Labor
Day Weekend is upon us—that last hurrah of the summer, a time for vacationing
and partying. But too many in our country can afford neither. Their income doesn’t
stretch to meet their expenses even though they work full time. Today, the
average income of the top 10% of American earners is nearly nine times the
income of the bottom 90%; the top 1% average nearly 40 times the income of the
bottom 90%. UC-Berkeley economist, Prof. Emannuel Saez, and his Paris School of
Economics collaborator, Prof. Thomas Piketty, calculated that American’s top 1%
earn 23% of the total U.S. income and hold 42% of the country’s wealth.[1] The Brookings Institute, in its calculation,
claimed that the same 1% earn 18% of the income and hold 33% of the country’s
wealth.[2] Even using the Brookings Institute’s lower
numbers, the picture of income inequality is stark.[3] And it’s growing.
The author of Proverbs warned long ago: עָשִׁיר, בְּרָשִׁים
יִמְשׁוֹל;
וְעֶבֶד לֹוֶה, לְאִישׁ מַלְוֶה / The rich rule
the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender (22:7). Is that the direction our country is moving? Some
would say we are already there.
In an
age of rampant and growing income inequality, this week’s Torah portion
provides much-needed wisdom and guidance.
The
biblical institution of Shemittah (the sabbatical year, from the root
meaning “drop” or “release”) reflects Torah’s abiding ethical concern for those
who have fallen on hard times and into debt, and the enormous and widening gap
between the haves and have-nots that can result in the course of time. Given
the vagaries of weather in the Land of Israel, where agriculture is entirely
dependent upon dew and rainfall, drought and famine are ever-present threats.
If crops fail, farmers cannot feed their families, let alone sell surplus
produce to buy other necessities. If farmers have no surplus to sell, those who
earn a living selling farmers their wares cannot earn a living. At such times
(as today) people would borrow money to tide them over until their situation
improved. But it is often the case that one who is insolvent, rather than
digging themselves out of the hole, falls further and further into debt and
becomes part of an underclass living in penury. Torah, recognizing this
situation as an injustice, declares that every seventh year there is to be a
remission of the debts of the poor. The outstanding balance is erased, and
those whose fortunes have plummeted have the opportunity to begin again.
מִקֵּץ שֶׁבַע-שָׁנִים,
תַּעֲשֶׂה שְׁמִטָּה. וְזֶה, דְּבַר הַשְּׁמִטָּה--שָׁמוֹט
כָּל-בַּעַל
מַשֵּׁה יָדוֹ, אֲשֶׁר יַשֶּׁה בְּרֵעֵהוּ: לֹא-יִגֹּשׂ
אֶת-רֵעֵהוּ
וְאֶת-אָחִיו,
כִּי-קָרָא
שְׁמִטָּה לַיהוָה. אֶת-הַנָּכְרִי,
תִּגֹּשׂ;
וַאֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֶת-אָחִיךָ,
תַּשְׁמֵט יָדֶךָ.
Every seventh year you shall practice
remission of debts. This shall be the nature of the remission: every creditor
shall remit the due that he claims from his fellow; he shall not dun his fellow
or kinsman, for the remission proclaimed is Adonai’s. You may dun the
foreigner; but you must remit whatever is due you from your kinsmen.
(Deuteronomy 15:1-3)
In the
ancient Near East, remission of debts was not unique to the Torah. The son of
Hammurabi, King Samsu-iluna of Mesopotamia (ruled 1750-1712 B.C.E.), and King
Ammitsaduka (1646-1626 B.C.E.) after him, proclaimed a misharum (“justice”
or “equity”) that cancelled debts and released indentured servants.[4] Some scholars have suggested that the remission of
debts often occurred when the monarch ascended to the throne; it was a
political gesture to gain popularity and loyalty. In the sixth century C.E. the
Athenian statesman and lawmaker Solon (c.638-c. 558 B.C.E.) similarly cancelled
the debts of serfs, restored their farms, and redeemed those who had been sold
into slavery.[5] It is not clear that his economic reforms were
successful, but between ancient Mesopotamia and sixth century Athens, we see
that the remission of debts was considered good policy in several societies.
