X-Envelope-to: biosph-l@UBVM.BITNET
X-VMS-To: BIOSPH
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.biosph-l
Date:         Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:43:00 EST
Reply-To:     "TRACY LOGAN, LAFAYETTE COLLEGE,
              EASTON PA" <LOGANT@LAFAYETT.BITNET>
From:         "TRACY LOGAN, LAFAYETTE COLLEGE,
              EASTON PA" <LOGANT@LAFAYETT.BITNET>
Subject:      Poverty as smokescreen, and as real issue

Under the heading "RE: No free bags at ALDI Foods," Rick Freeman
commented:

>I'm wondering, can poor folks buy these bags with food stamps?  I suppose
>this question is rhetorical.  I mean for it to point towards the problem
>that market-oriented solutions to environmental problems (i.e.,
>"externalizing costs" in the neo-classical economic language) poses for
>poor folks...who are, BTW, disproportionately non-white and female.  Are
>our local solutions equitable?


As I see it, there's an issue here that environmentalists must face.
The issue is the use of poverty (and equity) as a smokescreen.

In order to see what I mean, recall that in the recent US
presidential elections, poverty was conspicuous in the debates
and the rhetoric chiefly by its absence.

Then Perot suggested (in the last debate, I think) a serious
increase in the gasoline tax.  All of a sudden, media
commentators and several of my acquaintances, none of whom to my
knowledge had been fretting about the absence of poverty from the
campaign agenda, suddenly began lamenting the effect of this tax
on "the poor" and "lower income folks."  I concluded at the time
that it was a smokescreen; that rationally or irrationally,
personally or as a class, these non-poor were really upset about
a bigger tax on THEIR gasoline.  (Rick I trust isn't a
member of this group.)

That their concern for the poor was not genuine in no way
destroys the potency of the argument.  It can, and will, be used
to muddy the waters and block environmental action.  That is why
I will argue anyone interested in ecological sanity must be
concerned about the distribution of income in our society.

I don't know who put it this way, but I like the formulation:

                     WHAT THE POOR LACK
        The poor do not suffer from a lack of "free" bags.  Nor do
        lower-income folks suffer from a lack of underpriced gasoline.
        What they lack is MONEY.

The maldistribution of income in our society seems to be an
economic problem that our econonmic "leading lights" (with
exceptions like Heilbroner and Galbraith) don't worry about much
at all.  But, in my opinion, environmentalists MUST ALWAYS worry
about it.  We need to speak out loud and clear against the large
(and lately growing) gap between the highest incomes and lowest
incomes in our land, and we need to support policies to mitigate
this sorry situation.  Otherwise, those who oppose our ideas for
self-serving reasons, or just because the ideas are new, can
effectively, and I think legitimately, rally support against us
as racist, callous, anti-people, etc.

The Green parties appear to understand the connection.   -- tracy

PS:  After writing this, I saw in the paper a report that Clinton
is open to idea of a gas-tax increase.  The report claimed that
Clinton had "savaged" Tsongas during the primaries for proposing
a 50c/gal tax on gasoline, claiming it would be unfair to
lower-income Americans.  Clinton's budget people like the
tax-idea, said the story, and Gore's book had suggested that a
carbon-tax could be offset by a reduction in the Social Security
payroll tax. I haven't fully digested the implications of this
late-breaking news for my theory!  See what you think.

[ Tracy Logan,  loganT @ lafayett ]
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: (no subject given)