Kev's Book Rants
This podcast is about books. Well, kind of.
Really, it's about beliefs. How we form them, why we hold on to them, and what happens when they're challenged. Because beliefs, they don't change easily. They need pressure. Pressure that forces us to rethink, to question deeply, to break down old assumptions, or even strengthen a belief that was already there.
Welcome to Kev's Book Rants, where we use books as a tool to apply that pressure, digging deep into their ideas to challenge our own thinking, refine our beliefs, and see if we really believe what we say we believe. And whether we fortify the beliefs we already hold or build something entirely new, the result is still the same: A better understanding of who we are, what we believe, and why we believe it.
I'm Kevin, and these are my book rants!
Kev's Book Rants
Ep: 4 - Kamala Harris, Billionaires and the Broken System
In this episode, I dig into The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris and start questioning if our economy today is just a high-tech version of the Gilded Age. Are billionaires like Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg the modern-day Rockefellers? I explore how corporate greed, income inequality, and stagnant wages are driving us to rethink the system.
Back in the late 1800s, america was smack in the middle of what historians called the Gilded Age. Railroads were stretching across the country, factories were running non-stop and America was cranking out more goods than ever. And on a surface, it looked like everyone was out here making money because the country as a whole was becoming wealthy, but underneath that surface was a very different reality. Wealthy, but underneath that surface was a very different reality. While folks like Carnegie, rockefeller and Vanderbilt amassed this unimaginable wealth, the average American worker was just barely getting by. These folks were putting in 12, sometimes 16-hour days in dangerous conditions, earning next to nothing, and if you were one of the ones who tried to speak up or demand better, you were probably fired, replaced or, even worse, thrown in jail. It was really a time of massive wealth at the top and crushing poverty for everyone else, and while a handful of people were living in luxury, millions were struggling just to put food on the table. Fast forward to today and it feels like not much has changed. Sure, we're not living in the 1800s anymore, but the wealth gap and the exploitation still seems to be there. Now, instead of Carnegie and Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, you have Bezos, musk and Zuckerberg billionaires building empires on the backs of workers who are just struggling to get by. See, the faces and the names are different, but the system still feels the same. One person who's really taken a hard look at this is presidential candidate Kamala Harris. In her book the Truths we Hold, she spends an entire chapter breaking down how wage stagnation, corporate greed and rising costs are keeping millions of Americans stuck in this same old cycle. Now she points to unions as a potential way to level the playing field between workers and corporations, but she kind of leaves us with more questions and answers about how to truly break free from this system. And that's what we're going to get into today, because Harris, in this chapter, does a good job of calling out the problem. But can we really come up with ideas to fix a system that's been stacked against workers for so long? Been stacked against workers for so long?
Speaker 1:This podcast is about books. Well, kind of. Really, it's about beliefs, how we form them, why we hold on to them and what happens when they're challenged. Because beliefs, they don't change easily. They need pressure, pressure that forces us to rethink, to question deeply, to break down old assumptions or even strengthen a belief that was already there. Welcome to Kev's Book Rants, where we use books as a tool to apply that pressure, digging deep into their ideas, to challenge our own thinking, refine our beliefs and see if we really believe what we say we believe, and whether we fortify the beliefs we already hold or build something entirely new. The result is still the same a better understanding of who we are, what we believe and why we believe it.
Speaker 1:I'm Kevin and these are my booklets, so one of the big things Harris talks about in her book is wage stagnation. She points this out in her chapter the Cost of Living, where she talks about how wages have basically flatlined, while the cost of everything else is pretty much shot through the roof. She talks about how, over the last few decades, everything has gotten way more expensive Things like housing and health care and education. All of everything has gotten way more expensive. Things like housing and healthcare and education, all of that has gotten way too expensive. But the wages they've barely budged. Rent has especially gotten crazy and people are left with almost nothing after paying the bills. They have no ability to save money or put money away to build wealth over time. Medical costs man, you could forget about that right, because one hospital visit can pretty much wipe out your entire savings. And then, of course, you have the student loans, right? People are stuck paying those things off for what feels like their entire lives.
Speaker 1:And here's the kicker. Workers are doing more than ever, right. They're more productive than ever before. Businesses are making all kinds of money right now, but all that extra cash is just going straight to the CEOs and the shareholders, the people that's actually doing the work. They're not seeing any of it. And it's not just hitting one particular group either, right, it's hitting middle class families. It's hitting young adults trying to get started, even folks getting closer to retirement. Everybody is feeling the squeeze. And so what ends up happening is people get stuck in this impossible cycle where they're working all the time, but they're never able to catch up or get enough ahead to build for the future. And it's not because they're not trying enough, it's not because they're not being productive, but it's because the system is literally set up to make it impossible for them to succeed.
Speaker 1:And when I say the systems, I want to be clear what systems I'm talking about. Right, I want to put names to these things. I'm talking about the healthcare system that banks rub people just for getting sick, or the education system that burdens students with lifelong debt, the tax system that's designed to benefit the rich while leaving the working class to carry the load, the housing market that puts even basic shelter out of reach for so many people, and really all the other systems in our society that's supposed to be creating opportunities for people looking to work hard and make something of themselves, but instead these systems are there to create barriers. These systems end up keeping people trapped in this cycle to where, no matter how hard they work, they just can't get ahead.
