The Change We Need II: An Economic Bill of Rights

What is freedom?

In the context of the ongoing economic crisis, this word has acquired a morbid new meaning. Some of us have been freed from the confines of our homes to live outdoors in tents. Many of us--nearly 700,000 in March alone--have been freed from the chains of our old jobs and can search for new ones. Millions of us are suddenly free to develop second careers as we approach retirement without sufficient savings to live out our post-employment lives. ¹

These are not the usual privileges we associate with freedom. We normally think of freedom in terms of political and civil liberties such as the right to elect our representatives, to express ourselves freely, and the other rights contained in the Bill of Rights. We usually think of democracy as a system of government that guarantees these rights, and in which those who govern derive their authority from us.

Now we have to ask: Just how free are we when our lives can be so drastically upended by the Market, in which the most powerful players are people we haven't elected, and institutions in which most of us have little say?

What does it mean to live in a democracy when our elected representatives have not only failed to control the actions of these players but have actively aided them in their crimes and follies?

In a word, what is the meaning of freedom when the pursuit of happiness is reduced to the pursuit of economic survival?

If there is a positive side to the economic crisis, it is this: We can no longer avoid confronting the limits imposed by the market on our freedoms and democracy. Its authority over our lives is more diffuse than that of despotic governments, but now we see that it can exert just as much power over us.

This power has always been present, but prosperity, or at least the illusion of it, has blurred its edges for many of us. Now it has snapped into sharp relief as millions of us face homelessness, unemployment, and destitution.

Even those of us who haven't yet felt this power in its most brutal form may do so in the future. It is the nature of capitalism to swing from prosperity to slump, and the timing of these swings is unpredictable. Your job may be safe now, but disappear just when you have a new child. You may not be close to retirement now, but the market could make off with your savings just when you are. You could be safe in your home today but turned out of it by the bank next year.

The current crisis should prompt us to recognize this quality of capitalism not primarily as a social or economic problem, not even in terms of economic inequality, but as a fundamentally political issue: We cannot be truly free when we live at the mercy of the market.

Freedom from the vagaries of the market will require much more than the Obama administration's proposed economic stimulus and financial regulation. These are undeniably important, but no amount of stimulus and regulation will guarantee that recessions and financial crises won't happen again.

We need an expansion of our understanding and practice of democracy to include some fundamental "economic rights." This concept was articulated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with whom President Obama is frequently compared. As the Second World War approached its end, FDR declared in his State of the Union address:

"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence...In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all--regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;...
The right of every family to a decent home;...
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education."

Today what we may find most startling is FDR's characterization of these not as social protections, welfare, or safety net, but as rights. His assertion that true individual freedom cannot exist without these rights goes well beyond anything we've seen from mainstream politics in this country since at least the 1960s, Obama included.

The last few months have painfully confirmed the limits of our freedom in the absence of these rights. The real change we need is a deep, lasting expansion of our democracy to incorporate them.

This is a daunting task. However, democracy is a living, growing thing, not a once and for all accomplishment. This we know; this is our history. It is up to us to fight for these economic rights just as those who came before us fought for, and won, the civil liberties we enjoy today.

¹ Here are the March unemployment data, and a county-level map of unemployment rates. Baseline Scenario evaluates the retirement prospects of people aged 55 to 64.

Comments

[Donkslayer]

Rights cannot be material goods, and only civil rights can be services, on a very rare occassion (what if a doctor in a universal healthcare system didn't want to work more than 40hrs/week, but there were enough sick people to work her 60hrs? Lock her up because those other sick people have "the right" to compel her to treat them?)

So, if by these "rights" that the author mentions, he thinks people should be GIVEN a house, money, a job, etc etc if they don't have one, that simply compels it to be TAKEN from others (until there's nothing left) and FORCES others to work and provide for them. If others are going to do my work for me, why will I work at all?

[TunnelRat]

I think there is a potential for a large class action lawsuit against American tech companies, the Indian bodyshops, and the Indian offshoring consulting companies like Infosys and WiPro. You may have heard about the Satyam scandal. There is plenty of anecdotal and statistical evidence that Americans are getting forced out of the global I.T. industry.

For example 55,000 of the 65,000 allotted H-1B visas in 2007 went to Indian workers, who are essentially indentured servants, forced to work for one company and frequently abused. The companies have pitted the foreign workers against the local employees and the industry is in chaos; the imported the workers lack the skills to do the work, and the Americans are forced to train them or get fired.

