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The White House, on the other hand, has criticized Congress’s decision to rescind the vaccine mandate, saying immunizations remain important for maintaining troops’ ability to serve whenever and wherever necessary. “Vaccines are saving lives, including our men and women in uniform. So this remains very, very much a health and readiness issue for the force,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday, per the New York Times.

The JG serves the function as a “public option for work” because it is open to all, irrespective of income or labor market status. Whatever work and pay conditions it offers will become the standard for the economy as a whole. Under special circumstances someone may prefer lower-paid private sector work, but as a rule the proposed JG wage ($15 per hour, plus benefits) will become the effective minimum wage. There is some empirical evidence that illustrates this effect (Tcherneva 2012).

a promise that something will be done or will happen, especially a written promise by a company to repair or change a product that develops a fault within a particular period of time:

Both the English-language and Chinese-language texts of the Joint Declaration use the broad phrase "rights and freedoms" to refer to a lengthy list of protected liberties. As a result, it is unclear whether Paragraph 3(5) guarantees Hong Kong's press a "right" or only a "freedom." This ambiguity has important implications in translation.

In Chinese, the terms quanli ("right") and ziyou ("freedom") have distinct meanings and legal effects. At best, "freedoms" are subordinate to "rights." As one Hong Kong commentator has explained:

There exist various approaches to define the group of eligible persons. At this point, the literature can clearly be divided into two fields: those, proposing a Job Guarantee to anyone willing to work (Tcherneva, 2020b); and those defining eligibility criteria such as age, duration of unemployment spell or other factors and proposing a Job Guarantee as a sociopolitical instrument to the unemployed (e.g. Picek, 2020; Lietzmann et al., 2018). In any case, the more restricted the criteria are, the bigger the threat of excluding potential candidates (Lietzmann et al., 2018), and consequently, the smaller the aggregate effect. Previous work argues that the number of people joining the public labor force would be higher than the number of officially registered unemployed: Sawyer (2003) puts emphasis on the “hidden unemployment” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 889)16 and concludes that the number of real unemployed workers is much higher.17 However, there are contrary opinions in the literature. Although there might be more unemployed persons than officially reported, the Job Guarantee is likely to have a stabilizing effect on the overall economy which would downsize the pool of workers in the public program (Tcherneva, 2018).

Yet, the U.S. military — the United States institution that enjoys a very high public confidence rating and whose forces (and specifically its National Guard forces) have been deeply, if not somewhat silently, involved in the COVID-19 response since the get-go — is doing a disproportionately bad job with COVID-19 vaccination. Recent reporting indicates that as many as one-third of U.S. servicemembers, despite being eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, have refused to receive it. This boggles the mind, given the important role members of the armed forces have in keeping the United States safe — not just from the threat of the pandemic, but from most threats to our safety and security.

Why the lag?

