Dorothy Day against Social Security

[catholicbybirth]

Need I remind you all (and Ms. Day) that people collecting Social Security have contributed into the system their entire lives? My hubby, who's 64, has paid the maximum SS tax every single year since he was 18, except perhaps the years when he was in the Army.

That is quite a bit of money over 46 years of work. Social Security is not an "entitlement." It is a system to which we have contributed--all of us.

And there is a simple solution to the Social Security deficit: Give undocumented workers a pathway to citizenship. The larger families they have will be a bonus for the system in the future. Their social security taxes will sustain the system now.

Paul Ryan and Dorothy Day are about as dissimilar as Mao Tse Tung and Ayn Rand.

Did you know that the amount that Social Security recipients will take out of Social Security will be far greater than what they ever could have hoped to put in? Did you know that Social Security is one big Ponzi scheme? Did you know that the money my kids are putting in will be long gone before my kids would ever think of retiring?

Janice

 

[MKJ]

When they take up the rest of Dorothy Day's suggestions, I'd think about taking them seriously on this. She was a pretty big defender of social justice.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Did you know that the amount that Social Security recipients will take out of Social Security will be far greater than what they ever could have hoped to put in? Did you know that Social Security is one big Ponzi scheme? Did you know that the money my kids are putting in will be long gone before my kids would ever think of retiring?

Janice

It's not a ponzi scheme.

This is the biggest misconception neoconservatives try to pass off.

Look up what a ponzi scheme actually is and you'll understand.


Jim

 

[MKJ]

Everything you have said convinces me that distributism works in agrarian economies and tribal economies and that its application (at least to the very extreme degree you are posing) lost all relevancy with the industrial and technological revolutions.

Everybody self-employed? Are you crazy? That is a 7 billion person disaster in the making.

If I have to go live in a hut without electricity to be a distributist, count me out.

Why would you have to live in a hut?

Distributism doesn't say any of the things you are suggesting, although it would likely be a somewhat slower society. That is not necessarily a bad thing - very fast change can tend to rocket us into situations we didn't fully realize the implications of and cannot get out of. Farming would probably be much more a matter of small businesses, but that is a really good thing as we've come to discover - it is important for the environment and food security.

It is however entirely possible to have large technological or manufacturing firms with a distributist system. You run them as co-ops. Mondragon is the best example, they are a large Spanish co-op that has been around for decades. They happen to be doing well despite the financial crisis in Spain. They gave their members many of the advantages we now expect from government, like health insurance, well before such things were available from government.

 

[MKJ]

Well if it was true she was against Social Security, she was wrong. She had a communistic mind set in that the community should live for the common good. This was during the depression when many intellectuals were advocating communism, in it's purest form, without realizing the consequences of a system, when not every lives according to the ideology. She, probably had a great misunderstanding of what SS was going to be, being it was just being formulated by FDR.

Fact is, looking at what my wife and myself will be getting for SS next year when I retire, we'll be living at the poverty level.

Jim

That's really not the point though. The issue is that she advocated a really different social structure that would make government social security irrelavent, and she thought that was a much more human and Christian structure for many reasons.

The article in the OP is taking what she said about one issue without attempting to see what she was really proposing. She wouldn't support the average Republican approach either.

 

[Fantine]

Would you look for solutions to people who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for any other problems we currently have, from cures for cancer to hybrid or electric-powered cars?

Of course, not, because if we had had a distributist system we probably wouldn't have large hospitals or motor vehicles at all.

What happens when "everyone is self-employed?"

People would be much more independent, certainly. They'd be growing their own vegetables, making their own clothes, teaching their own children. Thank goodness there weren't seven billion people then! They'd walk down to the local herbalist if they got sick, and then they'd die young.

We have a supermarket around here that's employee-owned. When my husband first became a computer programmer, his company would give a little bit of company stock (about $100 worth) every year--it was an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan.)

There are things we can do to protect companies from being dismantled by companies like Bain Capital. If the supermarket around here that was employee-owned was approached by Bain Capital, I'm sure they'd tell them exactly where to go in no uncertain terms.

