Gotta Love Revisionism

[le_bebna_kamni]

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." -- Sinclair Lewis

---

Revisionism is something that occurs to some extent in every generation as values change. For example, indigenous people to the continent were once called "savages" and as a general rule people thought their extermination/forced conversion/reformation was not only desirable but an absolute necessity. Yet today the descendants of these people are given more respectful titles such as "Native Americans" or even the right to refer to themselves as Lakota/Nakota/Dakota as opposed to "Sioux", with a recognition that what our government may have done was reprehensible and perhaps on par with many fascist regimes.

Yet while value judgments about said actions may change (or the respected emphasis that may be placed in our culture on specific events), the facts themselves do not. So while I might have ideological issues with someone trying to apologize for laizez-faire capitalism at the turn of the century by pointing out the rise in the GNP (with the resulting claim that the gap in the highest and lowest incomes was necessary), it's a very different story from someone trying to claim that standards of living and working conditions for the average wage employee were better before union-initiated reforms when in fact the numbers do not support that.

I take particular umbrage with historical revisionists who try to make claims counter to the facts, and who attempt to suppress evidence or make sure at least the mainstream textbooks print only what they want to see. Which is why I am particularly upset with House Resolution 888.

A brief explanation of the resolution: it is trying to create an "American Religious History Week" designated for the first week of May. Of course, further reading of the bill shows that it would be more aptly titled "Christian American Religious History Week", as no other religions are mentioned as being historically important. What is worse, the resolution has a series of dubious historical "facts" that the Congress is being asked to affirm the truth of, to show that the Congress "rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation's public buildings and educational resources".

There are several sites that have done the job of debunking for me, so I'm not interested in going over each and every single argument in the tedious document.

However, this raises a very interesting issue: why is our government stepping in and deciding issues of history? Laws punishing people who willingly falsify documents, I completely understand, but deciding what is true or false and potentially leading to a decision of what is taught in our classrooms?

The majority of people in Congress are not trained historians. They're also not trained scientists. But overwhelmingly, I see Congress and our judicial system being called to make judgments regarding history and science that are not within their realms of expertise. At least I can give the judges slightly more credit -- they at least have to sit through presentations given by experts regarding the subject matter to be ruled upon. But Congress has no such requirement, and many such bills are passed without such expert testimony.

For those who support this idea -- that Congress can and should legislate what counts as "science" or "history" -- let me just step back and say, have you considered the ramifications of the state-sponsored truth?

The Soviet Union was very quick to decide what was history and what was science, supporting T.D. Lysenko's rejection of Mendelian genetics and causing starvation because Lysenko's falsified "theories" were more in line with communist ideology. The USSR was also well known for its photo-editing and its "revisionist" state-mandated textbooks, cutting out key public figures that had in some way fallen out of favor with the current regime and selectively interpreting past relations with the US.

Rather than relying on open discussion by qualified experts, the government of the Soviet Union stepped in to make sure that the correct "truth" -- i.e., only the message they wanted people to hear -- was being told. And this is what our government is trying to do with House Resolution 888. It isn't trying to establish principles on which good historical research should be based -- rather it is actively trying to determine what truth should be recognized, regardless of the methods used.

Since I can think of no other reason why people would want regulation of "truth" itself without caring about the methods for acquiring such "truth", it can only be construed as an issue of propaganda meant to further an ideological agenda. If you like the idea that we're following in the fine tradition of the Soviet Union, please feel free to support House Resolution 888.

However, if you think freedom goes hand in hand with allowing independent experts -- not untrained government officials -- to decide what is history or science, please contact your local representative and tell them not to support this resolution.

Comments

[sinmantyx.livejournal.com]

Whereas in 1954, Congress by law added the phrase `one nation under God' to the Pledge of Allegiance;

wahahahahaha....I LOVE THIS. Every time someone says we say it because of the "traditions of our founding fathers" I have to try really hard to remember the exact date when we changed it.

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

Yes, I got a kick out the statement that the pyramid and "All-Seeing Eye" were supposed to be representations of Christianity, rather than vestiges of masonry and mystery religions. Considering that this is a more recent edition to our money, and how I've read several Christian books denouncing the recent money changes as evidence that our society is moving away from Christianity, I find it ironic (or maybe downright dishonest) that it is being used by Christians as a historical indication of their superiority.

