The Second Bill of Rights is a document and idea lost to history. FDR was working on it shortly before his death. It was never enacted or even proposed. There’s a good article here on Bill Moyers site.
billmoyers.com/...
It was 70 years ago, with the War effort nearing its end, that FDR began planning for the peace. His experiences had given him insight into the needs of the working people. He led the country out of the Great Depression, prepared the nation for war, and managed the war with competence hard to imagine in today’s leaders. He understood that the original Bill of Rights was the bare minimum needed for existence. For the nation to move successfully into the future we needed more security in our lives.
“This Republic,” he said, “had its beginning and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights… 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.” But, he continued: “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.’”
If you read carefully, you’ll notice he mentions “equality” and “economic security”. Since FDR’s time our Party has fought for Social Equality and achieved great successes. But we lost our way with Economic Justice. These need to be equal pillars in our platform. We need a better economic message, better policy, and it’s worthwhile studying the past before moving forward.
You may cite polls that suggest economics did not affect the outcome of the election. You’ll be challenged on your interpretation of the information, it’s definitely debatable. But that’s beside the point. Our Party has without question moved towards Republican economic policy since the 1970’s. This has created some serious problems. It’s time to change.
The Second Bill of Rights
- 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.
This list could use some updating, but it’s still relevant today. In modern terms he is talking about unemployment insurance, non-discrimination at the workplace, minimum wage, price controls, competition policy in the marketplace, anti-monopoly policy, fair housing, healthcare, social security and affordable education. At the time he was working on this list, polling suggested the ideas had support ranging from 70% to 90%. I expect the list would still poll well today. You could run a campaign on a list like this.
You may be wondering the point in proposing a list of ideas that a Republican Congress will never pass. There is a reason. It mobilizes your base and attracts new and reluctant voters. It gives them something to rally around. FDR faced many of the same challenges.
Roosevelt also knew full well that Congress would never endorse an economic bill of rights. Dominated since 1938 by a conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats, Congress had been doing everything it could to terminate the New Deal, limit the rights of workers and minorities and block new liberal initiatives. And yet he had good reason to believe that most of his fellow citizens would embrace the idea.
FDR Disclaimer Section
Like all humans FDR was flawed, a mixed bag and a product of a different time. I am aware of many of his flaws. Yet those flaws should not obscure the great things he accomplished.
Life for minorities was not good in the FDR times. In the case of Japanese Americans, quality of life was made much worse by his actions. However he did enact the Fair Employment Practice Committee which outlawed racial discrimination in Federal hiring. This made a positive impact in the lives and incomes of African Americans in the lead up to the Civil Rights movement.
In the bad column, well it’s pretty long when considering minorities. He wasn’t very receptive of Jews fleeing Europe. He set up Japanese internment camps. He did not end racial discrimination.
He even executed an American Citizen without trial by jury. Those events were part of the Supreme Court’s Quirin Decision. It is documented in an episode of “This American Life”, a very entertaining story. If the Quirin case sounds familiar, it’s because George W’s team used it as legal precedent for locking people up without a trial, and if they got a trial, they were judged by military tribunal.
audio
www.thisamericanlife.org/...
transcript
www.thisamericanlife.org/...
FDR Economics
the central tenet of New Deal competition policy was not big or small government; it was distrust of concentrations of power and conflicts of interest in the economy. The New Deal divided power, pitting faction against other faction, a classic Jefferson-Madison approach to controlling power (think Federalist Paper No. 10). Competition policy meant preserving democracy within the commercial sphere, by keeping markets open.
FDR economic policies made the strongest middle class in history. The GI Bill for example allowed soldiers returning from the War to get an education, a reduced rate mortgage, and low interest loans for start-up businesses. That sure beats unemployed and angry soldiers protesting on the National Mall after World War I known as the Bonus Army.
The Civil Rights movement hadn’t happened yet so only whites were the only beneficiaries of the FDR agenda. Some of the FDR policies may be worth re-examining, viewed through a lens that distinguishes between the discriminatory barriers of the time and the economic policy itself. There were FDR economic policies that might have been good for everyone if they had access to the benefits. Social Security is a good example. It initially excluded many African Americans.
A Second Look at Social Security's Racist Origins
Social Security is good policy once the barriers barring some citizens from its benefits were removed.
Democrats Populist Past
The Democratic Party has strayed from its working class roots. Our Party has sided with Wall Street, Banks and Big Business for too long. Look at the concentrations of wealth and power and their influence on our government. My earlier diary talks more about how our Party began the shift away from the working class and towards the Moneyed Interests:
Reconnect to Workers - Fight the Power
There were reasons, besides corporate corruption, that motivated our Party to move to the center on economic issues. I found this interesting exchange between two Kosites that defended the centrist move and acknowledged the need for change.
