BY SOFIA SAIYED

In print | Published November 19, 2009

My co-columnist Soren Larson wrote a thought-provoking article last week about the effects of income inequality on American society. First, I want to correct Larson’s mistaken assumption that the “capitalism is colonial” chalkings were done by Class Awareness Month organizers. The chalking was an independent action and was not related to CAM’s events or underlying purpose. Second, though he is an avowedly proud economics major, I must admit to being among the cohort of ashamed economics majors. My embarrassment at admitting to studying economics in social situations, however, is not a result of feeling that the study of economics is futile or lamentable. Rather, it is rooted in my increasing awareness that economics is quite often a self-consciously pompous discipline that asserts itself as a self-evident Truth-with-a-capital-T.

With all due respect to the many economists and Swarthmore faculty who use economics as a means to pursue good social ends, it is difficult for me to continue to adhere blindly to a discipline in which arguments often begin with such dubious statements as “assume rational actors” after an event like the collapse of the global economic system. Even attempts within the discipline to inject realism into economic models and theories must operate within a framework that privileges the scientific discourse and relies on a mathematical abstraction of human behavior. When the outcomes of these academic debates affect human lives as acutely as economic decisions do, such abstraction from lived human experience quite frankly just does not make much sense to me.

I don’t seek to address Larson’s central argument that higher levels of income inequality may not make society worse off, but rather his underlying premise that social problems are not intrinsically linked to the capitalist organization of our society. By decrying a “dysfunctional” educational system and insufficient legal protection of migrant workers as the “true” reasons for inequality, it is easy to overlook the fact that the reasons we need egalitarian legal and educational systems in the first place is in order to mitigate the inequalities inherent in capitalist society itself.
Capitalism inherently gives those with high initial endowments in property and other resources an advantage in accumulating even more economic profits, while it leaves those without initial endowments in such resources at a decided disadvantage. It’s not the legal system that made migrant workers vulnerable; it’s their status as migrant workers with no substantial property or assets or fallback plan if they lose their jobs, and thus no bargaining power, confronted with significantly more well-endowed companies who know they have enough bargaining power to bully their employees into providing more labor at lower cost, in order to bolster company profits.

If I’ve learned anything from my honors economics seminars, it’s that government interventions in the private sector in attempts to mitigate inequalities and help marginalized groups become incorporated into the system more often than not fail in their fundamental aims. Take education, for example: the myth of the American dream is based on the premise of equal opportunity, provided by universal access to free education. However, innumerous economic studies have been conducted on how to improve educational outcomes among “at-risk” populations and the only conclusive evidence is that it all depends on “family background.” No matter how much money the government pours into low-performing schools and teachers, or threatens to take away from low-performing schools and teachers in an effort to “incentivize” better performance, it seems economists are unable to solve the problem of how to turn schools into a vehicle for social mobility. Children enter school already embedded in social contexts that too often predetermine their life outcomes, and the reason for this goes far deeper than any economic theory can model.

Attributing failure to produce positive change to “family background” is one of way of absolving the system from guilt. Poverty that results from these social forces that are beyond the realm of economics is generally seen in economics as a tolerable, if undesirable, fact. Minimization of poverty rates may be one of the goals of economic policy making, but in practice it is often takes a backseat to such issues as macroeconomic stabilization, and no economist ever expects poverty rates to be zero. This implicit legitimization of poverty ignores the very human costs of living in poverty. Presuming to apply the same notions of utility, preferences and tastes to people who must choose between food and a winter coat as are applied to people who are choosing between buying an iPod or a designer handbag seems unethical, but maybe that’s just me.

A more fundamental problem with arguments like Larson’s is the assertion that discussing the problems with capitalism and speculating about alternatives is distracting and futile. We often take the current dominant paradigm for granted: “Capitalism” is a fact; “democracy” is a fact. And discussing the inherent problems within these discourses is superfluous, because they are understood as natural, unchangeable constants. But nothing could be further from the truth. American democracy and capitalism have hardly been unchanging constants throughout history; rather, they are the products of constant fluctuations in the way we understand relationships between individuals, social groups, technology and resources.

Even the versions of democracy and capitalism that currently exist in the United States are drastically modified forms of the initial conceptions of the terms. Various and conflicting discourses have risen in dominance and fallen again throughout the course of human history and across the broad range of simultaneously existing societies at any given moment in time, and I guarantee you that in any one given society, its members saw the particular discourse which dominated as the natural, unchangeable order of things. Yet change it did.

What makes us think that the dominant systems currently existing are any different? Thinking about and discussing potential directions for change shouldn’t be condescendingly labeled “ruminations from the theoretical socialist wonderland” (as though economics is such a real world discipline).

Change is what brought us capitalism, and change is what will inevitably propel us into a post-capitalist future.

Capitalism’s firm grasp over many spheres of life (not just the economic) often prevents us, as individuals deeply integrated into the social fabric of capitalistic society, from being able to objectively view the problems it generates. Even discussions of inequality and other social problems are automatically couched in the vocabulary of rationalism, individualism, equal opportunity and personal entrepreneurial motivation. This creates a situation in which those who are unable to meet their needs can be criticized for lacking the personal motivation to take advantage of the opportunities available to them in a “free” society.

Attempting to change the language of this debate is nothing short of challenging the very ideological basis of our society. Doing so, however, shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing. Capitalism is not natural, but change is.

Sofia is a senior. You can reach her at ssaiyed1@swarthmore.edu.

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