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

For reference, here is what the back of a dollar bill in 1928 looked like:



I believe our modern bill was designed in 1957. So even if for some reason it represents the Christian god (and not paganistic traditions as I've seen fundies claim), it still doesn't reflect our founding fathers.

But there are people alive today who were old enough to remember the 1957 change. Do we really have such short memories that we think the dollar bill was always that way?

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

And I forgot to add one more thing: I have seen pseudo-historical sites that say that the all-seing eye was accepted by Congress from the very beginning, but not used on currency. I am inclined to accept this at least marginally on the basis that many of our founding fathers were members of "secret societies", as was the fashion for the day, and can be confirmed by more reputable sources. This trend also became popular around the turn of the twentieth century, and it isn't that strange to hear of very intellectual men subscribing to spiritualism and joining Masons or other societies.

However, I hardly think that Masonry supports the idea that our founding fathers were conservative Christians.

[sinmantyx.livejournal.com]

More to the point: generally, politicians do not necessarily sit through expert testimony, but rely on "staffers" - who sometimes are just pretty to look at and other times are actually competent.

When my husband went to lobby in Washington, DC., he noticed that Senator Wellstone (now deceased - a great man) had the ugliest staff...and also the best staff.

Anyway, just to show my own bias, perhaps we should have a Unitarian Universalist week in May instead. I mean, we claim 3 out of the first 5 Presidents (...not to mention Susan B. Anthony and Paul Revere). We certainly deserve a week and a resolution to strongly discourage people from calling the "founding fathers" a bunch of Conservative Christians.

Of course, the coolest thing ever was when the first Muslim Senator (from MN, I believe) asked to be sworn in on Thomas Jefferson's Koran...and everyone's like - what the hell? - TJ had a Koran?!

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

Yes, thanks for your witty insight. If you would like to draft a resolution asking for Unitarian Universalist week in May (and everyone knows they're just a *cult*), I would be happy to help you collect signatures of people who want to see it brought to Congress.

But I have to ask: was the Thomas Jefferson Koran anything like the "Thomas Jefferson Bible"? My how Islamists would throw a fit if that were true!

[(Anonymous)]

As far as I know, the Koran of Jefferson was not mutilated in any way.

If it was, I think that is something we can keep quite...I mean, revisionism isn't always bad. :)

[sinmantyx.livejournal.com]

Oops! That was me!

[orogeny2000.livejournal.com]

interesting, and I shall have to go read the debunking things later I know there is the same problem with economic issues as well. Personally, I've certainly seen the problem with environmental issues being decided by people with a poor understanding of the impact of their choices.

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

I would agree with your assertion about environmental issues, although I tend to lump that under the issue of "scientifice decisions", since most people who study environmental problems are ecologists, meteorologists and climatologists, medical researchers determining the impacts of polution/radiation/dumping on the human body, etc.

While I think these issues could also fall under "morality" (e.g., animals should not be considered inferior to humans, the "humans as caretakers" mentality, etc.), I find a much more compelling argument to enact laws when they are backed by practicality and empirical research.

[kenosis.livejournal.com]

You may be interested to read this article; I'm not sure one can make the argument that unionization was responsible for standard of living.

That's a tangent, though: I agree with your main point and think that there are always a lot of problems when the group that produces is the same as the group that regulates.

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

Your article is very interesting, but doesn't relate to the point that I was trying to address. First of all, the discussion was intended for U.S. history, while the article is related to English history. I'm not particularly familiar with English laws or social conditions during that time (fiction aside), so I can only speak for the U.S. Secondly, I was referring to the change in living standards between pre-unionization and post-unionization, which occurred approximately around the turn of the twentieth century in the US. Your article covers a period approximately a fifty years to a century and a half prior to the time in question.

The fact that gains in GNP equated to raised standards for everyone does not negate the assertion that greater gains in quality of living for the working class came after unionization (including, but not limited to, income per hour worked and working conditions).

