A Little Hannah Arendt For Labor Day

 "With the term vita active, I propose to designate three fundamental human activities:  labor, work, and action.  They are fundamental because each corresponds to one of the
basic conditions under which life on earth has been given to man.

Labor is the activity which corresponds to the biological process of the human body, who's spontaneous growth, metabolism, and eventually decay are bound to the vital necessities  produced and fed into the life process by labor.  The human condition of labor is life itself.

Work is the activity which corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence, which is not imbedded in, and whose mortality is not compensated by, the species' ever-recurring life cycle.  Work provides an "artificial" world of things, distinctly different from all natural surroundings.  Wthin its borders each imdividual life is housed, which this world itself is meant to outlast and transcend them all.  The human condition of work is wordliness.

Action, the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter, corresponds to the human condition of plurality, to the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world.  While all aspects of the human condition are somehow related to politics, this plurality is specifically the condition - not only the conditio sine qua non, but the  conditio per quam -  of all political life.  Thus the language of the Romans, perhaps the most political people we have known, used the words "to live" and "to be among men" (inter homines esse) or "to die" and "to cease to be among men" (inter homines esse desinere) as synonyms."

Later, she elaborates on the distinction between labor and work.

"THE LABOUR OF OUR BODY AND THE WORK OF OUR HANDS"

"The distinction btween labor and work which I propose is unusual.  The phenomenal evidence in its favor is too striking to be ignored, and yet historically it is a fact that apart from a few scattered remarks, which moreover were never developed even in the theories of their authors, there's is hardly anything in either the pre-modern tradition of political thought or in the large boy of modern labor theories to support it.  Against this scarcity of historical evidence, however, stands one very articulate and obstinate testimony, namel, the simple fact that every European language, ancient and modern, contains two etymologically unrelated word for what we have to come to think of as the same activity, and rtains them in the face of their persistent synonymous usage."

"Thus Locke's distinction between working hands and a labouring body is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Gree distinction between the cheirotechnēs, the craftsman, to whom the German Handwerker corresponds, and those who, like "slaves and tame animals with their bodies minister to the necessities of life," . . .

I thought I would find an easy passage from Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition that would clearly distinguish between work and labor on this Labor Day.  But I forgot that Arendt makes my blog posts seem like extremely shallow tweets. But it seemed to be a fitting thought exercise for Labor Day.  

Want An Inside Look At Alaska's Redistricting? They're Hiring An Administrative Assistant

From the email:

"Good morning subscribers -- a note to let you know that the Board is seeking professional administrative help for the coming map drawing cycle.

 

The applicant must work well under pressure and be able to quickly shift from various administrative tasks including reception, travel arrangements, correspondence, and document preparation.

 

The job listing is here –>

Peter Torkelson
Executive Director
Alaska Redistricting Board"

and from the link:

"Job Search ResultsJob Title Job TypeSalary Closing Posted DepartmentLocationCategory

Administrative Assistant

Seasonal$1,873.50 - $2,477.25 Biweekly

07/16/21 06/24/21

Legislative AffairsAnchorage, 

AKAdministrative Assistant"

This Story Encapsulates A Lot Of What's Wrong With The United States

 From an LA Times article:

McDonald’s has sued former Chief Executive Steve Easterbrook, alleging that he fraudulently hid details of three sexual relationships with employees when the board fired him in November over a separate relationship with a subordinate.

In a securities filing and a document lodged with the Delaware Chancery Court, the fast-food chain said it was seeking to recover the compensation and severance payments it allowed Easterbrook to leave with. Equilar, the executive-pay consultancy, reported at the time that his severance deal was worth about $40 million .

McDonald’s would not have approved the separation agreement had it known the extent of his “inappropriate personal behavior,” the company said, but would instead have terminated him for cause.

" the board fired him in November over a separate relationship with a subordinate."

1. He was fired for cause, yet got to take home $40 million!!
2. Severance pay of $40 million (for just one employee!) for a company (McDonald's) that pays so little that its workers qualify for food stamps.

My theory incorporates two key components:  

1. How corporate boards, made up of other corporate executives, all benefit when an executive gets the highest possible compensation package, because that sets the standards for their own boards to set their own compensation.  
2. "Temporary" tax cuts on the wealthy, gave boards more incentive to raise compensation to make as much money as possible while the taxes were lower.  

