Always Low Wages, Always?

Jonah Goldberg accuses me of ducking and weaving away from his criticisms -- which would be true, only I, uh, didn't see his criticisms, and so wasn't responding to them. Amazingly, I don't actually read the Corner on Saturdays, and was responding to those, like Glenn Reynolds, who answered me during the week.

But since I now do see that Jonah answered, it gives me time to be confused. In what must be the most revealing few sentences he's ever written, Jonah promised, "I'll make Ezra a deal. I will forthrightly deal with the progressive case against Wal-Mart, if he explains in simple and straightforward language which issues he considers to be less important than Wal-Mart."

Read that again. Jonah will bring an ounce of intellectual honesty to the table if I accept his demands. He's literally holding good faith debate hostage, and in doing, admitting that his LA Times column was nothing but a smear job, one in which he didn't deal with the opposing arguments forthrightly. I applaud the honesty, but can't accept the terms. I don't negotiate with hacks. If Jonah wants to deal with opposing arguments seriously, he shouldn't need anyone to bribe him into position.

But since I actually do think this is an important issue, I'm willing to deal with queries about my position forthrightly (no conditions!). As I said earlier today: I believe that Wal-Mart is setting the norms for the service economy, which contains most of the job sectors slated for rapid growth in coming decades. Moreover, I believe their size and purchasing power are destroying the corporate welfare state: Wal-Mart's competitors need to cut labor costs to compete, and their producers need to cut labor costs (and often outsource) to meet Wal-Mart's price points. These are the norms of the service economy -- a mindless pursuit of lower prices, a worrying lack of countervailing powers, and little to no employee power -- and they are causal factors behind the erosion of the corporate welfare state, the shift of risk onto individuals, and the decline of unions. In the way that bridling GM and Ford was critical to creating the middle class in the 20th century, taming Wal-Mart is central to sustaining it in the 21st -- and if we can't do that, health care, child poverty, and all those other issues Jonah fears I'm neglecting are going to get a whole lot worse.

One more thing: Goldberg writes that:

Part of his indictment is that I didn't fully lay out the no doubt epic-length Progressive case against Wal-Mart, in a 700+ word column. One of the the things I love about Ezra's broadsides against me is how Tom Daschle-like they are. He's always so saddened, "disappointed" and offended.

Actually -- I'm never offended by Goldberg, but I'm often saddened and disappointed. I think, as writers, we have certain responsibilities to turn out a product that is, on some level or another, constructive for the larger debate. That responsibility is mitigated somewhat on blogs, where the cost of extra space is nil, and thus our broadsides can merrily coexist with our more informative pieces, neither distracting from nor squeezing out the other.

But on a major op-ed page, the burden is much more acute. I've written a handful of LA Times op-eds myself (obviously fewer than Jonah), and always taken them seriously. I don't pitch or write partisan broadsides, and never offer up anything (and this goes form my magazine writing as well) that doesn't seek to put new ideas, information, or concepts on the table. The aim is always to push the discussion forward, never to muddy up the waters or merely inflame the partisans -- there are too few op-eds in a day, and for too many, it's their main source of political commentary. So when I saw Jonah use his weekly column to write such a hackish piece on Wal-Mart, it was depressing. He'd taken the chance to address a major issue and, rather than explaining the contours or advancing the conversation, chortled at Democrats. It is a shame for him, or anyone, to waste the opportunity that such valuable newspaper real estate offers. So I'm not disappointed by Jonah -- he can sink as low as he wants -- I'm disappointed by the blown opportunity. But hey -- that's just how I view my profession. Jonah, clearly, sees himself engaged in a different pursuit, and that's certainly his right.