While I agree with Louis' critique of Rorty I don't see any evidence given that
the AFL-CIO supports Rorty's position. Rorty's logic would lead to means
testing but in itself I don't see how it implies anything one way or the other
about privatisation. Does the AFL-CIO support privatisation?
There are many advantages of having a universal non-means-tested system. It
avoids all the inequities and bureaucratic expenses of means-testing. It is
remarkable that right-wingers are so concerned about bureaucracy, its
inhumanity, expense, and inefficiency but then feel quite comfortable with
recommending means-tested systems. Another huge advantage of a universal
system is that the better off receive benefits from it and hence are more
likely to take an interest in seeing that it works. If the rich are not part of
the system they are not at all interested in whether it provides decent
benefits for those less well off.
These points apply even more to a unversal health care system. In the US
medi-care for the poor will always be underfunded because it is no skin off the
ass of the well to do if the poor do not get proper care. If they were under
the same umbrella their attitude would suddenly become much more progressive!
Let Rorty donate his extra money to a charity of his choice. Let him even
get a tax receipt for it.
But then increase the progressive rates on income etc.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
Louis Proyect wrote:
> In October 1996, academic pragmatist superstar Richard Rorty (along with
> Cornel West and Betty Friedan) shared the platform with AFL-CIO head John
> Sweeny at a teach-in held at Columbia University which was attended by
> several thousand students, unionists and assorted activists. Many of us,
> including me, held out the hope that this would be the prelude to a social
> movement of the sort that took place during the New Deal. We dreamed that
> the AFL-CIO would draw upon the ranks of thousands of college students who
> would be dispatched into the South to organize the unorganized. Most of
> all, we hoped that this even would signal a break with the kind of
> anti-Communism that characterized the old labor movement.
>
> As it turns out, things didn't quite move in that direction. The AFL-CIO
> has been able to accommodate itself quite nicely to the status quo. Drawing
> strength from a bull market and low unemployment, it has mostly endeavored
> to win strikes in well-established unions like the Teamsters and elect
> Democrats. Some hold out hope that the protests in Seattle will mark the
> emergence of a fighting labor movement once again, but it seems unlikely
> given the record of the past four years. While Sweeny and Hoffa have no
> trouble denouncing the oppression of labor in the third world, there has
> been virtually no movement to root out these conditions in places like
> Alabama and Mississippi, the third world within our borders.
>
> The other side of the equation is the intelligentsia who have attached
> themselves to the Sweeny bureaucracy, people like Richard Rorty whose view
> of labor-academic unity entails sweeping Vietnam under the rug. Instead of
> condemning the AFL-CIO for failing to effectively challenge the imperialist
> war, Rorty has lashed out at demonstrators for "alienating" Joe Six-Pack.
> Unlike Rorty, the intelligentsia of the 1930s knew how important it was to
> stake out a principled anti-imperialist position as writers like Hemingway
> rallied in defense of the Spanish Republic.
>
> In today's NY Times, Rorty finds himself on the wrong side of a key
> domestic policy question. He provides backhanded support for those who
> would weaken if not eliminate Social Security as an "entitlement". Although
> Rorty's op-ed piece is directed against legislation that would allow
> retirees to supplement their income, the logic points in the direction of
> turning the entire Social Security system into a "means" tested program:
>
> ====
> Making the Rich Richer
>
> By RICHARD RORTY
>
> A few days ago I got a nice letter from the Social Security Administration,
> telling me that I was entitled to some $1,600 a month, but that
> unfortunately I couldn't receive it because I was still earning a lot of
> money. Last week I opened the newspaper to find that the House of
> Representatives has voted unanimously to have the money sent to me anyway.
> The Senate and the president, it appears, are quite prepared to approve
> this change. So in the course of this year I shall get government checks
> for about $20,000. About $8,000 of it will go for federal and state taxes,
> but I shall still have a net $1,000 extra a month that I never expected to
> have.
>
> I do not feel entitled to that money. Like a lot of other Americans who are
> 68, I am making a very good living. When I stop working I will get a
> pension that ensures that I still live perfectly comfortably. I would like
> Congress to use the Social Security taxes I've paid over the last 45 years
> to promote the general welfare.
>
> (clip)
>
> ===
>
> The problem with Rorty's tacitly "redistributive" proposal is that it
> dovetails with rightwing advice that Security Security be privatized. In a
> newspaper column regarding Social Security by William F. Buckley, titled
> "It's the rich who are on the welfare dole," he defined rich as being any
> family making over $ 20,000 per year. Buckley and other rightwingers have
> promoted privatizing Social Security for many years now, using Chile as a
> model. After the Pinochet coup, the Chicago boys dismantled the social
> security system as one of their first measures.
>
> Of course the measure to allow retirees to supplement their income through
> working has long been championed by the Republicans themselves. The repeal
> of the earnings limit also has become a popular cause lately among
> employers, many of whom once criticized it as a salve for the rich.
>
> The Clinton administration has advocated the idea for years, but only if it
> were accompanied by broader reforms to keep the Social Security system
> strong enough to withstand the retirement of the enormous baby boom
> generation starting in slightly more than a decade.
>
> So, perhaps it makes sense to describe Rorty's op-ed piece as one that
> resonates with both the liberal and conservative establishment, which after
> all has been exactly the agenda of the Clinton administration for the past
> 8 years.
>
> Louis Proyect
>
> (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
