The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Issues Arising from Representation in Governments and on Corporate Boards
The word “proletarian” came into vogue in the nineteenth century via Karl Marx. In our time, the word simply equates to “hourly wage earners” as compared to “salaried workers.” In general, those who are paid by the hour earn less than those who earn salaries, and therefore the two types of workers have two quite different worldviews.
Wage earners are more likely to lose their jobs more quickly than salaried workers. Thus if they are elected to any political offices at any level of government, their concerns tend to reflect the relative tenuousness of life for their fellow proletarians. This is very understandable.
Historically, the only national legislatures that have had a heavy preponderance of proletarians in their membership have been those in nations which attempted to become Marxist communist states. None of them was ever successful, either as a state or as a Marxist state, because Marxism has proven itself to be entirely inept in both its economic and its political principles.
Nearly all modern nations are versions of monarchies (very few), autocracies (alas, a growing number), or democracies (a slowly diminishing group, but still, a lot). Furthermore, the economy of nearly all modern nations operate in some variety of capitalism.
Whatever may be the weaknesses of capitalistic nations, proletarian-governed nations cannot last long. If legislators or executive government officials represent primarily the concerns of wage-earning workers, they are doomed to fail, because worker-dominated government is a fatally-flawed system of government.
There is only one genuine form of socialism, and that is Marxist socialism, which means the government ownership of all the means of production and distribution. Many politicians and political parties in Europe have long called themselves socialist, but they are not true socialists. Instead they are socially-minded capitalists. Their emphasis is on the needs of lower-income people, but they wisely do not promote Marxism to ameliorate those needs, because no sensible nation can tolerate Marxism.
Nevertheless, there are always proletarians in every society whose primary and perhaps exclusive interest is in the needs of other wage-earners or those who are unemployed or under-employed. Those issues are very real, but they are not the only issues which government must address. However, those issues tend to be the primary ones that proletarians address, just as plutocrats primarily address matters that benefit plutocrats. Many corporations deliberately add one or two company wage earners to their boards, but because the boards have the power, they never allow the proletarian board members to lower corporate profitability.
At all levels, governments and corporate boards of directors need elected officials who are Big-Picture People. That is, they should be representatives who constantly attempt to employ what were called in the nineteenth century Utilitarian or Utilitarian Hedonistic Principles.
“Hedonism” is a word with a bad reputation. In ordinary usage, it smacks of self-serving indulgence in all manner of individual-centered habits. But in the thinking of such philosophers as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, utilitarian hedonism meant always striving to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. In other words, utilitarianism seeks Big-Picture officials to make the big decisions.
In current American government, proletarian thinking is especially characterized by two elected people, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of the 14th Congressional District in New York City. She defeated a ten-term Congressman in the Democratic primary and won the general election in a landslide. Prior to her election, because of hardships within her family, she took a series of low-paying restaurant jobs before she was elected to Congress. Thus her congressional salary is many times larger than the largest annual income she ever earned before becoming a Member of Congress.
Both Sanders and AOC (now her universal nomenclature) declare themselves to be socialists, although neither is either a Marxist or a European-type “socialist.” In the current congressional debates, Senator Sanders has sided with the President, but AOC and her allies have balked from voting on the smaller “traditional infrastructure bill” before voting on the larger “social infrastructure bill.” These radical House members pose a serious threat the traditional infrastructure legislation.
The great majority in the US Congress come from the wealthy class, while only a few members are from the working-class. When the two houses of Congress are unusually evenly divided, as they are now, it takes only a few “proletarians” to derail legislation. That is because they can successfully insist on taking positions that favor low-income people against those favored by the large majority of legislators, who represent the wealthy classes.
The framers of the Constitution were members of the wealthy class of property owners. It was written into the first drafts of the Constitution that only property-owning males could vote. They believed that low income people were incapable of ruling wisely.
As has been stated in both of these first two in a group of four essays, nearly all legislatures in nearly every nation on earth have too many plutocrats to enable Big Picture legislation to pass which benefits the middle and lower classes as much as the relatively small percentage of upper class citizens. However, in an evenly divided legislature, too many proletarians can stymie wise legislation for anyone, let alone for everyone. Radical conservatives and radical liberals are anathema to moderate legislation being enacted.
At present, the United States Congress has far too many plutocrat members who are opposed by a few ideologically inflexible proletarians. Both extremes are preventing President Biden from passing what he had hoped would be his signature legislation before the 2022 election. Thus the body politic is left wondering what shall happen in the next few days or weeks. Too many who are too far right or left can upset the natural balance of Congress. However, in October of 2021, it is a few far-leftists who are holding Congress hostage. Too many of the few proletarian-minded may bring the entire Congress – and nation - to its knees.
October 12, 2021
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.