The assignment is to provide a rational or
justification for five changes I would like to see in
All around me
I see the effects of what living in a capitalist economy means to real people
who have no clue about how to deal effectively with the dynamic forces
confronting them. In this class we have come to understand that family life is
what is most affected by the social policies we establish. It is vital
that we have a clear understanding of what effect our current system of
capitalism is having on families in order to properly go about the task of
social engineering. We need to recognize that society has and always will be a
dynamic system that is constantly in flux. However, there are those
“traditionalists” who believe in maintaining certain “ideals;” and because of
their prominence within the power structure of society have the ability to
reinforce those ideals through institutions that influence society as a whole.
Examples of these institutions are religion, money, education, law, and media, to
name a few. These “traditionalists” are really “founding” families who have
risen to power in this country through the financial mechanism they created
through the laws their constituents in the various houses of government
enacted, originally intended to benefit those “founding families”—the
corporation. This colossal piece of government legislation set the stage for
family stratification to thrive in this country. Perhaps this change in status
for “certain families” within the social structure of America at the time of
the Industrial Revolution contributed to the idea of “public” and “private”
entities through the act of constituting the corporate entity (government is
seen as public, corporate seen as private)—and eventually as discussed in our
class—this contributed to the ideology of separate spheres being experienced as
an ideological foundation of the target society’s world view.
Corporations were an ingenious way for those “certain
families” to consolidate their wealth and power while shielding them personally
and individually from many of the broader “social responsibilities” normally
associated with any single human being. In other words, the corporation can
masquerade as a human being when it comes to the dispensation of rights, but it
is only “artificial” when it comes to the responsibilities associated with
those rights—the “obligations” as anthropologists would say. Does this seem
fair at all? I realize that the current economic system, as presented in the
media mythology of the American Dream, assure us that many families can benefit
by incorporating and creating family trusts, investing their money in the stock
market and getting rich enough to retire in style, but the harsh reality is
that many “laborers” have to produce the products, or provide the services that
generate those trillions in global profit and those “laborers” have paid the
greatest price of all in order for this American Dream to become a reality—they
have paid with their families lives.
Truth be told, those “laborers” today are the
most productive they have ever been (I learned this from some recent data that
I noted in a lecture a few weeks ago in a different class; I do not recall the
source of the data). Our gross national product is rising and yet there hasn’t
been any substantial restoration in the millions of jobs that were lost since
the last election. Economically, since the 1970’s, family earning power has
substantially declined, adjusting for inflation, and what was once considered
the dream for some has become a nightmare for a sizeable majority. In order for
families to survive these days there needs to be two wage earners in order to
meet basic needs that have skyrocketed in price along with the loss of jobs. As
data presented in class clearly demonstrates, these problems are amplified
exponentially when the family experiences a loss of a parent whether through
addiction, divorce, or domestic violence. There are tremendous costs associated
with intervention, treatment, and mediation in dealing with the fallout of
family conflicts that result from economic depression.
Today people are struggling to find livable wage
jobs. Many businesses have switched to hiring more part-time people so that the
overall cost of labor decreases presumably because they don’t have to cover
those employees with health insurance—or their jobs are being outsourced to
other countries and adding insult to injury the outgoing employees are being
asked to train their foreign replacements before being handed their pink slips.
With wages so depressed many parents are forced to work two jobs. Most families
today are just two paychecks away from being evicted from their homes or have
run out of social welfare benefits that have been given an expiration date.
Business has succeeded in destabilizing family life in
While American society was shifting from social
democracy to corporate oligarchy via the Industrial Revolution and the shift of
social life went from rural agricultural communities to industrialized cities,
corporations were pushing for more productivity from workers—which resulted in
the exploitation of workers and super-exploitation of virtually unpaid
workers—including women, minorities and children; this increased demand for
productivity has resulted in an overall “speed up of family life.” Those
“laborers” are the real people I am talking about whose lives are in dire need
of transformation. They are the individuals, parents, spouses, and families
that are most affected by America, Inc. The real problem this country is facing
today is that America Inc. has demonstrated consistently
throughout its brief history that the welfare of laborer families is not their
primary concern. In fact, fundamentally they believe that they have no social
responsibility whatsoever.
