Over the course of the past week, there’s been a significant number of responses to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s announcement that he intends to explore a run for the presidency. The general consensus among pundits is that Schultz’s chances of winning the presidency as an Independent are negligible; however, if he decides to run, there will be debates and campaigning through which Schultz will have an opportunity to shape public discourse and possibly even policy as a result. This concerns me.
Schultz identifies as socially liberal and fiscally conservative. These ideas are in diametric opposition to one another, and the notion that they can somehow be reconciled is false and deeply problematic. Any individual who adopts this worldview is either purposely deceitful or incapable of serious intellectual inquiry–neither of which are qualities that we deserve in a leader.
Let me be clear in the following point: poverty and inequity exist in part and are exacerbated by the very economic systems that proponents of this “third way” work to maintain.
According to Forbes, Schultz’s net worth is $3.4 billion at the time of writing. He belongs to a group of individuals who have done well for themselves and would now like to do good. And yet, the companies that have allowed them to amass enough resources to “give back” (by running for an elected office, donating to a favorite charity, or developing an “innovative” business solution to solve a social problem) have often played a major part in destabilizing employment, dismantling unions, and gentrifying neighborhoods. They are the beneficiaries of tax laws that keep public schools and social services perpetually underfunded. These are individuals that could have operated their companies differently, could have donated to different politicians, could have lobbied differently. These are people with resources to give because of reversible decisions that society has taken, reaping the rewards of a social structure that actively works to keep many people in poverty.
I’ve used the term poverty here because I’ve spent much of my career to-date working within the social services sector in a major American city (shout out to Chicago), and often alongside community organizers and educational institutions. Poverty is real, and, in these spaces, one confronts it daily. Although fiscally conservative practices disproportionately affect the most vulnerable among us, we all need to be skeptical of individuals like Schultz. We are all affected by these practices.
If you are a worker in the gig economy, a freelancer, an artist, or an adjunct professor and you wonder about how you will afford to pay for health insurance, then this is affects you.
If you have ever been straddled with debt because you underwent a medical procedure, then this is affects you.
If you’ve ever wondered about how you were going to pay for childcare, then this affects you.
If you’ve ever taken out loans to pay for a college education (since such an education is necessary for most jobs) and are now burdened with massive student debt, then this affects you.
If you’ve ever decided to send your children to private schools because your community’s public schools were underfunded and not viable options for a rigorous education, then this affects you.
If you are a small business owner who struggles to hire and retain employees, thereby causing immense instability in the business that is your very livelihood, then this affects you.
If you are in your fifties, sixties, or seventies and don’t know when or how you will be able to retire, then this affects you.
And so on.
We live in one of the wealthiest and most innovative societies in human history; none of this is okay. By quietly accepting these inequities, we become complicit in maintaining shared systems that don’t work for us. None of us can afford to condone the ideas of the socially liberal, fiscally conservative individual. Many of us struggle day-to-day, but that doesn’t negate the fact that we have a moral obligation to care for ourselves, our communities, and future generations.
Whether they are the Schultzes, Clintons, or Trumps of the worlds, why do we continue to allow the beneficiaries of the status quo to drive discourse around changing the status quo? Isn’t it time that we do better?