The Maximum

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

I also find myself thinking about the Revolutionary concept of the Maximum and if it would have any use in today's world. History seems to have proven that general limits on wages and prices don't work...and I certainly wouldn't advocate a maximum possible wage for the "average citizen"

But I can't help but wonder if there would be some sense in an internationally agreed Maximum for such people as CEO's or professional athletes. What if a CEO could "only" earn a maximum of 5 million per year? What if a baseball player could "only" earn a million per year? Would the world be worse off? I think we would still be able to fill the positions!

Comments

[vanguardofvertu.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea. Though I find it somewhat odd that you would be opposed outright to a maximum on prices considering your fondness for the most Hebertist member of the Committee. Are you more fascinated by Billaud's persona than his policies?

In peace time I would agree there should be no artificial price controls- the cost of production should equal the price of goods in any civilized (read: socialist) society. In war time however, given the drastic need to ensure ease of access to supplies, it is essential to guard against the manipulation of market fluctuations by speculators and such regarding commodities in demand.

In Year II, such controls are what saved the revolution from being sabotaged by counterrevolutionaries intent on driving up prices of food to starve the people and deprive them of essential items. The incompetence and rampant corruption of the post-Thermidorian Directory wherein the market was dictated by private selfish whims rather than revolutionary necessity should speak to the need to maintain such controls in the face of earnest revolution.

But the need for such a Maximum should dissipate assuming the revolution is successful.

Regarding your idea to cap multi-million dollar salaries, I doubt you'll find many to argue with on that topic :)

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

I find his persona, his politics, his actions, and his policies interesting. But, for me, interest doesn't have to imply agreement.

A strict system of wage and price controls seems unworkable since people will be people and usually will only willingly provide goods and services if they feel they will profit. (This is a general statement...there will always be some individual exceptions.) Even in dire circumstances the system would need to be flexible enough to take this into account.

But I still find the idea of a Maximum in today's world to be an interesting thought exercise. The very high ceilings that I used as an example could be workable and healthy. A Maximum might also be good in special settings such as the housing market...if it allowed for a reasonable profit while still controlling run-away prices.

[vanguardofvertu.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think a temporary Maximum would be in the interest of the majority of the people as a whole, both consumers as well as producers. Such a law would only negatively affect those wealthy few who attempted to artificially inflate the market value of various commodities by purchasing products in mass quantities and subsequently selling them far above value. The average artisan or self-employed shopkeeper, without access to massive wealth and capital, can't afford that sort of exploitative investment and therefore would have to sell their goods much closer to cost.

In other words, the lower and middle classes stand to gain far more than lose in terms of stable access to necessities in war time in addition to warding off gross income disparity amongst the wealthiest among them. Only the elite of the bourgeoisie would see a reduction in profits which were always at the People's expense in the first place. In such scenarios a Maximum makes perfect sense and is certainly more in keeping with the entire egalitarian apparatus of left-wing revolutions.

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure we disagree. I would propose a high ceiling to curb the worst excesses first and see how that worked. Perhaps you would want to start out with a stronger dose of the medication than me, but we agree that a prescription is needed!

[asako-michiru.livejournal.com]

I like the idea in theory, of course. Maximums would more or less ensure the success and adherence to the trickle-down economic theory that capitalism is based upon, and that the global economy insists is working when it obviously isnt. Because of course, the money wouldn't be being hogged by the officials/professional athletes--though of course people will always fill those jobs anyway. It's necessary haha.

Of course it will never happen so long as greed exists inherently in human nature. But one can speculate and theorize and believe.

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

As you say...greed is built into the system. I believe we can be rational enough to manage greed, but it can never just be eliminated or wished away.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely agree that measures such as the Maximum as it was employed during the Revolutionary period should only be used as short-term measures. During the Revolution they were necessary, as vanguardofvertu points out, but I don't think anyone really thinks of them as something that should be made permanent.

Caps on earnings though? Definitely. Not only would society not be worse off without the superrich, it would be better off--from an economic standpoint as well as from the standpoint of taking away the undue power, privilege, and influence of such wealthy individuals and corporations. (It's rather like the system employed by several of the representives on mission, particularly Saint-Just, as I recall--progressive taxation that taxes 100% above a certain point.)