Corporations are very interesting indeed. They come
in all shapes and sizes. A small corporation can be a corporation of one with
the same individual acting as chief executive officer, secretary, and board;
or, corporations can be large with many individuals serving as members of the
board: vice presidents and secretaries each in charge of their own structures
or departments within the corporation. Corporations exist for different
purposes. Some exist for profit while others exist for charity. Regardless of
their composition or structure corporations function within the same legal
framework as human social interactions—or do they?
Milton Friedman asks in the second paragraph of his
essay entitled The Social
Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits:
"What does it mean to say that
'business' has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities. A
corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial
responsibilities, but 'business' as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities,
even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the
doctrine of social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it
implies for whom." [1]
Let’s do that—let’s examine what Mr. Friedman is
saying. Shall we? In this statement Freidman distinguishes what a corporation
is by declaring it “artificial” with “artificial responsibilities” going so far
as to say that business as a whole does not have even a “vague sense of
responsibility.” I love the way Friedman uses the word “artificial” to
marginalize responsibility; relegating it to the arena of only flesh and blood.
(Separate spheres, perhaps?) The whole reason that people are debating
corporate responsibility these days is that too many corporations and their executive
directors have abused their power in pursuit of profits. Many corporations have
acted with impunity, hiring professionals (legal analysts and sociologists) to
analyze local laws, customs and traditions to advise them on how to best take
advantage of legal loopholes and most effectively target advertising on
unsuspecting populations. All these things have been done in the name of
profits. Friedman claims in his essay that the only responsibility an executive
director has is to his shareholders. He claims that obligating an executive
director to have a “social conscience” is the same as obligating him to engage
in “taxing without representation.” Those being taxed are presumably the
stockholders of the corporation.
It is surprising to me that a man who has been
awarded a Nobel Prize for economics could make such a statement suggesting that
business operates in a social vacuum. All of these companies, corporations,
proprietorships, etc. are organizations (collectives) of people. People are
employed by them; people are the consumers of the products and services offered
by them. It is the people who are most affected by these organizations in one
form or another. To say that businesses are isolated from social impact and
responsibility, to make a profit, does not make any sense at all. People are
social creatures.
If an executive director "cooks the books"
is he not "taxing without representation?" His charity or
"social conscience" is squarely upon himself and maybe a few of his
buddies who are going to get stinking rich in the process. Many executives have
demonstrated themselves to act like selfish little children who say "Gimme, Gimme, mine, mine, it's
all mine. You can only have what's left when I am done taking my share."
The impact of the executive director’s choices is squarely on the people. The
executives and a few inside stockholders get rich, while the corporation goes
bankrupt, people loose their investments, people loose their jobs and the
trickle down effect is felt down to the man, woman, and child on the street.
Whose responsibility is it for breaking the law, for the bankruptcy, and for
the social impact? Who is liable to give account for the tremendous social
consequences of what has happened? Someone has to be responsible, why not the
corporation? The fact is that what a corporation or business does has an impact
on social structures, by default, that makes the corporation responsible to
society at large.
In an ideal world, social responsibility can be said
to simply consist of being honest and doing what’s best for the entire
“collective”, that is everybody concerned including the stockholders, the
employees, and the consumers of the products or services provided by
corporations to derive their profits. They call this “business ethics” and we see
evidence of this every time we turn on our television sets and see
advertisements touting the progressive thinking of certain companies that
emphasize “family values.” However, corporations have enjoyed a long run
under the honor system. Business ethics are mostly an unwritten code and
totally subjective. What is ethical to some may be unscrupulous to others. Just
simply following the law and managing corporations by set standards would
suffice as "social responsibility." But, the reality is that money has
become like a God of the free market system. The desire to acquire vast amounts
of money tempts and compels men to break the rules in all sorts of creative
ways. Not every executive is a philanthropist or a socialist. There needs to be
strong mechanisms to enforce compliance and protect healthy competition,
especially when violations are likely to have an impact on families, on the
environment, on human rights, and on the economic stability of nations. Social
responsibilities therefore must be legislated and perhaps all workers/laborers
should also in some way be stockholders as well (maybe a little too radical).
