Earned Pay vs. Need-Based Pay--or, Justice vs. Injustice

A couple of years ago, major bank CEOs appeared before a Congressional committee. One CEO, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, was asked a stupid question by an ignorant Congresswoman, Katie Porter. According to CNN,

Freshman Rep. Katie Porter stumped multimillionaire JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during a hearing Wednesday with a simple question: How are workers supposed to make ends meet?

The back-and-forth occurred during a House Financial Services Committee hearing featuring the CEOs of several major banks on Wednesday. Porter, a California Democrat, shared the story of a JPMorgan Chase employee – making a fraction of what the company’s top executives are paid – who is running a $567 deficit each month because her salary is insufficient to cover basic expenses.

“How should she manage this budget shortfall while she’s working full-time at your bank?” Porter asked Dimon.

Dimon’s answer was basically that he’d have to think about, and would need to check the math. The hypothetical employee’s salary is $16.50 per hour, plus benefits. Porter used the exchange to demand that Dimon’s bank pay employees enough to make ends meet, regardless of any other considerations. 

With Dimon’s disappointing response leaving much to be desired, Michael Dahlen, writing for The Objective Standard, suggested How Jamie Dimon Should Have Answered Representative Katie Porter. 

As you’d expect from TOS, Dahlen suggested a good, hard-hitting moral and economic lesson to Congresswoman Porter. I give Dahlen a thumbs up. But I thought I’d take a crack at an answer myself. I composed my rough draft before reading Dahlen’s article, just to compare for myself. I must say, I think I did a very credible job. Here is my “How Jamie Dimon Should Have Answered Representative Katie Porter”:

First, let me say that a job is a two-way street. It’s based on mutual self-interest. We, as an employer with particular concerns, have as much right to do what’s best for our business as the employee has to do what’s best for herself in the context of her life and concerns. Ideally, both can find common ground and advance our respective interests together by the prospective employee accepting our job offer.

As to our policy, the employee is paid according to her productive contribution to our business, not her needs. As she gains knowledge, skills, and experience, she has the opportunity to advance in pay and position. In the meanwhile, she’ll have to figure out how to get by. Her life is her responsibility. 

We do “provide a way for families to make ends meet.” We offer jobs--good paying jobs with opportunity for advancement. But we don’t give handouts. If we pay people by need, rather than productiveness and competence, then soon enough there will be no business and the jobs, including mine, will be gone. Then how will she make ends meet? If a person doesn’t have to earn her pay, and instead get paid according to whatever she claims are her needs, then all incentive to excel at her job evaporates--along with the incentive of all of the other employees, whose competence suddenly doesn’t matter, only their needs.

Yes, I make vastly more money than her. That’s because my responsibilities and productiveness are vastly greater than hers. In fact, hers and the jobs of all 250,000+ JP Morgan employees depend on my ability to do my job competently. The only just and objective method of setting pay rates for all of these employees is merit, as judged by management and, ultimately, the judgment of the market; i.e., our customers, the ultimate end of our business. Anything other than a merit-based standard will ultimately result in inferior products, harm to our customers, and finally the loss of our customers. Need is neither just nor objective as a standard, and thus is not rational or sustainable. 

I started by emphasizing that a job is a two-way street. And as it turns out, such a relationship of mutual self-interest turns out to be win-win. Both sides advance their own well-being, based on mutual agreement. Our employees' jobs depend on a fair and rational pay policy just as much as our business does. 

I wish more businessmen would stand up for their right to exist, not just on economic grounds, but on moral grounds as well

Related Reading:

No Conflict Between People and Business

"Greed" is a Two-Way Street

If We’re to Have Labor Laws, Should They Work Both Ways?

Is ‘Common Good Capitalism’ a One-way Street?

On the Purpose of a Corporation by the Business Roundtable, PART 1

On the Purpose of a Corporation by the Business Roundtable, PART 2

Steve Jobs’ Rational Gratitude

No one can ever accuse Steve Jobs of humility. His inspired drive and vision was the moving force behind the Apple enterprise and the innovative products that have improved the lives of billions of people, and he was rightfully proud of what he accomplished. Jobs was living proof of the falsehood of Obama’s mean-spirited “you didn’t build that” mantra. “If you were successful,” Obama driveled, 

somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Obama is right about achievers who came before you, from teachers to political revolutionaries to road and bridge builders. But he’s cynically wrong that they made your achievements happen. 

No, you made that happen. If you didn make the effort, take the risks, do the thinking, it wouldn’t have happened, all of those prior achievers notwithstanding. They can bequeath to you their legacies. They cannot make your business happen. 