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

And any such regulations would have to be international...otherwise these corporations would just move to other countries that weren't attempting to curb them.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point. I actually think that's what we're missing in general: some kind of effective global political structure to rein in the global capitalist structures already in place.

[wolfshadow713.livejournal.com]

The problem with economic controls of that nature is that you need people that really know what they are doing to regulate them: as soon as you apply caps to one part of the economy, it can have an undesirable impact elsewhere.
Are you familar with depression-era American politician Huey Long (might have spelled his name incorrectly...)? His economic plan was something between this and regulation through taxes. Whether it would have helped alievate the depression or just made everyone more miserable will never be known, though, because he was assassinated before he could do anything with it.

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

I think you spelled it right. I haven't done an in-depth study of him, but I know the general contours of his career. He was unique enough that history might have been significantly different if he hadn't been assassinated.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

It's interesting: we had something like that here in the 40's and 50's, with ration books and so forth: it's funny reading through revolutionary decrees about recycling metals and digging out cellars for nitrates and planting potatoes in the Tuileries gardens, familiar stuff for my mum's generation, with the war effort and 'dig for victory'. 'fair shares for all' and the postwar 'new jerusalem' when the welfare state, free education etc were established and Britain was at its most socialist. The kids born in that generation were also the healthiest, as rationing gave both a minimum and a maximum - poor families ate better and the rich had to eat more leanly. I was thinking about that today because supermarkets are being criticised for discounting cakes, thus allegedly making people fatter, thus burdening the NHS (free health care service) which we all pay for in taxes. So we're in a weird situation: a government that believes in the free market and the god of consumer choice won't set limits on fatty foods, despite the burden that puts on the health service, but instead the supermarkets are expected to act as police instead, which is passing the buck and won't get anywhere. And that's before you get to stuff like food miles...I rather liked the idea of a 'green terror' put forward in Zizek's otherwise rather daft essay on Robespierre: if governments honestly believe global warming etc. are genuine (and all European govts claim they do), then they should act properly, take serious measures, not leave it to the market. As for wages, god, yes, cap them, and house prices, and house ownership, and land ownership (still 'Rhodesian' in the UK - I asked the author of 'who owns britain?' (answer, a handful of toffs, surprise!) that if the aristocrats' estates were nationalised and distributed equally, would we all be killing ourselves (2 parents working etc., no quality of life, no time spent with the kids) to pay mortgages and the response was 'of course not...' If I was a politician I would be shot very quickly, I think...Hmm, I seem to have gone slightly off-piste there.

[fatimahcrossin.livejournal.com]

The point, I think, is that nowadays politics depends entirely on economy even when politicians claim it's not so. Then every economic measure they take isn't really their own's decision: everything has been yet decided yet by the market. Political lines usually tend to confirm what is already confirmed as a trend in the market, it doesn't matter if socially accettable or not, and even if it could be dangerous in long terms.
If politicians acted with really strong and independent measures they would become hostile to the main economic powers - who indeed substain most of them. So nobody would risk a comma to change a bad situation and try to improve heavy social unbalances. Maybe I am far a bit off-topic, but times here are hard, and the market rules on, though !

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

But your point shows how our times differ from 1789. Then the enemy was a corrupt and incompetent nobility. Now it's an out of control capitalism!

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Actually, in Britain, I still think the basic problem is still land rights. People work every hour god sends, have no quality of life, no family life, because house prices are insane: land is still owned by a tiny handful of people, mostly medieval aristocrats, and ownership hasn't changed since the 17thc. Nobody questions this! It's extraordinary!
I also think feminism is the weapon to end capitalism (the only weapon?): capitalism needs a supply of cheap labour, and societies where women have no birth control and no human rights to say 'no', no alternative to early marriage, no education, are an endlesss source of desperate people to work as little more than slaves. I also think 'classic' revolution is impossible in capitalist countries - it was probably impossible in 18thc England, because it was industrialised: France was agricultural - you could bring down the bosses and still eat: Britain had a bigger population and relied on imports: bring down the bosses and you starve unless you can take up the mysterious reins of international trade instantly or have a helpful neighbour.