Then the responsibility to the stockholders would be a responsibility to the
people; for all people would be stockholders. Without legal mandates for
"social responsibility", corporations and/or executive directors can
simply run amok.
So having established a need to legislate changes in
social policy specifically that affect corporations and work to amend the
inequality that exists between corporations and families, I think we need to
briefly recognize the history that has led us to this point in time.
Our world
hangs in the balance as a battle rages over human rights. Conflicts arise in
all arenas of human engagement (gender, class, race, age, sexuality, etc) we
find continuing conflicts arising out of oppression that at one time or another
was perpetrated by one group over another. For example, there are countless
examples in history of the oppression of people of color by the White
ethnocentric colonialists in the Americas, indeed throughout the world, as
there are many examples of oppression even among people of color that have
developed into various ethnic groups. In our modern century we have become
acquainted with terms like genocide and ethnic cleansing when reminded about
events such as the Jewish Holocaust or the ongoing ethnic cleansing occurring
in countries in
However, in American democracy we have in our
constitution, in writing, declared that “all men are created equal.” This statement
is the principle ideology that gives rise to all the other constitutional
declarations. And yet, even though we did have this in writing in our
constitution over 200 years ago, as a nation, we did not abolish slavery until
a little over a hundred years ago. The
Our country continues to be stratified into various
groups—some deemed more deserving than others. Women’s rights and civil rights
are just recent social movements that have focused on the rights of individuals
and groups to have a political voice and a piece of the economic pie. Today,
however, we are in desperate need of a new social movement in this country. We
need to deal with the biggest remaining inequality that is plaguing our nation
today—the inequality of families. It is unconscionable that in this country
today there are three times as many “cruelty to animal shelters” than there are
“battered women’s shelters.” This kind of statistical data, which we learned
about in the video shown in class on domestic violence, is very telling about
the current situation in this country. We place more importance, as a society
on protecting animals from cruelty than we do on protecting women and children
from violence that often results in death or scars that last a lifetime, and
affect society as a whole. I could give a dozen more examples of family
inequality is affecting people today but I am trying to keep this paper down to
a manageable size. Many classes are dedicated to the existing stratification of
society, and those that are most affected by this stratification are the families—the
children.
Our government needs to take the proverbial “bull” by
the horns and start recognizing that families come in all different types of
configurations. The reality of families today is nothing near the ideological
family that is portrayed in the media or by the “traditionalist” institutions.
People are being challenged by unrealistic portrayals of what a “traditional
family” really means. In the media people are bombarded with mixed messages
about marriage. On one hand marriage is portrayed as something sacred
(passionate and romantic), eternal (the rock and foundation of society), like
in diamond commercials, while on the other hand, marriage has become a great
joke—they have turned it into a sideshow circus where the point is to laugh at
the emotional pain of contestants competing to marry a millionaire, or become a
millionaire in the process. The acquisition of money, at all costs, is
emphasized as the means to buy happiness—as though possessing an object gives a
person their identity.
As just previously discussed, these are tremendous
influences from powerful institutions, which frankly, have been controlled by
men whose greatest accomplishment has been to create a vast capitalist empire
were the justification for “freedom” and “an individual’s inalienable rights”
is distorted to really mean “the destruction of a culture and its people.”
Radical feminists may argue that these men can no longer be trusted to be the
keepers of what is considered normal or “traditional.” In our modern
industrialized society today many people’s real-life experiences are being
marginalized by these “traditional” values. It is time that we recognize that
humanity is evolving and changing to adapt in spite of the pressure from these
powerful institutions to preserve the status quo.
