Lies to make you unhappy

Misery loves company, so it is said.

Which brings us to Robyn Blumner's weekly editorial column. Blumner again makes herself an echo-chamber for unhappy atheist Barbara Ehrenreich. Ehrenreich wrote a book attacking Americans for the affinity they show for positive thinking. Blumner likes the book.

Ehrenreich's bout with breast cancer and the cloying "pink ribbon culture" that surrounds this dreaded disease (she is urged to see her cancer as a "gift") made her explore our cultural obsession with being happy.

The cultural obsession appears to follow a biological drive, from what I can tell. At least in part. But let's allow Blumner to get on a roll before letting the air out of her tires.

The book's point is that realism is being elbowed out of the way by all the life coaches, self-help books and prosperity gospel preachers like Joel Osteen who tell us that a positive outlook will lead to success, riches and the fulfillment of all of life's desires.

It seems to me there's a big difference between simply wanting to be happy and supposing that a positive mental attitude will itself result in prosperity.

These heaping helpings of sunny optimism are subtly diverting us from grappling with serious social and economic issues in ways that can truly bring about change.

I doubt it. Prosperity messages like that preached by Osteen and others have a long history in the United States. Starting back in the 19th century. Most folks ignore them, and most likely many of those attracted to that message are not particularly happy. After all, if you're already happy then why long for more happiness?

The Secret became a runaway bestseller by telling readers that they could have anything they want just by imagining it. The book was obviously unadulterated bunk, but it sold madly as people grasped at any chance to better their lives. One has to wonder if such magical thinking would have been so popular if people felt they had temporal power to change the conditions of their work and prospects.

"The Secret" became a bestseller because Oprah Winfrey endorsed it.

The reason that so many Americans work at jobs that don't pay enough is not that they don't channel enough positive energy into getting a better salary, but that wages have been stagnant for 30 years. And the reason that wages have barely budged is that America's wealthiest households have kept slicing themselves a larger piece of the income pie.

Blumner remains consistently ignorant about economics. First, she provides the reader a false dilemma. Let's say a lack of "positive energy" is not to blame for wage stagnation. But shouldn't we allow for a worker's lack of initiative to play some role in the failure to increase personal wages? And should we ignore major changes to society like the major influx of females into the workforce? Second, she treats income like a finite commodity. It isn't. Wages represent useful work, albeit the system can be fooled for a time. An increase in useful work allows increased wages and increased buying power. More work at the upper end of the spectrum steals nothing from the lower end of the spectrum. Suggesting otherwise is a lie, albeit most often a lie born out of ignorance.

Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1 percent of American households saw their share of all pretax income nearly double while the bottom 80 percent had their share fall by 7 percent. Ehrenreich quotes the New York Times saying, "It's as if every household in the bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent."

Ehrenreich shares Blumner's ignorance of economics. Her conclusion follows if we accept the premise that workers in the lowest 80 percent of incomes have a right to a given share of pretax income. I'd like to see Blumner explain that to a worker in the Times' mail room. Put simply, it makes decent sense if you're a communist. Otherwise, it's just stupid.

Every working stiff in the bottom 80 percent should be outraged and politically motivated to force change. But if everyone is convinced of the convenient nostrum that our own attitude controls how much we are paid, then workers won't band together to demand a larger share of our national prosperity.

Every working stiff, I suppose, should be just as ignorant of economics as is Blumner.

Thankfully, a great number of working Americans recognize that high-income folks have some particular skill or skills that allow them to earn large amounts of money. Where those skills are legal, it isn't particularly appropriate to respond with anger and an attempt to use government to reach into the other guy's wallet. Ms. Blumner's attitude notwithstanding.

This positive thinking message is a kind of opiate that has been particularly effective on the white-collar corporate work force. Ehrenreich documents how corporations hire motivational speakers to convince laid-off workers that their job loss is "an opportunity for self-transformation." Somehow, she says, white-collar workers have accepted positive thinking as a "belief system" that says a person can be "infinitely powerful, if only they could master their own minds."

As with happiness, shouldn't we separate mere positive mental attitude from a prosperity gospel? I think it grand that a company would think enough of its fired employees to hire a motivational counselor on their behalf. Looking for ways to maximize one's value as a worker sure beats plotting ways to pry cash out of the wealthy via the power of government. Unless maybe you're a communist.

On the surface, prosperity gospels and positive thinking companies appear harmless with their treacly "Successories products" of posters and coffee mugs, but they have subversively helped make each of us an island.

Do tell, Ms. Blumner.

They have convinced Americans that each individual has control and power over the conditions of his or her life, when that is largely not the case. Access to decent health care at a reasonable price is not a matter of individual effort.

Again, Blumner offers us a false dichotomy. Americans do have substantial control of the conditions of their lives, and much of this was brought about by the capitalist system that Blumner apparently loathes. Nobody has absolute control of their life. Doe a patient have more control of his life waiting months for a hip replacement in Canada or figuring out how to pay for one now in the United States?

Blumner is correct that access to decent health care at a reasonable price is not a matter of individual effort. Nor should it be. Given that it is not a matter of individual effort, how have the purveyors of positive mental attitude made us islands? Blumner doesn't say. But if she did, she'd be forced to advocate something along the lines of our right to force doctors to work for the wages we set for them. Thus we would negate the individual effort of the doctor via our efforts to force wage controls on him. Anybody else think Blumner's work for the Times is worth about fifty cents a week?

Neither are securing decent wages, pensions, safe working conditions or job security.

Again, those things are substantially under the control of Americans. Workers with fewer skills naturally have less control over them. If the bag boy at Publix can command a six-figure salary and comfortable pension for bagging groceries then you can bet that the price of groceries will be rising sharply. Blumner doesn't get it.

Workers demanded those rights through collective action in the 20th century and we are losing them now by taking an "every man for himself" approach to work.

I cheerfully grant that the labor movement accomplished some good things, including breaking corporations of some self-stifling labor practices. Unfortunately, the labor movement has by now accomplished more bad than good. Blumner doesn't get it.

Bottom line, corporations do not owe jobs to workers. Unless you're a communist.

The ultimate irony is even with the booming positive thinking industry, Americans are not among the happiest people. International surveys put us behind places like Denmark and Switzerland where the social safety net is stronger. It seems that happy thoughts don't alter the reality of American life with all its attendant risks to middle class living standards. Behind the smiley face facade, we are privately worried, and we have reason to be.

1) Number 16, contra Blumner, puts us among the happiest people, all the more based on our high population. The U.S. population is more than twice that of the happiest 15 nations combined. One of them is Puerto Rico (part of the U.S.), and Ireland is two of them (N. Ireland is counted separately).

2) Studies do apparently suggest robust entitlements can help make a people happier. Blumner will shut her eyes, I expect, to the notion of applying the reality principle in such cases. But it's fine with me if the reader wishes to call her a hypocrite.

3) Not long ago, Blumner was urging us to copy the economic model of Spain. Spain's unemployment rate recently topped 17 percent. And despite their univeral health care system, Spanish folk rate below the United States in happiness.

Go figure.

Or if you're Robyn Blumner, just ignore it and prepare another way to mislead people in next week's column.