[fatimahcrossin.livejournal.com]

In Italy we have lots of problems, land rights included but also many others like lack of jobs, the extremely scarce retribution for most of them (even if people are graduated, even when they are specialized) and the fact that most of them, again, consists in short-length contracts (without any kind of guarrantee, of course). The Italian Welfare State is completely dead, the middle-class is quickly disappearing and the possibility of surviving for my generation and the next ones is connected with the family of provenience: if your parents are rich - that's right, you have even the chance to increase your patrimony. If not, you will very likely finish your days in a hospice of poverty...

To do a revolution in 1789's France it was enough to kill a king and some thousand aristocrats. Now you should kill entire bank counsels, multinationals staffs, political hierarchies...XD I also believe that the feminism is at the moment the only chance to end capitalism. I have read on a book of Riane Eisler (an excellent book !) that economy is such a disaster also because what have been called "caring jobs", which are mostly performed by women at home such as homework, looking after children, curing ill people etc., aren't recognized (and rewarded) as real jobs. Think how would things change if housewives could earn their own wage !
More, feminism proposes a society founded on cooperation and not on exploitment. Abolishing the private property, like in Marxism, could be a further step - but it would provide a possible great change in forthcoming age.

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

It's interesting...because from over here I've always had the impression that Europe is more advanced than the US. But except for the medieval aristocrats you make it sound pretty much the same.

And I agree with you about empowering women in regressive societies. Every now and again I will hear a brief mention in the news about groups that try to reach out directly to third-world women to get them info on family planning etc....with some success.

Even in more "advanced" countries there is still a lot of subtle manipulation to prevent women from manifesting their true and indivdual natures. Such pressures also effect men, of course, but it seems more directed toward the women.

[marieclaire08.livejournal.com]

"capitalism needs a supply of cheap labour, and societies where women have no birth control and no human rights to say 'no', no alternative to early marriage, no education, are an endlesss source of desperate people to work as little more than slaves."
This resonates with some of the interactions I had at work today. And along with the comment here from one of my fellow Americans (to the effect that we view Europe as more progressive than ourselves), I have to say (to someone, before I drive myself to breaking furniture in frustration) that the quote above doesn't belong only to the third world. I am in the rural southwest USA and have encountered two women just today who have explained to me that their husbands (who they married in their teens and with/for whom they promptly began churning out babies) "won't let [them] go anywhere alone" because these gentlemen are "too jealous." I hear this all the time, along with autobiographical references to this or that friend/relative having their first child (and, of course, marriage) at age 14. In trying to suggest to these women employment opportunities and (how do I say it delicately?) "less traditional options for procreation", I am forever up against the "I wouldn't be allowed to...": "I wouldn't be allowed to get a job / leave the sticks / travel alone," etc. I spent a good deal of time just today checking the calendar-- there must be something wrong with my sense of geography or the flow of time here because this is supposed to be the developed world in the 21st century.
Why not a maximum?
Not only would I vote for a maximum, today I'd riot for one. I'd burn cars and break windows and....Hello, Homeland Security.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I was reading Christopher Hill's essay "Providence and Oliver Cromwell" a few weeks ago, whilst the US Republican party conference was on TV here - and it was disconcerting to realise some of the mindset and language had survived unchanged (Sarah Palin - untouched by the Enlightenment?). It's deepy ironic that the very feminism she despises is the reason why she's a heartbeat away from the presidency - and even weirder that she was being cheered to the rafters by women...She was a disconcerting reminder here that, whilst we think of America as New York and Los Angeles, there's that whole Harry Potter burning side!
Britain's actually pretty good for women, probably because it's quite secular and culturally - in the north west at any rate! - matriarchal - there are a lot of teen pregnancies, but for the opposite reason to the US - you get a council flat if you have a baby, so some girls still do it to get a place of their own (not very clever). Very few people get married! I think Scandinavian countries are better, though. France is actually pretty sexist (some people may bite my head off here, but I've had some bad experiences there, women are still very objectified - it's the opposite to American puritanism - and women didn't get the vote till 1944). I think the lot of women really varies though - Barcelona is liberal, Madrid isn't - it's impossible to generalise.

