The "ownership society"....What does it mean?

[Francine Frensky]

I keep hearing about this from republicans in my family. "Oh, everything will be great when we have an ownership society".

So what I'm wondering, I guess out of fear because time and again I've noticed bush's "solutions" are always the worst possible choices for the good of mankind, what I'm wondering is if the "ownership society" is a code-name for the economy of the old south. The wealthy land-owners and the slaves/serfs. Does bush want to see wealth only in the hands of the land-owners/wealthy families? Is this a way to make sure the poor never rise up? Will the flat tax and eliminating social security do anything but greatly enrich the investor class at the ultimate expense of the working class??

I live in the south, and I know enough about economics to understand why the south has lagged the rest of the country economically: because of the slave economy of 300 years ago, which was very similar to the feudal economy of old europe (a few wealthy landowners, lots of peasants, and money that stays in families, regardless of merit), and of which southerners were very reluctant to part (even poor southerners are taught early it's best not to rock the boat, say "yes sir/no m'am and respect your elders"). So even after the slaves were gone, the south clung to it's rich family worship/protection.

The slave-owners economy produces stagnant growth, eliminates the incentive for entrepreneurship, and rewards people based on who their daddy was. The rich man's son has no incentive to develop new products, explore new ideas, he has a guaranteed income and has basically the same incentive as a communist (see the Soviet Union).

I don't know, that's just what I think when I hear "ownership society". What is your impression of those words?

[Drifter]

1. The less popular term ...

might be "Foreclosure Society".

Cheers
Drifter

[radwriter0555]

2. It means our sorry asses are owned by our new massuh's in the white house,

the senate and in congress.

Welcome to Uhmurrikkka under a bush!

I told you so #3987.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. It's a BS, meaningless phrase to provide cover for WHATEVER

policies the repubs/runing elite want.

Compare with:
compassionate conservatism
tax relief
freedom is on the march
death tax
liberal media
war on terror

[GreenArrow]

4. It means you are a cow

or some sort of livestock. You exist to bring your owner wealth. It means further, everyone for himself (herself); if you have, good on ya, if ya don't, it's your fault, and tough titty, ya lazy bum.

It is, additionally, codeword to describe the overall privatization of all the means of production in society, and every exploitable resource, which takes us back to my first definition--we are cattle. They call us consumers, of course, which is a clever name for cattle, fattened for the master's table.

[Francine Frensky]

29. hey now, I resemble that remark!

just kidding.

[slay]

5. Damn straight - sounds like slavery to me

Can you "own" love? Truth? Fun? Information? The air we breathe? Believe me, they will try. These people want to own everything and money is their God. The poor are already our slaves. They do the jobs the rest of us are too good for.

[moggie12]

6. The ownership society is a crock:

The rich get richer while the country and the rest of us are in hock. It's code for "Yes, own stock! Wall Street is your best investment! Forget about a guaranteed monthly SS check -- put your retirement money in the stock market and you'll be rich!" Well, at least Wall Street will be richer.....

[GreenArrow]

14. and who owns the stock?

And the businesses in which the stock is to be bought/invested?

The same fuckers that already own everything and who are now suggesting that we privatize social security to enrich them even further.

[moggie12]

32. Exactly!

You nailed it. SS funds will be used to "buy" the stock of corporate insiders who get millions in stock options -- insiders will make a bundle while the SS shmuck will watch his/her account dribble away. The "hedge fund" sharpies will trade away the rest of the SS accounts. My biggest beef with DLC Dems is that they've sanctioned looting by corporate insiders via stock options and haven't curtailed hedge fund traders. Only us 401K twits "invest" anymore -- the "smart money" trades. Bush's SS reform will be a field day for these guys...

[rucky]

7. Income is taxed, but not wealth.

it's the most regressive plan here since slavery was legal.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. I think you mean "labor" is taxed.

Wealth generates income too (interest/dividends), and that income will NOT be taxed.

[rucky]

11. Yep. I forgot that there are other ways to earn income.

:)

[Selteri]

24. Here's the breakdown

Directly earned wealth, through labor or a 'normal' job.

