What got Unraveled, Remembered

From a book review from Buzzflash

What Franklin Delano Roosevelt said on January 11th, 1944:

"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people.whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

"This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights.among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

"As our nation has grown in size and stature, however.as our industrial economy expanded these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. 'Necessitous men are not free men.' People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

"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 farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

"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.

"All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

"America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens."

Slipping lately, aren't we?

Cass R. Sunstein examines the rationale behind Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights, and from Thom Hartmann's Buzzflash review, I find it entirely reasonable:

In "The Myth of Laissez-Faire," Sunstein notes:

"In a nutshell, the New Deal helped vindicate a simple idea: No one really opposes government intervention. Even the people who most loudly denounce government interference depend on it every day. Their own rights do not come from minimizing government but are a product of government. The simplest problem with Laissez-faire is not that it is unjust or harmful to poor people, but that it is a hopelessly inadequate description of any system of liberty, including free markets. Markets and wealth depend on government.

"The misunderstanding is not innocuous. It blinds people to the omnipresence of government help for those who are well-off and makes it appear that those who are suffering and complaining are looking for handouts. The New Deal vindicated these basic claims about our dependence on government, and the second bill of rights grew out of them. Unfortunately, under an onslaught of confused rhetoric about government as a 'necessary evil,' we have lost sight of these claims today."

Sunstein points out that there are no "natural" rights - all rights are the product of government, defined by government, enforced by government, and protected by government. The "right" to ownership of property, for example, which most people think of as a primal right inherent to all who are born into society, is actually a product of law. The law determines who owns what, defines the boundaries of that ownership, and protects that ownership with courts and police. Without government defining ownership of property (from land to the shirt on your back) the "right" evaporates. Those who most loudly want "the government out of my business" very much want the government protecting their business.

As Sunstein notes: "Economic value does not predate law, it is created by law." (Emphasis Sunstein's.) He adds:

"Of course many people work hard and many others do not. But the distribution of wealth is not simply a product of hard work; it depends on a coercive network of legal rights and obligations. ...[T]he laws of property, contract, and tort are social creations that allocate certain rights to some people and deny them to others. These forms of law represent large-scale government 'interventions' into the economy. They are coercive to the extend that they prohibit people from engaging in desired activities. If homeless people lack a place to live, it is not because of God's will or nature. It is because the rules of property are invoked and enforced to evict them, if necessary by force. If employees have to work long hours and make little money, it is because of the prevailing rules of property and contract. ... Sometimes those rules disserve liberty."

This reveals the "myth" of Laissez-faire. Those who most demand "no" government intervention in the marketplace because of their wealth and power owe the vast majority of their wealth and power to the specific intervention of the government in the marketplace by enforcing one particular set of rules and laws of property and contract. What these "free market" advocates are really saying is that they want the rules to continue to be set and stacked in their favor, rather in ways that may better serve both society and liberty for all.