The
Torah’s goal is clear, as is the inducement it provides:
אֶפֶס, כִּי לֹא יִהְיֶה-בְּךָ
אֶבְיוֹן: כִּי-בָרֵךְ
יְבָרֶכְךָ,
יְהוָה,
בָּאָרֶץ,
אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן-לְךָ
נַחֲלָה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ. רַק אִם-שָׁמוֹעַ
תִּשְׁמַע,
בְּקוֹל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, לִשְׁמֹר
לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת-כָּל-הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת, אֲשֶׁר
אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם. כִּי-יְהוָה
אֱלֹהֶיךָ בֵּרַכְךָ, כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר-לָךְ;
וְהַעֲבַטְתָּ גּוֹיִם רַבִּים, וְאַתָּה
לֹא תַעֲבֹט, וּמָשַׁלְתָּ בְּגוֹיִם רַבִּים,
וּבְךָ לֹא יִמְשֹׁלוּ.
There shall be no needy among you—since
Adonai your God will bless you in the land that Adonai your God is giving you
as a hereditary portion—if only you heed Adonai your God and take care to keep
all this Instruction that I enjoin upon you this day. For Adonai your God will
bless you as [God] has promised you: you will extend loans to many nations but
require none yourself; you will dominate many nations but they will not
dominate you. (Deuteronomy 15:4-6)
This
statement is followed by a warning: Do not harden your heart and refuse to lend
money to those in need, thinking that when the seventh year arrives, their debt
to you will be cancelled. If you do, the poor will cry out to God, and God will
respond.[6] The concern that people with wealth will harden
their hearts to the plight of the poor is an ever-present problem throughout
history. Douglas A. Knight writes:
…[A]ncient Israel—like so many other cultures in
ancient Southwest Asia and elsewhere—was characterized by an asymmetrical distribution
of wealth and power, which directly determined their laws and protective
provisions. Villages were typically characterized by subsistence living
standards; a relative absence of goods with significant market value; a direct
dependence on the vagaries of weather, pests, and other natural circumstances
affecting food production; and vulnerability to the elites who hired them, lent
them resources, and enslaved them when they defaulted on their loans. Those
elites, on the other hand, lived at some remove from the locales where their
food and other goods were produced. Some occupied rural manor houses, but most
resided in the nation’s cities, sites dedicated to the well-being and security
of the upper class, including royalty. There they could luxuriate in relative
comfort and ease, exercising their power and influence, enjoying their
acquisitions, and being served by slaves and laborers.[7]
This is
hardly an ancient phenomenon. Every year, the Walmart stores in my area put out
bins so that employees can donate canned goods to their co-workers, Walmart's
own employees, who cannot afford a Thanksgiving dinner. Would this be
necessary if Walmart[8] paid them a living wage and provided full-time
work, rather than so many part-time positions that make it possible for them to
avoid paying benefits? Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that the government
pays out $6.2 billion (that’s billion, not million) each year in federal
assistance programs to subsidize the low wages Walmart pays its employees. (And
that doesn’t include the human price of suffering and indignity.) Collectively,
Walmart’s owners, the Waltons, are worth just shy of $130 billion. The wealth
of the Walton heirs exceeds the total wealth of the bottom 40% of the country,
yet over the past 23 years they have donated just .04% of their wealth to
charity.[9] Two years ago, employees delivered a huge bin of their own to
heiress Alice Walton’s $25 million Park Avenue duplex. On the side it said,
Walmart Owner Alice Walton:
We don’t want charity.
We want decent pay.
Love, Walmart Workers
One
employee, 20-year old La’Randa Jackson of Cincinnati, Ohio, addressed an open
letter to Alice Walton, heir of the Walton family fortune, in 2014:
I’m writing to you because it hurts to see the pain
in my younger brothers’ eyes when we can’t afford food to fill their stomachs.
Sure, they see that I’m working hard, taking the bus an hour each way to get to
work at Walmart. Even though they know that things are tight right now, that
our mom is often too sick to work, they just can’t understand why last year on
Thanksgiving they didn’t get turkey and gravy like other kids their age… It's
not just Thanksgiving dinner that's an issue; it's dinner every night... Ms.
Walton, my co-workers and I don't want your food bins. We work hard and we
don't want your charity. We want you and your family to improve pay and hours
for Walmart workers like me so that we can buy our own groceries. We want fair
pay for the work that we do to help your family add $8.6 million a day to your $150
billion in wealth.