Taxed - up to 40% at the moment (maybe 30some % Haven't been in that bracket for a while)

Capitol Gains - Stocks Bonds Etcetera - 25% with Bush cutting quickly.

Property income through the money for nothing system - 0% - 10% State taxes.

[Paradise]

8. "Sucker" language for "Fools"! n/t

[TalkingDog]

10. Here's some propaganda for you.

http://www.cato.org/special/ownership_society/boaz.html

"An ownership society values responsibility, liberty, and property. Individuals are empowered by freeing them from dependence on government handouts and making them owners instead, in control of their own lives and destinies. In the ownership society, patients control their own health care, parents control their own children's education, and workers control their retirement savings."

Basically it says that if you are born with a lot of luck, intelligence and are able bodied you can take care of yourself. If you are born wealthy good for you. However if you are born disabled, become handicapped or cannot navigate the system, well, you'd better be good at scrawling on cardboard signs and standing on street corners. Oh, and you'll need to be able to beg. Too bad for you if you have loved ones to support. Next phase: Poorhouses and Indentured Servitude.

[greendog]

19. Tooth and Claw...

...social darwinism.

[oneighty]

41. Next step

pitchforks and torches.

Ownership society becomes everyman for himself society and only the young and strong will survive.

Darwin at work.

180

[oppositionmember]

12. Same as it always meant:

I own, you work.

[newyawker99]

38. Hi oppositionmember!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[alcuno]

54. Ownership society means you are on your own.

And welcome to DU, opposition member.

[baldguy]

13. Feudalism

Only it will be worse. In Medieval Europe & in the Old South, you knew who your master was. You knew what he expected of you.

In the neocon "ownership society" you master will be a faceless multinational corporation. People will be traded & sold as a commodity - like pig bellies or frozen orange juice.

In fact, its already happening. My sister worked for a software company that did contract work for the Fed Gov't. The project lasted 9 yrs, but the contracts only lasted 3yrs. Like clockwork, when a contract was up the job was bid out to another company which bought my sisters' division whole.

She worked in the same office doing the same job for the same gov't agency for 8 yrs - and worked for 4 different companies. Every time this happened, she lost her accumulated benefits, she lost her seniority (except within the division) and she lost any stock options she had been promised.

What the average Republican doesn't realize is that in an "ownership society", just like the rest of us THEY WON"T BE THE OWNERS - THEY'LL BE THE OWNED!

[Just Me]

42. ,...mixed with corporatism which is fascism, I might humbly add. n/t

[JHB]

15. The Problem (well, one of them) with the term is that...

...many people are under the impression they will be one of the Owners, not one of the Owe-to-the-Owners. To crib from British writer Douglas Adams, in the "ownership society" men are real men, women are real women, everyone is rich and no one is poor -- at least no one worth speaking of.

The larger problem is actually one of those points where we actually have common ground with many (well, some) religious conservatives: this idea of an "Ownership Society" is pretty much the embodiment of what Margaret Thatcher meant when she said "There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families." Essentially, that view holds that there's nothing "more" to society than economic interactions.

And people who don't believe in "the ownership society" understand that that is a load of horseshit.

[Crankie Avalon]

16. I don't know about the propaganda...

...but the reality underlying it seems to be that this country will be wholly owned by foreign creditors like China since people like Dubya and crew keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing money for themselves to spend and for which we and our children will be drowned in debt afterwards.

They sell our country to new "owners" like the Chinese and Saudi Arabian ruling elites, and bag a sweet "sales commission" for themselves.

And then they have the nerve to talk about "dependency." The people who buy this tripe are the most dependent of us all--red staters who are subsidized by blue state tax revenues, and EVERY one of us, blue, red, or whatever, have been made dependent on foreign capital as Bush and Co. keep us spending money we don't have to preserve our wasteful, consume-like-there's-no-tomorrow lifestyle.

[hexola]

17. I thought we already lived in an ownership society....?

I think it was a way of pandering to the lower classes...who else could that possibly appeal to? I think we already live in an ownership society...We can all buy a home...own cars, property etc. Only the "have nots" would like this idea. "Ownership" appeals to a persons wishful thinking. The intended effect is "vote for Bush" = "I will own a home." It's a transparent way for Bush to offer rewards for votes. And basically an empty promise...sounds great...but guess what? We already live in a ownership society! Sucker! Bush might as well annouce his support for red tomatoes.

