Leaders who blame corporate greed for state poverty should look in mirror

John Carpenter’s 1988 thriller “They Live” — in which an out-of-work drifter discovers that the world is secretly controlled by aliens who manipulate humans into docile obedience — was widely seen as a sarcastic riff on life in the Reagan era.

But “They Live” also resonates as a broader comment on how elites maintain control. With every passing year, it feels more relevant to California. Elected leaders declare a kinship with the tens of millions of residents who believe in social justice, treasure the environment and value immigrants. But when these residents wonder why the cost of living is so much less in most of the nation — why schools deliver worse results than those in liberal states (Massachusetts) and conservative states (Texas) alike — why life in the Golden State never seems to get any easier — the political establishment trots out the usual villain. What’s never explained is why “corporate greed” takes such a unique toll in a rich, powerful state in which those allegedly opposed to it have such clout.

Truth-telling occasionally emerges. “Abundance,” the thoughtful book published earlier this year by progressives Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, pointed out how unions and environmental groups in California block constructive reforms that would limit their heavy influence. In recent weeks, both former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan have said that their fellow Democrats must acknowledge that they have shaped the state and that they are largely responsible for its problems.

But this is a bridge too far for many leaders, especially in San Diego. This is playing out now at City Hall, where the all-Democratic City Council is expected next week to approve a massive increase in the minimum wage paid to visitor industry workers — pushing it to $25 an hour. In a May commentary by Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, he made the argument we’ve heard ever since: It is necessary because greedy out-of-town investors and corporations are why “so many of our workers live in poverty.”

But out-of-town investors and corporations are not why studio apartments cost $2,000 a month to rent in San Diego. Why modest homes that cost $200,000 a generation ago cost $800,000 now. Why gasoline costs $1.40 more a gallon here than in the similarly progressive Northeast. A far stronger case can be made that this is due to the failure of city and state leaders to respond to challenges that didn’t flummox elected officials in most of America.

Villaraigosa and Mahan understand this. The leaders of San Diego — the same ones who constantly back higher sales taxes, trash service bills, parking fees and city fines on the impoverished residents they allegedly want to help — may as well. But so long as the public docilely buys their spin, it’s easier for them to blame malign outside forces. An abundance of poverty is the result.