"I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind . . . Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration . . . Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. . . . Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; . . . property is desirable; is a positive good in the world . . . Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."
- Abraham Lincoln, First State of the Union Address (3 December 1861),
"After Prohibition, after everyone had seen how devastating it was to morals, to policing, to government. It was really a failure. People are picking up the pieces trying to make sense of it. The key thing, though, about this picking up the pieces after Prohibition, was the same God that laughs at our folly -- and there was folly in Prohibition -- still holds us responsible, still wants us to build a better society, to build a better world, and doesn't disdain human endeavour. And, I think that post-Prohibition, you were picking up the pieces trying to find a moral framework to build a better America, but without quite so much of the pride, arrogance and self-assurance that the Prohibitionists had."
- Martin Marty, Theologian
tr:
The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows . . . At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. Every special interest is entitled to justice-full, fair, and complete-and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, that I most dislike, and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading their army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.
The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from over division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.
It has been known for decades that the Progressive Era was marked by a radical growth in the extension and dominance of government in America's economic, social, and cultural life. For decades, this great leap into statism was naively interpreted by historians as a simple response to the greater need for planning and regulation of an increasingly complex economy. In recent years, however, historians have come to see that increasing statism on a federal and state level can be better interpreted as a profitable alliance between certain business and industrial interests, looking for government to cartelize their industry after private efforts for cartels and monopoly had failed, and intellectuals, academics, and technocrats seeking jobs to help regulate and plan the economy as well as restriction of entry into their professions. In short, the Progressive Era re-created the age-old alliance between Big Government, large business firms, and opinion-molding intellectuals—an alliance that had most recently been embodied in the mercantilist system of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.
The accruing insight into progressivism as a business cartelizing device led historians who had abandoned the easy equation of "businessmen" with "laissez faire" to see that all the facets of progressivism—the economic and the ideological and educational—were part of an integrated whole. The new ideology among business groups was cartelist and collectivist rather than individualist and laissez faire, and the social control over the individual exerted by progressivism was neatly paralleled in the ideology and practice of progressive education.
The financial crisis has described a much broader collision between the mutual dependence of globalisation and the rise of nationalisms. Thus far no one has owned up to the danger. The summit would be a success if the leaders did no more than reach the beginning of understanding.
The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows . . . At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth. Every special interest is entitled to justice-full, fair, and complete-and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, that I most dislike, and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading their army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.
The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from over division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.
It has been known for decades that the Progressive Era was marked by a radical growth in the extension and dominance of government in America's economic, social, and cultural life. For decades, this great leap into statism was naively interpreted by historians as a simple response to the greater need for planning and regulation of an increasingly complex economy. In recent years, however, historians have come to see that increasing statism on a federal and state level can be better interpreted as a profitable alliance between certain business and industrial interests, looking for government to cartelize their industry after private efforts for cartels and monopoly had failed, and intellectuals, academics, and technocrats seeking jobs to help regulate and plan the economy as well as restriction of entry into their professions. In short, the Progressive Era re-created the age-old alliance between Big Government, large business firms, and opinion-molding intellectuals—an alliance that had most recently been embodied in the mercantilist system of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.
The accruing insight into progressivism as a business cartelizing device led historians who had abandoned the easy equation of "businessmen" with "laissez faire" to see that all the facets of progressivism—the economic and the ideological and educational—were part of an integrated whole. The new ideology among business groups was cartelist and collectivist rather than individualist and laissez faire, and the social control over the individual exerted by progressivism was neatly paralleled in the ideology and practice of progressive education.
The financial crisis has described a much broader collision between the mutual dependence of globalisation and the rise of nationalisms. Thus far no one has owned up to the danger. The summit would be a success if the leaders did no more than reach the beginning of understanding.
Globalisation now co-exists, and often collides, with rising nationalisms.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3bdb8506-a119-11dd-82fd-000077b07658.html#axzz1gc9G105y
We can get a sense of the stifling atmosphere felt by many Americans
at the start of the Progressive Era in the United States by referring
to a famous poem written by Edwin Markham in 1899, The Man with a Hoe. The
poem was widely published in newspapers throughout the United States
and struck a sympathetic chord with many Americans. Its opening lines
define a dark, haggard mood and, in the closing stanza the threat to the
stability of the nation is vividly expressed.
While more radical parties such as the Socialist Labour Party of America and the International Working People's Association continued to inhabit only the fringe, some of their causes did find an audience with Middle America. As a result, the Populist Party was birthed and its leaders attempted to address the concerns and dreams of the "average" American. Its platform, issued at its convention in Omaha in 1892, was a plaintive wail. It read in part:
Our Declaration of Independence says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?
While more radical parties such as the Socialist Labour Party of America and the International Working People's Association continued to inhabit only the fringe, some of their causes did find an audience with Middle America. As a result, the Populist Party was birthed and its leaders attempted to address the concerns and dreams of the "average" American. Its platform, issued at its convention in Omaha in 1892, was a plaintive wail. It read in part:
"The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation: we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling-places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrated; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished; and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires."