Puakev said:
Let’s not ignore that this shift didn't happen in a vacuum. The Democrats didn't wake up one day and decide to start moving right just because they felt like it. The Democrats lost 4 of 5 presidential elections between 1968-1988, all of basically by landslide margins — in 1968 Humphrey got just 42% of the popular vote with the two conservative candidates, Nixon and Wallace, getting a combined 58%.
The reason the Dems lost those election was the wholesale defection of working class Whites to the Republicans, at least in presidential election years, but even that started changing during this period. In 1960-64 the Dem candidate got an average of 55% of working class Whites. In 1968-1972 by contrast just 35% of working class Whites voted for the Democrat. Carter did well among this group but mainly because he won the South as its favorite son.
In 1980 working class Whites overwhelmingly went for Reagan, a pro-free trade, anti-union, anti-tax, anti-government, pro-Wall Street conservative. Four years later, despite Reagan pursuing those policies, working class Whites vote in even greater numbers to re-elect Reagan, over an old-time New Deal Coalition liberal in Walter Mondale. His VP Bush then gets re-elected running as Reagan's third term, and again working class Whites vote overwhelmingly Republican.
So in 1992 Bill Clinton runs as a New Democrat, as a more centrist type of Dem who favors free trade deals, welfare reform, is tough on crime, runs as a business-friendly Dem who says he’s opposed to big government. And Clinton wins, actually getting a plurality of working class Whites, and he gets re-elected by an even large margin, again getting a plurality of working class Whites.
Since Clinton working class Whites reverted to voting overwhelmingly for free-trading, anti-tax, pro-big business conservatives in Bush II, John McCain, and Romney. Only this year did they break the trend by voting for an anti-trade populist in Trump.
The point is that in large measure Dems took this rightward course precisely in an attempt to win back working class Whites who abandoned the New Deal Coalition. And with Bill Clinton's successes in the 1990s, most notably among working class Whites, that approach seemed justified.
Not excusing the actions of Bill Clinton and New Democrats, of course, which have resulted in some adverse consequences and have undermined Dem claims that they're the champions of working people. If anything this episode may offer an argument for why sticking to principle over short-term political expedience is the best course. But let's not ignore what enticed them to do so.
OregonOak said:
Completely agree. There were reasons. Good ones. However, now that the Reaganist Philosophy has run into its Absurdist Logical Extension (the fallacy of reducio ad absurdum), we should be able to go back to original causes and see where we made some fateful compromises. When we made deals, we bought their framing, and they are driving the nation over a cliff with the framing we agreed to. Time to reject the framing itself, and remind our own people that we did those things to avoid worse consequences, and now, we have to go back to Original Causes and stand on our principles. I think the salvation of the Middle Class and the survival of the Income Distressed is worth the argument and the work.
Times have changed. It’s time to look back at those populist roots. We will never abandon our pillar of Social Equality. But it needs and second pillar, Economic Justice.
Times have changed indeed. The Occupy message made it around the world and even into the ears of our Republicans. We need to adjust our economic message and underlying policy. It’s time to rid ourselves of the corrupting influence of Walls Street, Banks and Big Business. We should formally adopt something like the Second Bill of Rights and act on it. Warren and Sanders are showing us the way. The past shows us the Economic Justice can be politically popular. If paired with the work we’ve accomplished in Social Equality we have a platform that can inspire a broad base of support.
Thoughts on Rural Whites
People say we will never win over rural white voters and it’s a waste of time. It may be true as Chris Reeves described in his recent diary Rural Divide that no message will convert them. But he also talked about the importance of keeping losing margins close. If we can change from 80-20 blowouts in rural districts to 60-40 losses, the vote totals across a state can help flip a Governor’s office when combined with strong victories in the cities. This also applies in Presidential Elections in swing states like NC.
We need to identify and motivate those rural voters who support us. Those isolated Democrats can, over time, make a difference in the group-think in these rural areas. They challenge the right wing lies, if not actively, just by their existence. If each isolated rural Democrats changes one mind, or motivates one non-voter to vote, the effect over time is like a powerful tide changing. There was a great diary about the Hull House which could be a vehicle to support those isolated Democrats.
It’s in your own self-interest for our Party to adopt a more pro-worker agenda. It is good for all voters, all economic categories, good for all races and demographics and Democracy itself. It’s even good for the top 10% over the long run, although not quite as good as stealing. It may sway some rural whites or rust belt whites to vote for us; but that’s a secondary bonus. Those policies are good for our current base and will motivate reluctant Democratic voters.
The concentrations of wealth and power we’ve allowed over the last 40 years are endangering our Democracy. The economic policies we’ve tolerated or supported have hurt our work force. It’s time to lay out what we stand for. Social Equality and Economic Justice. FDR’s Second Bill of Rights could be a starting point in crafting our new message.