A Labor Day Question: What Makes a Decent Society?

Someone once asked labor leader Samuel Gompers, "What does labor want?" His response is often misquoted, limited to one word: "More." By doing so, that one-word answer makes the labor movement seem narrow and selfish. What Gompers (who lived from 1850 to 1924) actually said reflects his vision that a very different kind of society was possible and that the labor movement could play an important role in shaping that vision into reality. What Gompers actually said (in the sexist language of that era) was the following:

“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.”

Gompers' statement should inspire us to ask: What kind of society do WE want, today and in the future? What do we mean by a "decent" and "humane" society? Here's my answer.

A humane and decent society provides people with the opportunity to fulfill their potential and find happiness and meaning, including meaningful work. These cannot be guaranteed but they can be made more likely by two key ingredients: shared prosperity and robust democracy.

Shared prosperity means that everyone in society has the basics: a well-paying job, safe workplaces, access to health care (including health providers and medications, and mental health services), affordable housing, accessible parks and playgrounds, safe streets and neighborhoods, decent schools and libraries, access to transportation by car, bus, and/or train, clean air, and leisure time.

These things should be available to people regardless of where they live, their income, race, gender, religion, or ethnicity. It doesn’t mean that everyone in society has the same level of income and wealth, that everyone can live in a mansion or take lavish vacations. But it does mean that these things are considered “public goods” that are basic rights for all. They are a floor below which people should not fall in a humane society.

A decent and humane society seeks to limit various forms of inequality and segregation in terms of income, wealth, race, gender, schools, work, housing, and health.

Compounding these inequalities is geographic inequality and segregation, which makes it more difficult for our society to create both shared prosperity and robust democracy. A great deal of research shows that in an unequal society, where you grow up and live has a profound influence on opportunities to live a fulfilling life. Poor ghettos are the flip side of rich ghettos. Poverty is the flip side of super-wealth. The growing geographic segregation of America’s wealthy, middle class, and poor people is not the inevitable result of human nature, but a legacy of attitudes and policies that can be changed. In the pursuit of shared prosperity and robust democracy, place matters.

The provision of “public goods” requires a robust, efficient, and effective government. It requires government to establish strong rules and provide support to people and places. It imposes limits on market forces and businesses that seek to make excessive profits – for example, by protecting people from corporate practices that pollute the environment, pay low wages, sell unsafe products, profit from the proliferation of assault weapons, or charge high prices for basic necessities, such as medicine, apartments, water, electricity, and food.

Only government can provide parks and playgrounds, schools, and libraries, roads and buses, safe streets and public safety departments (police and fire) that are available to everyone, regardless of wealth or income.

A decent and human society requires government run by people who believe in the power of laws and rules that apply to everyone. Only government can make possible the conditions that allow businesses to thrive—schools and universities that train the future workforce, public transportation (cars, buses, trains, ports, and airports) that allows the movement of goods, public safety that permits companies and other employers to conduct business, and a military and diplomatic corps that protects the country from invasion and allows the flow of goods, services, people, and ideas across borders.

We pay taxes so that government can adopt policies and provide services and subsidies that make our society more livable and more fair. These include up-to-date fire trucks and other equipment, minimum wages, emergency assistance for victims of hurricanes and earthquakes, funds for public schools and playgrounds, financial aid for college students, funds to upgrade roads and bridges, laws that protect consumers and workers, rules that set standards for safe workplaces, food stamps to reduce hunger, housing subsidies to help families pay rent, funds to help parents pay for child care, and rules that limit discrimination and abuse by landlords, police, banks, employers, and others. Taxes should be based on income and wealth. They should be progressive, so people and corporations pay their fair share.

A robust democracy means that people have a voice in their government and have access to information so they can make good choices. This involves voting rights, election laws, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, laws regulating and limiting the use of private wealth in elections, laws protecting workers’ right to join unions, and laws protecting people’s right to peacefully protest without intimidation.

Throughout human history, people have organized social movements to try to improve their lives and the society in which they lived. Examples include labor, civil rights, feminist, gay rights, disability rights, environmental, peace, farmer populism, and others. Powerful groups and institutions have generally resisted these efforts in order to maintain their own privilege, although there are always people from privileged backgrounds who join forces with the oppressed and less powerful.

Back in 1900, people who called for women’s suffrage, laws protecting the environment and consumers, an end to lynching, the right of workers to form unions, a progressive income tax, a federal minimum wage, old-age insurance, dismantling of Jim Crow laws, the eight-hour workday, and government-subsidized health care and housing were considered impractical idealists, utopian dreamers, or dangerous socialists.

Now we take these ideas for granted. Many of the so-called “radical” ideas of one generation have become the common sense of subsequent generations. History reveals that change that improves the lives of most Americans is possible.

In many ways, the U.S. is a more humane and democratic society than it was in the early 1900s or even the 1960s. Many obstacles to democracy and fairness have been removed or weakened. More Americans have the right to vote, including people of color and those between 18 and 21, despite conservative efforts at voter suppression. Gay couples have the right to marry. Cars, trucks, factories and other facilities have to control toxic emissions. Corporations have to provide warning labels on consumer products and medicines. Banks, landlords, developers, and employers face penalties if they are caught engaging in racial or gender discrimination. Workplaces are safer, thanks to government regulations. These laws and rules only matter if they are enforced, and that remains a challenge.

Since 1961, the number of African American members of Congress has increased from four to 59. Since 1985, the number of Hispanics in Congress has grown from 14 to 52. Since 1977, the number of women in Congress has grown from 18 to 150. The current Congress has 12 openly LGBT members — an all-time high. There are similar trends among local and state elected officials.

This is cause for celebration but not cause for self-satisfaction or apathy. Many other countries do better than the U.S. at both robust democracy and shared prosperity.

There is much more to do, many more struggles to fight. We have a long way to go to achieve shared prosperity and a robust democracy.