Forum Post: We should call for the adoption of FDR's Economic Bill of Rights
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 7, 2011, 5:07 p.m. EST by AmericanRevolution
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67 years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to the American people, and called for the creation of an Economic Bill of Rights, which would guarantee:
Employment, with a living wage,Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies, Housing,Medical care, Education, and,Social security
Sadly, however, he died before he could bring this about. Two-thirds of a century later, we need this Economic Bill of Rights now more than ever. I know that this movement has many disparate voices, but I believe that this is a clear message that we can unite behind.
Here is an interesting way that we could make a living wage actually work.. it's not a fantasy: http://subsidizedlabor.org
we do have all those things, it's the corruption of all those things thats the problem
We don't have a living wage. We have a poverty wage of $7.25/hour.
We have no freedom from unfair competition, we have a flood of imports from countries who employ sweatshop labor, with which we cannot compete.
We have no freedom from monopolies. Corporations can and do corner the market at will.
We have no guarantee of housing, we have a great deal of homelessness.
We have no universal health care, we have 50 million people uninsured and 50,000 people dying every year for want of medical care. Health care costs are rising at double the rate of ordinary inflation, causing massive budget deficits at the individual, corporate, local, state and federal levels. We have Americans declaring medical bankruptcy at an astonishing rate.
We have no universal higher education, we have millions of people drowning under immense student loan debts, and education costs rising at triple the rate of ordinary inflation.
Our guarantee of Social Security is under attack by those who call it a ponzi scheme, those who seek to deny it funding, and those who would dramatically cut it.
My comments here, you have to think like a business owner to udnerstand how things got this way. Imagine you are a university or hospital president...
On your specific charges... SS is a ponzi - that is simply mathematical fact. We game the many workers to pay for the few retirees.. Its a pyramid. Retirement should be saved for - even with SS as it lives now. If you are planning to use SS as the lion share of your retirement - you should think again. Institute tariffs - "free trade" is anything but free. Competing with the Chinese isn't competition, and we should have major tariffs on products from companies who employ modern day slave wages. What is a 'living wage' is debatable - what is less debatable is the cost of housing, the cost of food, the cost of gas - all of which have been distorted by unfair lending schemes, easy credit, government subsidy. Health care is astronomical because of the way its financed. Take away the equivalent of a trip to the moon in cost that has corrupted the system, and pay for the health care you can afford. Doctors will work for what people can afford, not for what insurance, banks, government can collectively pay (else they don't work!) If you ran a hospital and you could get money from an insurer, an individual, and a government - don't you think you would be able to rise the general price of care on nearly everything? Universal higher education should be available for anybody who wants it (and is, but only for those who can afford it). It could be affordable if student tuition wasn't financed by bankers, by government, and instead, professors would work for what people can afford to pay.
market distortions by lenders, financiers, government must end. The cost of living is determined by the supply and demand of the market. When the market gets distorted by influx of credit, subsidy, it distorts the price and makes everybody have to pay the new price further blowing air in to the next big bubble...
Minimum wage is a corruption of what a living wage should be
We have no freedom of unfair competition because of the corruption of our monetary system and government in the market place
We do technically have laws in place against monopolies, it's the corruption of government that keeps them from being effective
At what level of guarantee are you referring? We have homeless shelters and government subsidized housing projects, bottom line being if you look hard enough for a place to live you can find one. how much more can we do?
health care your right
we have universal education up to the 12th grade, and most can get or pay for college if they choose. The problem is the costs of state schools and universities and corrupt student loans.
Social Security IS a ponzi and we no longer have a guarentee of that, and it's too late for social security there is no fixing it, when the money is gone it's gone. Time to start something new
I would submit to you, mgiddin, that it would be a social contract and not enslavement.
Right on!
A living wage is a fantasy - if you make rules telling companies they must pay someone a certain amount, they will eliminate jobs in order to pay the remaining employees the government required 'living wage'.
Also, the fundamental problem with saying that people have a RIGHT to education, housing and medical care is that you are maintaining that people have a right to OTHER PEOPLE'S goods and services. That is called enslavement. Noone has a right to other people's goods and services, but somehow, the liberal view is that the government does.
We have the biggest and most powerful government in human history, so why is the problem getting worse?
I would submit that it is because the government has the military as its strongarm to force the people to use fiat currency, and to force them to adhere to tyrannical 'free speech' zones, and to force them to carry the burden of bailing out the too-big-to-fail corporations.
He who has the guns, makes the rules.
A living wage is a fantasy? You mean, like in most of the OECD?
If no one has a right to basic services, what is the point of having a government at all? No government = anarchy.
Using a more meaningful comparison such as per capita spending and tax revenue as percentage of GDP, it is not a powerful government. Taxes are the lowest in 60 years. So why is the problem getting worse?
Tax the rich, that's the answer.
Adopting a living wage will not result in mass firings. Due to the marginal propensity to consume, a person making $10,000 who receives a 10% raise is far more likely to go out and immediately spend it (and stimulate the economy) than would a person making $10,000,000. Increasing the amount of money that the working poor and middle class have in their pockets is therefore stimulative. With higher wages comes higher levels of commerce. Henry Ford was not being a utopian fool when he decided to pay his workers enough that they would be able to buy his cars and tell their friends about what a great product they were, and how they should buy them. A business owner would be at an advantage with a living wage, as he would have a larger number of customers.
The right to education is common sense. Educated citizens have a great deal more earning power than do folks with lower levels of education. Universal higher education, be it in the form of college education or vocational training, would result in a much more skilled workforce, with higher levels of economic growth.
Health care is a basic human need. The middle class and working poor are no less mortal than the rich, yet they lack the immense financial resources which are often needed to obtain health care. A member of the middle class can walk into a hospital with an ailment, but a tidy nest egg for retirement, and walk out a healed bankrupt.
Taxation is not enslavement. A rich man does not get rich through his own drive and determination alone.
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” -Elizabeth Warren
I am not arguing that we should not educate people. It is common sense to educate people. However, I would argue that the product you are mandating for people - public education - is an abject failure.
Still, education is not a right. You do not have a right to other people's goods and services. You have a right to life. Also, mandating universal higher education is ludicrous. Higher education is not appropriate for everyone, not everyone is capable and responsible enough to earn a college degree and plus - who is going to pay for it? You? Me? That's like saying everyone has a right to own a house - we all know how that one worked out. Every day more and more people are getting foreclosed on their houses. Not to mention the exploding college debt bubble crisis that is currently happening.
Socialism fails because political leaders eventually, always vote to take the purse, and make promises that can't be kept.
I admire Henry Ford, he was a visionary and he understood the original mindset of business as being that you should pay your workers enough to afford your products. However, as for the living wage, are you willing to not patronize Walmart until they start paying chinese slave workers a living wage? Are you willing to turn off your heat this winter until GE starts paying its corporate taxes in America?