But Jobs is on to something, as you’ll see. While we all individually DID build that, however great or modest our productive achievements, it is also important to recognize that, while doing our building, we stood on the shoulders of the prior achievements of many many other productive people, both living and long dead--and we should be grateful to them. Jobs expresses an incontrovertible truth: Progress is hierarchical, with productiveness built upon prior productiveness, which was itself built on prior productiveness, ultimately traceable back to man’s emergence from the cave. If some Stone Age thinker hadn’t discovered how to harness fire, where would we be today? Still in the Stone Age.

With that, here is the wisdom of Steve Jobs:

From the Steve Jobs Archive

This e-mail by Steve Jobs to himself right before his death, which I just discovered, captures the spirit of the sentiment I am expressing here. It is NOT an “I didn’t build that'' message of any kind. Knowing what I have learned about Jobs—according to his excellent biography Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader, by Brent Schlendler—Jobs is expressing rational gratitude to the many achievers upon whose shoulders he was enabled to do the great things he did. Indeed, no one could ever accomplish what Jobs did by any means other than his own initiative, effort, risk-taking, and thinking. We, all of us, inherit the legacies of those who came before us. But everyone doesn’t automatically become Steve Jobs, or anyone, other than what we make of ourselves. Jobs hits on something we should all remember and take to heart.

Related Reading:

Ayn Rand Anticipated Obama's "You Didn't Build That" Outrage

Obama’s Way vs. The American Way by me for The Objective Standard

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice by Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard

“You Didn’t Build That”—Obama’s Ode to Envy by Ari Armstrong  for The Objective Standard

NJ Highway Service Center Renamed for Larry Doby

The Garden State Parkway will rename a service area for Larry Doby. Who is Larry Doby, some might ask? As Larry Higgs reports for NJ.com,

On Friday, the Brookdale Service area in Bloomfield was renamed in Doby’s honor, commemorating his career with the Cleveland Indians to become the first Black player in the AL, signing with the major league ball club in 1947, 11 weeks after Robinson signed with the Dodgers, according to his New Jersey Hall of Fame biography.

Higgs observes that “Jackie Robinson is renowned as the player who broke through baseball’s color barrier.” “But,” Higgs asks, “what about the first Black player to break the color barrier in the American League?” Overshadowed by Robinson, Higgs notes Doby deserves his “overdue recognition.” 

But I have long recognized Larry Doby’s, and Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck’s, great achievement. I wrote Larry Doby, American Hero for The Objective Standard in 2012. 

Related Reading:

Larry Doby, American Hero

42: The Triumph of Courage and Moral Certitude over Irrationality and Bigotry

NFL Players Should Protest Injustice, Not Americanism—the Cure for Injustice

Larry Doby's Overdue Congressional Gold Medal

Fighting Anti-Private Discrimination Laws: The Role of Principles in the Fight for Freedom

Title 2: Government vs. Private Action

‘Unconscious’ Bias and the End of Justice

The Civil Rights Movement of the last century fought against legal discrimination, and won. In the 1960s, legal discrimination was wiped off of the books. The fight against racism continued, of course, and still does. But fighting to eliminate private, cultural racism, with much success, is not enough for some.

The modern so-called Anti-Racism movement is rooted in the idea that racism permeates all aspects of American culture, society, and even government and law, but that it is not overt, but covert. Critical Race Theory seeks, in part, to redress this  “structural” or “systemic” racism.  We got a taste of what that means in practice, from the highest court in New Jersey.

As Blake Nelson reports for NJ Advance Media for NJ.com (In ‘historic’ ruling, N.J.’s top court orders new murder trial saying ‘implicit bias’ tainted jury selection)

New Jersey’s Supreme Court unanimously ordered a new trial Tuesday for a man convicted of murder after concluding there was evidence of “implicit bias” during the jury selection process.

In 2017, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office singled out one prospective juror for a background check after their request to have him removed was denied, according to court records. They found the candidate, a Black man identified only by initials in court papers, had a warrant and arrested him soon after.

“Based on all of the circumstances, we infer that F.G.’s removal from the jury panel may have stemmed from implicit or unconscious bias on the part of the State, which can violate a defendant’s right to a fair trial in the same way that purposeful discrimination can,” Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote in the decision.