I can’t think of anyone who would argue that family
life is not a vital part of our national interests. As a nation lately
we have had so much emphasis in the media placed on national security. Well
what about social security—and I don’t mean social security as in the Social
Security Administration? True social security is accomplished through family
edification. In this class we learned that many social scientists are critical
of capitalism and argue that the ideology of separate spheres that exists today
is emphasized in order to maintain the status quo and insure the success of
capitalism. The ideological shift in the nation, as previously discussed,
resulted in the feminization of the family and a gendered division of labor in
which the male became the breadwinner and the female became the homemaker.
Socially, this division of labor forced people to begin to define their roles
through characteristics that were closely related to their sex—masculine and
feminine. These roles are now often referred to as gender roles. This emphasis
on strictly polarized gender roles is part of the ideology and has lead to many
harmful stereotypes that reinforce violence against women, minorities, and
children. In other words, there exists an ideology of compulsory
heterosexuality that has become an institutional ideological foundation for
families as a social institution in the
What I propose is that through presidential decree,
in the spirit of President John F. Kennedy, who signed executive order 10925 in
1961 creating the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (CEEO) to
oversee compliance with his instructions to federal contractors to take
“affirmative action to ensure that applicants are treated equally without
regard to race, color, religion, or national origin," the president would
issue an executive order creating the Committee for Family Equality and
Edification (CFEE). Members of this committee could be selected from various
government, financial, social, and religious institutions. All government
agencies that deal with social services would be unified under one umbrella
organization similar to the creation of the Department of Homeland Defense. The
mission of this new committee would be twofold. First, they would
oversee compliance that all government institutions and agencies, from now on,
begin recognizing all families, including polygamous, polyandrous, communal,
corporate, tribal, etc—essentially an all
inclusive approach. Second, they would see that affirmative action is taken to ensure that families are treated
equally when the benefits of a modern industrialized society are being
distributed. They would be charged with the broader task and social mandate to
study and develop new ways of strengthening and stabilizing families with
targeted educational programs tailored to meet the needs of individual
communities. These benefits would include financial, social, political, legal,
medical, etc. In this way, as President Kennedy once did, one fundamental
policy shift would set a national agenda for change that would benefit millions
of people, just as affirmative action in employment did for people of color
back in the 1960’s, and begin to alleviate the tremendous burden American
families are facing today with poverty, domestic violence and substance
abuse—which I would argue are the symptoms experienced as fallout from living
in an industrialized and capitalized system that has no social conscience—no
social responsibility. This shift in policy would have a ripple effect into all
other areas of stratification in society and elevate the status of women,
minorities, and children.
Now continuing with our social “revolution”, borrowing
from the pop-culture term “dysfunctional family,” I would move on to target the
obstacles that have been impeding families from “functioning.” Let’s face it,
the empirical data points to low socio-economic status as a leading factor in
most of the social problems we are facing today—just pick a headline. All
across America Inc. families are in desperate need of decent housing, food,
medial attention, and qualified legal representation. Trouble in one of these
four areas alone could devastate a family. These “desperate needs” are becoming
extremely expensive in order to preserve the lugubrious “bottom lines” of
America Inc.
Now, couple that with a media created popular culture
that is increasingly focusing on violence and sex to stimulate consumption and
you have a pressure cooker that is waiting to explode. The fallout from this
global profit making machine is not just trickling down to every man, woman,
and child, it has become a torrential flood of suffering and grief. Some people
explode with lethal consequences in reaction to the pressure cooker, and as we
have seen recently, even children now are turning into violent mass murderers.
