Inequality v Poverty

Joseph Stiglitz has an interesting post on the New York Times Opinionator blog pointing to Singapore as a role model for lessons on how the United States could achieve greater equality. Professor Stiglitz seems to be arguing for equal outcomes, or something close to it, and for income redistribution as a means of achieving it..

That may be a little unfair but I am reminded of the communist slogan "From each according to ability, to each according to need." That is presented in Acts of The Apostles as the idyllic life in the early church. We all know how it turned out in the last century when it was tried on a grand scale.

The authoritarian Lee Kuan Yew deserves a lot of credit for moving Singapore from third world backwater to the Asian Tiger it became on his watch. He was not a communist and he seems to have largely avoided the corrupting influence of autocratic power but Singapore is the exception rather than the rule.

I'm not sure why there has been so much focus recently on income inequality. I'm more concerned about poverty. It's true that middle class incomes have stagnated in the past few decades but it seems to me once people reach the middle class opportunities begin to open up. Until they do making progress can be really difficult.

Stiglitz points to the "startling 23%" of children in the United States who live in poverty and implies it is the result of a tax system that favors the rich. I'm surprised the percentage isn't higher. Most of those children live in single parent households. The really startling number is the  40% of American children, and the astounding 70%+ of black children, who are born to unwed mothers.

Sociologists have lately been pointing out the implications for the truly insidious cycle of poverty that ensues from those numbers, but their warnings have been falling on deaf ears. The NYC transit agency was excoriated recently for their ad campaign on the dangers of teen pregnancy. Until we address that issue, and it isn't just teens, no conceivable income redistribution scheme is going to have much effect.

Pope Francis I has come under a lot of criticism for his vigorous opposition to gay marriage as a threat to the family. I'm inclined to agree with Francis. I certainly agree  that the family is the vital foundation of a healthy society, and by that I mean the two parent family. The rise in single parent households is a greater threat to our society than gays will ever be. One parent can and often does successfully raise a family but when you add poverty to the mix the deck is stacked against all concerned.

As a community it is in our enlightened self interest to be doing everything in our power to break this cycle. We need these families to have better access to day care, better job skills for the bread winner, a growing economy to provide more and better jobs, better policing to provide a safe environment, better schools with lower dropout rates, and a thousand other structural improvements to help. Maybe more than anything else we need to encourage our children to finish high school and defer having children until after marriage.

It is a principle of Catholic Social Teaching that the first measure of any government policy is its effect on the poor and vulnerable. It isn't just because God sees it like that. We need these kids to grow up, join the middle class, become productive citizens, pay taxes, and support us geezers in comfortable retirement. If in the meantime a few people get filthy rich we can worry about income redistribution later.

School Funding

My paternal grand father J.H. Roberts got his schooling in Gonzalez, Texas where he finished eighth grade in 1885. In those days eighth grade was as far as most people went. It was eight years more formal education than J.H.'s father got and it made him literate and numerate enough to become successful in the lumber business. My dad used to tell me J.H. could walk through a forty acre tract and calculate in his head how much timber was on it and how much it was worth. He would be annoyed with my dad when he couldn't do it. 

J.H. had a knack that was impossible for his father. He recognized the importance his early schooling played in that and sent all his own children to college. That is a familiar American family story and one that in no small way accounts for the unprecedented prosperity we enjoyed in the twentieth century.

I thought about J.H. last week when I read that half of New York City high school graduates do not have the basic reading, writing, and math skills they need to do college level work. That means to me they also lack the skills they need to join the work force and enjoy the middle class careers that at a minimum any American should be entitled to. 

We've been talking about this for a long time. I remember seeing headlines from the 1960's "Why Can't Johnny Read?" It seems to me matters have only gotten worse. We pretty much agree on the value of primary education to society. That's why we have school taxes. Everybody pays them. In Texas if you own your home you pay them directly. If you rent your landlord pays them. Few would dispute the justice in a publicly funded education for every child.