I was actually hoping Americans would be literally up in arms this week, though - billions of dollars of taxpayer's money to bail out feckless Wall Street fat cats? How is that in the spirit of capitalist laissez faire? Even my old Mum was yelling at the radio "the bastards are popping champaign corks again! Their assets should be siezed" etc. It'll be interesting to see how all this turns out. Maybe a Maximum will be on the cards...!

[marieclaire08.livejournal.com]

Ah, the optimism, Citoyenne Victoria! (Or is it Citoyenne Vandal? :))
I'm ready for the riot right now (don't own a weapon, but never underestimate the power of an angry woman with a letter opener) and yet I have had to explain to my compatriots what it means to bail out banks. The American people at large really don't know how this will work. They hear that their investments will be protected and are relieved. Bush's appointees make statements on the news that go utterly unchallenged--if they are challenged in the legislature, that goes un-commented upon. No one stands in a public forum and says "This means we help millionaire investors hold onto their money while the taxpayers (among whom said millionaires cannot be counted) pay the debts they created by their own greed and stupidity. And the sickest part is that when this is all over, we taxpayers will hand these investment banks back all their assets."
Seems to me the American people are about to buy themselves some banks. I'm for it if we (the people) get to keep those banks. (Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work: when one *pays* for a thing, they *own* it?) But, no, not for the rich. we will all be treated to watching them drive the same institutions into the ground again. I explained this to my mother yesterday and she acted as if this bailing out and handing back surely couldn't be true.
Admittedly, if I'm claiming the reason this can go on without rioting in the streets is that people just haven't had this explained to them, then I should be willing to stand up in public and say something. No one may be listening at the national level, but I would be a good citizen to write a letter to the local paper. And, of course, it's a free country and all.... But I come up for my tenure vote this year and this is a very small town. Am I a coward? I think maybe I am. Yet another way in which capitalism turns our anger into something useless: self-loathing.

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

There's just a slight hint of a Maximum in that they're talking about putting a limit on the ammount of money the CEOs of these failed companies and banks can walk away with.

And yes...the USA has way way way too many crazy religious folks...and enough other people willing to make common cause with them so that they can actually effect our lives.

A lot of the first colonists wanted a theocracy...and we've never recovered!

[marieclaire08.livejournal.com]

I thought about this little conversation when I heard about the proposal for CEO maximums. Whatever would they do with saleries that are only 7 digits?!

Yes, Citoyen Squidley, the Founding Fathers did not see THIS coming. From the vantage point of the late Enlightenment, I imagine it would have been very, very dificult to see any of this coming. Lucky them.

(BTW, good for you with your interest in BV!)

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

They can have 7 digits if we get to pick where the decimal point is!

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

I've come to the sad conclusion that in many people the spark of liberty doesn't burn very bright. They seem quite comfortable being submissive to a spouse, a minister, the state...in fact, they seem to actively seek out that submission.

There's way too many places in the USA that are still living in the 1950s...or earlier! And, unfortunately, they vote.

[marieclaire08.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they vote alright. Their ministers tell them from the Church of the Victory of the Blood on the Rock (God, I wish that were a figment of my imagination!) that they need to fear the "liberal elites."
I had a grad student (!!!) tell me last week that he thought gay marriage was an important moral issue in this election. Mind you, we all knew about the banks failing by then. I went off on the guy. Gay marriage is an important moral issue--but not poverty, health care, or pensions! I should have asked whether those issues are not important, not moral, or neither. We need a "mob" of angry Parisians! BRING IN THE ANGRY PARISIANS! [That's right, Homeland Security, I'm not just spoiling for a fight--I want to bring French people in on it! Yeah, the FRENCH. And none of them will have green cards either!]
Who will join me and pony up for several large rafts?

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

I find myself wondering if "Mai 68" could be a model for an uprising one of these days.

Where you live sounds frightening. I hope that at least the geography is nice!

And I am so sick of Christians whining about gay people getting married...or just whining about gay people in general.

[fatimahcrossin.livejournal.com]

And yes, alas, this makes things much more complicated !

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

Ah yes...you actually have free health care over there! At the very least couldn't they consider taxing the sales of desserts and junk foods to pay the extra costs?

Your "green terror" will probably come sooner or later because the environmental consequences of all our excesses will become too self-evident to deny and action will be demanded.

And from what I've been reading here...I think if any of us were in charge somebody would want to shoot us :)