What kind of people do you want to buy from?

Think of your favorite restaurant. Now think of what you like about it. Maybe it's the food. Maybe it's the "ambience." If you're a particular cheapskate, it may even be the price. But something that is important for almost any dining experience is that the hosts treat you well. Of course, there are exceptions, but a rude server can be the make-or-break component for a good evening and even a customer's permanent personal opinion of the locale.

This attitude doesn't only apply to restaurants, though. The appeal of good barber shops, bakeries, car shops, insurance salesmen (I could go on) is that they provide a good service coupled with a good attitude. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins says that successful companies require people who are passionate for their work and believe they are providing a valuable service. This is more true than ever at the point of interaction between seller and buyer.

This analysis, though, clashes sharply with one of the most famous lines in classical economic literature. In Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Smith says "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

While some have argued that this statement comes a bit out of context, it is nonetheless a building block of our understanding of market economics. People create not as a way to help others, but as a way to get what they want from others. One incisive critique of this viewpoint, however, comes from Alasdair MacIntyre in his book Dependent Rational Animals. He imagines an experience in which we walk into a butcher shop and observe the butcher suffering from a heart attack. He says that our first inclination would not be to move on and find another butcher who is in more of a position to sell us meat, but we would rather feel compelled to find help.

While this is a good point, I would argue that it does not take so dire a situation to find mutual interest in a routine economic exchange. All in all, we are best benefitted when we are sold meat by someone who A) wants to be a butcher and B) we want to support. There is a certain value that we gain from supporting the community butcher instead of buying at Wal-Mart, something that goes beyond the quality of the good. The best economic exchanges are ones in which we not only are happy to get what we want, but ones in which we are also happy to give.

Economics is often presented as a zero-sum game, but the best economic transactions are not ones in which people rationally balance gains and losses, it is the ones where people collapse the benefits bestowed with the benefits accrued. This means that an economic transaction must be viewed as more than just a means to an end, but as an end in itself. Think back to your favorite restaurant. When they are at their best, they aren't serving you food because they see you as an instrument, but they are undergoing the essential Kantian moral obligation by treating you as an end yourself.

This takes us back to Collins. In Good to Great, Collins says that the most successful companies are focused on on quality in particular: excellence. While the classical economist says that profit is about Xs and Os, companies like Apple, Chic-fil-a, and Chipotle continue to defy this logic by putting excellence first and letting the profits follow from that. And they've done pretty well for themselves.

Two Modest Recommendations for Gun Safety in America

After last week's horrific tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, the discussion around gun violence in America has once again been reinvigorated. While I have shared some thoughts on gun violence in a previous post, I focus this post on a more results-oriented approach as we find ourselves in the wake of yet another national tragedy. While President Obama rightly leaves the door open for a broad-based approach that includes more than traditional gun control and this tragedy again highlights the necessity of better mental health care in America, I will comment here only on the topic of gun safety.

First, a federal assault weapons ban must be re-implemented. The previous ban was put in place in the wake of the 1980s spate of gun violence, but expired in 2004, a year that had seen a decade of declining homocide rates. With the NRA on the rise and Republicans in charge of the Presidency and Congress, renewal did not have a chance. This coupled with the Supreme Court's controversial rewriting of the second amendment in 2008's District of Columbia v. Heller was a huge victory for gun-rights advocates and criminals alike.

The main argument of gun enthusiasts and the NRA for the preservation of assault weapons in private possession is that assault weapons are necessary for self-defense. Their defense of this claim, however, is rather weak. The only advantages an assault weapon provides over a handgun is more ammunition, faster firing, and more range, all advantages that are traded for a dearth of portability and ability to conceal. No, assault weapons are not tools for defense, but are, as their name suggests, designed for assault. The case has been made for restrictions on assault weapons and high-capacity clips and congress should act on that case.

