Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rep. Randall Szott, D-Barnard, a member of the House Committee on General, Housing, and Military Affairs. He is a former merchant mariner and chef, and a writer, educator and library director who has lectured around the U.S.
[A] little over a week ago, the House passed H.107 the paid family and medical leave bill. That bill originated in my committee and we are now digging into testimony on S.23 which proposes to raise the minimum wage. In much of the testimony on those bills we heard quite a bit about how they would affect businesses and the economy. Such information is important and useful, but I ran for office to consider bigger questions as well.
At my campaign launch, I quoted a speech that Robert Kennedy delivered a few months before he was assassinated. To some degree, it feels like the issue he raises in it died in our national discourse too. He said, “… the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” In the past two weeks, the testimony of a legislative economist and a clergy member of Vermont Interfaith Action both had me reflecting again on RFK’s words.
The legislative economist was talking about the “impact” of raising the minimum wage in Vermont. He offered lots of charts and data to support his assertion that passing the bill would have very little “impact.” I had to ask him a clarifying question — impact on what? I wanted to make clear that when he said impact, he meant on the Vermont economy. He was speaking in purely quantitative terms. I then confirmed that he made no analysis of the qualitative impact raising the minimum wage would have on working families that are struggling. He agreed that he was only addressing impact in the narrow economic sense and that there was a bigger conversation to be had. He even said that one could have offered a similar quantitative analysis on the impact of banning child labor.
Of course, that too would stop short of the fundamental inquiry into values that won’t fit neatly into a spreadsheet.
In that regard, the clergyman I mentioned used an expression one doesn’t hear very often in the Statehouse — “moral economy.” It is all too rare to hear testimony that focuses on the qualitative reasons for taking a particular course of action. All of the qualities RFK addressed were echoed in the remarks of this witness — intelligence, integrity, beauty and compassion. I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to take a moment to reflect on what a policy means rather than what it simply does.
Budgets and economies are an expression of our moral perspective and the actions we take to shape them are a statement about what it means to be a Vermonter, an American, a human.
This leads me to one final consideration. The economist Kent Klitgaard has said, “Behind the invisible hand of an exchange economy beats an invisible heart.” The invisible heart he is referring to, is the core of what “makes life worthwhile” as mentioned in RFK’s speech. It is the fundamental relations of care and connection that have been relegated so little economic value in our upside down economy. We ought to recognize the centrality of this often gendered and racialized care, and make it visible, humane and valued.
When I support policies like paid family leave and raising the minimum wage, I believe they are good for the exchange economy, but more importantly I think they will transition us into something far more significant — a moral, caring economy.
