Flemming Holm's Blog

I highly recommend a fascinating history of how the role of government, attitudes towards social justice and economic development have developed and changed over the last 100 years particularly in the democracies of Europe and North America, given in a speech by Ed Broadbent at York University on Feb. 21.  I urge you to read it, and pass it on.

Broadbent quotes Franklin Roosevelt who said, “We have come to a clear realization of the fact that individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.  Necessitous men are not free men.”

Letter to the Editor, Chronicle Herald

Dan Leger’s article in the February 9 issue is in my opinion an accurate and most succinct analysis of the causes of the present financial crisis. Were it not for human greed – the greed of a group of people, mostly millionaires, we would not have a depression today.

When a CEO makes twenty to a hundred times more than his humblest employee, that is exploitation. It is immoral and reprehensible and should be prohibited by law. Anyone guilty of such an offence, whether or not he has been granted a “bail-out”, whether or not he receives the benefit in stock options or as a bonus, should be jailed, like Conrad Black and other robbers. Individual incomes should be capped, especially in times when so many millions are in real need.

Bev Mullins (February 10) thinks the MLAs are paying themselves too much. Surely an MLA or MP has one of the most responsible jobs in our society, and should be paid accordingly. Most of them have to spend much time away from home and family, and some have to maintain two residences. They all have to have rhinoceros hides, for no matter what they do they will be criticized – and if they do nothing they will be castigated for that.

Sent to: The Hon. Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, Ottawa, ON

Dear Mr. Flaherty:

I hear that you are consulting widely prior to finalizing your budget proposals. I trust that you are giving adequate consideration to two groups of people: those whose life experiences and convictions are different from your own; and those who know poverty.

For at least the past thirty years I have been reading periodically that the poverty gap has been growing in real terms. Typically the information has stated that the 20% with the highest incomes have seen their average incomes rise by 20% or more over a 10 or 20 year period, while the incomes of the lowest 20% have remained the same or have dropped during the same period. This in spite of a unanimous resolution by the Commons to abolish poverty in Canada.

The numbers of the homeless have been growing in recent years. Many of these people are employable; many others are marginally so, but with proper support systems can become contributing members of society. More and more people – employed, underemployed and unemployed – are resorting to food banks, in a time when increasing numbers of us are financially unable to contribute to such voluntary organizations.

In the rural society of fifty years ago, we knew our neighbors and often cared for the needy through informal ways, and an unskilled or marginally employable person might contribute by tending a garden, chopping firewood or doing housework. Today, in our urban society in which we don’t always know those next to us, we have to organize and depend on government (at various levels) to support the needy.

Conditions on many Indian reserves have improved somewhat in recent generations, but the rates of unemployment, addiction, incarceration and suicide are still far higher than in the near-by majority communities. Settling of land claims proceeds tragically slowly, and industry takes advantage by developing on disputed land. The very progressive Kelowna Accord was garbaged by the Conservative government.

The average income of women who are working fulltime is still less than 70% of that for men; the situation has improved only slightly over several decades. Many single mothers are unable to get an education and so improve their lot, care adequately for their children and contribute fully to society; and another generation grows up, often ill equipped and disadvantaged.

Employment insurance has been largely decimated in recent years. We have heard recently of a couple, both of whom had lost their jobs, in despair and hopelessness entering into a murder and suicide pact; four lives were lost. I wonder whether these people would be alive today if EI had been maintained at the 1980 level.

I wonder also how many people have been robbed of the ability to contribute fully to society by the financial starvation of our educational and health care institutions and counseling services. We deplete our resources by our neglect.

In the meantime, we have more millionaires and billionaires than ever, taking more and more expensive junkets to distant places, and receiving exorbitant bonuses in addition to huge salaries. Surely no CEO needs to make more than fifty times the salary of his most humble employee. Such exploitation is tantamount to robbery and should be prohibited by law.

I am well aware of the need for a concentration of wealth and power if the wheels of industry are to rotate adequately. But surely such concentration can be achieved by other means. I am also aware that our largest trading partner – the elephant with us in the bed – does not have the levels of social programs that Canada has, and therefore is hard to compete with.

I do not have the knowledge and understanding to make concrete suggestions in this field, but I understand that there are some who do; that some world famous economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs, believe that we have the resources to feed the hungry and abolish starvation and save the planet, if only we have the political will. Over the years I have read recommendations by the Canadian Council of Policy Alternatives and other such bodies that criticize our system and make suggestions that sound good to me. And I am aware that about a dozen denominations of the Christian Churches in Canada cooperate in “Kairos”, an organization that studies and promotes social justice.

I am also aware that in Denmark, a land that does not have the extremes of wealth and poverty that Canada has, the population has recently declared its satisfaction with its country by a higher margin than any other population in the world, including Canada. (A well known Danish patriotic song, written about 200 years ago, holds up as an ideal a society in which “few have too much and fewer still too little.”)

I deplore the assumption that we have to bribe millionaires to get them to do their job. That is a shaky foundation for a society; witness the present economic depression.

We need to ensure that the most vulnerable are not made to bear the costs of the depression and of the mistakes and greed of the wealthy.

Sincerely yours,
Flemming Holm

For me, there are two main issues in this year’s federal election.

