RETHINKING THE HOLIDAY MESSAGE

There are many themes that people use to give meaning to the Christmas holiday.  The most important remains the birth of Jesus, which was not considered a cause for celebration among believers until the 19^th century. In America, recognition of the holiday started in the 1840s and Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1870. 

High on the list is the proclamation of “peace on earth and good will towards men”.  This ideal famously led the opposing troops on the Western Front in WWI to stop shooting, leave their defensive positions and to warming great each other during the first Christmas of the War.  Then there is the theme of Santa Claus and gift giving to children, as imagined differently in cultures around the world.  And of course the business world concentrates on the explosion in retail purchases that determines which shopping emporiums will stay in business for another year.

My focus for the holiday season this year will be on a different topic.  My hope is to stimulate some thought and conversation about our future, our children and a social policy that could really make a difference. Speaking for myself, I have everything I could possibly need in life and find it unsettling when the world remains so economically unbalanced and inequitable. For these reasons, my holiday message will center on “success” and “luck”.

This Christmas day, December 25, 2018, 353,000 babies will be born and become part of the human experience.  I view each child as no less a miracle than the child born on the original Christmas Day. The majority of these children, despite intelligence and inherited talents will not succeed in reaching their potential because of odds stacked against them. Most will not escape poverty and will not receive adequate healthcare or educational opportunities.  Innumerable children will grow up in unstable home environments surrounded by violence.  Too many of these children will be born in America.

This reality is in stark contrast to my story where so much of my success and of many of those around me has been based on good luck.  But more than that, the good luck is based on loaded dice, almost guaranteeing the successful outcome I have enjoyed. This year’s Christmas message and New Year’s resolutions call for an ethical reset. I can no longer morally accept this result as a fait accompli.

The best-selling author Michael Lewis has often discussed the improbable chain of arbitrary events that led him to become a rich and famous nonfiction journalist. His comments at the Princeton University commencement address to graduates in 2012 express my thoughts exactly:

“In a general sort of way you have been appointed the leader of the group. Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary. But you must sense its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything.”

Next, Consider the comments made by former Federal Reserve chairperson, Ben Bernake, again at a Princeton University Baccalaureate speech, this time in 2013:

“A meritocracy (a ruling or influential class of educated or skilled people) is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement and, probably income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities and luckiest in so many other ways too difficult to enumerate – these are the folks that reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others. As the Gospel of Luke says (and I am sure my rabbi will forgive me for quoting the New Testament in a good cause): ‘From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded’ (Luke 12:48, New Revised Standard Version Bible). Kind of grading on the curve, you might say.”

These words, from two thinkers I greatly admire and who understand economics and the choices available to us, explain my life and the success I have enjoyed due to being one of the “lucky few” as well as anything I have read.  The challenge here is to realize the arbitrary nature of my privileged position and to begin to make things right by sacrificing some of my economic interests and helping to level the playing field.

This seems like a tall order, so what is to be done? I have decided to go all in and support the plan offered by renowned economics professor, Robert Frank, in his excellent short book: Success and Luck. Professor Frank concludes his narrative with the view that: “there is a compelling moral case for rebuilding the environments for young children that foster success… growing income gaps have profoundly diminished the opportunities available to low income children.”

Frank points out that moral conversations are often necessary to prompt political action.  I am hoping that this Christmas holiday is a good time for such a conversation.  Professor Frank proposes a simple but radical change that would do away with our Income Tax structure and replace it with a steeply progressive tax based on each family’s consumption expenditures.  Such a step would reduce the high rates of spending on mansions, luxury vehicles, jewelry, second vacation homes and over the top celebrations.  Those of us who live comfortably would sacrifice some perks from a successful and lucky life. Those of us that are wealthy would sacrifice even more and hardly know the difference.

The extra funds collected from such a system (studies show it would be considerable) would be earmarked to level the playing field.  Not income leveling but rather opportunity leveling.  Such a tax is one of the few public policies that could unload the dice that now favor the lucky few who have gained an unjust number of favorable opportunities in the game of life.

There will be those that read these words and who will argue that I am wrecking the American Dream.  I am referring to the well held belief that talented people who work hard and play by the rules can always get ahead irrespective of their family backgrounds.  To this I say humbug. It is time to stop using this excuse to give the lucky and successful an advantage with which to accumulate more of what they do not need.  Welcome to the conversation.

Because John Lennon was a fan of Christmas conversations through his music, I will end with some appropriate lyrics from his album (and song) IMAGINE, reissued in dramatic fashion this October, in time for the holidays.

“No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one”

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.