by L. Randall Wray
Here’s a summary of the plan Bernie Sanders has set out, along with my comments (in italics).
1.) We need a major investment to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. $1 trillion investment to create 13 million decent paying jobs and make this country more efficient and productive.
Agreed, but let’s not settle for a mere 13 million jobs. We need twice that. And, of course, the “price tag” is irrelevant-so long as we create useful jobs that pay living wages, we can “always afford” to pay for them. By creating jobs we are not just investing in infrastructure, but we are also investing in our people, enhancing their participation in our society and providing them with the means to support their families. We can always afford that.
2.) The United States must lead the world in reversing climate change and make certain that this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized, our transportation system needs to be energy efficient and we need to greatly accelerate the progress we are already seeing in wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other forms of sustainable energy. Transforming our energy system will not only protect the environment, it will create good paying jobs.
Agreed. Millions of additional jobs can be created, at the wage and benefit package we decide to pay. We can train an army of the employed to bring the USA into the 21st century, much as the New Deal’s job programs brought America into the 20th century. We’re going to need to go well beyond these infrastructure-type jobs, however. We also need to put people to work providing care services for our aging population.
3.) We need to develop new economic models to increase job creation and productivity. Instead of giving huge tax breaks to corporations which ship our jobs to China and other low-wage countries, we need to provide assistance to workers who want to purchase their own businesses by establishing worker-owned cooperatives. Study after study shows that when workers have an ownership stake in the businesses they work for, productivity goes up, absenteeism goes down and employees are much more satisfied with their jobs.
Mostly Agreed. We need to think beyond restricting job creation to our nation’s private undertakers. A federal government program of direct job creation-at a living wage-eliminates the necessity of using tax breaks and wage subsidies to try to induce the undertakers to create jobs. A Universal Job Guarantee Program ensures everyone can work at a living wage. Private undertakers will need to offer similar conditions in order to compete. However, there is room for workers’ cooperatives: let workers join together and propose projects. (This is what Argentina experimented with in its Jefes program.) The Job Guarantee program can pay wages in the coops for some predetermined period (say, 18 months), letting them get on their feet. If the coops can out-compete private undertakers, let the undertakers go under.
4.) Union workers who are able to collectively bargain for higher wages and benefits earn substantially more than non-union workers. Today, corporate opposition to union organizing makes it extremely difficult for workers to join a union. We need legislation which makes it clear that when a majority of workers sign cards in support of a union, they can form a union.