I think that most people wouldn't want a more primitive society--but I do think that they would like big business to stop treating its employees like disposable parts and they would like to feel a sense of investment in their company.

The problem with Social Security is that the government borrows all the contributions and pays miniscule interest in return. There should be a "trust fund" but it's been loaned out to pay current bills.

But if we allowed the immigrants in this country to stay and offered them a path to citizenship (that didn't involve going back home, paying hefty fines, etc.) we would have a better mix of young workers to Social Security recipients.

Wow, a socially just solution. Give immigrants work opportunities--give senior citizens the benefits they've earned.

How different from the Republican solution: Kick out the immigrants--stiff the old folks.

There are other things that can be done. Using a different cost-of-living calculator would increase the life of the system by many years.

But the Republicans, like vultures circling at the first sign of blood, would rather do in the immigrants and the old folks than work for the just solution right in front of their noses.

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

Did you know that the amount that Social Security recipients will take out of Social Security will be far greater than what they ever could have hoped to put in? Did you know that Social Security is one big Ponzi scheme? Did you know that the money my kids are putting in will be long gone before my kids would ever think of retiring?

Janice

Did you know that you need data to support those claims?

 

[einhverfr]

Everything you have said convinces me that distributism works in agrarian economies and tribal economies and that its application (at least to the very extreme degree you are posing) lost all relevancy with the industrial and technological revolutions.

Everybody self-employed? Are you crazy? That is a 7 billion person disaster in the making.

If I have to go live in a hut without electricity to be a distributist, count me out.

I don't think anyone would believe that you should do without electricity or go live in a hut. I didn't say everyone. I said most people.

Also the principle is subsidiarity, which means that control should be at the most local level possible. Families should respect personal autonomy, communities should respect family autonomy, etc.

For larger projects, a number of solutions are possible. You can have worker-owned businesses, and the nature and structure of W. L. Gore and Associates (3000 employees, 3 billion in revenue) strikes me as being very distributist both in its ownership (owned by founders and employees, and their families) and their internal structure (the business functions like a giant collective of self-employed people --- there is no management as such but rather leadership distributed throughout the organization). If you haven't heard of that company at least you have heard of their flagship product, Goretex. Several other businesses with more traditional capitalist ownership structures have based their operational structure on Gore. These include the video game development house Valve, and also Github, which specializes in hosted solutions for software development, but Gore itself makes stuff out of the same plastic you know as Teflon (Goretex is teflon that has been stretched until it becomes fibrous).

Another solution, and this is where distributists seem less than right of center is that where you have a natural monopoly (roads, last mile internet connections, electricity, etc), the local government can take over and provide this. Since local government tends to be more directly accountable to the community, this works pretty well. Now, I would say this should be narrowly run to encourage rather than thwart competition. The government should run roads, but not shipping services and taxicabs. It should run the physical infrastructure for telephone lines and internet connections, not provide service on them.

So no, your electricity should be provided by a county public utility district, along with your internet access and phone line. However this should be done so you get your choice of phone company and ISP, areas where we currently have very little real competition.

Before you say that's pie in the sky, rural (mostly Republican!) Chelan County Washington has such a system and as a result you have several choices for phone service even excluding voip, and easy choice (and movement) between a dozen high speed service providers.

But the question is who owns the land and tools. In our current system it is the investor or the bank. That's what capitalism means. The communists would solve the problems of this system by having the state further centralize control in the name of protecting the worker, but you end up with all the same problems plus the additional issues of state control. Distributism seeks to put that ownership in the hands of the worker. As G. K. Chesterton put it, "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few."

 

[MKJ]

Would you look for solutions to people who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for any other problems we currently have, from cures for cancer to hybrid or electric-powered cars?

Of course, not, because if we had had a distributist system we probably wouldn't have large hospitals or motor vehicles at all.

What happens when "everyone is self-employed?"

