Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Rick Salutin nicely describes what's behind the "charity" model of top-end wish fulfillment that the Cons are pitching in place of actual social programs:

The Old Philanthropy, aside from a few big foundations that now look modest, was embodied in wealthy people who went on boards like the United Way. They led by their own contributions, and worked with the social agencies involved, while encouraging ordinary people to give in their workplaces, schools, churches etc. That model has faded as the social gap widened. Fewer people can afford to contribute. Only 23 per cent of Canadians now report donations on their tax returns. It’s a record low. The old model really built community; the United Way was once even called Community Chest, which you still see on Monopoly (the game) boards. Community scarcely figures in the new model. You get the rich, noble few and the wretched, competing recipients.

What was bad in the old version of charity was that it reinforced the sense of distance and difference between givers and givees. What was good about it is that it injected an element into public activity not tied to the dominant economic system through the profit motive; the old charity was predicated instead on fellow feeling, human solidarity and even, gulp, love. The New Philanthropy, which is basically even older than the old kind, reintroduces an appeal to narrow self-interest in the form of greed, a jacked-up component of control, and narcissism in the form of fawning media reflections. Whoopee.

- Kevin Libin discusses the cost of the Cons' dumb-on-crime policies (which is of course being downloaded to the provinces):

Yes, I know: Boo-effin'-hoo. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Canadians have been warned that there's a new sheriff in town, and if they can't play by the Tories' stern new rules, then it's their own fault if they end up destroying their own families, their health, their mental stability and their economic stability. Fair enough.

But even if that's how we want to look at things, it doesn't mean the rest of us won't also have to bear some of the direct and indirect costs of higher incarceration rates and longer prison terms, too. If the Prime Minister's tough-on-crime rules end up creating more ex-cons, and more hardened ex-cons, and they end up, as they have in the United States, increasing the portion of our population with mental illnesses, poorer health, chronic unemployment and homelessness problems and family break-ups, those are costs that are going to hit the provinces harder in their health-care budgets and social support program budgets - and for years longer than the actual incarcerations.

The provinces are right to worry about the added enforcement, court and prison costs the Conservatives' new crime bill will bring. They should be just as worried about the costs they'll face further down the road.

- Kady notes that Russ Hiebert's anti-union bill was struck from the House of Commons order paper - making for at least some delay in the Cons' attacks on workers. But it's worth noting the flip side of the ruling as well to the extent the ruling reflects a more strict application of the limitations on private members' bills may also significantly restrict what the opposition parties are able to present for debate (while the Cons can simply redirect their efforts toward government bills which won't face the same obstacles).

- Paul Moist points out how attacks on organized labour can affect workers in general:

Over the last few decades, the salaries of CEOs have been driven higher and higher, while the wages of their workers grow at an absurdly slower rate. Defined benefit pensions have become increasingly scarce. When once we strived to work hard, save, and build a better life for our families, corporations want us to believe we are lucky to have a job at all -- but don't let that stop you from raking up thousands and thousands in consumer debt.

The myth can't go on forever, and even the most fervent Conservative supporter is bound to ask -- we keep giving corporations every advantage, why isn't it getting any better for me and my family?

Lacking any rational answer, at least one that doesn't betray Bay Street, Harper Conservatives have a long list of ideological scapegoats at the ready.

Circumstance put postal workers and Air Canada employees at the head of the queue, but every other union member in Canada knows they are next. Someone has to take the fall for failing trade policies, corporate irresponsibility, and massive deficits caused by regressive tax schemes.

So ploy after ploy is being used to undermine Canadian labour. Union members, especially public-sector union members, are being offered up as the economic boogiemen, with tired stereotypes being trotted out to portray some Canadian workers as privileged just because they have some small measure of security.

These types of tactics are not fitting of our society. They speak to a reliance on divisive political games that play to the worst fears of Canadians to gain and maintain power. While unions are the present target, union members are far from the only one being harmed by this type of politics. It's lead to a tragic erosion in many's faith in our democratic process, and the mass disenfranchisement of far too many Canadian citizens.

- And finally, Paul Krugman highlights the oligarchy which seems to be controlling the political agenda no less thoroughly in Canada than the U.S.:

If anything, the protesters are setting the cutoff too low. The recent budget office report doesn’t look inside the top 1 percent, but an earlier report, which only went up to 2005, found that almost two-thirds of the rising share of the top percentile in income actually went to the top 0.1 percent — the richest thousandth of Americans, who saw their real incomes rise more than 400 percent over the period from 1979 to 2005.

Who’s in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they’re corporate executives. Recent research shows that around 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent either are executives in nonfinancial companies or make their money in finance, i.e., Wall Street broadly defined. Add in lawyers and people in real estate, and we’re talking about more than 70 percent of the lucky one-thousandth.

But why does this growing concentration of income and wealth in a few hands matter? Part of the answer is that rising inequality has meant a nation in which most families don’t share fully in economic growth. Another part of the answer is that once you realize just how much richer the rich have become, the argument that higher taxes on high incomes should be part of any long-run budget deal becomes a lot more compelling.

The larger answer, however, is that extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy. Can anyone seriously deny that our political system is being warped by the influence of big money, and that the warping is getting worse as the wealth of a few grows ever larger?

Some pundits are still trying to dismiss concerns about rising inequality as somehow foolish. But the truth is that the whole nature of our society is at stake.