... - Plenty of blame to go around for Bangladesh horror
- Obama is going against his word on Social Security
- Reflecting on a Florida trip
- Those magnificent spies in their flying machines
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We've become our own worst enemies
- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
Continued ... - The evangelical view of same-sex marriage
- Manor's fate will be Otsego board's legacy
- A closer look at our economy - Part II
- Use fracking to fill budget gaps
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
- Lisa Miller
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A view from above
Fire towers in the Catskill Mountains have always been destination points, built to capture some of the region’s best views. These sentinel stations served an important role for the earliest possible sightings of forest fires in the remote mountain ranges. But the fire towers and those who manned them fulfilled a multitude of other roles as well.
Continued ... - Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
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- Mark Simonson
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Sunday movies in Oneonta finally shown in 1934
You know an issue is divisive when a vote to resolve it is quite close. In Oneonta during the early 1930s there were probably plenty of discussions or arguments at the family dinner table or sermons from the pulpits on Sunday mornings, regarding whether or should be able to see a movie in Oneonta on Sunday.
Continued ... - Politics, fitness and landmarks dominated local news in May 1968
- Local people sought income in many ways in 1933
- Local windstorm in 1983 caused tense moments
- Disaster, expansions put people to work in May 1913
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- Rick Brockway
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
When I was in my teens, old Bill Naatz told me about a stream north of Lake George where a man had panned out enough gold to make his wife a wedding band. It was all rumors, but to his grandson and myself, it sounded like the makings of a great adventure.
- People make the outdoors even better
- Turkey season has ups and downs
- Spring air isn't always the freshest
- Adriondacks keep growing and growing
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
- Sam Pollak
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Using time off in the worst way possible
"You don't mean it," I pleaded. "You simply can't mean it!"
Continued ... - Terror lives on, and there's no end in sight
- Remembering the glory of their times
- Column on guns led to a barrage of (mostly) jeers
- No one is coming to take your guns
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Using time off in the worst way possible
- William Masters
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
As the time to vote draws near, we need to remember how money can run politics more than we can. Raising funds is a prominent (if not the dominant) task of getting elected. Raising issues is also crucial, but those efforts are subject to distortion and fear-mongering.
- Republicans feelentitled to allthey can garner An entitlement is a legal benefit available from the government to individuals who are within a defined category of recipients, such as needing insurance for unemployment or health services.
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Romney focuses on self; Obama emphasizes unity
Mitt Romney criticizes President Obama for saying a person's success is rooted in his community, and is not all his alone. Romney belittles this with his belief in individual initiative. He is better at the put-down than the push-up.
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Romney shows little regard for common man
The Republicans in Congress have voted over and over, 33 times, redundantly and uselessly, to rescind what they call Obamacare.
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Scouts' gay ban creates problem where none exists
The Boy Scouts of America's "emphatic reaffirmation" of its vow to exclude any and all homosexuals from its hallowed ranks is ill-considered and pathetic, especially in view of its having reviewed the matter for two years.
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