People would be much more independent, certainly. They'd be growing their own vegetables, making their own clothes, teaching their own children. Thank goodness there weren't seven billion people then! They'd walk down to the local herbalist if they got sick, and then they'd die young.

We have a supermarket around here that's employee-owned. When my husband first became a computer programmer, his company would give a little bit of company stock (about $100 worth) every year--it was an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan.)

There are things we can do to protect companies from being dismantled by companies like Bain Capital. If the supermarket around here that was employee-owned was approached by Bain Capital, I'm sure they'd tell them exactly where to go in no uncertain terms.

I think that most people wouldn't want a more primitive society--but I do think that they would like big business to stop treating its employees like disposable parts and they would like to feel a sense of investment in their company.

The problem with Social Security is that the government borrows all the contributions and pays miniscule interest in return. There should be a "trust fund" but it's been loaned out to pay current bills.

But if we allowed the immigrants in this country to stay and offered them a path to citizenship (that didn't involve going back home, paying hefty fines, etc.) we would have a better mix of young workers to Social Security recipients.

Wow, a socially just solution. Give immigrants work opportunities--give senior citizens the benefits they've earned.

How different from the Republican solution: Kick out the immigrants--stiff the old folks.

There are other things that can be done. Using a different cost-of-living calculator would increase the life of the system by many years.

But the Republicans, like vultures circling at the first sign of blood, would rather do in the immigrants and the old folks than work for the just solution right in front of their noses.

Fantine, whenever you talk about Distributism you make it clear that you don't know anything about it, and it doesn't even seem like you read my post. The things you are saying don't make any sense. Comments like "Of course, not, because if we had had a distributist system we probably wouldn't have large hospitals or motor vehicles at all" are totally bizarre.

If you think Distributism having its origins in the 19th century is a problem, you will have to give up on capitalism and socialism, and mixed systems, as well.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

That's really not the point though. The issue is that she advocated a really different social structure that would make government social security irrelavent, and she thought that was a much more human and Christian structure for many reasons.

The article in the OP is taking what she said about one issue without attempting to see what she was really proposing. She wouldn't support the average Republican approach either.

She advocated that it was the community's responsibility to care for the elderly and the poor, which is was the communist mindset in America during her time.

Having the government run a SS was her misunderstanding, but also that it would remove the community aspect of caring for the elderly and poor.

But that's not what SS was for. It was to give people a means of having a comfortable retirement. It was not designed as a safety net for the elderly.

Jim

 

[MKJ]

She advocated that it was the community's responsibility to care for the elderly and the poor, which is was the communist mindset in America during her time.

Having the government run a SS was her misunderstanding, but also that it would remove the community aspect of caring for the elderly and poor.

But that's not what SS was for. It was to give people a means of having a comfortable retirement. It was not designed as a safety net for the elderly.

Jim

I am not seeing the distinction you are making here - making sure all can have a comfortable retirement even if circumstances don't work out for them is a safety net.

And I am not sure that the first part makes sense either.

Day advised a much different social structure. Not getting rid of private business, nor government, because both have a real role. And neither of those things is "other" than or set against the citizens. Citizens make up government and run businesses. But one that, as much as possible for every function of society, kept responsibilities and action at a concrete, rather than abstract, level.

The problem that she saw with social security and other such programs (that is, run by higher levels of government) as the primary vehicle for caring for those in need is that it can easily tend to make people feel those individuals are someone elses problem. While government is made up of people, it is an abstraction of sorts (just like a corporation as it happens.) It is easy to see it as something different from ourselves - that is common in the US where many people feel their own government is a malevolent entity.

So we can cease to see this kind of care for others as being our work, and say it is the work of government. We can end up like Scrooge, asking "are there no work-houses?"

But the Distributists did not think these social issues should be left to chance or individual donations to charity or anything like that. They thought there should be social structures to make sure social justice was served - but in general they should be grounded in a much lower level of society than federal or state governments.

You can agree or disagree with her, that isn't the issue. The issue is the blog writer wants to promote Day's thoughts on social programs without the other ideas that she linked to them.