I am eager to contact someone like David Boies and suggest that the time is ripe for a civil rights battle. American I.T. professionals are getting displaced in large numbers, and the H-1B lobby and Indian, Inc. want to lift ALL visa caps. This is nothing more than an attempt to arbitrage employee wages.

[returnofthejedi]

I agree all the rights you have sighted here, I would add afew to those.

The right to have a life out side of your job.
The right to keep your dignity and a job at the same time.
The right to be free from stereo-typing while applying or interviewing, (which are really religious litmus tests)
The right to be considered for employment before any non- citizen of the United States.

[jill2468]

FDR was a progressive and to call him anything but is like lying. The progressive movement, started so many years ago has been tried and has failed in many Countries. Thaking this County in a more progressive direction than it has gone already would be a huge mistake. We need to protect our constitution and what it stands for. There is no right to own a home, have a job or go to College, but there is the right to strive to obtain these things through hard work and some luck. Let us not change it.

[returnofthejedi]

1) You are wrong. Shelter is not only a right but a basic human need, and to destroy the possibiliyty of a person having shelter should be a crime against humanity.
2) To say taking this country in a progressive direction is purely your own opinion,not a fact.
3) Your ridiculous statements about jobs, education, and homes are believed by too many, and are the reason America is self destructing. Lack of education, and Lack of employment only serve the greedy bastards that coul care less about this country.
4) There is no such thing as luck.

[Donkslayer]

Jill, you're a "greedy bastard" if you want to provide for yourself. Just wanted to make sure you caught that.

We have the right to everything that the author listed already...­anyone can achieve those things and if they are prevented from doing so, it's illegal.

[ANGEL53545]

its a good dream,the problem with it is who will pay for it. russia tried it and everybody lived in poverty because there was no reason to get ahead. if you take from the rich, the rich will have no moviation to start business which employees people and pay taxes would drop and all of those dreams fall apart.

[thebigbike]

It's all quite legal, to paraphrase a quoe that seems obliquely appropriate. "Remember, the Law, in its majesty forbids the rich equaly, as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges."

[cfbarnhart]

A well written argument. I would take exception to FDR's list of "rights" on two points:

1. What we are supposedly guaranteed is equal opportunity, not equal results. We would like to be a meritocracy. That would indicate that the sine-qua-non (without this, nothing) aspects such as education and health-care certainly should have the characterizations of "rights". An economic safety net for families and elderly may or may not be a right, but are certainly very high priority. In the case of families, this talks directly what should be the opportunity rights of the children. Otherwise?­...

2. We have never dealt with the fact that we do not need all of our work force, nationally or world-wide, to produce all of the goods and services we can realistically consume. I listened to scientists from SRI discuss this problem in 1970, stating it was the dominant cultural issue through the end of the millennium. But I never heard a politician discuss it. So we have our inner-city ghettos and business periodically shedding workers any time they need to make their bottom line look better.

I don't have an answer, but declaring a "right" to the American Dream, instead of insisting that the American Dream is the result of education and work and talent, will do us in just as thoroughly as the greed of the financial elites.

[Sundialsvc4]

I would offer a different ending to your sentence.

"We cannot be truly free when we live at the mercy of High Crime."

If you carefully consider what has happened over the last dozen years or so, it is not difficult to enumerate cases where "any civil officer" (Article 2, Section 4) of this Government has committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" with direct and terrible impact upon (literally­...) hundreds of millions of innocent people; that is to say, "We, the People."

In the case at bar, the financial industry (specifically, about 21 mega-monsters) committed securities fraud at a (literally­...) trillion-dollar scale, and did so in part thanks to laws that were repealed by the US Congress and in part thanks to new laws that were written on their behalf. But there are also many, many other examples: I don't need to waste the word-limit by listing them here.

"We, the People" truly need to start seeing ourselves as "We, the Plaintiffs­." All 306,257,810 of us.

... and the international business community must do the same!

"High crime," in short, has become a problem of such size and scope that it CAN trigger a world-wide economic depression, against which not even "national sovereignty" is an effective defense. It can reduce the judgments of Nuremberg to a toothless, mewling kitten. It can, if we but allow it, devastate us all, without remorse.

[TRYKER]

Thanks. Important words you write.