[txaslftist]

47. I'm sorry, I can't agree.

Red tomatoes are okay, but really it's the little yellow cherry ones I support.

[FormerDittoHead]

18. The more you own, great, otherwise, too bad. ...property tax soapbox

OK, WHY don't people wake up and realize that between income taxes and the almost inevitable sales tax, the only thing that won't be taxed by the federal gov't is PROPERTY and/or WEALTH.

Why don't the Feds tax property like every state does? (Delaware, for example, taxes property, but has no sales tax). Arlington County taxes automobiles as well!

Let's do the math:

The #1 expense of the government is the military.

What for? They provide protection.

What do they protect? Lives and freedom. What else? WEALTH and it's value.

If you own a house (and you're responsible), you buy insurance.

The more expensive your house, the more you pay for the insurance. Makes sense? Why can't we apply that logic to taxes?

Yet there is nothing which makes wealthy people (THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY WEALTHY) pay for the 'service' rendered by the gov't for the ONGOING expense of protecting the value of their wealth!

INCOME TAXES and SALES TAXES, even flat ones, are means to inhibit people from collecting a surplus of money to become wealthy.

ALL OF THIS *benefits* the WEALTHY. PERIOD.

What they DON'T want is a national property tax, because THAT would REALLY GET THEM!

The rest of these neo-con 'slogans' are LIES and EVERYONE here knows it.

[Francine Frensky]

30. That's actually a GREAT counter: call for a national property tax

instead of a flat tax on income.

Wow, good points.

[FormerDittoHead]

45. Francine, God bless you. I hope you're serious in your praise!

I hope you're serious in your praise! I haven't found much support for it up until now. Naturally, people don't want to think about paying ANY added tax, yet we're facing a national sales tax and very little is being done to stop it while somehow being characterized as "fair"!!!

I was a tax accountant for a couple of years and found my heart just wasn't in it.

I thought: WHY TAX INCOME IN THE FIRST PLACE? Why do you want to discourage (tax) people making money? The only reason it's taxed is because it's easy to collect. There is little 'justice' involved in it, IMO.

With this, we can forget about progressive income taxes, and the concept of income re-distribution, which the right has all but diffused through it's retoric of "class warfare" even when discussing basic issues such as raising the minimum wage.

EVERY STATE THAT I'M AWARE OF collects taxes on land + property (we call them 'improvements' here in NJ) and they've been doing so since before the revolutionary war. This isn't a "new" "commie" tax.

Check this out: Ben Franklin joined the revolutionaries because of the unfairness he saw in the British aristocracy being exempted from paying land taxes. Get that? Ben "commie pinko" Franklin BECAME one of our founding fathers BECAUSE he thought EVERYONE should pay property tax!

The right CRIES for "tax simplification" - let me give you a hint of what a "simple" national sales tax would be:

With a national sales tax, every small business person and self employed individual will have to collect said sales tax, changing every cash register, price sheet, etc, fill out an ADDITIONAL 13 forms (minimum) a year along with making 12-13 payments to the fed for the sales tax.

This doesn't even include the mine field that business people will be walking through calculating the various taxes for items that the state charges differently than what the fed will. (NJ: unprepared food and clothing: no tax). Many business people who collect no sales tax presently (produce markets, clothing stores) would have to start.

...and let me bet you a dollar to a donut that sales of stocks and bonds won't be included in the national sale tax plan (guess who owns most of stocks and bonds?)

And don't get me started on the inevitable underground economy!

A national property tax, however, could not be more simple. Your local property tax collector would be instructed to add on a given small percentage on top of your present bill, and mail you the bill.

You don't even have to cut more than the one check you already use to pay your present taxes! Could it be more simple!???

It would involve MUCH less paperwork than an added sales tax, and it will rightly reflect the added use of our gov't resources, services and protections that the rich benefit from.