The italics are mine. What this means is that there is no evidence of prejudice, bias, racism, or discrimination. It is “implicit bias” because the juror was a black man. If he were white, would the court have “found” any “unconscious bias?” What this means is that the court found no evidence or facts to back up the charge of racial bias. It just had to surmise that the prosecutor “may have” been biased. Imagine what the “may have” premise means in a court of law. What defense attorney will now not try to nullify a verdict based on the idea that bias may have been present. Imagine if a prosecutor implored a jury to return a guilty verdict despite weak evidence because, well, the defendant still may have done it. In the face of “may have,” what becomes of “beyond a reasonable doubt”; What becomes of “innocent until proven guilty”; What becomes of “the rule of law, not of men”; foundational American principles all?

Am I being alarmist? Considering that the NJ Supreme Court just made up bias out of whole cloth based not on evidence but on “may have,” I think not. This is the Supreme Court of a state, for God’s sake! Basically, the court declared themselves to be mind readers, or omniscient. “I don’t see any actual evidence for deliberate bias. But I just know it’s there. It just must be implicit, or unconscious, or . . . well . . . it just has to be there. Therefore, it is!” That’s the gist of this decision. Is this justice? No. Is this impartiality? No. Is this fair? No. Is this an arbitrary rule? Absolutely. This is a frontal assault on Americanism.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that what the prosecutor did was right. Here’s what happened:

In 2014, Edwin Andujar was accused of stabbing his roommate to death with a kitchen knife.

Andujar is Hispanic, according to online prison records, and lawyers began questioning potential jurors for his trial three years later.

One potential juror from Newark said he was familiar with the criminal justice system because he knew cousins in law enforcement, friends who’d been accused of crimes and others who’d been victims.

That experience meant the potential juror couldn’t be fair, prosecutors argued.

It’s “very concerning” that “his close friends hustle,” one prosecutor said, according to court records. “That draws into question whether he respects the criminal justice system.”

Andujar’s lawyer disagreed, saying “it is not a hidden fact that living in certain areas you are going to have more people who are accused of crimes, more people who are victims of crime,” court records show.

The judge sided with Andujar, concluding that the man “would make a fair and impartial juror.”

The prosecutor’s office then ran a background check.

They found the man had twice been arrested, although not convicted, and he had a current municipal court warrant for simple assault, according to court records.

None of that disqualified him as a juror, Rabner wrote. Yet prosecutors still moved to put him in handcuffs.

This certainly looks like a trick by the prosecutor to get around the judge’s ruling on that juror. I’m no legal expert, But having that juror arrested to get him off the jury certainty looks like abuse of prosecutorial power. That looks like grounds enough to throw the verdict out. So why, then, did the court resort to cheap imagination acrobatics to justify its ruling?

“The record reveals that implicit or unconscious racial bias infected the jury selection process in violation of defendant’s fundamental rights,” the chief justice wrote.

What “record?” The only record I see is prosecutorial abuse. What was “revealed?” It sounds more like a religious-like revelation. How does that prosecutorial abuse “reveal” racial bias? An unconscionable tactic, for sure. But racial bias? The only racial bias I see is in the court’s decision, which is based on the juror’s black skin color. This was an ideological, political decision to supplant rule of law with arbitrary rule of men to advance a racist, unAmerican agenda. With the justice system herein corrupted, what chance will anyone, especially anyone that now finds himself a the disfavored group, such as having “white” skin, have for a fair trial? Shame on the NJ Supreme Court for buying into this anti-justice collectivist evil.  

Related Reading:

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

Starbucks/USA Today’s Racist “Race Together” Campaign

QUORA: ‘How does Black Lives Matter differ from the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s? Which is stronger?’

Racism, Idealism, and Justice

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Related Viewing:

 

John McWhorter: America Has Never Been Less Racist -- Reason interview

Jane Elliot’s Trick Collectivist Question, and My Individualist Response

Jane Elliot, Anti-Racism activist, diversity educator, crusader against “discrimination,” posed a question to an audience at one of her lectures. Here is a transcription: 

Jane Elliott: (00:01)

I want every white person in this room who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our citizens, our black citizens, if you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society, please stand.

Audience: (00:17)

(silence)

Jane Elliott: (00:18)

You didn’t understand the directions. If you white folks want to be treated the way blacks are in this society, stand.

Audience: (00:29)

(silence)

Jane Elliott: (00:29)

Nobody’s standing here. That says very plainly that you know what’s happening, you know you don’t want it for you. I want to know why you’re so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.

Count me as standing. 

Society is made up of individuals. I, a “white” person, can only speak for the part of society I control, myself. I believe in the Golden Rule. I treat all of my fellow citizens, regardless of skin color, with respect for their individuality, integrity, and rights. I judge people based on their character, not skin color. I would have no problem being treated the same. I would be happy to receive the same treatment that our Black citizens receive from me. 