It is undeniable that one of the best innovations of the Industrial Revolution was to create goods more cheaply so that people of all classes had access to certain kinds of material comforts. However, if you like weekends or lunch breaks or overtime, or even the fact that you can take sick days without being fired, you have the unions to thank for that. If you like the idea that your employer doesn't hire you on a daily basis, so you at least theoretically have a job every morning, thank the unions.

Be glad that women make approximately equivalent wages, or that you don't make $2.25 an hour (seriously -- a historical document that I read quite some time ago said that an unskilled typical-style factory job made about $.09 per hour for men, $.03 for women in approximately 1900 -- I believe these figures were from New York. Adjusted for changes in purchasing power (http://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/index.php), at the same wages you would be making $2.23 and I would be making $.74. I'm sure you can calculate those figures in relation to the current minimum wage (which still leaves a single individual with no children only $300 above the poverty level). This is one of the reasons why most residences in 1900 were multi-family households and children also worked (and we're talking 6- or 8-year-olds, not teenagers, who usually made $.01-$.02 per hour).

An online publication (http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/1900/fam.html) I found has average working-class male wages at $620.19 per year in Chicago, or 19.9 cents per hour (assuming a 60-hour work week, which was standard at the time, for 52 weeks of the year -- which tends to make the estimate slightly on the high side), and 3.7 cents for women. These figures include skilled labor, so are significantly higher (at least for men). Adjusted for modern buying power, this still equates with $4.93 and $.92. While the male average is only $.22 less than minimum wage (although enough to put a single male individual below the poverty level), don't forget that this is an average, meaning that while skilled men made significantly more, unskilled workers who make the equivalent of minimum wage today were making significantly less. A single woman or a woman whose husband had died and had no family to fall back on, no matter how skilled, would have less than a fifth of poverty-level wages.

Please bear in mind that these adjustments are calculated based on purchasing power, which is closer to the concept of "real income" -- i.e., how much can the wage you're making actually buy. So the average 1900 household of 5 people (a husband, wife, and 3 children who are all working) would make $18739.14 by today's standards (based off the Chicago article's estimate of $756.63), or about $5300 below the poverty level for a family of that size (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh06.html).

If you know any working-class families that would feel "better off" with these old standards than those enacted after minimum wage laws, please let me know. ;P

[kenosis.livejournal.com]

Doing a (very lazy) search I couldn't find a similar study for America online - there are several books of which I am familiar (the chief of which that I can think of is Thomas DiLorenzo's "How Capitalism Saved America") that document that the cost of goods in labor hours has fallen considerably beginning in 1880.

Unionization is a visible component of what is (imho) the invisible cause of this change: industrialization itself. To argue that without unions we wouldn't have weekends off seems disingenous to me; working conditions were improving in firms that were and were not unionized before unionization and subsquent union-led legislation. Examining other parts of the world currently that are not unionizing we can see that industrialization brings with it, anywhere and everywhere, a decrease in the Gini coefficient, which means that the distribution of income is more even across societies. It's doubtful that America bucks this trend - Rondo Cameron (in another book, "An Economic History of the World", I think) pointed out that America's estimated Gini coefficient was highest in the years immediately preceding the Civil War, and considerable components of what are perceived as objective journalism have to be taken with a grain of salt. Ida Tarbell, the flayer of Standard Oil, happened to be the sister of a firm that couldn't compete with Standard Oil.

Societies are wealthier due to increased productivity, not due to increased legislation. The reason why I don't earn $3.00 an hour is because I am more productive than I would have been in 1900. Wealthier societies are seen to have trade-offs between amount of income and quality of work done. This, by no means, is caused by unionization but rather by capital accumulation.

I don't support the minimum wage;

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

Your first point is correct -- as I mentioned before, one of the greatest benefits of the industrial revolution was lowering the price of goods. Since you're familiar with capitalism, you will also be familiar with the reasons for this: having a large supply with respect to the actual demand drives down the prices drastically.

However, since the money equations I referenced are based on "purchasing power", presumably this was taken into account. If it was not, it would actually imply that workers were making significantly less than the figures I quoted you.

