The real grand bargain, coming undone
By Alexander Keyssar, Published: August 19
“Despite all the recent talk of “grand bargains,” little attention has been paid to the unraveling of a truly grand bargain that has been at the center of public policy in the United States for more than a century.
“That bargain — which emerged in stages between the 1890s and 1930s — established an institutional framework to balance the needs of the American people with the vast inequalities of wealth and power wrought by the triumph of industrial capitalism. It originated in the widespread apprehension that the rapidly growing power of robber barons, national corporations and banks (like J.P. Morgan’s) was undermining fundamental American values and threatening democracy…”
“… viewed collectively, it’s difficult not to see a determined campaign to dismantle a broad societal bargain that served much of the nation well for decades. To a historian, the agenda of today’s conservatives looks like a bizarre effort to return to the Gilded Age, an era with little regulation of business, no social insurance and no legal protections for workers. This agenda, moreover, calls for the destruction or weakening of institutions without acknowledging (or perhaps understanding) why they came into being.
In a democracy, of course, the ultimate check on such campaigns is the electoral system. Titans of industry may wield far more power in the economic arena than average citizens, but if all votes count equally, the citizenry can protect its core interests — and policies — through the political arena. This makes all the more worrisome recent conservative efforts to alter electoral practices and institutions. Republicans across the nation have sponsored ID requirements for voting that are far more likely to disenfranchise legitimate (and relatively unprivileged) voters than they are to prevent fraud. Last year, the Supreme Court, reversing a century of precedent, ruled that corporate funds can be used in support of political campaigns. Some Tea Partyers even want to do away with the direct election of senators, adopted in 1913. These proposals, too, seem to have roots in the Gilded Age — a period when many of the nation’s more prosperous citizens publicly proclaimed their loss of faith in universal suffrage and democracy.
Cassi Creek: The author posits that bank and investment houses as well as industry needed and was subjected to regulation by Congress that came to realize ,” that government was responsible for protecting society against the shortcomings of a market economy. The profit motive could not always be counted on to serve the public’s welfare.”
Add to these the right to form unions and bargain collectively to protect workers from indiscriminant firings, and the social insurance and healthcare programs that came about in the 20th century. The “grand bargain” limited the power of corporations sufficiently to allow the formation of the American middle class.
These bits of legislation enshrined Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson as champions of the common people, protectors of the rights of workers over industrial barons and unrestricted greed.
But with the election of Ronald Reagan, the doors to class equality slammed shut and a new era of greed was launched that rivals any corporate power that has previously fought to place profits above all else. Reagan’s Interior Secretary tried to sell national parks to foreign investment groups. Deregulation of banks, savings and loan groups, and corporate investment houses became the goal for the GOP and the skids were greased for the “Great Recession of 2007. This would be more accurately labeled the Reagan-Bush Depression.
Now the teavangelists, created by GOP financiers as a “grass-roots organization,” but actually just an extremist wing of the GOP with next to no populist authenticity, are blatant in their intention to roll back all the social and regulatory changes that led to the creation of our middle class. The truly tragic facet of this is that their propaganda machine has managed to convince the former middle class that its self-destruction is the only salvation of a middle class. Bill Maher maintains that the American voter, as an entity, is stupid. I see little reason to dispute that.
Marx maintained that the capitalists would sell the revolution the rope to hang their selves. Voting against our social safety nets, unemployment and Social insurances seems to me to meet that criterion.
This election is going to be a crux point in the direction taken by the U.S. Either we will reverse the current thrust to roll back the nation to the age of robber barons and absolute laissez-faire capitalism; or we will watch the demolition of the former middle class American population.
The un-answered question remains, “Where are the jobs promised by the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy?” Those jobs that were supposed to appear in record numbers have failed to appear. Yet, the once-middle class, the GOP supporters, and the independents have failed to demand the GOP/teavangelists answer that question. It should be on the lips of every voter attending a meeting with Congressmen/women & Senators this month. Congress should be shuddering at the thought of angry voters demanding to know what happened to the jobs that the Bush tax cuts were to provide.
If we fail to turn the course of the nation back toward the social contracts we have been fortunate to have, we will see a number of unwanted changes.
De-regulation of banks, lending institutions, financial houses, and other corporations will be the standard. Workers’ protection will vanish. There will be no unions, no collective bargaining. There will be no workers’ benefits, vacation, sick days, and health benefits. Working conditions will deteriorate. Safety regulations will be stripped away. Workers’ compensation protection will vanish along with job protection for injured workers. The 8 hour day/40 hour week will vanish, as will overtime pay. Child labor and sweatshop conditions will be part of the few jobs that do remain. Otherwise, jobs will continue to be outsourced. Those that can’t be will be filled by immigrants working below the former minimum wage.
Public schools will decrease in number and quality. Education will once more be for the wealthy, with the poor learning only enough to sign their names and count other people’s money for them.
Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance will be privatized, parceled out to the insurance companies and financial houses that bankroll Congress’ re-election campaigns. The poor will lose more and more of any residual savings they currently have as they are charged maintenance and other fees by the private insurers as their just compensation for ripping off the once middle class.
Of course, this is my most-likely case scenario, not necessarily yours. However, I don’t see many economists supporting the teavangelists as they push the nation back toward 3rd world status. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that enough of the voter base is fed up with the GOP, the religious right, and unchecked greed to organize and vote against that force. Obama is not my ideal candidate. I don’t think his performance will improve very much. I think we need a President who will join the likes of TR, FDR, and Harry Truman in saying, “NO!” to those who would destroy our middle class. I think Obama is too busy trying to convince the GOP to like him to be anything but a historical footnote.
The alternative, however, is to watch the former middle class become its own historical footnote, the citizens who voted their selves out of existence to please their capitalist masters.
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