And neither am I “willing to accept or to allow” others to be subjected to racist treatment. And, I will presume, neither would most of Elliot’s audience, despite their not responding to her challenge. Does this mean they are willing to accept bigotry from others?

Apparently, Elliot’s audience didn’t know how to respond when the trap was sprung. And then she makes a truly despicable, evidence-free accusation: 

Nobody’s standing here. That says very plainly that you know what’s happening, you know you don’t want it for you. I want to know why you’re so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.

Elliot uses her audience’s confusion to accuse them of knowingly being “willing to accept” bigotry, injustice, and racism, which she attributes to “society,” not her audience members personally or individually. This is a cheap shot. I wonder what response she would have gotten if her challenge was, “I want every white person in this room, as an independent member of society, who would be happy to be treated as he/she general treats our citizens, our black citizens, if you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do from you, please stand.” 

It’s true that black Americans have been treated horribly by wide swaths of our society. This treatment was most egregious when racists were in control of the legal apparatus of the state, as under slavery and, later, under Jim Crow. And, yes, there were people who were not themselves racist but who shamefully looked the other way—who knew what’s happening, and were, through personal inaction, sanctioned the injustice that happened to others. 

But there was also a powerful counter-attack on the slavers and racists in this country. Fueled by the promise of equality and individual rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence, these genuine American heroes seized political power from the racists, which is why we no longer have slavery or Jim Crow. I wonder how these heroes against bigotry would have responded to Elliot’s trick question. Likely, they would have been stunned into silence, and then accused by Elliot of doing nothing about the treatment of black Americans! On Elliot’s collectivist premise, the white 19th Century Abolitionists probably would not have stood. Are they to be accused of “willing to accept or to allow slavery to happen for others?” On Elliot's collectivist premises, the white 20th Century Civil Rights supporters and activists who stood with Martin Luther King probably would not have stood. Are they to be accused of “willing to accept or to allow Jim Crow and racist exclusion to happen for others?”

I will not be trapped by collectivist premises. Nor will I be blamed for allowing whatever lingering racism still exists in America. Neither should anyone else. Elliot is part of the movement to tar America with the racist label for all posterity. But she and her ilk can be disarmed by understanding that the fundamental battle in America is individualism versus collectivism; that racism is a manifestation of collectivism; that individualism is the only antidote to racism; and that those who embrace collectivism have no claim to the anti-racism label. That noble label belongs to the individualists. 

What any one individual can do is limited. “Society in general” is a lot of people. But we can do something—embrace individualism in our personal lives and in any activism within our limited resources. Advocate individualism. Judge people by the content of their character, beliefs, and actions, not by the color of their skin. And then expose the absurdity and unfairness of the race-baiters. That is true anti-racism.

Related Reading:

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle  

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

Fighting Racism With Collectivism is No Way to Exterminate Racism

Racism -- Ayn Rand

How to Overcome Bigotry in a Free Society

Jamaican, gay and Ayn Rand made it OK: My amazing "Atlas Shrugged" love story: “I was young, atheist and gay in a very homophobic country. I had no intellectual armor, until I discovered Ayn Rand” --Jason Hill, professor of philosophy at De Paul University in Chicago, author of We Have Overcome: An Immigrant's Letter to the American People, and a scholar with 1776unites.

Jason Hill Vindicates the American Dream against Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Delusional Race Rhetoric by Timothy Sandefur for The Objective Standard

Related Viewing:

 John McWhorter: America Has Never Been Less Racist -- Reason interview

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’: NJ Governor Murphy’s Strange and Discriminatory ‘Baby Bonds’ Scheme

In his latest budget proposal, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is proposing a “baby bonds” plan to provide taxpayer-funded savings bonds to children born in 2021 that will be cashable on their 18th birthday. 

Here’s how the baby bonds plan would work:

Under the plan, New Jersey would provide a one-time investment of $1,000 for every 2021 baby whose family’s income is no more than five times the federal poverty level. For a family of four, the income cutoff would be $131,000, Murphy said Tuesday during his budget address at Rutgers University’s football stadium in Piscataway.

Murphy said the plan would benefit three out of every four children born in New Jersey, calling it the first statewide program of its kind. The governor did not say whether the plan would continue in future years.

“As this child grows, so, too, will the value of this bond — to help pay for college, to help make a down payment on a home, or to help start a small business,” the Democratic governor said.

