John Buell

Equal Opportunity for What?

Would our recent economic history have been substantially different had Lehman brothers been Lehman Sisters? Many prominent whistle blowers have been women, but one can also hardly imagine more ruthless corporate executives than Mary Bara at GM.

More broadly, the very notion of equality of opportunity to which some defenders of diversity within the executive sweet appeal is a double-edged sword. Diversity is commendable and can begin to address historic injustices, including the racist and sexist sentiments that stand in the way of broader coalitions. Nonetheless, a government or economic institution not marred by racist or sexist baggage can use such a clean bill of health to justify the most ruthless practices.

The celebration of equality of opportunity should always be qualified by a question—an equal chance to do what and to whom? In the contemporary US economy equality of opportunity has become a defense of corporate capitalism. If half of the world’s top 10 billionaires are women and one is black, there is no problem in their controlling half the world’s wealth.

Observations such as this are especially appropriate in light of the recent college admission scandal. A number of prominent and/or wealthy parents had bribed their way around the college admission process. This became a source of anger among parents who had spent many thousands for tutorials and SAT preparation courses or even bought houses in the “right” neighborhoods. They were being denied an equal chance to be accepted at Harvard, Yale etc. Persuasive as this may seem, it begs the question of the privileges these parents had in comparison with many working-class families who could not dream of affording such prep courses. In addition, I suspect that much of the anger surrounding these bribes reflects inner doubts about this academic rat race and the sacrifices that must be made on its behalf.

In what became a minor classic in the late 1960s, Berkeley theorist John Schaar described equality of opportunity as the right to become an oppressor of others. Unfortunately the very corporate capitalism the ideal hides also limits or even suppresses debate of such questions. In the US most citizens take corporate capitalism as natural, though it was a product of and helped to shape our industrial revolution. The concept of limited liability — whereby stock investors could lose no more than their initial investment no matter how destructive the corporate entity — helped in the accumulation of capital but also fostered great concentrations of wealth.

Internally the US corporation is an authoritarian state, which, as Elisabeth Anderson, author of “Private Government,” has argued, is allowed to act in ways that would be illegal or unconstitutional if performed by a public body. Workers have been fired for expression of views even in a public setting. That this is an attack on basic freedom of speech is barely acknowledged, often on the grounds that workers can leave their current employment. As Anderson puts it, this argument is tantamount to claiming Italians in the ’30s were free because they could leave the country.

A major aspect of post-1975 capitalism has been a continuing endeavor to make conditions for leaving as difficult as possible. Hence the emphasis on a Federal Reserve that worries so much about workers enjoying the leverage to demand wages that keep pace with their productivity gains.

There is, however, another side. Policies that provide benefits independent of jobs, such as Medicare for All, make exit easier. This connection is perhaps one reason many businesses that might benefit from lower medical costs have not supported this universal reform.

Their opposition need not be decisive. Several strategies, both singularly and together, can change the political economy of the workplace. Just pointing out that the workplace is an authoritarian polity in which we spend much of our adult lives helps. Commentators on Anderson’s work point out that beyond this message, efforts to organize up and down the complete supply chain and across racial and gender lines are showing promise. The indignities and oppression suffered in the workplace have a two-sided relation to democracy. They can produce a cynical and defeatist relation to politics or foster a determination to unite, resist, and demand justice.

Do we want to be a society that competes over the few slots in which some—a very few — get to tyrannize over others. Shouldn’t this question be open for debate? Even if such authoritarian workplaces—hardly proven—are more productive? Workplaces and technologies can be designed in such a way as to enhance individual capacity and collegial trust. Specialization is necessary, but not of the sort that removes the cognitive and challenging aspects of a task. We can build a society that is not only more distributively just but also more consonant with our highest capacities.

John Buell lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and writes regularly on labor and environmental issues. Email jbuell@acadia.net.

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2019

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