Speaker 1:In the book, kamala shares a letter from a mother who, with her husband, they both work full-time jobs and yet they still can't find a way to make ends meet. Right, it's really messed up, because in the letter the mother talks about how they make too much money to qualify for help with daycare, but on their own they can't even afford $50 a month toward daycare without government assistance, and anybody who has kids knows $50 ain't getting you nothing when it comes to daycare, right? And I think this letter that she shares in the book really shows how, despite their hard work, a lot of families across the country are stuck in this kind of impossible situation where the math just isn't adding up Right. Here's a quote that she said in the book that I really kind of stuck out to me. She said this quote how can you dream, if you make minimum wage and work 40 hours a week, knowing that in 99% of US counties you can't afford the market rate rent on an average one bedroom apartment? End quote.
Speaker 1:And this is exactly the point I made in my last episode on JD Vance and Vance and his book Hillbilly Elegy. And I think really that kind of highlights the difference between not just JD Vance and Kamala Harris, but really the bigger difference between Democrats and Republicans as a whole. Right, because Republicans by and large tend to blame individuals. They look at poor people and say, hey, you need to work harder or you're not making the right choices, or even the whole, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps thing. But the Democrats tend to think the problem is more systemic. Now, this isn't me saying one is right and one is wrong. It's just something that kind of jumped out to me after reading both of these books.
Speaker 1:Now, when it comes to Harris, she connects this whole wage stagnation thing to a bigger issue, which is corporate greed, and honestly, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Right, because corporations are pulling in all of this money, all of these record profits, ceos are making millions, shareholders are seeing huge returns, but what about the people actually doing the work? What about the ones who are, I don't know, keeping the company running day in and day out? How is it that they're the ones that's getting left behind? And it's not just a few people either, right, we're not just talking about one demographic of people, it's millions of workers. It's this massive imbalance again, where those at the top just keep getting richer and richer and richer, richer, while everybody else is slowly starting to see their purchasing power go down the drain. And Harris is pretty clear on this. How can we expect people to thrive when the system is literally stacked against them?
Speaker 1:Now, at the end of the day, harris is calling out the real problem. At the end of the day, harris is calling out the real problem. At the end of the day, harris is calling out the real problem here, which is corporate greed. These companies, they're all about the bottom line, about maximizing profits, about cutting costs, and unfortunately, that often means keeping wages low, crushing unions and destroying competition. And really, this isn't a new phenomenon. Corporations have been doing shady stuff like this as long as capitalism has been a thing. But here's the issue what these companies are doing isn't even real capitalism. Like capitalism is supposed to be competition Companies competing to offer the best product, the best service, trying to innovate and actually giving people value. But instead what we're seeing is these corporations just crushing their competition and keeping wages down and doing whatever they can do to control the market. That's not competition. That's just them calling the shots and running the whole game.
Speaker 1:See, in an ideal capitalist society, companies have to care about things like customer satisfaction and treating their workers or their employees right. Why? Because their success depends on it. If a product wasn't up to par or a company treated its workers poorly, there's always other options out there. Right, consumers can vote with their wallets and workers can turn to other places to work. But that's not the reality that we live in right now, in 2024. Workers across the board are feeling stuck because why would I quit one job when the next one is just going to treat me the same? It's like all of these companies are working together, intentionally or not, to keep wages down, to keep quality of life for workers down right. There's nowhere to turn for better conditions.
Speaker 1:Consumers, I mean, they're trapped in the same boat really, because as companies grow larger and they start gobbling up the competition, they really don't need to depend on customer loyalty or really care that much about creating high quality products. When you've got market dominance, consumers are left with fewer choices. Suddenly again, it's not about creating the best product, it's about making sure there's no competition. And who benefits from that? I mean, it's not the average worker, or it's not the consumers, or you know the people out here trying to buy these products or anything. It's not them, it's the investors, it's the shareholders, it's the people who make money simply because they already have money. The more these companies focus on maximizing profits for their investors, the more they're likely to cut corners, whether that's in wages or benefits or the quality of what they're selling. This whole corporate consolidation thing gives them the power to set the rules, and that means worse conditions for everybody else. So while workers are here struggling to make ends meet and consumers are paying higher prices for less product or less quality product, these corporations are really just out here living their best life, and it's not because they're doing a better job, it's because they've essentially eliminated competition. Because they've essentially eliminated competition Corporations today, or corporations in general, really they're in the business of monopolizing, not innovating.
Speaker 1:And Harris really drives this point home in her book, showing how the system is rigged to benefit a few at the expense of the many. And really this isn't just a political talking point, right, I think it's something we are. We're all feeling in some sort of way, whether it's gas prices or the price of groceries, or not being able to afford hospital bills or just things like that. Right, we're all feeling the crunch right now. Inflation, that's another thing. We're all feeling it and, according to Harris, until we address this power imbalance, the cycle of wage stagnation, rising costs and shrinking opportunities, it's just going to continue. Now, what's the best way that we can level that playing field? How can we start moving toward addressing this power imbalance?