What's more... IT'S THAT MAGIC NEO-CON WORD... FLAT. The guy who owns a house worth $50,000,000 (Ken Lay) will pay 1000x that of a guy who's house is worth $50,000. (with a caveat, see point #2)

Five final points:

1) Like every state that I'm aware of, taxes on Farm land and other certain properties will be done at different rates, along with other reductions and exemptions (churches).

2) I would suggest some kind of "personal exemption" of some amount (the first $40,000 of value? Pick a number.) (additional for seniors?) for personal residences (not business property) so that someone living in a *modest* house ends up not paying anything more at all. Remember, however, your present, local property tax bill gives you no exception, so this could rightly be phased out (see point #4).

A provision could also be made for apartment buildings to prevent landlords from passing on the added expense. You could simply multiply every rented personal residence (not talking office buildings) by $40,000 and use THAT as a possible exemption for rental property taxes. (or some such calculation) Any additional amount would then have to paid by renter + landlord.

3) Every dollar of it should go to reducing income taxes. I'm not talking about INCREASING net taxes, but redistributing the proportional burden to those who receive the proportional benefit, UNLIKE income taxes do or a sales tax would.

4) It would have to be phased in over a number of years (like 10? 20?) but this would be very easy to do as the means of collection are so simple.

5) Property taxes would continue to be considered a deductable expense for business activities.

I'm creating a website to more graphically make these points, and to try to provide an alternative to the JUGGERNAUT that a national sales tax will become, and it being a sweeping bonanza to further reduce tax burdens for the rich.

[Bridget Burke]

20. In essence, "ownership society" means no Social Security,

No Medicare or Medicaid. No welfare. No public education.

Those who have can take care of themselves. For the others--perhaps they can get handouts from the churches. (Some of the more radical Christian Reconstructionists do, indeed, want a return to slavery.)

[HamdenRice]

21. Almost every response you received is wrong -- here it is ...

I completely disagree with the idea of the ownership society, but at least we should try to understand what the enemy is saying.

The idea behind the ownership society is that the US was divided between worker/consumers and owners of capital. Because there are more worker/consumers, democracy after many years of struggle produced an outcome in which workers basically set the political agenda. The triumph of worker/consumers was the New Deal and Great Society era.

The majority of people did not identify with business and ownership -- they sought to tax and regulate it for their benefit. New York City is an excellent example of the opposite of an ownership society when it comes to real estate. Because the very structure of New York, its density and multi-family dwellings, the majority of people are tenants, not homeowners. This has produced a remarkably pro-tenant legal system, in which landlords are swamped politically by the numerically preponderant tenants and therefore highly regulated by democratically elected government.

The ownership society idea tries make everyone an owner of capital, so that they will identify with capital and create a political and regulatory environment that will be heaven for business. The best way of making all worker/consumers identify with corporate interests is to give them token ownership of corporations. Remember how in the 1990s, everyone was obsessed with the stock market because of 401Ks? That was the beginning.

Bush plans to make everyone's interests aligned with corporate interests by forcing us to invest our social security payroll taxes in the corporate sector. If your retirement was based on the success of Enron, would you want the SEC and Elliot Spitzer to investigate and prosecute it?

Of course, the catch is that most people do not want to be business people. The New Deal covenant was that most of us could have a good and stable and predictable life as worker/consumers, and focus on our families, communities and civic organizations rather than profit seeking. Moreover, the ownership society will make all of us just token owners, while the corporate elites appropriate the bulk of the wealth and profits from the corporate sector, and exercise complete decisionmaking control over our wealth.

But it is not some kind of ownership by elites of workers, as in feudalism or slavery.

[JHB]

23. It's a matter of perspective, HamdenRice...

...We understand what they're saying, but we're more inclined to describe it in terms of what it's reality would look like.

[HamdenRice]

26. You also have to understand faith based policies

I agree with you that the ownership society will be a disaster and will not even accomplish what the shrub administration hopes it will accomplish; but it is important also to recognize that the administration is hopelessly out of touch with reality and actually believes its own propoganda.

The ownership society as applied to social security is not designed to address any crisis in funding -- but to dismantle the New Deal and its worker vs. capitalist political dynamic. But it is not designed to bankrupt the federal government -- even if we can predict that is what it will do.

