Thursday, October 15, 2009

A second Bill of Rights

Blogger, more accurately blog essayist, Terrence Heath nominally reviews Michael Moore's movie Capitalism: A Love Story and gets into several other interesting side issues. I haven't seen the movie and probably won't.

One of the major points Moore/Heath makes is the confusion that results when the first three words of "The love of money is the root of all evil" are left off. Or, put in capitalist terms: There is nothing wrong with profit. However, there is a great deal wrong when profit is placed above, or replaces, everything else.

I've recently written about how the working poor feels their social contract has been dismantled. It's the contract that Franklin Roosevelt articulated as a second Bill of Rights. I paraphrase some of the major points.

* The right to a useful job that provides adequate food, clothing, and recreation.

* The right of businessmen to work free of unfair competition.

* The right of every family to a decent home.

* The right of adequate medical care.

* The right to a good education.

* The right to protection from the economic fears of old age, accident, sickness, and unemployment.

All that spells security for the working class. The parts that were achieved in Roosevelt's time have been dismantled since then.

Moore's movie (according to Heath) ends at the National Archives with a view of the US Constitution. Words like "capitalism" and "free market" and "profit" aren't there. What is there seems to be (if teabaggers are to be believed) a touch of socialism.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America …

That sounds like a social contract -- even common (and Christian) decency. We as a country have exalted the "I" to the detriment of "we".

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