This "Occupy" movement is interesting, but I'm not exactly sure what it's about, and in particular what the protesters want. As best I can tell, the main participants are idealists who see gross injustice in capitalism's excesses in compensating individuals, the unemployed and underemployed who want more of the pie as they are angry at those who seem to have disproportionate slices (a variation of class envy), and those who just like to stir up the pot using the cause-du-jour (though for most not rising to the level of anarchists). The first and last groups can be dismissed fairly easily. In the first case, it's just the usual socialist arguments, but the thing is, socialism is great in theory, but doesn't work in practice. In circumstances other than rudimentary microeconomic situations, some people will not play fair and follow the rules, and thus socialism is doomed to failure regardless of whether its philosophical arguments have merit or not. (As Churchill said,
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”) And for the rabble-rousers, and I don't think there are that many of them, well, they just seem to like the rousing. But it's the middle group that's interesting...
There are a lot of unhappy people. When you see people rioting in London, of all places, because they're angry about being poor and not having jobs (and who wouldn't be?), you know things are bad. The middle class may or may not be evaporating, and it's hardly a new complaint or phenomenon ("Let them eat cake!"- widely and probably inaccurately attributed to Marie Antoinette. I like the Mel Brooks History of the World, Part I version better: "The people are revolting." to which the king responds "You said it; they stink on ice."). People are unhappy about the level of corporate profits and in particular the ridiculously high executive salaries. I'd agree that executive salaries are often wildly excessive, but those in the movement seem to believe, much as many students do, that effort is the important measure of value, i.e., I deserve a good grade because I tried so hard. But effort and productivity, in terms of quality and value, are not the same. For instance, it's a good thing to teach children that trying your best and good sportsmanship are what's most important in playing a sport, but the practice of not keeping score delivers the inappropriate message that performance does not matter. Oh, but we don't want children to feel that they've lost, as this might hurt their delicate self-esteem. Congratulations, now we have a generation with too many irresponsible, entitled, and self-absorbed people.
So anyway, people are unhappy because they try hard too but are not paid a lot. This usually reduces to the "luck" argument, where someone wins the birth lottery or is the right place at the right time. There's probably a lot of truth to that, as there is ample evidence to support the proposition that there is a ton of brilliance and talent out there that goes unrewarded, comparatively, as evidenced by American Idol, for instance (still have never watched that show). So I think it's fairly obvious that it isn't just those that are three standard deviations out from the mean that are the super-successful. Just look at those who went to high school with you who weren't as smart or athletic or popular or whatever seems to matter in high school and yet they have a way bigger paycheck, status, etc. Maybe they have more motivation or other skills or attributes that matter, even if those skills or attributes shouldn't really matter, or maybe it's just luck. It's also pretty obvious, though, that in many cases the lucky have contributed to some degree to their own luck. What's fascinating to me is not just the randomness involved for someone to end up in a position to receive monster compensation for their performance, but in the randomness involved in being perceived as a high performer.
This is especially true where others are involved in the outcome. Over time, a baseball player's batting average will probably "even out," where the randomness that affects which batted balls in play become base hits regresses to the mean. But for a corporate executive, whose bonus is tied to company performance, those strategic and tactical decisions are often swamped by exogenous factors such as the economy and competition, not to mention that others in the company are often doing a good deal of the work. In other words, CEOs and senior executives typically don't have a lot to do with the company's performance. I read a book a while back cataloging this in some detail, but I'm pretty sure this blog is long enough already.
Is that fair that the randomness of selection and the randomness of perception should make the 1% so different from the 99%? Who knows, who cares. If you measure your worth by others you'll always be unhappy as there is always somebody "better" than you. And how many people are jealous of the success of even their friends? Envy has no purpose.
image from democraticunderground.com
Labels: occupy movement