The second proposal I put forth has to do with local control. The constitution was devised at a time when the word "state" meant something more than "province." Each separate state saw themselves as a substantial political entity; the nation-state of "America" had not yet become established. Thus, the 10th Amendment was born: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

While we still live in a federal system in which states have a strong role, we also live in a country where local divisions are even more relevant culturally than state divisions. The Manhattanite likely has more in common with someone who lives in downtown Los Angeles than someone who lives on a farm in upstate New York, and that farmworker in upstate New York likely has more in common with a farmer in rural Wyoming than a Buffalo suburbanite.

While America was born as a country with fairly even population distribution, it has evolved into a country of densely populated metropolitan areas and sparsely populated rural areas, all with their own needs. These divisions, however, are not mirrored in our federal system. In City of Cleveland v. State of Ohio, for example, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the City of Cleveland could not restrict gun ownership past the dictates provided by the state.

Rural areas often need softer gun laws to accomodate for hunters (who have an important role of controlling animal populations) to own guns. Urban areas often need stricter gun laws as a way to curb gang-related violence. The current system of state control often leads to a state consolidating its power by picking a loser between the two.

So here is my second recommendation: leave non-assault weapon laws to local governments and regulate the transportation of weapons at higher levels of government. After all, that is the role of the commerce clause. Democracy works best when rights are guaranteed through federal and international means and all else is left to be locally decided upon, through a fair and democratic process. This may mean more power to municipalities to the detriment of state governments, but state governments have a vital regulatory role that cannot be dispensed of. But overall, the role of health, safety, and morals is best dealt with on a more intimate level than the state can provide.

My Personal Experience in "Poverty"

For today's reflections, I'm going to go in a slightly more personal direction.

A week ago, I made a move from central Ohio, my home of the past twelve years, to Omaha, Nebraska, a city and state I had never laid my eyes on before and which is the home to my assignment for the next year as an Americorps VISTA. Partly from my change in locale but mostly owing to my lack of a social life here, I have had a lot of time to reflect on my new situation and what I am learning here in Omaha.

The main motivation for my interest in the VISTA program and this assignment in particular was an opportunity to deal with the problems of everyday people on the ground level and to gain an experience of empathy that I would not have had the opportunity to have from a week-long service trip or irregular volunteer visits to soup kitchens. VISTA is a federal program that places year-long volunteers in assignments that are geared specifically toward the goal of poverty alleviation. My assignment in particular is working with an organization called the Neighborhood Center, a nonprofit that helps build capacity for neighborhood associations throughout the greater Omaha area. Little did I anticipate that my experience with poverty would be experiential as well as observational.

As Americorps VISTAs, we commit to a year of service, but are paid a living stipend to cover housing, food, transportation, etc. That living stipend is set at the poverty level for the area we are living in. Thus, my stipend is $928/month before taxes. While this is low, I calculated rent costs for my new apartment in Omaha along with transportation (bus passes are provided through the program for free) and food costs and saw that I would be living on more than I did in college or in the time between graduation and the beginning of my tenure as a VISTA. It didn't seem like it would be a problem at all.

While in college, I spent half of my time on Pell Grant, a program that only the bottom 11% of students at Denison qualified for. Despite being in the bottom 11% of students when it came to wealth, I never felt like I didn't fit in or was limited by that status. For all that students make of class inequality, there is something inherently egalitarian about college life, especially at my school. Everyone lived on campus, so transportation was not much of an inequality issue. Even without a car, I did not feel terribly limited compared to those who owned one. We all ate in the same dining halls for three years. Housing was paid for at the start of the year, so rent payments are not an issue. I was able to get along fairly well with people with "rich" families and those whose families were not so well off.

Though I am only a week into my experience here in Omaha, I am already starting to see that "poverty" has a much bigger impact on your life post-graduation. The biggest place that I am seeing an impact is in transportation. While I could always hitch a ride with someone or use my parents' car in high school and I had three roommates with cars in college, I am now living on my own, a mile from the most frequent-running bus stop, during a winter that is just beginning.

