Month: June 2016

Saviors in the Home

by

Home

I really enjoyed Elder H. Burke Peterson’s talk, Harmony in the Home. It’s another one of those talks that makes you realize that there’s nothing recent about the Church’s emphasis on family: “In countless writings the prophets of the Lord have been trying to teach us that throughout time and all eternity the most important organization is the family.” That alone is a talk that makes it interesting to me, but what stood out to me in this particular talk was the relationship between Christ and family.

That’s something that’s not always obviously apparent. To some extent, it seems that the Church’s emphasis on family is separate from and might even detract from a focus on Christ. I happen to be reading a draft of my father’s next book,[ref]Sorry, no spoilers.[/ref] and those three topics (church, Christ, family) are central to his first chapter.[ref]Maybe the whole book, but I’m still in the first chapter.[/ref] And I saw a lot of the same themes in Elder Peterson’s talk.

First, it strikes me that “the Lord” comes before “family” in that snippet I quoted. It seems like such a small thing, but it really matters. Where does the emphasis on family come from? It comes from “prophets of the Lord.” The message is from Him. This kind of connection between the family (or the home) and the Lord ran throughout the talk, for example: “The home should be the great workshop of the Lord. Here is where children must be taught to walk in ways of truth and soberness, of love and service to each other.” Or also: “The gospel of Jesus Christ is more easily taught and longer remembered in a happy home.”

But here–and this is my second point–is the paragraph that struck me the most from this whole talk[ref]I’m patching together two quotes that are kind of far apart in the original[/ref]:

May I suggest that as parents we must require more of ourselves. May I suggest that we give more of ourselves, that we give more good experiences to our children, experiences that are love-producing and family-solidifying…What if you decided to be cheerful tonight at the dinner table, and in spite of what others might do or say, hold to your course. See how long you can uplift your whole family.

On the one hand, this could be read as such a banal little passage. “Be cheerful!” What could be more simplistic or, a cynic might argue, shallower? But I really love this idea at the end, “see how long you can uplift your whole family.” Because here are two great realities of Mormonism within this talk. The first is that little, everyday things matter. We’re used to seeing talks about controversial moral issues, but Elder Peterson’s focus was simpler:

One of Satan’s most effective tools is at work among us today—it is a destroyer of happiness, peace, contentment, family solidarity. Families are stumbling and falling because of its hobbling and crippling effect. This tool of Satan is called contention.

In other words: don’t argue. Be kind. Be nice. How simple! And yet, if you practice it in your everyday life, how profound the impact. Kindness matters. And if kindness really matters, than sacrificing yourself–your time, your energy, your priorities, your pride–to try and bring more happiness to your home is not banal. It’s truly following the example of the Savior. Not in a dramatic way, but in a true way. Giving that last ounce of energy when your day is long, your kids’ questions are irritating, and the to-do list seems never-ending is hard. You want to hold something back. You want to keep something in reserve. You want to give less than everything. But when you summon the courage and the love to go beyond what you thought you could do, even if it’s something as simple as putting aside your expectations or plans to just be with your kids, well… you’re being a savior in your home. You’re following Him.

It’s true that the Church’s emphasis on family goes way back. And it turns out there’s a reason for that. Home really ought to be the workshop of the Lord.

—

Check out the other posts from the General Conference Odyssey this week and join our Facebook group to follow along!

Future Mormon: An Interview with Adam Miller

by

This is part of the DR Book Collection.

Over at Worlds Without End, I’ve written a review of Mormon philosopher Adam Miller’s new book Future Mormon: Essays in Mormon Theology. Those interested in a larger engagement should check it out, but as I describe it there, Miller’s book is an attempt at “a future tense apologetics” that models “a thoughtful and creative engagement with Mormon ideas while sketching, without obligation, possible directions for future thinking” (pg. xii). If future Mormons are anything like what I read here, then they will (compared to my experience with the average present-day Mormon):

  • Place grace at the center of the gospel where it belongs.
  • Take the materialist metaphysics of Mormonism seriously.
  • Be more aware of the implications of their unique and/or innovative doctrines.
  • Find the sacred in the mundane and embodied.
  • Take a more holistic, almost cosmic view of Mormonism.
  • Read the scriptures carefully and recognize the people within them as people, warts and all.

Whether you agree with everything (or anything) in Future Mormon is beside the point. Miller wants you to wrestle with these ideas. The book is meant to start conversations, get the mental wheels turning, and transform the reader into a theologian. In it, he helps lay the foundation for a more thoughtful, earthy, and creative Mormonism; all while extending his hand to readers as an invitation to join him in the process. At least in my case, his hope of inspiring “a thoughtful and creative engagement with Mormon ideas” has not been in vain. And when you pick up Future Mormon and reflect on its pages, I think you’ll find your case to be similar.

You can hear an interview with Adam Miller on Greg Kofford Books’ Authorcast here.

