‘Ubuntu’ – the We of Me

An open letter to Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, Chair, Advisory Committee on Social Protest.

By SHLOMO MAITAL
Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg (photo credit: Mark Neiman / GPO)
Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg
(photo credit: Mark Neiman / GPO)
Dear Manu,
Your nickname is perfect. In Hindu tradition, Manu was the Brahman King who saved the world from a universal flood. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed you to head a committee he hopes will save him from the flood of social protest. So far, Netanyahu’s vacuous words about strengthening competition to help the middle class have been more amusing than meaningful.
You have appointed four subcommittees, on taxation, social services, competition and prices, and housing. I’d like to offer some friendly advice to you all.
Most government-appointed committees have a well-defined mandate. Yours has none. This is a huge advantage. It means you can define your own terms of reference. Make them very broad. The issue is not taxation, housing or competition. The core issue is what kind of society do we want to live in? For once, you have an opportunity to tackle the issue of values. For a century, economics has been a value-free zone. It’s time for a change.
Israel has never had a true country-wide discussion of this subject. In elections, defense almost always dominates the discourse. At last, thanks to a half million young people and a protest movement that began with two tents on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, social justice heads the list. Thanks to their stubborn persistence, it will remain there. I believe the vast majority of the people of Israel want a more equal, more just society. The question is, how can this best be achieved?
In the past 30 years, Manu, as you well know, Israel has lost its way. According to a recent report by Prof. Avia Spivak, of Beersheba’s Ben- Gurion University, and Tal Wolfson, of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, public spending fell from 70 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1980 to only 43 percent in 2010. Measured by the Gini coefficient (a measure of income distribution inequality), Israel is second only to America among OECD countries. Since 2000, real wages have declined by 7 percent.
Regressive taxes on what people buy, relative to progressive taxes on what people earn, are roughly equal in amount – and far exceed the proportion in Europe. (In Sweden, income tax comprises nearly three-fourths of total tax revenue). In 2009, there were 20,000 housing starts, but 35,000 new households that needed housing. Public spending on housing assistance dropped from 6 billion shekels in 2003 to only 2 billion shekels in 2010. These numbers are well known, Manu. Now let’s examine the real question – how and why to make Israeli society more fair.
Recall Winston Churchill’s quip that socialism is the equal distribution of poverty and capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth. He was only partly right. There are capitalist societies based on open free-market economies that heavily redistribute wealth and income. This is the Scandinavian model. No, Israel is not Sweden. But it can embrace progressive taxation that is based on income, to replace regressive taxation based on consumption.
American billionaire Warren Buffett recently complained that his average income tax rate is only 17 percent. Israel’s billionaires are similarly under-taxed. Why? The only reason nations like Denmark can afford cradle-to-grave social safety nets is because they have innovative dynamic economies that generate public revenue to fund social goods. Denmark’s per capita GDP is a third bigger than Israel’s and its economy is ranked 12th in the world in competitiveness, well above Israel’s rank of 17th. Denmark’s social welfare greatly strengthens its economy’s competitiveness, rather than weakens it. The same is true of Sweden.
Explain this key point to the government, Manu. The dividend from capitalist wealth should accrue to the people who need it, not to the oligarchs who do not, because it is we, the people, who make it possible.
Unless this happens, social protest will ultimately wreak havoc on those same oligarchs’ wealth.
Manu, you have starred in this “movie” before. On April 19, 2007, as head of then-prime minister Ehud Olmert’s National Economic Council, you tabled a 106-page report titled “Socioeconomic Agenda for Israel, 2008-2010.” Neither Olmert (now on trial for corruption) nor his finance minister Abraham Hirchson (now in jail for theft) showed up at your press conference.
I suggest you dust off this report and submit it again, because it is still perfectly relevant. In it, you made a key point. Deep-rooted poverty is caused by low labor force participation and by productivity in traditional industries that is only half that of the US and Europe. The working poor are poor because they are both underpaid and underproductive. The solution: Build their skills and improve their education. Highly-paid high-tech jobs employ only one person in 14.
During a recent visit to South Africa, I met a group of remarkable managers who live in sophisticated corporate cultures during the week and in their tribal cultures on weekends. One senior manager from the Zulu tribe taught me about ubuntu, a short form of the Zulu proverb “Umuntu ngumuntu ngamantu,” meaning, “I exist only through other people,” or, as she put it, “I am because we are.”
I too feel that I am, only because I am part of a family, a neighborhood, a community, a city, and a country, and I find meaning in life because I contribute to them and draw strength, love and support from them. Without ubuntu, society crumbles. Without the “we” of “me,” there is no real “me.” And if my country does not care about me, why should I care about my country? Israel once had ubuntu. It is far more crucial to Israel’s continued existence than a squadron of the latest F- 35 fighter jets.
We can restore ubuntu. The Talmudic precept “kol yisrael arevim ze ba-ze” (“we are each responsible for one another,” Shevuot 39a) predates ubuntu as an eternal, inviolate Jewish value. Resurrect it. This is your committee’s true mandate, Manu. Our political leaders will then have no choice but to fall in line, or fall by the wayside. 
The writer is Senior research fellow, S. Neaman Institute, Technion.