Judicial relief needs to come in the form of a
national leveling of wealth. America Inc. needs to “step up to the plate” and
“cough up the cash” to fund true “social security.” CFEE would work with
experts from all fields (i.e. government and its agencies, schools, workplaces
and businesses, the media, the legal system, and charitable organizations) to
devise a stable funding mechanism for the multitude of tasks involved in family
edification. Funding
of true social security must be considered a cost of doing business in America,
Inc. This cost must be absorbed by corporate
In order to begin to alleviate some of this
suffering, as many developed nations such as Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland,
to name a few, already have strong social and family oriented programs
including healthcare for all their citizens, and paid leave for parents. The
first order of business for CFEE would be to make healthcare “universal” and
unlinked from employment so that families are covered regardless of whether
they switch from one job to another or are employed or not. Universal
healthcare would include mental health as well as medical and dental coverage.
Creation of this plan may very well mean doing away or phasing out current
medical systems such as Medicare and Medicaid.
I would actually do away with EITC (money that is
often spent on impulse buys, or to pay off Christmas purchases rather than
provide for ongoing family needs) and create a separate national insurance
program that would provide paid “work leave” and or provide childcare/eldercare
funds for those families who are choosing to have children or have to care
for aging parents of other family members..
This program would be a “cost share” (business and employee) plan and could
cover one or more spouses, regardless of who chooses to be the “breadwinner”
and who chooses to “stay home with the kids.” Besides paying a wage supplement
to the parent, the company could also be reimbursed for their cost in
administering the benefit as well. Incentives, by way of tax credits, could be
identified that would encourage more companies to offer flexible working
schedules for working parents. This way parents and companies become partners
in creating successful families, if their employees choose to create one, by
splitting the cost of the insurance policy much in the same way that Medicare
and Social Security are split today. This option would create the greatest
flexibility. Benefits of the plan could be used by the family to substitute for
wages of a non-working parent, or the money could be used to pay for childcare
or eldercare..
Universal healthcare coupled with paid family leave
and childcare/eldercare wage supplementation would
also allow for more diversity in communal/”kin based” childcare
options than would otherwise be available to families. Children or
elders could be cared for by people who love them and have an
emotional investment in them. The creation of a universal healthcare system,
along with the creation of CFEE to insure its success would not only address issues
of concern around human rights as a whole, they would also address concerns
around family economic security, child abuse and neglect, and children’s
experience of divorce. Their suffering would be alleviated because families
would no longer need to struggle to pay for badly needed services, they would
all be provided regardless of the job a person is doing in society.
In the second phase of relieving suffering, CFEE
would insure that generous programs are in place for families to obtain decent,
affordable housing and that adequate food programs are in place to insure that
no one goes to bed hungry. These programs would take a community based approach
partnering with business and social institutions. These programs can be a combination
of subsidies and inducements designed to engage the families as active
participants in the acquisition, establishment and maintenance of their home
and food. For some this could come in the form of tax breaks or low interest
loans. For others this could include assignment of a parcel of land to the
family, the provision of homebuilding supplies, and training in a variety of
areas including building, gardening, taking care of animals, and the production
of household goods. No matter what shape
this program takes shape, the net result is that families should have at least one
home that can never be taken away because of economic depression. There
could also be training on creating and maintaining community based gardens and
marketplaces in which to produce and barter goods. This program would address
the concern pertaining to the “speed up of family life” by granting individual
families more autonomy and self determination in their lives. Those who wanted
to return to a more simple life could move to a more rural setting while those
who wanted the faster pace of modern technology could turn to a more
industrialized city. This in turn would lead to greater self esteem and a
greater sense of accomplishment for all family members and a sense of belonging
and investment in the community’s future—which could lead to a substantial
increase in marital satisfaction, which in turn would lead to a reduction in
the divorce rate, which in turn would lead to a reduction of child abuse and
neglect and a mediation of the effects resulting from children’s experience of
divorce.
CFEE would insure that programs are in place to deal
with the increasing fallout from the commodification
of care giving. We must recognize that there are huge changes that families
face when spouses split up, and those changes inevitably affect the children.