To assess the long-term effects of domestic income inequality in developed countries, we assume that all future wellbeing matters equally, even value experienced thousands of years into the future. Our contention is that inequality reduction makes a positive marginal difference to the expected value of the long-term future, primarily because it is more likely to decrease rather than increase existential risk. Our somewhat preliminary conclusion is thus that longtermists should favour inequality reduction. 12 Politics, Philosophy & Economics 0(0) We discuss several reasons for why inequality might have negative effects and one reason why it might have positive effects. The negative effects we discuss are climate change, the effect of inequality on public institutions, conflict and polarisation, and differential progress. The potential positive effect we discuss is that if inequality lowers growth rates, and if growth increases existential risk, then inequality could lower existential risk. Climate change As we learned in Short-term effects, inequality increases a wealthy country’s carbon footprint. This is a problem. Climate change, as mentioned above, not only reduces wellbeing in the medium term, there are also longtermist reasons against it. First, climate change itself is an existential risk, particularly given uncertainty around its tail-end risks (Ord, 2020: 4; 6). (Although, it is likely not the greatest existential risk (Ord, 2020: 5)). Second, climate change is likely what Ord calls a ‘risk factor’: increasing or reducing climate change will likely affect the total existential risk, even beyond the probability that climate change itself will cause an existential catastrophe (Ord, 2020: 152). For example, increasing temperatures and more extreme weather imply that the fight for scarce resources such as sweet water will increase over the next decades (Global Peace Index 2019: Measuring Peace in a Complex World, 2019). Furthermore, deteriorating living conditions might lead to climate refugees who, in part, will flee to developed countries, which could lead to institutional destabilisation and conflict. Finally, beyond extinction risk, climate change could put us on a suboptimal (nonextinction) trajectory: run-away climate change, for example, might put us on a path we cannot easily leave and which necessitates continuous costly adjustments, such as adapting to repeated flooding and adjusting agriculture to extreme weather irregularities. When aggregating those negative effects across time, those might add up to significant long-term costs. Institutional quality and conflict It is often argued that a country’s long-term performance depends to a significant extent on the quality of its institutions, including its political and legal institutions (Acemoglu et al., 2005). Economic research mostly focuses on explaining long-term differences in growth rates. As seen above, some researchers argue that high inequality will reduce growth rates, among other things, because it can worsen institutional quality. However, besides facilitating economic growth, public institutions have other functions that matter from a long-term perspective. For example, disaster preparedness, education, public health, foreign policy, science policy, and many other areas could influence the expected value of the long-term future. If such things go badly, they could increase existential risk. Conversely, good institutions will help reduce existential risk. For many existential risk reduction strategies likely require public goods and collective action, which in turn require good public institutions (among other reasons, because some such public goods are unlikely to be provided by markets). So, it seems reasonable to assume that, Schmidt and Juijn 13 with most other societal goals, good institutions can help deliver existential risk reduction. Here is a cheesy analogy: targeted actions like washing your hands regularly or getting a flu shot can reduce your risk of dying from an infection. But you will also do well investing in a strong immune system, as that is an ‘all-purpose good’ in lowering your risk of dying from any bacterium or virus. Investing in good institutions might similarly be an all-purpose-good: rather than tackling individual sources of existential risk directly, we improve conditions for tackling whatever existential risks may come our way. There are several reasons why higher inequality could weaken institutional capacities for longtermist public goods. First, there is some direct evidence that, whatever the causal pathway, inequality reduces institutional quality (which in turn typically leads to more inequality) (Chong and Gradstein, 2007; Savoia et al., 2010). Second, high inequality can lead to elite capture. Empirical work on studying political and de facto legal power is difficult, yet there is a growing consensus that high levels of inequality can lead to elite capture and thereby reduce the long-term quality of legal and political institutions (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2008, 2013; Bartels, 2018; Chong and Gradstein, 2007; Cummins and Rodriguez, 2010; Savoia et al., 2010; van Bavel, 2016). Further, if institutions are disproportionately geared towards elite interests, then they might be less likely to be geared towards positive long-term trajectories. We might see more rent-seeking and less investment in public goods. Moreover, if elite capture is strong enough, such capture, and the potential inequality that comes with it, can intensify going forward (Chong and Gradstein, 2007). Now, one might object and wonder whether elite interests and longtermist interests will necessarily be misaligned. Could an enlightened elite not even be more longtermist than a more democratic system? Here are two potential arguments. First, wealthy donors fund a significant part of research and direct action on existential risk and longtermism (the Open Philanthropy Project, for example). Indirectly, inequality might thus reduce existential risk through such funding. Second, rich people might have a lower rate of pure time preference than less well-off people, which might make them more aligned with investing in long-term causes. In response to the first argument, remember we here focus on income inequality reductions. Private funding only requires ‘enough’ wealth inequality going forward, it need not require elite capture. And reducing income inequality is unlikely to eradicate the required wealth inequality and the existence of big donors. In response to the second argument, we are sceptical that elite capture would translate a lower impatience rate into longtermist strategies in policy. First off, a successful transmission would require influence to be systematic and well-coordinated across time and, probably, across different elite actors. Yet lobbying and elite influence must often capitalise on shorter windows of opportunities, which makes well-coordinated intertemporal policy capture less likely. Second, even if rich people have a lower impatience rate in the sense that they might care more about returns on investment rather than direct consumption, this is quite different from being concerned with the far future. It would be a coincidence if being concerned with getting a good return in the next years (or even decades) on my own investment converged much with policies that protect the interests of far-future people. Of course, such considerations are speculative. But, in any case, we think that, on balance, there are stronger reasons to believe elite capture would increase – rather than 14 Politics, Philosophy & Economics 0(0) decrease – existential risk. First, elite capture often comes with rent seeking, which lowers institutional quality (Chong and Gradstein, 2007). Second, industries like oil, gas, weapons and others are often concentrated and well organised in exerting influence in law and legislation. Their