Over two thousand years ago, the Greek wise man Solon told Croesus, King of the Lydians, the following: if a man ends his life well, after providing for his children and living a life free of sickness, then he alone deserves to be called happy and fortunate. But before he dies, don’t call him happy yet — instead just call him lucky (Herodotus 1.32). Because you never know when your luck will run out.
Unless they’re cocooned inside a casino, Americans don’t tend to reflect much on the role of luck. We would prefer to see ourselves as captains of our own destiny, and success as the result of personal initiative and hard work. But the reality is quite different: in 21st-century America inequality begins in the womb, and your zip code plays a major role in whether you will be able to move up the income ladder. American dream? Looks like the Greeks weren’t the only ones who believe in myths.
Nor is luck a completely random occurrence. It’s bad luck indeed when you run over a pothole and damage your car. But how did that road fall into such disrepair in the first place? Your bad luck is partly the result of social priorities, and those priorities are set in the arena of politics. Politics is just another way of distributing luck among certain segments of the population. And billions of dollars are spent every year, to ensure that luck continues to go the way of the already fortunate.
According to the website OpenSecrets, there were 11,586 registered lobbyists in our country as of 2018. Collectively they spent, in 2018, $3.42 billion dollars in order to influence lawmakers, the vast majority in the Health sector ($556 million), Finance ($532 million), and other Business interests ($512 million). Is it any wonder that many people mistakenly consider the CEOs of these industries to be geniuses? If you manage the casino, then of course you’re going to win at black jack.
Meanwhile, those who started life from a position of modest luck have a hard time setting the political agenda. You won’t be surprised to learn that it’s an uneven battle between the forces of big business and labor. Labor unions spent only $47 million, or a mere 1.3% of the total spending by lobbyists in 2018. Working people are vastly outspent by business interests, who often get their way with lawmakers as a result.
And how many registered lobbyists represent the interests of public-assistance recipients — those of us who rely on Medicaid, food stamps, or utility assistance? Zero, zilch, nada. The Department of Health and Human Services provides a valuable safety net when our luck runs out. But with no one lobbying on behalf of those who rely on it, the safety net itself is vulnerable to attack. Tax cuts for the already fortunate are offset by spending cuts — and these cuts fall, more likely than not, on programs that have few advocates.
What is to be done? There are many individual policies that could improve the lives of DHHS recipients: those include ending Michigan’s Universal Caseload program, investing in the hiring of more professional caseworkers, implementing protections for propane users, and upgrading the state’s computer systems. The problem, of course, is that there is no single group dedicated to lobbying for these improvements, or looking out for the interests of DHHS recipients. While there are left-leaning think tanks (like the Economic Policy Institute) that inform the public about the problem of income inequality, and non-profits like the Salvation Army that supplement the work of state social welfare programs, no group is organizing DHHS recipients and advocating on their behalf.
When the Center For Change: a Northern Michigan Advocacy Group began investigating problems with the DHHS this winter, it became clear that there were many people — clients, DHHS staff, and others — who were confronting problems individually. They knew that the Department was not functioning as it should. But without collective and coordinated action, it was difficult to catch the attention of those in power.
Now, after months of advocacy, our representatives are paying attention. But we are far from effecting the change that would restore a fully functioning Department, that delivers assistance efficiently to those who need it. It will take more than a few nice people with a website or Facebook page. In order to make an impact on state politics, and provide the DHHS the support they need in order to be effective, its beneficiaries will need to organize and form a union. We include some of the unluckiest, poorest, hardest-pressed SOBs in Michigan — but we have the numbers on our side. As of last July 2,332,229 people in Michigan were enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP, and hundreds of thousands more rely on the department for utility and food assistance. Imagine the power of this force, which would dwarf the UAW or any other single existing union in the state.
At the moment, these people do not consider themselves to be members of a common group. How could we reverse that? It could happen faster than you think, thanks to the role of social media. Consider the success of Traverse City’s Spark in the Dark, a peer to peer network on Facebook. In only 4 years, it has grown to around 9,000 members who provide advice and assistance to daily requests of all kinds. And with the development of a phone app and plans to expand around the state, its membership is poised to increase exponentially. The main goal of this group, of course, is to help people. But an important byproduct is the realization that there are many people in Northern Michigan and beyond who rely on social assistance of one kind or another: with every “like” and Facebook tag they are forming a collective of the unlucky. As they begin to congregate and share common experiences, the possibility of a more potent political force also grows.
If we were to organize at scale and make demands of our state representatives, we could begin to exercise power in government — and finally turn luck in our favor. We could turn that spark into a flame.
Micropolitan 