1. One is the environment. In recent years we have had ample evidence that the climate is changing. We have seen it in the extreme weather and the melting ice caps and glaciers, and in the disastrous flood problems in Louisiana, the Philippines and Bangladesh. We know that there have been a number of ice ages in the past, and periods of warming between them. We may not be able to stop these changes, but we can prepare for them and prevent the most extreme damage. It is high time that we prohibit building on flood plains, that we pay attention to our endangered shorelines, and that we act globally and help the poorer nations in their distress.

But much of the environmental problem is man-made. Increasing pollutants in the air, fewer trees and other plants to cleanse the atmosphere, increasing instances of asthma and other respiratory diseases especially among small children, growing smog problems in our cities, expanding deserts, increasing dependence on non-renewable resources such as coal and oil, all alert us to the possibility that within the next millennium human beings could become as extinct as the dinosaurs.

Still, in spite of the warning signals, we continue to depend on coal and oil, drive gas-guzzling cars, convert vegetable matter into biofuel, smoke tobacco and marijuana, and generally act irresponsibly. And the Government takes only half-hearted measures. I am reminded of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938. He promised that there would be “peace in our time”. And of the false prophets crying “all is well” when destruction was at the city gates (Jeremiah 6:14). Denial is not an option.

Strong action is needed, and it may be that all the actions promised by all the political parties – cap and trade, green shift, carbon tax, mandatory emission reduction, taken together, will not be enough to stem the tide. In this campaign I suspect the politicians are afraid to admit the full extent of the danger and the necessity of strong action, for fear that they will lose votes. For the necessary action will be costly. Economic adjustment will drive taxes up.

2. The second issue is economic. I believe it was J.K. Galbraith who described our system as a ”horse and sparrow economy”: give a horse enough oats at the front end, and enough will come out at the rear to keep the sparrows happy. (I saw that picture played out many times when I was a boy, in the 1930s.) Another appropriate phrase is “a trickle down economy”. Our economic development is dependent on people who control large amounts of capital; the concentration of wealth enables the wheels of industry to turn; the benefits then trickle down to the masses.

Under today’s conditions this may be the best system available to our society, but I hate to think so. Unfortunately in a free market economy each business must compete with others, and this often means paying minimal wages and otherwise cutting costs. It means competing with other jurisdictions where the legislated minimum wage is lower or non-existent. Competition among powerful interests and powerful countries with other standards often makes it difficult for the most well-meaning managers to play fair with their employees and with their customers. It also interferes with pension funds and other benefits, whether these are employer or government related.

One function of government is to protect the poor and vulnerable against the wealthy and powerful interests. We do this in many ways: through the justice system, through free schools and health care, through disability and old age pensions, through laws governing minimum wages, and through human rights legislation. Such provisions are absolutely necessary, and the standards need to be raised. We need a Guaranteed Annual Income for everyone.

About 20 years ago the Canadian Parliament agreed unanimously to eradicate poverty. Since that time the poverty gap has increased; the rich have grown richer and the poor have lost ground. I hold that for any employer or CEO, or the head of any department or agency, to make ten times as much as his humblest employee is exploitation and sinful and should be prohibited. Nobody needs a half million dollar income, or a million dollar home; such affluence is shameful and obscene. I agree that effort and ability should be rewarded – but not to that extent.

Among the nations also, the wealthy countries have grown richer and the poor nations are poorer. To our shame. It is said that a billion of the world’s people have insufficient food and drinking water.

Whether nationally or internationally, we cannot depend on market forces – unbridled, profit-oriented capitalism – to eradicate poverty and build a better society. Our economy must be structured in such a way that everyone who can work will have a job at more than the present minimum wage, that those who cannot work will be able to live in dignity, that every child and youth can get an education and that everyone will have free and equal access to appropriate health care. The major cause of war and crime will then be eradicated.

I have read statements by world famous economists that it is possible to save the planet and humanity. But there will be a cost.

Environment and the equality gap – both can be fixed, if there is enough political will.

This is a difficult message to accept in this year of 2008. We are threatened in at least three ways. And when we are threatened, financially and otherwise, we tend to circle the wagons and protect ourselves and our kind.

For one, the crisis in the stock markets will result in losses, particularly for those who have investments.

Secondly, the recent tendency to extreme weather, particularly here in North America, means that someone has to pay the for the damages.

Thirdly, we are beginning to realize that the human race, and especially those of us in the western world, have been living beyond our means, and using up our resources faster than they can be replaced. One economist (Bill McKibben) is quoted as saying that if present trends of consumption continue, we will reach a level beyond the world’s capacity by 2050. He is quoted as saying that globalization has allowed people to live off others in far away places without having to absorb social costs. (Jon Magnuson in Christian Century, July 29, 2008). Other economists seem to agree. But from what I have read, they also agree that the world (and the human race) can be saved.

How will the cost be paid? How will the adjustments take place? I suggest we shall have increased taxation and belt tightening, and extension of a triage system which is already in operation. It will mean drastic changes and a reorganization of our social and economic system. This is no time to call for lower taxes.

One more thought: I believe it was Archbishop Romero who said that when he fed the hungry he was called a saint, but when he asked why they were hungry he was called a communist. He was assassinated. We too must ask why the poor are hungry.

Are we ready for the challenge? Do we have the political will?