interests and influence overall are likely to be more shortterm than longtermist. Third, recent decades have seen a shift towards a stronger shareholder value orientation in corporate governance. A common criticism of this shift is that it incentivises more short-term decisions. Accordingly, corporate influence into public institutions will likely display short-termist bias too. Finally, we can, of course, imagine that ‘pro-longtermist elite capture’ could happen and gamble on that possibility. However, if strong democratic and legal oversight and the power to check elite influence is lost, we might struggle to reverse our gamble. Third, high inequality is likely to reduce social capital and trust (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002; Knack and Keefer, 1997; Rothstein and Uslaner, 2005). Social capital and trust in public institutions in turn are important for effective public goods provision (Beugelsdijk et al., 2004; Knack and Keefer, 1997). Effective public goods provision, in turn, is important for (some) effective measures to reduce existential risk (and, more generally, to coordinate towards more valuable long-term trajectories). Therefore, high inequality could reduce societies’ capacities to effectively respond to large-scale challenges like existential risk. Finally, some limited direct evidence suggests societies with higher social capital and lower inequality exhibit better preventive and adaptive outcomes for environmental risks and can show greater resilience to external shocks (Kahn, 2005; van Bavel et al., 2018). For example, Matthew Kahn provides some evidence that more equal countries, when controlled for GDP, have significantly lower death rates in natural catastrophes (Kahn, 2005). While smaller natural catastrophes are different from global catastrophic risk scenarios, resilience in such events might be somewhat indicative of societies’ resilience to catastrophic risks. So, good social and institutional conditions could help reduce existential risk. Consider next how, conversely, bad conditions might increase existential risk. A key driver of existential risk is conflict, both between and within nation-states (or what (Ord, 2020: 175–9) calls a ‘risk factor’). Conflicts and arms races raise human-induced existential risks such as nuclear war, the outbreak of a bio-engineered virus or the launch of misaligned artificial intelligence. Note that an existential catastrophe could be set in motion either purposefully or accidentally. Both are more likely during conflict. Nuclear warheads, cyberweapons, and bioweapons could all be used purposefully to attack enemy states, leading to potential global escalation. But as past nuclear incidents and close calls during the Cold War show, arms races also increase the probability of accidental catastrophes (Schlosser, 2013). Esteban and Schneider find that formal and empirical evidence suggests that political and social polarisation increases the risk of violent conflict, both intra-nationally and internationally (Esteban and Schneider, 2008). If income inequality increases polarisation, inequality may indirectly drive existential risk. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that income inequality can increase the degree of polarisation between groups of citizens. Bonica et al. find that the degree of polarisation within the US House of Representatives, for example, is accurately tracked by domestic income inequality, with correlation Schmidt and Juijn 15 coefficients rising up to 0.95 depending on the chosen time-period (Bonica et al., 2013: 105–8). Of course, correlation does not imply causation and the correlation is likely at least partially the result of reverse causation or a confounding variable. That said, we should assign a non-negligible credence to inequality partially causing polarisation. Moreover, inequality and polarisation might also play some role in getting polarising and populist candidates elected (Piketty, 2018). In a preliminary analysis of US election data, Darvas and Efstathiou find that more unequal states were more likely to vote for Donald Trump, after controlling for variables such as income, race and education (Darvas and Efstathiou, 2016). Populist politicians – like Trump, Bolsonaro, and others – are likely bad news for existential risk reduction. They are less cooperative in delivering regional and global public goods and typically prefer riskier, and more conflictual and nationalistic policy styles. Differential progress We have surveyed some reasons why inequality might translate into worse institutional conditions for longtermism. Beyond more formal institutions and avenues for collective action, we might also consider the cultural, moral and informal social norms that could potentially impact existential risk or whose underlying values might get locked in in the future. The simple idea is that countries that sustain low levels of inequality will foster – and require for their support – a public moral culture that values solidarity and cooperation. More egalitarian policies might in turn move citizens and leaders towards more altruism and stronger regard to moral and social considerations in decision processes. Societies that actively work against income inequality may thereby reinforce broadly ‘pro-social’ social norms. Arguably, more egalitarian attitudes and norms might support public goods provision and favour expanding one’s moral circle to other countries and future generations. Countries with high levels of inequality, in contrast, might reinforce norms of competition, individualism, and personal responsibility. Policies that encourage competition and smaller moral circles also seem more likely to attract leaders that value individualism and competition. Indeed, as Wilkinson and Pickett note, more equal societies give more in development aid and score better on the Global Peace Index (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: 227). Again, we may wonder whether these relationships are not partially explained by confounding variables or reverse causality. That said, the causal link through social norms and public morality has some intuitive force. If true – and drawing on what we said above – a public commitment to equality might support a public moral culture that values solidarity and cooperation, which could help reduce existential risk and lower the risk of negative value lock-in.20 A related idea is that egalitarian societies might provide better conditions for differential progress (Tomasik, 2015). The thought is that new technologies often pose a risk when they become available before society has developed the collective ‘wisdom’ to use them well. Technology should not develop too fast relative to progress in wisdom. Consider artificial intelligence for example. Bostrom argues that once artificial intelligences (AI’s) outsmart humans in AI-creation, systems might iteratively improve themselves and potentially set in motion an intelligence explosion (Bostrom, 2014). Quite quickly, it might become difficult to control AI and align it with our interest. Such a scenario, if it happens, might still be 16 Politics, Philosophy & Economics 0(0) some time away (or not). However, if we do not develop collective wisdom first, it might be too late by the time superintelligent AI arrives on the scene. But what goes into the wisdom side of differential progress? Minimally, it requires effective institutions, values, and empirical insight and understanding. We have argued that equality might help strengthen the public institutions required for effective collective action to reduce existential risks. But society and the institutions governing it might also require public commitment to values conducive to longtermism. A commitment to equality and cooperation, and the norms required to sustain such a commitment, might help. Together then, equality could improve differential progress.