Our Declaration of Independence says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Let's take a look at what Roosevelt said during his 1912 campaign:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
"Concentration
and co-operation in industry in order to secure efficiency are a
world-wide movement. The United States cannot resist it. If we isolate
ourselves and insist upon the subdivision of industry below the highest
economic efficiency and do not allow co-operation, we shall be defeated
in the world’s markets. We cannot adopt an economic system less
efficient than our great competitors, Germany, England, France, and
Austria. Either we must modify our present obsolete laws regarding
concentration and co-operation so as to conform to the world movement,
or else fall behind in the race for the world’s markets. Concentration
and co-operation are conditions imperatively essential for industrial
advance: but if we allow concentration and co-operation there must be
control in order to protect the people, and adequate control is only
possible through the administrative commission. Hence concentration,
co-operation, and control are the key words for a scientific solution of
the mighty industrial problem which now confronts this Nation."
– Teddy Roosevelt, 1912 Campaign Speech. -"Progressive Principles", pp 143-144
Teddy
Roosevelt said this on the eve of the United States becoming the single
greatest industrial and economic power the world had ever seen. Just a
few short years later the United States helped to defeat the
"Industrial Giants" of Germany and Austria, and saved the bacon of the
other two "Giants" England and France. Yet, here is Teddy telling his
audience that the United States needs to adopt a government controlled
monopoly (concentration) and a government controlled trust
(co-operation) in order to compete with socialism that was sweeping
Europe at the time. In other words, we needed to join the socialist
movement in order to compete with it. History remembers Teddy R as a
"Trust Buster," but here he is advocating the abandonment of Free Market
principles and the adoption of a state regulated monopolistic trust!
Maybe we need to rewrite those history books?
Just in case we missed his point, Roosevelt clarifies it in his conclusions from the same speech:
"A
National industrial commission should be created which should have
complete power to regulate and control all the great industrial concerns
engaged in inter-State business – which practically means all of them
in this country. The commission should exercise over these industrial
concerns like powers to those exercised over the railways by the
Inter-State Commerce Commission, and over the National banks by the
Comptroller of the Currency, and additional powers if found necessary".
- Teddy Roosevelt from "Progressive Principles" p 148
- Teddy Roosevelt from "Progressive Principles" p 148
The
idea that economies and the means of production must be controlled by
the state is not an new concept, even in Teddy Roosevelt's day, but it
was an idea that was gaining traction in Europe thanks to the writings
of a very famous German journalist named Karl Marx. It is no
coincidence that the countries that Roosevelt cites in his speech are
the very countries that Karl used to live in and did the majority of his
thinking and writing. Socialism was in fact espoused by Marx and
Engels as a stepping stone to Communism, and Roosevelt being a very well
read man would no doubt have known this, but his audience may not have.
Check
this out and think about which principles the United States has adopted
and which ones our current President has addressed in his speech:
Of
course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of
despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of
bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear
economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the
movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old
social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely
revolutionizing the mode of production.
These
measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty
generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10.
Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education
with industrial production, etc.
- Karl Marx "The Communist Manifesto"
Teddy might have been forgiven for his embrace of national socialism back then, because history had not caught up with the ideas that he espoused. The Bolshevik Revolution had not happened, nor the purges of Lenin and Stalin, nor the Spanish Civil War, nor the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. The 200 million dead in the name of socialism had not happened yet.
Today, we know better, we know where this path leads. It starts with people suffering from an economic crisis who are willing to give the government all power over their lives. Sometimes things go well for awhile, but sooner or later a tyrant always emerges who is willing to abuse that power for his own purposes. History shows us that this always happens. So, we dare not go down this road.
Obama's critics (including me) have been saying for years that he is a closet Socialist, well it looks like he has finally come out of the closet, and with a full-throated embrace of national socialism to boot. The Republican candidates should seize on this theme and run with it. I can see one campaign commercial after another with Obama proclaiming a "New National Socialism". I think that Obama's re-election campaign was lost this week.
On August 31, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt, who became a key progressive spokesman, announced: "The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes." In other words, uniform taxes, equal protection of the laws, and full property rights do not apply to those people with fortunes that are swollen. "A graduated income tax on big fortunes" is needed, Roosevelt insisted, as part of society's right to "regulate the use of wealth in the public interest."
By quoting Teddy Roosevelt and advocating a "New National Socialism" the
President has really stepped in it and he has handed his critics and
challengers a club with which to beat him. Someone should have told the
President that Teddy's advocacy of socialistic values is what caused
him to leave the Republican Party those many years ago.
Teddy might have been forgiven for his embrace of national socialism back then, because history had not caught up with the ideas that he espoused. The Bolshevik Revolution had not happened, nor the purges of Lenin and Stalin, nor the Spanish Civil War, nor the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. The 200 million dead in the name of socialism had not happened yet.
Today, we know better, we know where this path leads. It starts with people suffering from an economic crisis who are willing to give the government all power over their lives. Sometimes things go well for awhile, but sooner or later a tyrant always emerges who is willing to abuse that power for his own purposes. History shows us that this always happens. So, we dare not go down this road.
Obama's critics (including me) have been saying for years that he is a closet Socialist, well it looks like he has finally come out of the closet, and with a full-throated embrace of national socialism to boot. The Republican candidates should seize on this theme and run with it. I can see one campaign commercial after another with Obama proclaiming a "New National Socialism". I think that Obama's re-election campaign was lost this week.
On August 31, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt, who became a key progressive spokesman, announced: "The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes." In other words, uniform taxes, equal protection of the laws, and full property rights do not apply to those people with fortunes that are swollen. "A graduated income tax on big fortunes" is needed, Roosevelt insisted, as part of society's right to "regulate the use of wealth in the public interest."
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber
barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's
cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated,
but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end
for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
- CS Lewis
"Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
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