[Francine Frensky]

34. Interesting take. I hadn't considered that

perspective about the value of having people side with corporations.

[HamdenRice]

35. Hi Francine -- it's not my "take" -- it's what it is ...Cato says:

People are so angry and cynical about the shrubistas, that they don't really want to even know what they are saying. But I think it's at least important to know what they the shrubistas think they are doing.

Here is an excerpt from a Cato Institute (ie neo con think tank, shrub insiders) document:

http://www.cato.org/special/ownership_society/boaz.html

Defining an Ownership Society

By David Boaz

President Bush says he wants America to be an “ownership society.” What does that mean?

People have known for a long time that individuals take better care of things they own. Aristotle wrote, "What belongs in common to the most people is accorded the least care: they take thought for their own things above all, and less about things common, or only so much as falls to each individually." And we all observe that homeowners take better care of their houses than renters do. That’s not because renters are bad people; it’s just that you’re more attentive to details when you stand to profit from your house’s rising value or to suffer if it deteriorates.

Just as homeownership creates responsible homeowners, widespread ownership of other assets creates responsible citizens. People who are owners feel more dignity, more pride, and more confidence. They have a stronger stake, not just in their own property, but in their community and their society. Geoff Mulgan, a top aide to British prime minister Tony Blair, explains, “The left always tended to underestimate the importance of ownership, and how hard it is for a democracy that does not have widespread ownership of assets to be truly democratic. …To escape from poverty you need assets—assets which you can put to work...

<snip>

(This is an interesting and deceitful passage because it misidentifies the Blair administration's adoption of Amartya Sen's asset entitlement approach with RW ownership rhetoric. Sen believes that public benefits should be considered "assets". Back to the document: )

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher had that goal in mind when she set out to privatize Great Britain’s public housing. Her administration sold 1.5 million housing units to their occupants, transforming 1.5 million British families from tenants in public housing to proud homeowners. She thought the housing would be better maintained, but more importantly she thought that homeowners would become more responsible citizens and see themselves as having a real stake in the future and in the quality of life in their communities. And yes, she thought that homeowners would be more likely to vote for lower taxes and less regulation—policies that would tend to improve the country’s economic performance—and thus for the Conservative Party, or for Labour Party candidates only when they renounced their traditional socialism.

... <snip> (And that's the real goal -- to make everyone, even workers, identify politically with capitalists and therefore vote for low corporate taxes, reduced regulation, and republicans in general, or Democrats who "renounce socialism" ie DLC Clintonistas. And on the 1990s: )

... Even more significantly, increasing numbers of Americans are becoming capitalists—people who own a share of productive businesses through stocks or mutual funds. About half of American households qualify as stockholding in some form. That's up from 32 percent in 1989 and only 19 percent in 1983, a remarkable change in just 20 years. That means almost half of Americans directly benefited from the enormous market appreciation between 1982 and 2000 and are prepared to see their wealth increase again when the current stock market slump ends.

...

Right now, every working American is required to send the government 12.4 percent of his or her income (up to about $88,000) via payroll taxes. That’s $4,960 on a salary of $40,000 a year. But that money is not invested in real assets, and it doesn’t belong to the wage-earner who paid it. It goes into the Social Security system, where it’s used to pay benefits to current retirees. If we want to make every working American an investor—an owner of real assets, with control of his own retirement funds and a stake in the growth of the American economy—then we should let workers put their Social Security taxes into private retirement accounts, like IRAs or 401(k)s. Then, instead of hoping someday to receive a meager retirement income from a Social Security system that is headed for bankruptcy, American workers would own their own assets in accounts that couldn’t be reduced by Congress.

<snip> (And the ownership society would mean the elimination of environmental regulation, because the market would magically clean up the environment. But of course it requires auctioning off all the rivers, streams, forests, oceans and perhaps even the air itself -- as was actually tried in parts of Latin America. Everything must be "owned" and therefore privatized: )

Advancing an ownership society can also improve environmental quality. People take care of things they own, and they’re more likely to waste or damage things that are owned by no one in particular. That’s why timber companies don’t cut all the trees on their land and instead plant new trees to replace the ones they do cut down. They may be moved by a concern for the environment, but the future income from the property is also a powerful incentive...