Speaker 1:Well, it's unions, right? Unions are the only way for workers to balance the power that corporations hold over them. Unions allow workers to collectively bargain for better wages, for better benefits and, just overall, better working conditions. Think about it like this right, if I work at Walmart and I see that Walmart is making all kinds of money, right, their profits are going through the roof. The shareholders are making all kinds of money all of this stuff, right, but I'm still not getting a raise. What can I really do as one individual person? Walmart isn't going to pay any attention to you know, one person complaining. But if I'm a part of a union and now tens of thousands of Walmart workers come together and say, hey, we want to share those profits that we helped create, or else we just not showing up to work, that forces Walmart to negotiate, right, and it's. It's exactly what's going on with the dock worker strike on the East Coast in the Gulf right now. Right, you've got almost 50,000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association. They just walked off the job.
Speaker 1:These are the same guys that kept the ports running through the pandemic. Right, they made sure the economy stayed afloat while everything else shut down During the pandemic. These shipping and logistics companies they made like billions of dollars, right, because, remember, everything else was shut down, so everybody was at the house ordering on Amazon and you know, getting things delivered, and those companies that was responsible for making that happen. They cleaned up. But do you think that money made it down to the people who actually did the work and actually risked their lives to keep the economy going? No, of course not, and that's why the ILA is saying, hey, man, enough is enough. Right, we want our fair share of the profits we help generate, especially during a global pandemic where we put our lives on the line to keep everything going. Of course they deserve that, a share of that. Of course they deserve raises or bonuses or whatever, because they're the ones that made that happen. And see, the only way that you can do that, the only way that you can you know force of these major companies to negotiate with you is through organized labor, which is exactly why these corporations work so hard to dismantle unions, right? Because if they can keep workers separated, if they can just keep me by myself at Walmart complaining about not getting a pay raise and you know, all of us are just separated they can maintain control. And back to the book, right?
Speaker 1:Harris makes it clear that the decline of organized labor wasn't by accident. It wasn't just by chance that these things started to happen. According to her, it's part of a larger effort, largely driven by the Republican Party, to protect corporate interests at the expense of the workers, which I mean? Yeah, surprise, surprise, right? More finger pointing between the left and the right Like that's. I mean, what are you going to do? This is America, right? Or this is our American politics, really? But she makes the argument that Republicans have systematically worked to weaken the labor protections, making it harder for unions to organize or even to exist in some places. And sure, while that might be Harris's perspective, the reality is probably way more complicated than just one political party being responsible for this whole mess being responsible for this whole mess. But it's still something to consider, especially right now in the midst of this presidential election, because really, the future of labor rights could be on the line in this election.
Speaker 1:And this brings up an interesting thought If Kamala Harris were to become the next president, what would that mean for organized labor in America? Because, I mean, sure, harris comes off as very progressive, at least in how she talks about workers' rights and corporate greed and all of that stuff. But this idea of the rebirth of organized labor, well, it feels like a little bit of a throwback, right. I mean, can we really expect a resurgence of unions in today's economy? Right, with all of the outsourcing and the automation and the rise of AI, it just seems like corporations will always find a way to cut costs and screw over the workers. And that's the interesting point here. If unions do make a comeback, what will the corporation's response be? Because, yeah, unions are good for workers, but that doesn't mean that companies won't have their own counter strategy. They could move jobs overseas, they can replace workers with machines or, you know, of course, you've got AI coming to take over everything, so we could be replaced by AI. So, while I do like Harris's ideas and the big talk about labor and organized union and all of that, it's clear that the landscape of labor is changing really fast and if unions do make a comeback, we'll have to see how unions will adapt to this new economy that we're moving into.
Speaker 1:Now let's go ahead and wrap this up. I want to be clear, right, because the first couple of episodes, in my viewpoint so far, might lead some of you to believe that I again am some Marxist or socialist and you know I'm advocating for the overthrow. No, I'm not doing any of that right. In fact, I believe capitalism gives the best shot and opportunity for the most people. But for capitalism to work the way that it's supposed to work, there needs to be real competition.
Speaker 1:Part of the quote unquote American dream. Is this idea of meritocracy right? The belief that if you work hard and you have valuable skills to offer to the workforce, or you create a product that improves the lives of a large group of people, or you provide a service that solves a real problem, the idea is that you will rise to the top and that you will be financially rewarded because of that. Capitalism is supposed to be the system where effort, innovation and talent pay off. Our version of capitalism doesn't work like that. In fact, I'd argue that it never really has right.
Speaker 1:Whether it's been slavery or sharecropping, or union busting or corporate consolidation, whatever, the game has always been about exploiting the labor force or achieving a monopoly, because if you can get a monopoly, you can control the labor and the consumer. Everybody has to bend the knee to you and, honestly, when you look at it that way, that doesn't sound like capitalism, right, it starts to sound a lot like feudalism. The people doing the work are stuck, while the few who control the wealth keep raking it in. I don't know Something to think about. Anyway, that's all I've got. Thanks for listening to my rant and we'll catch you next time. Thank you.