I would be interested in seeing your figures on the Gini coefficient that support your assertion that non-unionized industrialization is decreasing it elsewhere in the US. Let me provide two charts lazily ganked from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient):





As you can see from the first map, the United States has an incredibly high Gini coefficient relative to, say, countries in Europe (which as I'm sure you know tend to be pretty socialistic). The UK is an exception to European countries, but then again the UK has labor policies much closer to the U.S. than, for example, Canada does. China isn't terrible, but if you look at the second graph it actually shows that since it started industrializing its Gini coefficient has gone up. India has also gone up, and China and India are two countries touted for industrialization.

I'd also like to point out that France as seen the most dramatic drop in Gini coefficients (and we know what socialistic bastards they all are ;P).

So there are my figures. Which ones do you have?

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

I forgot to post the color key for the first chart. Here it is:

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

And the grey box text isn't displaying properly: grey contries represent those where data is not available.

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

And correction on third paragraph, first sentence. It should read:

I would be interested in seeing your figures on the Gini coefficient that support your assertion that non-unionized industrialization is decreasing the coefficient outside of the US. Actually, any statistics showing the Gini coefficient is *not* increasing in the US as we move toward privatization would be a remarkable find as well.

And I dare you to find Gini coefficient statistics for the "robber baron" years. ;P

[le-bebna-kamni.livejournal.com]

Oh, we're currently on par with Malaysia and the Phillipines. ;P

Check out these figures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_States):

"In 1968, the U.S.' Gini coefficient was 0.386, about equivalent to that of contemporary Portugal (38.5) and Japan (38.1), though still above that of the United Kingdom (36.8) and Canada (33.1). However, in the years since deregulation and globalization have allowed U.S. companies to begin to shift their manufacturing and heavy industrial operations to second- and third-world countries with lower labor costs, income inequality in the U.S. has risen dramatically. In 2005, the American Gini coefficient had reached 0.469, similar to that of Malaysia and the Philippines, both at 46.1, and well-ahead of China (44.0)."

[sinmantyx.livejournal.com]

Alright, first I will say I'm not an economist and have a difficult time rummaging through indexes and indicators and what-not.

There are a few simple on-the-ground assertions I'll make.

If unemployment (for any reason) is very low, employees will be treated reasonably because they have choices. For example, because there are not many people in my field "market pressures" dictate that someone with my qualifications usually get paid better than someone who studied English or History and is seeking an academic job.

If unemployment (for any reason) is very high, employees will be treated unreasonably because they do not have a choice. This certainly happened during the economic catastrophes of the great depression, where you either risked your life digging tunnels for a few dollars or you basically starved. There is no incentive for employers to treat workers well because they are completely expendable.

While growing up I was completely convinced that the more you worked the less money you had. My parent's owned a farm in the 80's and worked very hard and made very little money. The banker actually had days off and sat around all day and made a reasonable income. I just can't buy the idea that "amount of income and quality of work done" is somehow proportionate on an individual level, even if it might be true on an "average" basis.

To me, the minimum wage is a no-brainer. It's a measure that curtails taking advantage of employees that may not have reasonable choices in whatever circumstances they may be in. If equal pay for equal work happened magically due to the invisible hand of capitalism, that would be great. However, it doesn't...not ALL THE TIME and not for everyone.

When my workplace unionized and we finalized our first contract, a few individuals with in our bargaining unit received 50% increases in wages due to a minimum full-time equivalent salary of $28,000. This is in the University of Michigan system (all of the salaries of everyone working for the State of Michigan including the U of M are part of the public record, btw). So, before unionization some faculty members were getting paid less than your average sales associate at Home Depot, even though teaching at a University requires years of special training requiring thousands of dollars to be qualified.

Now, if the U of M magically paid their lecturers a living wage because it was the right thing to do - or because they actually understood that using their lecturers as cheap expendable labor was destroying their "product" - unionization would not be needed or even desired. Also, if unskilled entry-level jobs automatically paid people what they were actually worth to the company, a minimum wage would not be needed. In fact, having a minimum wage would not affect these companies or the workers because the workers would be compensated above minimum wage due to "market forces". (Which actually is the case for many people - good for them!)

Is industrialization or unionization the reason we enjoy a relatively high quality of life? Even without crushing numbers, I think I can safely conclude that it is both.