 

[Fantine]

You would be glad to know that elder care is moving towards more solutions that will let the elderly live at home longer.

There are things like Adult Day Care Centers for people with Alzheimer's disease so that they can be cared for at home even if the family members who care for them are employed (or need some respite time).

There are home health care solutions, and many people can get help for a few hours a day so that they don't have to go into nursing homes.

Yes, these are federally funded for seniors whose income falls into certain guidelines, but they are solutions with more subsidiarity--and more popular as well.

 

[catholicbybirth]

Did you know that you need data to support those claims?

Well, I do know that when I am writing a paper, I need documentation to support what I write that is not common knowledge, but things that are, or should be common knowledge, I did not know I need documentation for.

You would accept an internet source?

Janice

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

Well, I do know that when I am writing a paper, I need documentation to support what I write that is not common knowledge, but things that are, or should be common knowledge, I did not know I need documentation for.

You would accept an internet source?

Janice

Well, what you posted would not be considered common knowledge. Internet sources can be good depending on where they come from. Here's a couple of good ones:
Office of the Chief Actuary -- Home Page
Social Security Data | Open Government at SSA
Trust Fund FAQs

 

[Fantine]

Well, what you posted would not be considered common knowledge. Internet sources can be good depending on where they come from. Here's a couple of good ones:
Office of the Chief Actuary -- Home Page
Social Security Data | Open Government at SSA
Trust Fund FAQs

I don't believe that there are any responsible sources that use the words "Ponzi Scheme." I have heard it from the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and other discredited sources. I've even heard it from a few of the Republican candidates....but with their current shape-shifting positions, it's hard to keep track of most of what they're saying and impossible to believe anything they're saying.

 

[catholicbybirth]

It's not a ponzi scheme.

This is the biggest misconception neoconservatives try to pass off.

Look up what a ponzi scheme actually is and you'll understand.


Jim

I did look it up and the only thing that disqualifies it from being a Ponzi scheme is that the payoffs were never quick. However, the young are not investing in their own future by social security payments and these payments are going to the elderly already among us.

Also, is it guaranteed that the money my kids put into Social Security will be there for them when they finally retire? They are in their early twenties now.

Janice

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

I did look it up and the only thing that disqualifies it from being a Ponzi scheme is that the payoffs were never quick. However, the young are not investing in their own future by social security payments and these payments are going to the elderly already among us.

Also, is it guaranteed that the money my kids put into Social Security will be there for them when they finally retire? They are in their early twenties now.

Janice

Did you look at the links? I think the bottom one answers most of your questions.

 

[catholicbybirth]

I don't believe that there are any responsible sources that use the words "Ponzi Scheme." I have heard it from the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and other discredited sources. I've even heard it from a few of the Republican candidates....but with their current shape-shifting positions, it's hard to keep track of most of what they're saying and impossible to believe anything they're saying.

By "responsible" you mean "liberal"?

Janice

 

[AMDG]

I don't believe that there are any responsible sources that use the words "Ponzi Scheme." I have heard it from the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and other discredited sources. I've even heard it from a few of the Republican candidates....but with their current shape-shifting positions, it's hard to keep track of most of what they're saying and impossible to believe anything they're saying.

A Ponzi scheme is a scheme where early investors are paid off by the later investors. Charles Ponzi was the first to use such a scheme.

In Social Security, the early investors are paid off by the later investors. Under the circumstances it doesn't seem so odd that people would note it was a Ponzi scheme. Haven't heard Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin refer to it as such, but I'm sure that you would like it if they have since you consider them discredited. I have heard Gov Perry of Texas refer to it as a Ponzi scheme though and he's not a discredited source--he just calls 'em as he sees 'em.

 

[catholicbybirth]

Did you look at the links? I think the bottom one answers most of your questions.

Thank you for the links. That still doesn't make me believe that using money presently introduced into the SS system by our youth to pay the benefits of the elderly is anything by a pyramid scheme.

But why would SSA admit that what it was doing would be grounds for charges being pressed if someone outside of the government was doing the same thing.

Janice