On the face of it, this is just another entitlement. But this new entitlement is no ordinary welfare program.

Think about this. A run-of-the-mill welfare entitlement is geared toward the economic status of the recipient. 

Not so with Murphy’s scheme.

Every child comes into this world having never earned a single dollar. Every child is born broke. So fairness would dictate that every single child get the baby bond. After all, a newborn child has no control over his parents’ earning power, no claim on his parents’ income or wealth once he reaches the age of 18, no guarantee he will be given anything by his parents, and no capacity to launch a remunerative career. Yet this child will be handed a nest egg, or not, based on something he has no control over--his parents’ economic status. 

Being judged by something beyond one’s control. Sound familiar?

Now consider this:

[Patrick] Murray, the Monmouth [University] pollster, said Murphy was shrewd to add the “baby bonds” proposal to the budget and cast tax hikes as “measures of racial equality” after the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum in recent months.

The governor said during his speech that “too many families of color pay a greater share of their hard-earned income in taxes than millionaires, who are overwhelmingly not people of color.”

“Ensuring fairness and justice in taxation is just as important as ensuring fairness and justice in society,” Murray said. “In fact, it is an essential step in eliminating the structural racism in our society.”

“Structural racism” disappeared from our laws with the end of the Jim Crow era. Here, Murphy’s structural racism refers to statistical disparities in income and wealth, not of individuals, but of families. How do statistical disparities indicate structural racism today? They don’t. There is little doubt that economic disparities are lingering effects, in part, of racist laws from the last century. That was genuine structural racism. But that’s gone. It’s history. The lingering statistical disparities of today prove nothing about racism today. So innocent children born in 2021 are to be cheated because of wrongs perpetrated long ago, if their parents belong to a group that is statistically “overwhelmingly not people of color”--families earning more than $131,000 per year! Statistics prove nothing, but they are useful as a last refuge for damned liars.

The baby bonds program is not overtly racist: All New Jersey children below five times the federal family poverty level will get the bonds. But in that Murphy has a racial motive, the bond program is covertly racist.

Imagine two children born in 2021. One gets a $1000 bond. The other doesn’t. Eighteen years later, one child gets a pile of money from the state, the other gets nothing. Why the unequal treatment of the law? Not because of money the child earns--neither child has ever had any substantiation income--but because of someone else’s income. 

Is this fair? What can possibly justify this disparate treatment by one’s own government? Note the focus on families. Enter mankind’s darkest evil--collectivism. Note the income threshold is not based on any particular individual’s doing. The threshold is “family” income. The child is judged not as an individual but as part of a collective--the family.

The baby bonds program is actually the intersection of two collectivist evils--racism and egalitarian criminal socialism. A child has no control over his parents’ economic status any more than he has control over his skin color. Yet he is to be judged not on his own attributes by the attributes of the family he is born into--their color and their economic status. This is economic and racial bigotry. 

Racism is re-invading American law at the expense of objectivity *, and that is a bad sign. Murphy’s approach to the baby bonds, though it stops just short of explicitly employing race as a criteria for inclusion, is part of a much wider threat to America--the repudiation of individualism and the deliberate regression to tribalism, with the associated “market for victimhood” and “cycle of revenge” that infests tribal societies both today and throughout history. Murphy says “Ensuring fairness and justice in taxation is just as important as ensuring fairness and justice in society.” 

But collectivism is actually the obliteration of fairness and justice because only individuals, not groups, exist in reality. And in reality fairness and justice applies only to individuals. Protecting individual rights, not group “rights”, equally and at all times, is the only foundation for valid law. Anyone who forgets that principle cannot claim ensuring justice as a motive.

* [As philosopher Harry Binswanger explains in What is Objective Law?, “As the law must be objective in its source, so it must be objective in its form: objective laws are clearly defined, consistent, unambiguous, stable, and as straightforward and simple as possible. They are also impartial and universal, in the sense of applying to all individuals as individuals rather than as members of any race, creed, class or other collective.”] {my emphasis}

Related Reading:

NJ Turns its Back on the 14th Amendment – and History

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Fundamental Principle of America

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’

The Racism of the 'Anti-Racists': 'This New America' - Apartheid?

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

Related Viewing:

 Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The Market for Victimhood [a critically important and timely half-hour talk followed by a one hour Q&A]

“It has been said that education opens the mind, while indoctrination closes it. A good education permits one to think critically, and to consider multiple viewpoints." Ayaan Hirsi Ali joins those who have been sounding the alarm on the closing of the American mind.