California already has castles. It doesn't need serfs.
Let's wind the clock back to the 50s. No, not those 1950s, though to many that may seem like a happier time. Let's go back a few centuries further. The 1350s. That's more like it.
If you could choose to be an average resident of France at some time in the past, present or future, the 14th century would be a particularly awful choice. To begin with, I clearly said "average." And in 14th-century France, "average" meant "peasant." You would have essentially been a slave to the land, sworn by no other reason than the low station of your birth to work the land of the noble who owned it. Your chance at social mobility or rising through the ranks through pure hard work and determination would have essentially been zero, and your ability to provide opportunities for your children that were better than the ones you had would have been somewhere close to that threshold.
That's your basic living situation. But this is the 14th century we're talking about here, so we need to throw a lot of gasoline onto that dumpster fire of an economic system. Things like a few rounds of the black plague, a famine or two, and a minor inconvenience like a war with England that lasted over a century and led to marauding bands of mercenaries with no allegiance roaming lawlessly across the countryside. And in 1358, things came to a head. The nobles of the realm—the middle age equivalent of our modern-day 1 percent—had one obligation in exchange for their hereditary wealth and lordly privileges: protect the people. That's the way feudalism worked. Unfortunately for the serfs, the opposite was happening. Two years prior, catastrophe struck when the French king John II was captured by the English at the battle of Poitiers—a defeat that, for right or wrong, the peasants put squarely on the shoulders of the noble classes that they viewed as corrupt and no longer capable or willing of performing their military or economic obligations. In the intervening time, new taxes were imposed on the peasantry, and they were even forced to rebuild war-torn properties for no pay.
The injustice was too much, even by the standards of the 14th century. The peasants revolted and the jacquerie was born, with spontaneous uprisings occurring in villages throughout France (occupy chateau?). Eventually, of course, the nobles finally pulled themselves up by their sabatons, got organized, defeated the peasant army and proceeded to engage in a vicious punitive rampage to ensure that no insurrection like that ever occurred again—also known as "what usually happens when people with swords meet people without swords."
You may now be asking why a revolt in 14-century France is serving to introduce a piece about American politics. The answer is simple: most people would take a look at a feudal economic system and be horrified by the lack of individual opportunity, the rigid class structures, and the rewarding of wealth over work. Republicans, on the other hand, seem determined to put us back there as soon as possible. Even as our nation's wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a select few, conservatives continue to favor policies that shift the tax burden further on the shrinking middle class and the growing poor; eliminate the public education system that has been our strongest stepladder of social mobility; and eliminate the laws and regulations that ensure fair pay and decent working conditions. Hey, corporate neofeudalism is a great economic system—just as long as you're in upper management. For everyone else it kind of sucks, but that's their fault for not being born rich.
The question is, who is going to stop the neofeudal gutting of the public services that are essential to a functioning, pluralistic democracy? The people of California may get a very good chance in November to send a strong message to the country that enough is enough.
Despite its vast resources, its diversity and its talented and well-educated workforce, California has been suffering from chronic, severe budget shortfalls for about a decade. These shortfalls have resulted in massive cuts to education and services; for the first time ever, for example, the amount students in the University of California system are now pay in tuition has now surpassed the funding that the university system receives from the state. K-12 education and health services have seen similarly drastic cuts. These chronic shortfalls, which keep on occurring no matter how deep the budget cuts go owing to the vicious cycle of contraction produced by a culture of economic austerity, are chiefly the consequence of Proposition 13, passed in 1978. Proposition 13 not only severely restricted the growth of both residential and commercial property taxes in the state, but also requires that no revenue increases can be passed with less than a two-thirds vote in both houses of the legislature. And since Democrats always seem to be just one or two seats short of that threshold in both houses (blue dogs notwithstanding), no new revenues ever get added—forcing our students, our sick and our poor to bear the brunt of the downturn.
For better or for worse, however, the people of California have another option: the ballot initiative. At this moment, there are several initiatives being proposed that would raise revenues by varying degrees. As Mike Lux wrote this past Friday:
The final two initiatives are the most politically intriguing. Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing an initiative that raises money both from a half-cent sales tax increase and a modest increase on tax rates for people over $250,000 in income. It also constitutionally protects the shift in some expenses, including prisons, from state to local governments. The $7 billion raised goes into just about everything state government pays for: education, public safety, corrections, social services, but it primarily sends money to the counties. This measure expires in five years, meaning the whole thing will have to start all over again, which seems utterly insane to me. Meanwhile the Courage Campaign, the California Federation of Teachers, and a variety of other progressive California groups have launched an effort that is more clearly about the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent. It raises taxes on millionaires to restore cuts to education, specifically including higher education and local government services, such as the devastating cuts in health care for children and seniors.
From a progressive point of view, the Courage Campaign's proposal, which amounts to a 3 percent tax hike on income exceeding $1 million, and 5 percent on amounts over $2 million with all proceeds dedicated to restoring cuts to education services, is the most interesting. Not only is the concept and messaging extremely simple, but it is also the only proposal currently being discussed that does not raise taxes on the poor and middle classes: the other proposals currently being circulated all include some kind of regressive sales tax increase.
It is still too early to know which proposals will make it to the November 2012 ballot, but one thing is clear: it seems likely that Californians will have a chance to slow down and maybe even reverse the national neofeudal tide and ensure that the 1 percent starts paying its fair share again and, in the words of Elizabeth Warren, pay something forward to the next kid who comes along.