Over the past several years, billionaires have donated millions to the right-wing Midwestern governors pushing for state right-to-work laws, while at the same time bankrolling the current Supreme Court case, Janus v. AFSCME, which will determine whether public employee unions can require dues from nonmembers to support union activities from which all employees benefit.

Their efforts are not the product of a post-Citizens United landscape, but rather part of a decades-long project. For more than 70 years, supposedly nonpartisan groups, big businesses, wealthy donors and small firms have been devoting time and money to guarantee that Americans would have the right to work — for less.

Their model shows that institutional support for unions, such as legislation protecting the right to organize, is necessary for this dynamic process of balancing employers’ monopsony power. In an accompanying column, the two researchers write that they “find that a lack of institutional support will devastate unions’ ability to function as a balance to firms’ monopsony power, potentially with major consequences … In turn, labor market outcomes will be less socially efficient.”

In short, policies and enforcement that support collective action such as strikes not only creates benefits for workers directly but also addresses a larger problem of concentrated market power.

In the United States, Labor Day, which falls on the first Monday of September, is when we honor the history of the U.S. labor movement in striving for benefits and empowerment of workers across the economy. Strikes play an important role in empowering workers vis-à-vis their employers. By withdrawing their labor power, workers are able to balance the scales against the owners of capital, who rely on workers for production and providing services. Strikes have declined in frequency, popularity, and success over the past four decades, yet today, amid rising economic inequality, they are once again becoming an important t ool in exercising worker power to ensure that the gains of profitability and economic growth can be broadly shared.

The history of strikes in the United States

Labor unions are a time-tested way for workers to organize and negotiate collectively for higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions.

