Driven by the disastrous economic conditions in the early ‘30s, FDR proposed a second bill of rights not as a constitutional entry, but as an enduring policy for pragmatic action to guide the nation through crisis and the future:

•          The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines in 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 or 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 good education.

From the ‘44 State of the Union Address ,excerpted by Cass R. Sunstein’s article in American Prospect

But for a few of these right not yet achieved, most are now corrupted but somewhat enjoyed and taken for granted by the majority of Americans, despite the conservative view that “rights” in this context is a dirty word and passes off as “entitlements,” an even dirtier word.

I shall attempt to expound each right:

First the reason for being a nation is a togetherness of like people to sustain a concerted spirit for the common good through purposeful, remunerative labor. In our modern high tech environment we tend to forget that through early history, labor, including the labor of the mind, always preceded property and capital. Not until the spirit of the social contract of harmony was violated did the accumulation of property and capital on the backs of forced labor materialize, often for the better as a more widespread leadership was born, however harsh and barbaric. Though not universally, the globe has made some strides in returning to the rightful respect for labor, particularly in the industrial nations, to share in the wealth. Even Thomas Jefferson, a holder of vast properties and slaves, acknowledged this:

“I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislatures cannot invest too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the affections of the human mind. Another means of lessening the inequality is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.” American Prospect excerpt.

The first right, then, acknowledges that humanity is a laboring, thinking species that has a right to labor earnestly with a fair share in its results; and that the nation has the obligation to provide this opportunity. The American industries have chipped away at this credo in their search and destruction of fairness to labor by outsourcing; and by insourcing here a labor market with immigrant and desperate laid-off workers willing to work for sub-remunerative wages. The farmer, whose dignity was salvaged by FDR’s subsidy or fair remuneration initiative, has lost his memory. Wal-Mart and its ilk, of course, together with forgetful consumers, has jeopardized the fair remuneration of the nation’s shops.

The second right, always under suspicion, is prostituted by the modern argument that all is relative and juxtaposed with living standards of the third world; the poor never had it so good.

The third right is safely in place and why the farmers now don’t give a damn, especially in their hiring practices of migrant workers.

The fourth right ran smoothly through the end of the ‘50s until capital once more clustered into holding companies and later runaway mergers by the onset of discount stores that shattered the gentlemen’s agreement of leisurely fair, competitive pricing and occasional sales promotions.

Thanks to the likes of Levittown the decent home concept took off, but left in its wake was the blight of the cities by the influx of the South’s poor, without city managers’ plans to preserve and enforce the functional beauty of housing structures.

The original Blue Cross-Blue Shield with easy to handle monthly premiums worked fine for a good while, until the medical industry recognized the potential windfall, encouraging other insurance companies to promise the moon with frivolous coverage of esoteric screening and tests, generating huge co-payments and higher premiums. The reasonable intent of basic and catastrophic coverage went awry.

The pristine aim of protecting the frail from economic disaster soon became a game of dirty tricks through commerce’s reluctance to hire the unskilled at a fair rate, along with the snafu of bureaucracy, and as a result unemployment insurance became underemployment — the welfare rolls soared.

At the time a good education meant that dropping out at sixteen to help support the family prepared one for a decent local job — fixing flats [and there were many], pumping gas, adding oil, delivering prescriptions, stocking shelves, cashiering, stacking bowling pins, caddying — and free night school for upgrading. With a complete high school education one was prepared to conquer the world. The G.I. Bill and a changing environment transvalued what constituted a good education. A high school diploma lost its prestige, and commerce exploited the holder of one by devaluing the level of responsible productivity. The result was underemployment and second class citizenship. In the meantime, the universities were making out like Flynn by overrating the value of higher education to the level of an aristocracy, if one was to climb the ladder of success and honor. This deadly effacement of the average worker, not the skilled tradesperson, directly led to today’s perception of the college class that most workers are not even worth minimum wage, let alone respect, even though they are still an integral part of the machine of daily living.

Thus, it appears that the second bill of rights needs reassessment and revision to rekindle the pure flame of unison by restoring the value of respect for each other. The one value that really counts.

Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: October 16, 2004.

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