It would be naïve to register shock at the government’s lopsided response to the collapse of the U.S. economy.
No one should freak out while the Federal Reserve System appropriates billions of tax dollars to bail out Bear Stearns and other toppling investment giants.
Only a fool would be amazed to learn that – as with Hurricane Katrina – there is no government agency with plans to provide for people whose homes, investments, and livelihoods are spiraling into a maelstrom of worthless currency.
In the context of this financial whirlpool and the lopsided nature of our government’s rescue efforts, it might be time to review a fundamental element of our democratic republic: the social contract.
The notion of social contract can be traced to Plato who suggested that people in a society have a “natural right” to strike a mutually beneficial deal with their rulers. Plato, however, was ahead of his time. In the millennia that followed, governments existed to protect and serve their monarchs.
In 1651, philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that people in “a natural state” should obey their rulers only if said rulers reciprocated with protection and a regard for society.
A century later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau revisited both Plato and Hobbes. He imagined a society in which citizens create a "general will” or “popular sovereignty” with the power to shape government. The next step, of course, was a democratic republic, as described in the U.S. Constitution.
In American democracy, social contract is manifested in a basic quid pro quo: Americans pledge allegiance, elect representatives, pay taxes, and obey the rule of law in support of a government that must protect and serve the American people. That’s the deal, tit for tat, a social contract.
There have been challenges to America’s social contract. In the late 19th Century, Social Darwinism and laissez-faire capitalism gave rise to the Gilded Age and broke our democracy’s quid pro quo for decades.
In the 20th Century, a powerful industrial economy, massive immigration, the Great Depression, and two world wars demanded a sustained, high-stakes social contract between the American people and its government.
Flawed though it was, the U.S. government of the 1930s and '40s kept up its end of the bargain to protect and serve the American people with social security, industrial recovery, public education, and massive public works projects.
The American banking system was forced to accept a system of checks and balances also based on the social contract: The government, represented by a Federal Reserve System, would underwrite overextended banks, but only if they had followed rules designed to control investment risks.
Then along came “The Gipper,” AKA Ronald Reagan. Since Reagan’s reign began in 1980, America’s social contract has been breached on multiple fronts. The Reagan people ushered in a hydra-headed campaign designed to deflate the role of government, crippling its ability to act as servant and protector of the people.
The Reagan years hypnotized Americans into assuming that “big government” is inefficient, social programs suck good money after bad, that taxes are the bane of our existence, and that all politicians are no damned good.
The Bush I regime continued the Reagan hype by convincing Americans that government was not there to help them. If the people need help, King Bush I proclaimed, let them help themselves.
“A Thousand Points of Light” personified Bush’s contempt for the social contract. “You’re on your own,” he announced, “but if you serve your community, you’ll get a big pat on the back.” Civic participation and community service were relegated to unsupported chump chores that allowed King Bush I to separate the quid from the pro quo.
Charles Degelman is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles. Published titles include books, periodicals, and Internet resources on U.S. and world history and on contemporary issues including the environment, the war in Iraq, healthcare, the economy, civil liberties, terrorism, immigration, and more.
Degelman recently completed Gates of Eden, a novel set in the anti-war movement of the 1960s.
Grover Norquist made the looting of the middle class look good. Let's make sure that he has to clean toilets for the rest of his life. He's the one who should be huckstered and impoverished.
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John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1409 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 11:14:02 AM
Corporate welfare also thrived during the Clinton Administration while Clinton knocked down social programs. Barlett and Steele wrote a series of 4 articles in 1998 illustrating how corporate doles are obtained and the damage some of those recipients do to communities and society in general. Some companies spend the bulk of their efforts going after free government money.
B&S are Pulitzer Prize recipients. Their series is an interesting, well-written read for anyone who wants a short course in how corporate give-aways work. If nothing else, readers, run your head through "The Empire of the Pigs," one of the 4 segments.
I've been sending links to these articles for the past 10 years. I also ordered a pile of them from Time to give to the sadly misinformed. They are only out of date inasmuch as corporate welfare has expanded and corporate lobbyists are writing more of our laws to suit their bottom line.
Commoners who vote conservative because they don't want to support other commoners, can't seem to understand that Corporate Welfare in the form of taxbreaks, incentives etc.; and cronyism in the form of no-bid contracts and government giveways, takes a great deal more of their money than all our social programs combined. It is where the bulk of the US treasury has gone.
I often wonder: Whatever happened to $1 a year corporate head? Remember the rich guy who took a token dollar to head his company?It used to be a position of pride. It's now extinct as the dodo bird and replaced by the likes of CEOs like Angelo Mozilo who LEGALLY reaped a whopping $57 million bonus despite his company crashing around him and the tens of thousands who had their mortgages foreclosured. People who could surely use a social program about now. Is there no shame left?
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grassroots (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 41 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 12:30:17 PM
The current American political leviathan (a tip of the hat to Thomas Hobbes) has been an equal-opportunity destructor of the balance implied in social contract.
In the current political climate (in which all Presidential candidates running are either corporate liberals or a crosscut conservative) it is critical that we recognize and support the potential for change in the branch of government with the most potential to restore a decent social contract, i.e., a more progressive-leaning Congress that will have the ability to override vetoes from whichever inevitably compromised candidate is thrust upon us.
Best,
Charles Degelman
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Charles Degelman (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 12:48:10 PM
This article about sums it up. As soon as Reagan took office it became clear (to me at least) that we would ultimately arrive at the current situation. I used to worry about being on the street but no more since I moved to California where it is possible to survive outside. There are going to be so many of us that we will just set up our own tent cities. In fact, there is one a few blocks from here. Thank goodness we have camping equipment and a mild climate here in California.
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macdon1 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 103 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 6:33:04 PM
These people will reap their just rewards. remember what goes around, comes around. there is no place they can hide. sooner or later someone will catch up to them. and BANG.
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vincent passiatore (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 177 comments)
on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 10:44:48 PM
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