Seeing the diary below reminded me that today is Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
In honor of his 201st, with this site's indulgence, I am reposting this diary I wrote during the campaign that I think still applies for the most part to today.
While a lot of folks are talking about whether or not Barack Obama will have to be the next FDR in the midst of all this talk about economic conditions as bad as they've ever been since the Great Depression, I can't help but wonder whether Barack Obama is looking back to the economic legacy of Abraham Lincoln for inspiration as well --- especially so close to Lincoln's 200th birthday celebration.
I, for one, hope so. Not just because I think Lincoln was great, but because I think through using the example of Lincoln that Obama can gain support from Republican voters and economists for the drastic New Deal-style policies he will have to enact to save us from the brink of economic disaster or ruin without having his plans dismissed or derided too much for being socialism or communism or anything else, since the policies of Lincoln PREDATE the socialist movement!
Now why would I ask Barack to do some thinkin' 'bout Lincoln?
---Because I consider him to be one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest president, and he was the one who faced the greatest set of challenges IMO and it appears with Obama's choice of campaign venues and his talk about "Team of Rivals" that he is already a strong admirer of Lincoln's.
---Because among those challenges that Lincoln faced was a broken down economic system that favored a wealthy few but left millions in poverty and servitude that had only been crippled more severely, at least in the NORTH, by the a huge bank failures and a devastating hurricane that precipitated the Panic of 1857.
As I already touched on in a previous diary, A civilization gone with the wind... there was a big ideological divide in economics between the North and the South and it was that the economic ideology of the North proved more right than that of the South that allowed the Union to prevail in the Civil War despite the South having better generals and military tacticians.
---Because I think there's an element of economic slavery in this country of which a strong and confident and bold president could take steps to free us, just as Abraham Lincoln wanted to eliminate black slavery in part because of basic economic considerations in his bid to preserve the union and make this country safe for FREE LABOR.
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Maryland" (April 18, 1864), p. 301-302.
I agree with Lincoln. If the "free" markets have become so powerful and scary with their credit default swaps and derivatives that our treasury secretary demands our income taxes must be used to bail out private corporations that are "too big to fail" then we are not living in the LIBERTY of a democracy but under the TYRANNY of a kleptocracy.
---Because this country is just as bitterly divided then between Hamiltonian liberals who believed a strong federal government should have a role in regulating the banks and intervening in the economy to protect and nurture American industry and should impose a progressive income tax to pay for government functions to create a society of free labor, free soil and free men while the rich plantation owners in the South talked only of free trade and took up arms to protect their massive wealth and state's rights to low taxes assessed by state leaders rather than the federal government and based on consumption rather than income or inheritances. It was the Confederacy's downfall.
---Because IN REALITY, the American school of economics, of which Lincoln endorsed in the 1860s and had been promoted by Henry Clay and the Whigs and in some ways gave birth to the ideas of John Maynard Keynes that saved us from the Great Depression, provided a helluva lot more real prosperity to this country than the Austrian School, neo-Jacksonian, Milton Friedman/Alan Greenspan/Ayn Rand disaster that has been inflicted on America by Republicans the last 30-40 years.
It was the American school of economics that allowed America to surpass the British empire in wealth and I believe it will be a return to many of the basic principles of the American school of economics that are our only hope in competing with China and other nations going forward.
What does the American school entail?
1. protecting industry through selective high tariffs (especially 1861–1932) and through some subsidies (especially 1932–70)
2. government investments in infrastructure creating targeted internal improvements (especially in transportation)
3. a national bank with policies that promote the growth of productive enterprises.[8][9][10][11]
Yes, there is an element of a corruption tax that can result from this structure and was a big reason that caused us to move away from it and yes, it does open itself up to the spoils system and political patronage, but in my view it's shown itself a better alternative than the markets running free without any oversight from government.
---Because it was the pro-labor, pro-farmer policies of Abraham Lincoln that allowed for the creation of a new educated middle class to emerge between the impoverished servant and the rich land baron.
"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association" (March 21, 1864), pp. 259-260.
As a proud member of the middle class who was able to get a world-class education thanks to the commitments to public education and investments in the agricultural industry that Abraham Lincoln made that allowed my farming ancestors and agribusiness-employed father to earn great wages as well as the fruits of the labor movement under FDR providing my grandma and mother with a great life before my grandpa's Alcoa factory closed and the creation by Lincoln and future support by liberals like FDR of the land grant university/public Ivy (the University of Illinois) from which I was able to obtain a degree without having to amass one penny of debt, I feel like I owe a lot to Abraham Lincoln as well as FDR economically and I would imagine Barack Obama, as a fellow Lincoln-loving Democrat, agrees with me as well.