Steve Clifford outlines the argument for point 1 in The Atlantic article:

How Companies Actually Decide What to Pay CEOs:     

I know—for over 20 years, I helped craft some extremely generous executive-compensation packages.

He talks about the shift from using internal equity as the model (keeping the ratio between the highest paid and the average worker pay reasonable) to the external equity model where the compensation of the top executives in a corporation should be competitive with other top executives.  This meant, he writes, internal equity went from 20:1 or 30:1 in the 70s, to the situation in 2014 where 

500 of the highest-paid senior executives at U.S. companies made nearly 1,000 times as much money as the average American worker, after taking into account salary, bonuses, and stock-based compensation.

The article explains exactly how compensation committees on Boards of Directors actually set executive pay and why it spirals higher and higher.  

The second point is harder to definitively prove, but Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 along with cuts to inheritance taxes means that the wealthy get wealthier much faster and the gap between the rich and the poor gets wider and wider.  Here are a couple of articles that go into more detail:

• The Legacy of the 2001 and 2003 “Bush” Tax Cuts
• Wikipedia entry on Bush Tax Cuts

I believe that a large inequality gap has lots of harmful consequences to democracy:

• The wealthy have an outsized influence on elections through unlimited campaign contributions and ability to lobby federal, state, and local, legislators
• Employers have far more power over employee wages and working conditions through their ability to get Congress to weaken union power
• More people are living from pay-check to pay-check and thus their employers have more leverage over them for a variety of issues - forced overtime, less time with their families, forced arbitration for disputes, etc. 

But proving these things is complicated. 

As you might imagine, Heritage Foundation scholars argue that there is no evidence the inequality endangers democracy.  

But all this hinges on a number of assumption about morality.  While the Christian bible talks endlessly about charity and helping the poor, our basic philosophy about work - The Protestant [Work] Ethic - assumes that those who are poor have themselves to blame.   It ignores the elaborate rules and procedures that are devised to justify a $40 million severance package for someone who had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate in a company where most of the employees are for working minimum wage.  

And in our increasingly technological work places, where machines are rapidly replacing workers, we need a different mechanism than work for the basic distribution of wealth.  And in a world where the imperative of the market ignores the environmental and human damage of corporate externalities, we need to find an sustainable economic system more in balance with the natural world.

Late Spring, Short Bike Ride, Experience With Instacart, And Seeds

This was our front lawn on March 5, 2015.

This was our front lawn on March 19, 2020 in comparison.









And below was our front lawn on March 30, 2020.  (The base of the tree is in the upper left.) Just the beginning of the earth being revealed by the sublimating snow and ice.  We're way behind this year.  At least from the last ten years or so.  We've gotten used to global warming.  But this has been a winter where the temperatures were mostly below 'normal'.

The ice between the sidewalk (that I try to keep clear) and the street is still thick, but the sunny days (even when it hasn't been above freezing), and my ice-chipping are starting to make a difference.



We've been pretty good about self-isolating.  I try and get out in the back or front yard every day and tinker around. J goes for a much longer walk.  There aren't many people out and staying six feet away isn't hard to do.

Yesterday I even got the bike out and it felt wonderful.
I didn't go very far - I saw three people walking abreast ahead of me and knew I couldn't pass them with six feet, so I turned off into a parking lot and looped back home via the alley where there was still some ice and snow on the ground - I was using the bike with the studded tires.




We also tried out Fred Meyer's home delivery.  I think it would have been faster to walk to the grocery, get our stuff, and walk home, than it was just ordering on the app.  We had to look through so many items to find what we wanted.  When I tried searching it didn't find it.  But later it did.  I think you have to be in the right department when you search.    And I'm sure it will be easier next time.  Then when I was going to check out, it had something next to most items about being out of stock and were substitutes acceptable.  For some I said no.  For others I put in conditions.  I really had no idea how it would work.  But I was uncomfortable with someone making substitutes.  As it turned out, it was fine.  The shopper texted when she started and asked about substitutions before making them.  I think there was just one - one brand of yogurt for another.  And she texted about items that weren't there - like alcohol swabs.

The point was to not be out amongst people exposing either of us to the virus since we're in the high risk age group.  And since I couldn't get tested, I have no clear sense of whether what I had (the cough still lingers, but I cough less frequently) was COVID-19.   But when I saw our shopper get out of the car at the bottom of the driveway and then slowly, almost painfully, lug up the two bags to the doorstep, I felt terrible.  If she wasn't also in the high risk age group, she certainly walked like she was.