By advocating for better conditions in their own workplaces, unions also set standards for workers throughout the country. While union membership has declined since the 1960s, unions are still key to building a stronger, fairer economy for working Americans.

“Right to work” laws have a direct effect on workers’ ability to sustain unions. Working people in states that enable unions to collect fees from every worker they represent are more than twice as likely to either be in a union or protected by a union contract than those in “right to work” states.3 At the same time, undercutting unions through “right to work” laws reduces workers’ ability to negotiate higher wages, better benefits, and improved working conditions.

Even workers at non-union businesses benefit when unions are strong. The presence of effective unions raises wages and job quality for workers throughout the economy, as non-unionized employers compete with unionized workplaces to attract and retain qualified workers.

In America, working people have the freedom to band together with their co-workers to negotiate for a fair return on our work. We have the freedom to act together so can we speak with a more powerful voice. We have the freedom to join and form unions. Yet today, powerful interests want to take away that freedom. Corporate lobbyists have pushed federal and state-level policies deceptively named “Right to Work” laws that strip away the freedom to negotiate for a fair return on our work. These laws are designed to drain workers’ collective resources by requiring unions to provide representation to people who make no contribution to sustain the union. In essence, so-called “right to work” laws aim to silence working Americans, which causes their wages and working conditions to deteriorate, making it more difficult to sustain a family. Economists find that in states that have adopted these laws, the typical full-time worker is paid $1,500 a year less than their counterpart in a state that has not undermined workers’ rights.1

This Demos Explainer clarifies what misleadingly named “right to work” laws do, how they silence workers’ collective voice, and what their impact has been in states that adopt them. We also explore the roots of this anti-worker policy in efforts to cut wages and solidify racial divisions among workers in the Jim Crow South. Today, as “right to work” laws are promoted in a growing number of states and in the U.S. Congress, Demos aims to ensure that elected leaders, the media, and ordinary Americans understand the true nature of this policy.

You would think that a pandemic that has killed more than a million Americans and many millions more people worldwide would launch a serious effort to guard against future pandemics. Instead, the pandemic has led not to strengthening of public health measures, but an official response telling everybody they’re on their own.

Institutions charged with protecting public health now say individuals should weigh their own risks, but do not provide the necessary information to weigh those risks, and ignore the fact that the vast majority of people do not possess the expertise needed to weigh risks intelligently anyway. Making pandemic mitigations a personal choice is very much like saying people should decide for themselves whether to obey stop signs or run red lights. Consequently, a future pandemic as infectious as COVID-19, but with a much higher fatality rate, could kill enough people to shred the social fabric.

In one fell swoop, then, the Lochner Court delivered a near-death blow to the entire Progressive legislative enterprise of enacting labor laws, public health laws, and workplace safety regulations. And it did so, according to the conventional narrative, solely on the basis of its own allegedly common-sense, but in fact woefully uninformed, opinions—opinions that were shaped by class biases and laissez-faire politics, and that flew in the face of actual data and informed legislative judgment.82 For more than thirty years, the recalcitrant and activist Lochner-era Court stood in the way of overwhelmingly popular and economically necessary Progressive legislation, perhaps contributing to or worsening the Great Depression.83 And when the Court stood on the brink of striking down the entire New Deal, an exasperated President Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court with Progressive judges, prompting a constitutional crisis that ended only when the Court backed down in the famous “switch in time that saved Nine” in 1937 and finally brought an end to the Lochner era.

WASHINGTON -- A new report from NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) demonstrates that union jobs should be essential in the fight against climate change, and that with strong labor standards the shift to a clean energy economy can produce better outcomes for workers and the environment. “United: Union Jobs Improve the Clean Energy Economy” highlights stories about labor’s involvement in the clean economy and its role in shaping the industries needed to shift to a cleaner, healthier economy. As Congress considers President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda, labor and environmental leaders are joining together to call for climate action with robust labor standards.

“Our unions are positioned to lead the way as we transition to the clean energy economy of the future,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan from Ohio. “We know that climate change is a dangerous and growing threat to our children, our families, and our economy. The Build Back Better Act takes a direct aim at addressing climate change while strengthening our communities and economy by investing in clean energy jobs, technologies, and initiatives -- while putting workers first.”

