By Kevin D. Williamson
Thursday, August 15, 2019
There is much to be said about Matthew Desmond’s New
York Times essay on how slavery shaped the U.S. economy, which is a very
interesting read even if much of its argument is fanciful in its parallelism,
e.g.: Antebellum slave overseers developed quantitative tools for measuring
slaves’ productivity, modern corporations use quantitative tools for measuring
workers’ productivity, ergo . . . ? The difference between slavery and
non-slave labor is so radical and so fundamental that comparisons between the
two are not very illuminating in most cases.
One or two general points come to mind.
There are many good criticisms to make of the U.S.
economy and its work practices. This is not one of them:
Consider worker rights in different
capitalist nations. In Iceland, 90 percent of wage and salaried workers belong
to trade unions authorized to fight for living wages and fair working
conditions. Thirty-four percent of Italian workers are unionized, as are 26
percent of Canadian workers. Only 10 percent of American wage and salaried
workers carry union cards.
The median household income in the United States is 25
percent higher than it is in Iceland. Average incomes are higher in the United
States than in Italy or Canada, too. Would you rather have a union card or a 25
percent raise? (If that seems like a rhetorical question to you, then, congratulations:
You’re rich.) It may or may not be the case that American workers earn more
because of our (relatively) loosey-goosey market regulations, but it is
difficult to believe that they are uniquely disadvantaged in any meaningful
economic way compared with lower-paid workers in more tightly regulated
markets.
There are countries with more libertarian-ish economic
practices that have higher household incomes than in the United States (e.g.
Switzerland, where there’s no national minimum wage or capital-gains tax) and
countries with bigger public sectors and expensive welfare states that also
have higher incomes (e.g. Norway and, depending on the measure you use,
Sweden). What might be learned from that?
Of course, household incomes are only one measure. You
might also want to look at GDP per capita — if you are interested in
redistribution, you’ll want to make sure you have something to redistribute.
Here are the top 40 countries (and quasi-autonomous jurisdictions) by
GDP/capita, according to the IMF:
1.
Qatar
2.
Macau
3.
Luxembourg
4.
Singapore
5.
Brunei
6.
Ireland
7.
Norway
8.
United Arab Emirates
9.
Kuwait
10.
Switzerland
11.
Hong Kong
12.
United States
13.
San Marino
14.
Netherlands
15.
Saudi Arabia
16.
Iceland
17.
Taiwan
18.
Sweden
19.
Germany
20.
Australia
21.
Austria
22.
Denmark
23.
Bahrain
24.
Canada
25.
Belgium
26.
Oman
27.
Finland
28.
France
29.
United Kingdom
30.
Malta
31.
Japan
32.
South Korea
33.
Spain
34.
New Zealand
35.
Cyprus
36.
Puerto Rico
37.
Italy
38.
Israel
39.
Czech Republic
40.
Slovenia
What to make of that list? One possible takeaway is that
there are a few different ways to become a rich country: You can be happily located,
either atop vast reserves of oil or with a relatively small population
conveniently located for trade purposes, or something like that. But strike the
oil emirates and the outlier city-states (San Marino has one-tenth the
population of Lexington, Ky.) and what do you have? Countries with strong labor
unions? Some of them, sure, but others are the dead opposite. The most common
qualities are things like reasonably secure property rights, openness to trade
and investment, and more or less stable and accountable government.
That’s a lot on one little point, I know, but our
understanding of the world is made up of lots of little points, some of which
are not, you know, true.
Professor Desmond insists that the U.S. economy is
“uniquely severe,” which I do not think is a defensible claim in a world in
which India and China exist, to say nothing of places such as Pakistan, Cuba,
Venezuela, etc. India is a democratic country in which a form of slavery
persists (debt bondage) even though it is legally prohibited. It is a place in
which heavy regulation of the agricultural economy disadvantage poor workers.
The character of regulation and regulatory institutions matters a great deal.
Professor Desmond notes that Brazil has relatively heavy
regulation concerning temporary workers compared with the United States. That
may be true, but it would be very difficult to argue that this has left the
typical Brazilian worker better off than his American counterpart. Life at the
50th percentile in Houston is not very much like life at the 50th percentile in
Rio de Janeiro. These things do matter and really ought to be taken into more
forthright consideration. Brazil had slavery for some years after it was
abolished in the United States, but we are to believe that the U.S. economy is
uniquely entangled in slavery — why?
Professor Desmond also makes much of the
“financialization” of the U.S. economy; but as Tyler Cowen has shown, the share
of assets controlled by the financial sector has remained more or less steady
for a long time, holding around 2 percent. All this talk about
“financialization” may be saying rather less than everybody seems to think.
As I said, there is much of interest in the essay. But I
am not sure it makes the case Professor Desmond thinks he is making.
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