---Because Abraham Lincoln understood how crucial a role government could play in building a better economy through public investment in infrastructure projects. What got him involved in politics was not an IDEOLOGICAL fight against the moral ill of slavery or any other societal problem, but because of the PRACTICAL reason that he wanted the federal government to make improvements to Illinois rivers that would make them more navigable for flatboat captains like himself that were so crucial for this nation's commerce. Later, he came to see railroad and road construction as similarly important as he knew what so few people realize today which is that transportation and commitment to public infrastructure is the economic engine that makes commerce and capitalism in this country thrive here more than anywhere else.
And where did he make his first political speech?
The intersection of MAIN and MERCHANT streets in Decatur, Illinois. You can't get much better symbolism than that for the sort of economic sensibility we need our next president to have to balance the concerns of homeowners living on Main Street and the merchants of this country.
And you can't get a much more potent symbol for how Reaganomics has failed the heartland of America than the conditions in Decatur now with huge unemployment, poverty, racial strife and population loss as a result of unfettered FREE TRADE in the 1980s and 90s winning out over the wishes of FREE LABOR, FREE SOIL and FREE MEN in Decatur, the so-called the "Strike City, USA" also known as the soybean capital of the world.
To save this country from bankruptcy, Barack Obama must make a similar commitment to public infrastructure in terms of our roads and bridges and railroads and also in terms of our electrical grid perhaps in a new sort of Tennessee Valley Authority-type agency so that we can better harness the great winds of the great plains and the hot sun of our western deserts into sustainable, renewable energy and export that technology to other nations.
Obama must also make similarly large investments in education, not just in terms of universal Pre-K, but in terms of our community colleges and vocational high schools because we must recognize that a four-year liberal arts one-size-fits-all approach to post-secondary education and expectation of that from all American youths is unrealistic and possibly wasteful.
Obama must also make similarly large investments in agriculture, not in terms of more subsidies for wealthy landowners who may not even work the fields they own but in technological and economic support for advances in agriculture that lead to the next generation of biofuels so that we can find a way to feed the world and have our farmers be a partner with us in reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
Obama must also make clear a strong commitment to protect American industry especially in the north where we have been hardest hit, though Lincoln-style tariffs would cause even more problems for us when our trade deficit is so out of whack and we owe so much foreign debt, however we could do more in terms of directing government subsidies of certain industries and types of manufacturing rather than just throwing all our subsidies at agriculture alone the way we do now. We can also protect American workers by imposing tax policies that punish outsourcers and reward those investing in America and in negotiating FAIR trade deals rather than giving away the store in a form of crony capitalism. I also view single-payer universal health care as an imperative for the U.S. government to embark upon so that American companies and society can compete with those in Europe and Canada.
Obama must also support a PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX STRUCTURE because despite what all the FDR/Keynes haters and Reagan/Greenspan worshipers will tell you it is the progressive income tax that won the Civil War for the north and allowed America to fight the Great Depression and win World War II while at the same time preventing America from going into bankruptcy.
Here's hoping that Barack Obama can find a way in incorporating this quote into his inaugural address next year so that our nation's Republicans can remember the greatness of their party's father and his greater commitment to the worker rather than the marketplace:
"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." Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.
For the at least the last 100 years, America has tried to operate under a mixed economy balancing the instincts of the protectionist Progressivism of the early 20th century that gave us a 40-hour work week and child labor laws and Social Security and Medicare that benefit the middle class with the free trade-promoting/low tax-loving interests of corporate America and the military-industrial complex that have given us both Iraq Wars and NAFTA.
To me, this is similar to how America divided her economic system pre-Civil War between the slave states and the free states and the fierce debate existed whether the practice of slavery should spread to newer states.
As we stand on the precipice of a recession or depression that no one seems to understand and that a $700B bailout of the markets may not even solve, I fear we are seeing the same truth of Lincoln's time echoed again in our economy.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." Lincoln's 'House-Divided' Speech in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.
So the question is: will America become again a nation of free laborers or will we all become slaves to the "free" market?
Barack, please don't let Abraham Lincoln down.