Slicing the Pie
“OH, YOU’RE AGAINST FORGIVING STUDENT LOAN DEBT …
AND YET, YOUR PPP LOANS WERE FORGIVEN?!?!?!
CURIOUS! VERY CURIOUS!!! ”
We’ve all heard the scoffing refrain. We’ve all seen the contemptuous Tweets.
Etc., etc., etc………..
It feels so tiresome.
You don’t need to be especially compassionate or affected to understand the general case for forgiving student loan debt. Millions of millennials and zoomers have essentially been sold a false bill of goods. They were told that a four-year college degree – any four-year college degree – is the key to a prosperous, middle-class lifestyle. The white picket fence, the two-door garage, the vacations, the golden retriever, the backyard swingset, the cushy pension — it all awaits the college graduate. Incur as much debt as it takes, but get the degree.
This was obviously terrible advice. It was the prevailing cultural attitude up until very recently, perhaps until the onset of the pandemic, but at no point in the 21st century has it reflected our economic reality. The bachelor’s degree, once a voucher for a stable, well-paying career, has been diluted down to a foregone conclusion, representing the same level of competence and professional preparedness as the high school diploma of generations past. Consequently, vast swaths of Americans in their 20s, 30s, and even 40s now find themselves perpetually underemployed, working unskilled service jobs to pay off five and six-figure debts, often struggling to keep up with the loan’s interest, to say nothing of its principal. They are the serfs of the neo-feudal age — cultured and credentialed, but hopelessly below the lowest rung on the ladder of upward mobility.
They were swindled, as seventeen and eighteen-year-olds, and now they face a lifetime of indentured servitude. Wouldn’t it be nice if all of their misfortune could just disappear with the stroke of a pen? Wouldn’t some form of forgiveness be fair?
Then again, there’s also a very good general case for PPP loan forgiveness. When the government restricted the ability of profitable businesses to operate in March of 2020, they severed the normal revenue stream that millions of people depended on for their livelihoods. It seems fair that the government compensated businesses for the commercial losses incurred throughout the pandemic.
There is no shortage of deserving beneficiaries in this country.
There’s a good case for spending more on our minority communities.
But there’s also a good case for spending more on our police.
There’s a good case for spending more on our teachers.
But there’s also a good case for spending more on our soldiers.
For every special interest group that is elevated by one party, there is an equally deserving special interest group elevated by the other.
And the problem isn’t that American institutions are unable to afford spending money on the citizenry. America is by far the wealthiest nation that has ever existed. Our GDP per capita ranks among the Scandinavians, but we have a third of a billion people.
No… The problem is one of political and civic unity.
We can’t afford to continue dividing ourselves by splashing cash around in a way that is so nakedly partisan and self-serving. “Cancelling” student loan debt, for example, is VERY OBVIOUSLY, a disingenuous political ploy. It is not motivated by some abiding concern for justice held by the current administration. As David Sirota has pointed out, there are few people more guilty of exacerbating the student debt crisis than President Biden, a critical backer of legislation that prevents student debt from being discharged, rescheduled, or renegotiated in bankruptcy court. This so-called “forgiveness” is not about principles, it’s about retaining power. It’s a capricious bribe. In its purest form, it is a transfer of wealth from the American people as a whole to a demographic of likely Biden voters, two short months before an election the Democrats are at risk of losing.
The distribution of tax revenues has always been the practical foundation of a divisive two-party system, one that provides more for some Americans than others.
… But does it need to be?
In a world where the occupant of the Oval Office is steered by partisan incentives and inclinations, is it even possible to disperse America’s massive fortune in a way that is fair or just?
It seems that our intuitions about fairness and justice are calibrated much more sensibly when it comes to the matter of structuring democracy. In America, every citizen gets an equal vote, regardless of who they are. Inevitably, this dynamic is complicated by the influence of money, fame, and state population disparities, but in some very important sense, every American is ensured a basic level of democratic power. Reductive as it may sound, this is how most people have come to appreciate fairness in the political realm.
Systems of criminal and civil law are structured in much the same way. At least in theory, all of us enjoy the same power and protections in the courtroom. Even our healthcare system — its myriad shortcomings notwithstanding — affords everyone a range of basic resources in the form of programs like Medicaid.
We basically all agree that these arenas of American life should have a collectively ensured floor that is distinguishable from rock-bottom.
So it is truly astonishing how much mental labor people will perform to resist applying the same logic to matters of economic justice. For some reason, the concept of distributing cash makes people think irrationally. When it’s any resource other than money, there is a general agreement that the massive pie of American wealth should be sliced up and divvied out — not necessarily equally, but at least enough that everyone has something on their plate…. America has the biggest pie in the world. And as technological innovation accelerates, so too will the nation’s material wealth. The proverbial pie will only grow larger. Simultaneously, the labor market will become increasingly demanding of technical skills. As this trend continues, more and more Americans will be left behind, unable to provide for themselves in the free market. According to a recent McKinsey study, over 45 million American jobs will be automated out of existence by 2030.
And it won’t just be the failed art majors who find themselves in economic distress; basically anyone who can’t join the laptop class or live off the dividends of a family fortune will struggle. These people deserve a slice of the pie too, not because they’re willing to endure some degrading, minimum wage job mopping floors or selling their plasma, but simply because they’re Americans.
A universal basic income is the fairest, most pragmatic way to slice the pie.
Special interests all think they deserve money for one hyperspecific reason or another. But the reason doesn’t need to be specific at all. The reason can be citizenship.
The constant search for specificity is tearing the country apart. The relentless spending on “deserving” Americans, and the subsequent outrage about who qualifies and who doesn’t is making people hate each other.
As the pandemic demonstrated, there is nothing the federal government does better than giving out money. This brute fact should guide the way we approach the development of a modern social safety net. In much the same way we think about the fairness and justice of our political, legal, and healthcare systems, we must update our conception of economic fairness and justice to benefit all Americans, not just the targeted votaries of whichever party happens to hold power.
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