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Conclusions
The Long and Winding Road
We stand at a crossroads, and must choose which way to proceed – for we can’t go back. We can keep to the same road that has brought us to this point, or take the one less traveled. Human nature being what it is, we are loathe to try the un-trod path. The road we are on, however, is long and desperate which we share with the Joads of Oklahoma. To borrow a line from songwriter, Michael Martin Murphy, the grapes of wrath still make bitter wine.
The evidence is conclusive that economic inequality has been increasing in this country for more than two decades. It is now at a level higher than it has been since 1929. And this is not the type of inequality – as some would claim – that provides the challenge to succeed. This is extreme inequality – the type that feeds decadence, desperation, and revolution.
At the beginning of this paper, we looked at some of the concepts, traditions and attitudes that have helped guide us to this place. We must refuse to be blinded by the cognitive dissonance which will come from considering a new direction. The next chapter looked at connections between the first Gilded Age and our own, making it clear that the same attitudes and selfish indifference to inequality which created and fuels our current extreme inequality is an American tradition.
This is a dangerous tradition which needs to end. We need to make the hard political choices that are necessary to bring inequality to an end. This may, indeed, require an adjustment of our attitudes about individualism and liberty, for our current crisis stifles both.
We are all in this together, so we had better get over our obsession with private property and embrace a return to the value of the commons. As part of that value, we need to appreciate the ability of government to do things that as individuals we cannot. If, as a country we are actually serious about democracy – and it is not always evident that we are – we need to respect civic values and norms of trust, reciprocity, and community.
Finally we must reconsider the paradigm of capitalism both in our economic and our social lives. We must return the corporation to its proper role in society, as a bundle of contracts put together for a commercial purpose which pays proper deference to society and the government as the instrument of society, and not as a person.
We have seen that inequality matters in a number of ways both to our civil society and to our democracy. Bill Moyer’s and James K. Galbraith spoke about these issues and our commitment to them on a recent edition of Bill Moyers’ Journal. They spoke too, of the following speech given by FDR shortly before his death:
In our day certain economic truths have become accepted as self-evident: A second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, or race, or creed.
Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines throughout 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, freedom from unfair competition and domination by mono-polies 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.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward in the implementation of these rights to new goals of human happiness and well-being. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
FDR’s vision, Galbraith said, “defined what we should have achieved in the last 50 years and in many ways, what we still need to achieve.”
It's a test. It's a test for the country as a whole, as to whether we have the capacity to state and pursue a truly public pur-pose. We've come through a generation where we have really denied the existence of a common good or a public purpose. And I think we've recognized that that path leads to collapse, the collapse that we've seen. And that the way out is to somehow reestablish for ourselves this vision of what we really could be. (Bill Moyers' Journal 2009)
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