What I am also running into is a lack of people to spend time with. While my landlord and the program have introduced me to a number of people who are friendly and willing to help me out when I need it, I still do not have a circle of friends here to have fun with and to depend on when I need help.

This experience is something that was touched on in our VISTA training a week before our assignments began. I recall our group facilitator leading a session on poverty, explaining that poverty was something that was experienced in a number of different ways. While we tend to emphasize income, poverty manifests not only financially, but also mentally, socially, physically, etc.

This message fits well with one that is put forth by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in his book Development as Freedom. In chapter 4, "Poverty as Capability Deprivation," Sen argues that poverty is often narrowly construed as a lack of income. This definition, however, fails to encapsulate the fact that someone can be impoverished even with financial resources. One example he uses to explain this is that of unemployment. Even if someone is able to be recouped the financial loss caused by unemployment, not being able to sustain one's self through employment shows a certain poverty of dignity that most would not want to subject themselves to. This is evidenced by the uneasiness we have when unemployed and being stuck with the question "well, what do you do?" in social situations. Poverty is not only a lack of financial resources, but is more broadly a lack of capabilities to fulfill basic human needs.

Another takeaway from this message for me, though, is that my poverty will never really reach the level of those who find themselves stuck in a multidimensional cycle of poverty. While I may find myself without a sizable income, without adequate transportation, and without a readily available group of friends, I still have a college education and social resources that come from growing up in a wealthy suburban enclave and attending a top-50 liberal arts college. Thus, I have opportunities and possibilities that most in abject poverty are without.

While I will never be able to fully understand what it feels like to be truly trapped in poverty, I can still do what I can to sympathize and empathize with those around me who are. And at least I'm trying.

Election 2012 Shows that Listening Is More Important Than Talking

While there are a lot of takeaways from this past election season, one of the biggest lessons that should be learned by all is the importance of listening. In our era of cable news, soundbytes, and Sports Shouting, it sometimes seems that the most important way to communicate is by getting one's message out as much as possible while paying little regards to the messages being spread by others. The two defining moments of the campaign came to highlight how this strategy of privileging talking over listening came back to bite both candidates.

The first I will address is Governor Romney's infamous "47%" remarks made at a fundraiser in May. Published in a blog post by Mother Jones in September, Romney was filmed saying that

There are 47 percent [of Americans] who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it...my job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

While there are troubling implications with Romney's remarks in regards to the role of the president to fulfill the needs of all Americans, what really hurt Romney with these remarks was how he seemed to show no interest nor care for that other 47%. He seemed to say that there was one America, "the 53%," that he had an obligation to and that he wanted to help, and that all the rest were not his responsibility. The fact that this was a damaging remark for his campaign is not surprising.

The other key moment of the campaign was President Obama's performance in the first debate. While all due respect should be given to Governor Romney's performance in the debate, the story of the debate was as much about Obama's shortcomings as it was about Romney's success. Over the previous few months, the Obama campaign had worked hard to paint Romney as an out of touch ultraconservative, an image that worked well in light of Romney's primary campaign. In the first debate, however, Romney came out looking much more like the moderate governor of Massachusetts than the conservative presidential candidate who ran in the primaries. Rather than listening to the change and reacting to it, Obama buried himself in his preparation, famously staring at his notes for a much longer amount of time than he spent engaging with Romney in debate.

While the content of the debate had an impact, it was the body language that was much more damaging to the President's campaign. By keeping eye contact and speaking to the President, Romney showed that he was interested in being engaged in a substantive debate. Obama, on the other hand, did not show Romney that he was being listened to, and it hurt his performance greatly.

In the end, Obama's singular blunder proved to be much less damaging than what voters seemed to take as a character flaw of Romney's. Republicans were shocked to find that minorities came out to support the President even more than in 2008, but it should not be such a surprise when one sees which candidate was able to connect and show the he cares more.