So that was my introduction to Instacart, which really hadn't been on my radar.  It was just under $10 extra for someone to shop and deliver for us.  A company called Instacart does it.  This is the gig economy and like with Lyft there are upsides and downsides.  In our case, we connected with the market, not Instacart.  And our shopper may have gotten several other people's orders at the same time.  We only live about 1.5 miles from the market.

Gigworker.com did an analysis of Instacart the other day that you can look at.  In any case, there's no the extra hazard pay for potentially getting the virus.  I left more tip than they suggested, but what they suggested was pretty low.  But you also had to add the tip when you ordered, not after the delivery.   And then there's the question of how we deal with the groceries without knowing whether anyone who touched them has the virus.  I brought the bag in wearing gloves and put the veggies that needed refrigerating into an empty drawer to let them sit a couple of days.  When I got everything squared away, I washed my hands thoroughly.

One of the things I was happy to get from the market was seeds.  

I haven't planted too many vegies in recent years because our yard is so shaded by trees.  But it seems like a good idea to have some fresh veggies one can grow oneself this year.  And I do look forward to the early dandelion leaves - an abundant freebie in our yard that can be cooked in stir-fries and omelets.   They're very high in Vitamin A and K, and we don't use any pesticides in our yard.  

With the added part of the deck, we have a little more sunshine and we can use pots.  But I think the broccoli is the only thing I can plant early inside.  The others seem like they should go directly in the ground.  But maybe I can put some seeds in pots inside and then take them out when it's warm enough.  

And here's a last picture while I was sitting downstairs in what we call our greenhouse reading a book with the sun streaming in.  It's getting crowded down there and I've been trying to make room so I can plant some seeds.  

El Sueño Americano

The only word in the title that might give non-Spanish speakers any difficulty is Sueño, and the poster on the left should clear that up.

This post is based on an exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.  We went because they have an excellent children's space called Noah's Ark which I've posted about before.

There was enough for four or five posts, and given I still have grandchildren around, I'm just going to focus on one and try to get this done quickly.

Here's the artist's statement.  I saved it in higher than normal resolution in hopes you could read it.

Let me highlight this paragraph:

"These confiscations struck me as wrong.  The cruelty of stripping away such personal items from vulnerable people is dehumanizing, both to those whose belongings are taken and to those who enforce the policy."

Combs and Brushes

A few things here:

• The artist, Tom Kiefer,  started this in 2007, during the 2nd Bush administration, so dehumanizing immigrants isn't something that began under Trump.
• As someone who worked at a US Border Control Facility, he noted that it dehumanized the officials who enforced these policies as well as the victims.

And people are leaving ICE.  From the Los Angeles Times in January 2019:

"In March 2017, McAleenan said Customs and Border Protection normally loses about 1,380 agents a year as agents retire, quit for better-paying jobs or move. Just filling that hole each year has strained resources."

This is from an article that is focused on recruitment:

"In a sign of the difficulties, Customs and Border Protection allocated $60.7 million to Accenture Federal Services, a management consulting firm, as part of a $297-million contract to recruit, vet and hire 7,500 border officers over five years, but the company has produced only 33 new hires so far. " [Emphasis Added]

Some Items Confiscated

A large percentage of ICE agents are Latinx according to this Pacific Standard article by Khushbu Shah.  He reports on the 100 interviews by Assistant Professor David Cortez who examined the relationships these officers have with their jobs and why do their jobs.

"Cortez has found that many of the agents he spoke with drew a distinct line between their empathy and their careers. A Latino agent in Texas recently told Cortez he is aware that he might be on the wrong side of history, but the money was too good to quit. The cities where many of the agents come from in the Rio Grande Valley are some of the poorest in the state of Texas, a state in which nearly one in five people lives below the poverty line. The starting salary, in turn, under Customs and Border Protection is nearly $56,000, well above the region's median household income of $34,000."

This is the inscription plate from a bible with notes on travel through the desert and other dates and notes.

Gloves

These are pain tablets.


It's important to remember that the oppressor is dehumanized as much as the oppressed.
And to connect a few more dots, the breaking of unions has allowed the lowering of salaries for many jobs as well as the loss of health benefits and pensions.  And these conditions make it easier to recruit people into the military and other sorts of occupations where people are dehumanized.

And today is nearly the end of 2019 and we're just seeing these images, which began in 2007, now, 12 years later.  Justice takes so much longer than the original acts of abuse and criminality.