CFEE would insure that children’s needs are taken into consideration first and
foremost when decisions are made by judges or social workers. We need to take
the profit out of family law so that the services that are being provided are
not influenced by America Inc. I believe that one of those fundamental needs is
to have continuity of history with their biological families of origin,
regardless of who becomes custodial parent. CFEE would also insure that
families weren’t burdened by huge legal costs by providing a system of family
mediation that includes psychological counseling, especially for the children.
In families were there has been allegations of domestic violence, CFEE would
insure that the allegations are properly investigated and facts brought into
evidence so that judges and social workers are in the position to make well
informed decisions and recommendations. We should also continue to offer and
expand anger management programs and conflict resolution programs that
emphasize education on the patriarchal roots and effects of gendered media and
gendered violence. These programs should be taught to all students in primary
education. Universal healthcare should cover the cost of psychological
counseling, anger/conflict management programs, substance abuse recovery
programs, and any other programs such as these so as not to further burden
struggling, recovering parents with additional financial burdens.
Many of the current programs inadequately address
this issue. Current programs place unnecessary burdens on participants, mostly
male, by requiring large payments of cash in order to attend the weekly
domestic violence classes. More families will be helped by these classes if
more men can attend. Perhaps there is some antiquated rationale for charging
these participants large fees that are based in the argument that “you’ll never
appreciate what you don’t earn,” but I think that men will always rise to the
challenge if given a decent chance for success at the hands of a wise and
merciful facilitator. Rather than punish parents for experiencing problems with
substance abuse by severing parental rights and permanently separating them
from their children as a “cost effective” disposition of the case, I propose
that we allow continued supervised child visitation as a continuing inducement
to recovery for the substance abusing parent, provided that the parent is able
to act in a responsible manner toward the child during the visit and the child
wants to continue to have visits with the substance abusing parent. Too many
families are being needlessly destroyed because of problems with domestic
violence and substance abuse because we can’t properly fund the programs we
already have in place.
To recap the sweeping social changes I am
proposing—my social revolution—I recount the following proposals to deal with
the five areas of concern as outlined on the assignment sheet for this essay.
1.
I propose the creation, by executive order, of a Committee
for Family Equality and Edification to oversee the sweeping changes in
social policy—to insure compliance throughout all social institutions. The
committee will be charged with the responsibility of insuring equal opportunity
for all families, and family types to prosper. The committee would be an
umbrella through which the other proposals will function. (sort of like the
Department of Homeland Defense brings together various government agencies
under centralized control) This committee would be charged with insuring
effective solutions are available to address concerns raised around parenting
including, the “speed up” of family life, economic insecurity, child abuse and
neglect, children’s experience of divorce, and commodification
of care giving.
2.
I propose the creation of a universal healthcare system that
is not tied to employment. This way the proper funding will exist for programs
that deal with anger management and conflict resolution—so called “domestic
violence” courses—and that these courses be taught to primary school age
children. These courses need to be free so that “domestic violence”
abusers and their families can get the help that they so desperately need.
3.
I propose the creation of a “cost share” “paid family leave”
insurance policy. In this way children can be cared for by parents who have an
emotional investment in the child while the parent isn’t burdened with worries
about “breadwinning.” Business and social institutions can be partners in
family success.
4.
I propose the creation of a generous housing policy, opening
the door to home & land with the potential for
individual/communal/tribal/”kin group” ownership and insuring decent affordable
family housing and communities by way of entitlements—assignments, provisions,
and training. This program will help to build confident and financially secure
families by providing them with long term stable (permanent) housing through
home ownership.
5.
I propose the creation of a free family mediation service
that includes legal representation and psychological counseling, especially for
children. This service will be invaluable in times of family conflict and
perhaps stem the increasing tide with regard to the escalating divorce rate,
child abuse and neglect, and domestic violence levels.
Works Cited
Friedman,
[1] A very nice and easy copy to read can be found at the following link. http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html
[2] This declaration can be found at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html