This outcome comes naturally as we see the politics of recognition continue to play an important role in contemporary society. This is a phrase I borrow from Charles Taylor's essay "The Politics of Recognition." In his essay, he says that an important part of political and social life, especially for minorities, is recognition: the ability to feel that one is being listened to and that one matters just like everybody else does. This means that politicians need to be people who not only speak their mind for others to hear, but must also listen, not just for content, but for the sake of listening itself. Obama showed in the election that he could do this much better than Romney could as an ABC News election day exit poll showed Obama with a 10 percentage point lead over Romney when respondents were asked who was more "in touch" with regular Americans.

It looks as if Obama may be taking this lesson into his presidency as he has expressed much interest in working with Romney as they move past their election bickering. If there is anything that can be known about the impending "fiscal cliff" debate, it is that more listening will need to be done on both sides of the aisle than has taken place in Obama's first term.

Gerrymandering Poses a Greater Threat to American Democracy than the Electoral College

This post is a letter to the editor I sent to The Columbus Dispatch tonight. It is in response to the following letter to the editor printed today:

The Electoral College is made up of 538 delegates: one delegate for each member of the House and one delegate for each member of the Senate, plus three delegates from the District of Columbia. However, the delegates in almost all cases vote the winner of the popular vote within the various states, making the vote a winner-take-all situation.

In many cases a state, such as Ohio with its 88 counties, could have the residents in as few as 15 counties determine who gets all the delegates’ votes, because of the density of population in those counties. This leaves the voters in the remaining 73 counties theoretically unrepresented.

Would it not make more sense to have a delegate from each congressional district vote the plurality of that district? Since the senators represent the entire state, their two delegates would vote the state popular vote.

This may not change the final results of an election, but it would ensure that each district’s vote represented that district’s sentiments. It might also delay the TV networks predicting winners with less than 5 percent of a state’s votes having been counted.

JERRY W. LAWSON

Galloway

Below is my response:

In his Wednesday letter to the editor “Electoral College Should Be Revised,” Jerry Lawson advocated a system in which Ohio’s electoral votes would be awarded on the basis of congressional districts rather than at the statewide level. While there is a strong case to make that the Electoral College should be reformed, a Congressional district system could not be undertaken until our state’s unfair redistricting system is reformed.

Our current system awards the drawing of congressional districts to the party who controls a majority of five statewide offices. That party can then draw the districts in the manner that most benefits its own interests in the next election. Demographic technology has become so effective that the last redistricting process guaranteed the outcome of all but two of the 148 Congressional, Ohio Senate, and Ohio house races this election season.

Before going on to champion a Congressional district-based approach to the electoral college, we need to do something about the terrible affront to the democratic process that is our own state’s redistricting system.

ROBERT MOORE

Bexley

Romney's "47% Speech" Misses Point of Government Assistance

Mitt Romney's campaign has been struggling recently, suffering from a subpar convention, internal struggles, and a botched response to the recent tragedy in Libya. But the miscue that is making the most news this week is a video posted by Mother Jones Magazine in which Romney characterizes half the country as welfare-dependent freeloaders who he has no need to "worry about."

While much has been written about the factual inaccuracies in Romney's claims in the video, in particular him claiming that the 47% of Americans who do not pay income taxes (many of whom are paying payroll taxes, in the military, or retired) are the same 47% of Americans who receive some sort of benefit from the government and are the same 47% who are currently supporting President Obama's reelection. Others have talked about the troubling ramifications of Romney's assertion that it is "not my job to worry about these people," implying that 47% of Americans should not be of his concern because he cannot ever hope to get their votes

What has not been covered, however, is Romney's troubling misunderstanding of the purpose of government assistance. Throughout the campaign, Romney has railed against a culture of "dependence," trying to paint the current administration and the Democratic Party as a whole as heartless socialists, trying to create a class of Americans that are dependent on government programs and thus dependent on the Democratic Party for subsistence. This came to a head with the Romney campaign's absurd allegations that the Obama administration was somehow trying to gut the Clinton administration work requirement from the current welfare system.