[u4ic]

50. From cato.org:

"People have known for a long time that individuals take better care of things they own"

Uh, yeah, but how significant is owning a .05% stake in a company? And more importantly, you may own a .05% stake in a company, but you don't CONTROL it, which is far different from owning a house, where you can control how you take care of it, what renovations will be done, etc.

[zeemike]

22. You must understand Doublespeak

It has the contrary reality to the meaning
Ownership Society = the people own nothing except a debt which they can ever pay off.

[Grip]

25. Imagine Ayn Rand meets Carl Marx

As strange as it may sound this may be along the lines of what Marx was talking about.

Marx was quite clear that a society must pass though a Capitalist phase. There must be a certain level of wealth had by all people before transitioning to communism. As has been seen all of the failed communist countries, you cannot just wish socialism into existence from peasant farmers. The People as a whole must have a certain level of wealth and education. In short, the society has to be on the same page in the fist place.

Imagine if you will, a society where everyone owned stock in the nation's industry - a society of worker-owners.

[Francine Frensky]

28. wait a minute, you are saying bush is a marxist?

now that doesn't make sense to me.

[Grip]

36. No.

Bush is straight neo-con(man).

However, you will never get social justice in a system of haves and have nots.

All communist nations to date have still supported a system of haves and have nots. I think Orwell called it Oligarchical Collectivism.

We use to be a nation of savers and investors. Now we are a nation of debtors.

We need to advance saving, investing, and thrift on all fronts.

Find allies where you can.

[newyawker99]

39. Hi Grip!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[buddysmellgood]

27. It means you own your own debt, and theirs too.

[Kansas Wyatt]

31. It means you're always in debt to the corporate government store...

Now, be a good citizen worker, or the corporate government will take what you have been working for all your life. By the way, you will never be able to pay off your debt to get out from under the corporate government and you are only a citizen worker (subject) for them. Much like, 'Working for the company store.'

[durablend]

51. Will the repukes dig up Tennessee Ernie Ford?

For the new Amerikkkan mantra

"...I owe my soul to the company store"

[Kansas Wyatt]

53. Shrub and his cronies get aroused...

By the very thought of workers in debt (ownership with a burdening lien) with no way out, except to keep working for them the rest of their lives until they die. It keeps the poor peasant bastards exhausted and oppressed, with no fight left in them. Shrub gets off on this ultimate power to conquer and enslave so many. Until, the peasants get fed-up and tell Shrub to go 'Cheney' himself and revolt, but then the peasants become terrorists / communists that must be imprisoned in 'Gitmo' without access to a lawyer.

Why was Rove's poll the only one that was supposed to be accurate?

[Flammable Materials]

33. "Ownership Society" Defined:

[newportdadde]

37. Its a catchy illusion that plays on greed.

Most of us know of a person, many times a friend who votes for Republicans because it means lower taxes in the event that someday he/she will be the one making over 200k or own their own mega business even though that will probably never happen simply based on odds.

Same thing for 'ownership society'. We all have a natural tendency towards greed it seems and they play off of that by using this term. It makes you want to support their programs and ideas because you too think you will pack up the family move to Beverly Hills and have the cement pond. It plays into one of our worst aspects of human nature... "I don't care what happens to you as long as I get mine". Thats 'ownership society".

[onecitizen]

40. It means:

they will own everything and we will own nothing.

[proud patriot]

43. ownership society = only owners matter

:mad:

[dutchdoctor]

44. It means you'll only have rights if you own a ship. n/t

[neverforget]

46. Owner = Bushs' base; ship = jobs overseas

[taught_me_patience]

48. rich "own" the middle class

the more materials you "own", the more you are tethered to your job... and the more coporations can take advantage of you.


taught.

[Deja Q]

49. It means that we're a "we're owned" society

...

[hollowdweller]

55. Amen! Unrestrained capitalisim undermines our democracy & our moral values

[Justpat]

52. Basically it means that you are on your OWN.

No more Social Security, no more Medicare, etc.

GOvernment exists only as a military organization doing the will
of the BFEE.