Have Wages Stagnated?

by

The common claim that wages and living standards have stagnated in the U.S. has been disputed before, but The Washington Post recently reported on a new San Francisco Fed study that suggests the claim is based on a “statistical fluke”:

Workers continuously employed in full-time jobs received wage increases higher than inflation from 2002 to 2015. Last year, the gain was a 3.5 percent increase after inflation, up from 1.2 percent in 2010.

Typically, the median wage — the wage exactly in the middle of all wages — is cited as evidence of stagnation. Indeed, the Fed study confirms this. Median wage increases have fluctuated around 2 percent, unadjusted for inflation. But the median wage is misleading, the report argues, because it’s heavily driven by demographic changes: an influx of young and part-time workers whose relatively low wages drag down the median; and the retirement of baby-boom workers whose relatively higher pay no longer lifts up the median.

This should hopefully calm some of the public hyperventilation that has taken place over the supposed stagnation of wages.

The larger implication is that the study compromises the prevailing economic narrative, which emphasizes the stagnation of wages and living standards. Clearly, millions of households — especially the recently unemployed — have suffered large losses, and the gains of many others are underwhelming. But the impression that most people in the middle class are slipping backward seems overwrought. The anxiety about the future is real, but its causes must be more complicated than commonly thought.

How to Deal With the Top 1%: Competition

by

“Curbing this inequality requires a clear understanding of its causes,” writes Brooking’s Jonathan Rothwell. “Three of the standard explanations—capital shares, skills, and technology—are myths. The real cause of elite inequality is the lack of open access and market competition in elite investment and labor markets. To bring the elite down to size, we need to make them compete.” He explains that–despite the claims of people like Robert Reich–corporate profits actually represented a lower share of GDP (4.9%) between 1980 and 2014 than between 1950 and 1979 (5.4%).

So, what’s going on here? The simple explanation is that wages and salaries are an inadequate measure of the share of economic benefits flowing to labor. Wages and salaries have declined as a share of total income, largely for two reasons. First, total national income includes government transfer payments, which are rising because of an aging population (e.g., Social Security and Medicare). Second, companies have greatly increased non-salary compensation (e.g., healthcare and retirement benefits). Total worker compensation plus transfer payments have actually slightly increased as a share of total national income, from 79 percent between 1951 and 1979, to 81 percent for the years from 1980 to 2015:

Rothwell 32516001

As for the claims that elite earnings are driven by advanced skills and IQ, Rothwell states, “It is certainly true that rising relative returns to education have driven up inequality. But as I have written earlier, this is true among the bottom 99 percent. There is no evidence to support the idea that the top 1 percent consists mostly of people of “exceptional talent.” In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.” Finally, while some entrepreneurs grow rich by founding an innovative technology, the rich are most often found in the doctor’s office. “No industry has more top earners than physicians’ offices, with 7.2 percent. Hospitals are home to 7 percent. Legal services and securities and financial investments industries account for another 7 and 6 percent, respectively. Real estate, dentistry, and banking provide a large number, too.”

So what is leading to inequality according to Rothwell?

One way that the top 1 percent cements their position is by occupying the financial sector, and accessing above-market returns on their investments…The accredited investor rule has mostly been ignored by scholars of inequality. But legal scholars Houman Shadab, Usha Rodrigues, and Cary Martin Shelby are an exception. They have each written persuasively about how the rules contribute to inequality by giving the richest investors privileged access to the best investment strategies. Shadab points out that other countries (with less inequality) allow retail investors to access hedge funds. The law has also inflated the compensation of hedge fund workers—roughly $500,000 on average—by restricting competition. Mutual funds—which charge tiny fees by comparison—are currently barred from using hedge fund strategies because they have non-rich investors. If the law was changed to allow mutual funds to offer hedge fund portfolios, hundreds of billions of dollars would be transferred annually from super-rich hedge fund managers and investment bankers to ordinary investors, and even low-income workers with retirement plans.

But that’s not all.

At the same time, we need more competition at the top end of the labor market. As economist Dean Baker points out, politicians and intellectuals often champion market competition—but what they mean by that is competition among low-paid service workers, production workers, or computer programmers who face competition from trade and immigration, while elite professionals sit behind a protectionist wall. Workers in occupations with no higher educational requirements see their wages held down by millions of other Americans denied a high-quality education and competing for relatively precious vacancies. For lawyers, doctors, and dentists— three of the most over-represented occupations in the top 1 percent—state-level lobbying from professional associations has blocked efforts to expand the supply of qualified workers who could do many of the “professional” job tasks for less pay.

Ultimately, Rothwell suggests that we increase the competition for the top 1 percent.

Before Marx, Adam Smith provided a framework for political economy that is especially useful today. Smith warned against local trade associations which were inevitably conspiring “against the public…to raise prices,” and “restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise…occasion a very important inequality” between occupations. For earnings to be distributed more fairly, our goal is not to stand in the way of markets, but to make them work better.