Pizzigati - The case for a maximum wage

The Case For series

Sam Pizzigati, The Case for a Maximum Wage

Sam Pizzigati

polity

Copyright Sam Pizzigati 2018

The right of Sam Pizzigati to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2018 by Polity Press

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Medford, MA 02155, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2495-2

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pizzigati, Sam, author.

Title: The case for a maximum wage / Sam Pizzigati.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2018. | Series: The case for | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017048524 (print) | LCCN 2017050835 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509524952 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509524914 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509524921 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Wages--Government policy--United States. | Rich people--Government policy--United States. | Equality--United States. Classification: LCC HD4975 (ebook) | LCC HD4975 .P27 2018 (print) | DDC 331.2/3--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017048524

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For Pablo, Chaly, and Toms

Ive been writing about inequality and the notion of a maximum wage for almost three decades now. I cant seem to stop. That may be because the societies I know best keep getting more unequal. Or maybe I just enjoy hanging out with egalitarians, most notably my collaborators on Inequality.org.

My thanks to everyone whose ideas and encouragement have shaped this slender volume. A special appreciation to New York labor activist Jeff Vogel and Canadian researcher Jacob David Poulin-Litvak, two indefatigables on all things maximum wage related.

These chapters also owe much of the value they may have to the patient scrutiny of ace readers Nancy Leibold and Carl Luty. My deepest thanks as well to my eminently thoughtful editors at Polity, George Owers and Justin Dyer. And my deepest gratitude, as always, goes to Karabelle. She may not have lived long enough to peruse these pages, but her wisdom and compassion, after nearly a half-century together, remain my rock.

Sam Pizzigati October 2017

Most of us shy away from excess. Everything works better, we understand, in moderation. Too much of anything, even essentials for our health and humanity, does us no good. Too much food can leave us dangerously obese. Too much strenuous exercise can break down our bodies. Even too much love can become suffocatingly obsessive.

Excess creates messes. Societies grasp this reality almost instinctively and set limits to keep excess at bay. We limit how fast motorists can drive. We limit how much waste factory owners can dump in our rivers. We limit how much noise our neighbors can make.

But we dont set limits on everything. We do not limit personal income. We have no speed limit on how rapidly the rich can become richer. And they have become richer. Phenomenally richer.

Many of our most compelling numbers on global fortunes come from the annual wealth reports the Credit Suisse Research Institute began publishing in 2010. Midway through 2017, Credit Suisse calculates, the worlds wealthiest 1 percent held 50.1 percent of global wealth, more than the rest of the world combined.

Those who hold truly grand fortunes over $50 million in net worth make up just a tiny fraction of the wealthy who can claim global top 1 percent status. Credit Suisse counts over 148,000 of these ultra-high net worth fortunes, with about half in the United States.

The richest of the ultra rich, the worlds billionaires, now total over 2,000. The least of these billionaires now hold 279,000 times more personal wealth than our planets typical adult.

The activist charity Oxfam has translated the Credit Suisse numbers into some memorable images. In 2009, the group points out, the worlds 380 richest billionaires a cohort small enough to fit into a jumbo jetliner held as much wealth as humanitys poorest half. By 2017, the combined fortunes of just 42 billionaires could offset the entire net worth of the 3.7 billion people who make up the worlds bottom half. These eight could ride comfortably in a standard-sized city-bus.

This top-heavy distribution of the worlds treasure, some maintain, rates as no big deal. Think of all the entertainment value the super rich create, they quip. How could we live without the Instagrams of young wealthy heirs flaunting their Rolexes, Maybachs and pet lions? In one episode, a guest checks in with 200 pieces of luggage, a bride insists on an elephant for her wedding party, and a gentleman of means wants his socks pressed. Were expected to giggle at their vanities.

Most of the world, fortunately, sees vast gaps in income and wealth as no laughing matter. Inequality has become, as Barack Obama observed early in his second term, the defining challenge of our time.

A world in which 1 percent of humanity controls as much wealth as the other 99 percent, Obama added in a United Nations address, will never be stable.

Leading global figures have echoed those sentiments. Pope Francis has labeled inequality the root of social evil. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, the celebrated founder of the microfinance movement, has described the concentration of the worlds wealth as a ticking time bomb.

People worldwide, the Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center has found, share a similar perspective. Pew surveyed 44 nations in 2015. Majorities in all 44 called the gap between rich and poor a big problem facing their countries.

All these anxieties about our economic divides rest upon a veritable explosion of research into inequalitys impact on our daily lives and long-term prospects. Over the last quarter-century, the International Social Science Council reports, the number of studies on inequality-related concerns has increased five-fold.

Much of this new research involves the United States, the worlds most unequal developed nation. In the United States, as elsewhere, inequality endangers almost everything we hold dear. Divorce rates run the highest in American counties where inequality has increased the fastest. US states with income highly concentrated at the economic summit have more carbon emissions and weaker environmental protections. Highly unequal states also have higher incidences of hate crimes.