The law effectively established a states-rights framework for labor law, forbade industry-wide collective bargaining, and cut off several avenues for unions to engage in politics. It further required union officials to sign a pledge that they were not members of the Communist Party. With the NLRA neutered, states south of the Mason Dixon line would become testing grounds for right-to-work rules. They were the brainchild of the Houston oil lobbyist Vance Muse, who described the benefits he saw in such statutes bluntly: “From now on, white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.” “These laws were designed in the 1940s to stoke tensions between white workers and Black workers,” Carter explained. “The subtext was right to work without integration.”

That carbon-intensive industries like coal, steel, and electricity were so central to the U.S. economy and such prime targets for labor actions made it especially important for industry and politicians to keep them running profitably and without disruption, by any means necessary. As recently as the 1970s, miners engaged in militant, multiracial battles against their bosses. That the same workers are now seen as the centerpiece of Trumpist white identity politics—and a cudgel against climate policy—is both a historical novelty and the product of a decades-long fight to drive unions and solidarity alike out of the industries that keep the country running.

Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Janus is the most egregious example of Lochner-ism in modern judicial history. It reverses a 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that public sector unions may collect “fair share” fees from nonmembers to fund collective bargaining. To justify overturning Abood, Alito declared that fair share fees impose an unconstitutionally “heavy burden” on nonunion members’ First Amendment rights. Why? Because, to Alito, all union speech—including negotiations over salaries, health insurance, and child care benefits—is fundamentally political.

This analysis is sheer nonsense. Fittingly, given Alito’s unabashed hostility toward unions, it rests on the dubious presumption that demands for basic workplace benefits are inherently “political.” And it flouts precedent that gives the government wide latitude to restrict public employees’ speech, even on matters of public concern. Alito essentially carved out an exception to the general First Amendment rules for the express purpose of hobbling unions. His decision was pure partisan politics, a handout to the “right to work” movement.

This analysis began from the conservative charge that the decision in Roe and its use of substantive due process reflected the reckless judicial activism of the anticanonical, prototypically unrestrained Lochner decision. While the majority opinions in each case shared a framework of individual liberties competing with state interests, they are ultimately dissimilar. The cases had different approaches to the relation between liberty and society due to their respective reliances on the distinct doctrines of police powers and fundamental rights. However, this difference was not fatal for the conservative criticism; in fact, the more aggressive standard of judicial enforcement of unenumerated rights in Roe would necessarily legitimize the level of activism in Lochner, which reviewed legislation with greater deference. The implication from Roe's degree of judicial activism to Lochner's does not necessarily go both ways, as the weaker Lochner standard would not compel an anti-Roe originalist to endorse or condemn both decisions. While any jurist could, of course, choose just the right level of activism to get to Lochner without Roe, a more principled, substantive theory of interpretation would provide a better justification for such a stance. New originalists could be posed to do just that. New originalists look to the semantic public meaning of the text of a law or provision, in contrast to old originalists, who focus on the intent of the framers in order to produce a judiciary that is systematically biased towards restraint. Understanding the Due Process Clause as containing a freedom to contract but not a right of abortion, as derived from a right to privacy, could produce a result completely opposed to current jurisprudence. A controversial staple of modern constitutional law could vanish, and the Court could revive one of its most reviled decisions more than a century after it was issued.

For a very long time, it has been an article of faith among liberals and conservatives alike that Lochner v. New York was obviously and irredeemably wrong. Lochner is one of only a few cases that constitute our “anticanon,” universally reviled by the legal community as the “worst of the worst.” Our first claim in this Article is that the orthodoxy in modern conservative legal thought about Lochner is on the verge of changing. We believe that conservatives are ready, once again, to embrace Lochner— although perhaps not in name—by recommitting to some form of robust judicial protection for economic rights. Our second claim is that this impending change has been greatly facilitated by important modifications to the theory of originalism, which has served for nearly a half century as the intellectual framework for conservative legal thought. That intellectual framework has been evolving for decades, and it has now evolved to the point where it can plausibly accommodate claims that the Constitution protects economic liberty.