More
than a century ago, Teddy Roosevelt addressed the danger of “a small class of
enormously wealthy and economically powerful men” cultivating disproportional
power and clout, to the detriment of the majority of Americans. One hundred and
six years ago this week, Roosevelt warned that “ruin in its worst form is
inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes
for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.”[10] Roosevelt’s prescient warning is the reality we
see today, and it is threatening our freedom and our democracy. The political
sphere is the province far more of big business than it is ordinary Americans.
Massive inequality undermines trust, so evident today. Consider how distrustful
and cynical people are concerning their elected leaders and the possibility
that government could serve their needs and deliver justice. Health is taking a
hit, as well, with staggering rates of of anxiety, mental illness, addiction,
obesity rising. As Yale University Nobel
Laureate economist Robert Shiller summed it up in 2013, “The most important
problem that we are facing now today, I think, is rising inequality in the
United States and elsewhere in the world.”[11] Two months later, President Obama identified
income inequality as the “defining challenge of our time.”
Many
antidotes have been suggested: Raise minimum wage to a living wage; fund public
higher education so that students don’t leave college with an enormous debt
package; increase the state and gift tax to eliminate loopholes and evasions
for the wealthy; reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act to separate commercial and
investment banking; pass sensible campaign funding reform; reign in Wall
Street.
Proverbs
tells us:
עָשִׁיר,
בְּרָשִׁים יִמְשׁוֹל; וְעֶבֶד לֹוֶה, לְאִישׁ
מַלְוֶה
זוֹרֵעַ
עַוְלָה,
יקצור
(יִקְצָר-)
אָוֶן;
וְשֵׁבֶט עֶבְרָתוֹ יִכְלֶה
טוֹב-עַיִן,
הוּא יְבֹרָךְ: כִּי-נָתַן
מִלַּחְמוֹ לַדָּל.
The rich rule the poor, and the
borrower is a slave to the lender.
He who sows injustice shall reap
misfortune; his rod of wrath shall fail.
The generous person is blessed, for
he gives of his bread to the poor. (Proverbs 22:7-9)
Does
Torah have something to say about this situation? You bet it does.
© Rabbi Amy
Scheinerman
[1]
http://equitablegrowth.org/research-analysis/u-s-income-inequality-persists-amid-overall-growth-2014/.
[2]
https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/measuring-income-and-wealth-at-the-top-using-administrative-and-survey-data/#recent/.
The authors of the report are Jesse Brickner, Alice Henriques, and John
Sabelhaus of the Federal Reserve, and Jacob Kimmel of the Wharton School of
Business.
[3] The CIA’s World
Factbook reports that 70% of the countries on the planet have a more equal
distribution of income.
[4] Ammitsaduka’s
Edict is translated in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts,
pp. 526-528.
[5] As reported by
Herodotus and Plutarch, who lived much later: Herodotus lived ~150 years later
and Plutarch lived seven centuries later.
[6] You may have noticed
that Deuteronomy 15:2-3 stipulates that the remission of debts applies only to
fellow Israelites. “Foreigners” are excluded from this benefit. Etz Hayim, uncomfortable
with this apparent bias, notes that King Ammitsaduka cancelled only the
debits of fellow Akkadians and Amorites in Babylon, and seeks to explain this
feature of the Shemittah: “Collecting debts is a legitimate right, and
forgiving debts is an extraordinary sacrifice that members of society are
willing to forgo only on behalf of those who have a special family-like claim
on their compassion.” (Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary, p. 1077)
[7] Douglas A. Knight,
Law, Power, and Justice in Ancient Israel (2011: Westminster John Knox
Press), pp. 217-218.
[9] Apparently, it’s a
family tradition. Sam Walton refused to contribute to philanthropic causes,
explaining that his family could not be expected to “solve every personal
problem that comes to [their] attention” and that Walmart should not be in the “charity
business.”
[10] Theodore Roosevelt’s
New Nationalism speech of August 31, 1910.
[11]
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/rising-inequality-most-important-problem-says-nobel-winning-economist/article_a5065957-05c3-5ac0-ba5b-dab91c22973a.html.
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