The problem with Romney's rhetoric about government programs is that he consistently overstates his case. While Romney will often pay lip service to the importance of government intervention to help those who are in dire circumstances, he will just as often make the mistake of characterizing all government assistance as demeaning and frivolous.

Both major parties in the United States today are essentially liberal in their political philosophy. Both the Republican and Democratic party espouse the same central values of liberty and equality put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: that men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The function of the government in the eyes of both parties is to, at its core, secure life and liberty for its citizens. This is why, over the years, the federal, state, and local governments of the United States have worked to ensure their citizens have the means to live healthy, productive lives. A person who is hungry all day, cannot afford the health care they need to survive, or has no home to go back to at night  is not being afforded their basic rights of life and liberty.

So when Romney decries Americans for feeling "entitled to health care, to food, to housing," he misses the point of our American system. While he may have never had to feel the pinch in regards to getting food, receiving health care, or finding housing, these are issues that everyday Americans deal with all the time, especially the elderly, the disabled, and the very poor.

The argument that Romney should be making is that it is better to be self-sufficient than dependent on the government. That we should keep the safety nets that are needed and do away with those that keep people dependent. That to earn means on our own is better than to receive means from others, but paying attention to the fact that no one gets a start without help from someone.

Cathy's Comments Overshadow Chic-Fil-A's Progressive Fundamentals

This past weekend was a firestorm in the culture wars. On Thursday, thousands of conservatives and free speech advocates lined up at Chic-Fil-A locations across the country to show their support for the words of President Dan Cathy in opposition to gay marriage. Friday, homosexual couples across America staged a kiss-in protest in opposition to Cathy's remarks. The statement on a small, Christian radio station by Cathy has blown up into a multiple-week saga that has put fast food at the center of one of the most divisive debates in America today.

In response to this debate, I have two comments to offer.

First, I have heard from many the lamentation that food has to be politicized. From most, I hear the simple statement "I want to be able to eat a chicken sandwich without having to worry about the political statement it makes."

While there is something to be said about our lunchtimes being a time for rest, a time for us to put aside worry of judgment and good decision-making for a treat and a break in the middle of a stressful day, eating is not that simple. Philosophers have been writing about this for a good forty years now, but it is also a fact that is becoming more prevalent in mainstream America as well. With every dollar you spend, you contribute to allowing the world to be a certain way. 

Anyone who has done the smallest amount of research (say, trying to go to a location on Sunday) about Chic-Fil-A would know that the company is one that is based on Christian values. Now there is no evidence to lead us to suggest that the company discriminates in employment, service, or otherwise towards homosexuals, but to be surprised when one learns that the President does not favor marriage equality is a strange mistake. The current outcry against and for Chic-Fil-A is not really because of a change in the company, but rather a hype that has exposed something that was already there. The question is whether people will be willing to consume consciously when the choice doesn't involve a trendy cause like Chic-Fil-A is now.

Second, and more disappointing, is how the Chic-Fil-A controversy has overshadowed an important and underappreciated fact: Chic-Fil-A is a model for fast food in America.

What other company provides benefits for its employees (including one day of the week off for the entire company), top-notch customer service built on compassion and empathy, and a product that beats out all of its fast-food competitors? While Cathy is bravely standing by a position he believes in, he is painting Chic-Fil-A as a heartless, backwards company when really it has one of the most progressive organizational cultures of any company in the country.

In a way, Chic-Fil-A is a victim of its own success. The company is built off a Christian message of compassion and community. It could never have built the incredible organizational culture it has without this underlying philosophy. When talking about human rights, Charles Taylor argues that it is not terribly important why different countries believe in human rights as long as they come to the same conclusion. One may not want to adopt the pretenses of Christianity but may still praise Chic-Fil-A for eschewing the profit motive for something greater: treating its employees and customers with dignity and providing them a superior product and dining experience.

But from this philosophy, Cathy has also felt that he had to come forth against marriage equality. And thus Chic-Fil-A, a progressive company in the most literal sense of the word, has become tainted as the lunchtime snack of the reactionary right.