But would somebody explain to me why the government has to run all the schools, or why government run schools should have a monopoly on public funding? What if we contracted them out? That's essentially what we do with charter schools. Many of them seem to be doing quite well. What if we had more magnet schools competing for students rather than having children strictly assigned by zip code? According to some surveys two Dallas magnets rank among the best public high schools in the nation.

And what in heaven's name is wrong with sending a child to a private school, parochial or not, at public expense? If she gets an education don't we get our money's worth? Every voucher or tax credit program I know about costs less than we would spend in a public school. We can insist on the same testing and accreditation we use for public schools. Parents should be a reliable check on the quality of any school, public or private.

When Lynne and I  moved to Plano the reputation of the schools was a driving factor in our choice of neighborhoods. Not every parent has that option. But no child should be condemned to a failing school just because of where he lives. Every parent should have some say in the matter. Some would say the answer is to fix the school and so we should. We've been saying that for many years, spending enormous sums with mediocre results, or no results at all. That doesn't mean we should give up on them but what about the children who are in them today? If we can give at least some of them better opportunities shouldn't we do that?

We will not be a just society until every child has the kinds of opportunities J.H. Roberts grew up with. Too many of today's children don't have them. We need to do something about that.

Unconditional Obedience

Lynne and I recently attended an ordination Mass at The  Cathedral Shrine of The Virgin of Guadeloupe in Dallas. It was a beautiful ceremony, a well deserved celebration for a group of new Deacons and their families. I confess to one moment of discomfort.

In making his vows each ordinate approached the seated Bishop in turn and knelt. The Bishop asked "Do you promise to obey me and my successors?" Each one responded "Yes." I am reminded of that scene now that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has vowed unconditional obedience to his successor. I could never take such a vow.

As a former Army Officer I swore an oath to obey lawful orders from my superiors. Some of the orders I obeyed were difficult. Some of them I thought were bad ideas. Some of them I protested. But once a decision was final I obeyed without further question. "Lawful" was an important qualifier. Not only was I not required to obey an unlawful order, to obey would have been a violation of my oath to uphold the constitution. If the trials at Nuremberg did nothing else they burned into the conscience of soldiers that following orders is no excuse for crimes.

As a Catholic I take the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the church, very seriously. To do otherwise would have me make up my beliefs as I go. I'm not that smart. I accept many mysteries as matters of faith, in defiance of all reason. The idea of a Triune God is not the least. Transubstantiation is not far behind.

But it seems to me any thinking person should have questions about one teaching or another. Maybe even reject some. To do anything less smacks of intellectual suicide. I'll cite two examples, admittedly extreme but real.

Three years ago Bishop Thomas Olmsted declared Sister Margaret Mary McBride excommunicated for approving an abortion at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. The bishop went on to strip St. Joseph's of its Catholic affiliation. The medical facts aren't clear and I don't judge either Sister McBride or Bishop Olmsted but it appears Sister McBride believed her choice was to approve the abortion or allow both mother and child to die. She followed her conscience. I like to think I would have done the same. Bishop Olmsted was following the letter of Catholic doctrine. Direct abortion is intrinsically evil and always wrong. Sister Margaret Mary had excommunicated herself.

In 1945 President Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulting in the loss of many thousands of lives, mostly civilian. Just War doctrine holds the intentional targeting of civilians also to be always wrong. But Truman saw his alternative to be an invasion of Japan. The horror of Saipan led him to believe the cost would have been incalculable. The bombing ended the most deadly war the world has ever seen. I believe The President did the right thing.

Through the ages the Doctors of the Church have taught that we must first and always follow our conscience. When The doctrine of Papal Infallibility was adopted at the First Vatican Council in 1870 Cardinal Newman had serious reservations about it. His influence was strong enough that it was couched in such restrictive terms it has been used only once, in the 1945 proclamation of the Assumption of Mary.

Following one's conscience has its dangers too. Saint Louis genuinely thought he was doing God's work slaughtering Muslims and Jews. But over the centuries Popes have been responsible for enough evil for me to believe they should always be held to a standard of reason.  Blind obedience cannot be what God intends, even regarding His Vicar on Earth. It is unlikely my Bishop or Pope would ever ask me to do anything I thought was wrong. But if they did I wouldn't do it.