Majority Agenda Project

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A Crisis of Democracy/A Vision of Resurgent Democracy

Disquiet and outright anger are rampant across the country. Little wonder.

Fifteen million are out of work. Counting involuntary part-time workers and those who have given up looking for work there are 26.4 million workers who are either unemployed or underemployed. That is 16.9% of the work force – far more than the official 9.7% jobless rate.

Those dry figures do not capture the physical and emotional impact of the economic crisis upon families and individuals. Dreams of upward mobility, the traditional pillar of national identity are in tatters. Millions struggle to make ends meet in the face of rising prices for food and energy. Vast numbers face bankruptcy should they experience serious illness. The cost of education, the source of hope for a better life is now out of reach for millions of young people. Across the country many feel the bottom falling out of their lives as the jobless rolls stubbornly refuse to recede, as pension-dependent retirees face unstable financial markets, as foreclosures confront millions whose sole equity is in home ownership and as vital public services are being shredded by state and local governments caught in relentless budgetary shortfalls. A recent press report noted that “people are beginning to look at the 3-year-old economic downturn as a permanent condition rather than a storm to be weathered.”

Across the country many feel the bottom falling out of their lives 

Inseparably related to an economic crisis are crises in the environment and in costly wars that are dragging the country down. Scientists warn that the world may have already passed a point of no return from carbon emissions – with changes in weather patterns causing deep and irreversible ecological damage. Wars continue to be fought in Iraq and Afghanistan with a terrible cost in lives and treasure – wars with no clear national security interest.

Billions of taxpayer funds have gone into the pockets of corrupt, venal and incompetent Wall Street operators

Driving and deepening those crises is a crisis of democracy. Income inequality, the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us, has undermined the ability of the vast majority to influence the decisions that affect our lives. A multi-billion dollar bailout of banks and investment houses has underscored the powerful influence of those big banks on government decisions. Billions of taxpayer funds have gone into the pockets of corrupt, venal and incompetent Wall Street operators, while millions of working people struggle to keep their heads above water.

There is a widespread mood that government is now controlled by an ill-defined elite hell-bent on dominating the lives of average citizens, taxing them heavily, favoring the poor and powerless, threatening their families and their values.

That view is misdirected. The poor, African Americans, Latinos and immigrants do not control the government; they do not have the power to direct policy and undermine democracy. Such false and distorted views are fanned by media voices peddling false populism while they are controlled by big money.

This is indeed a perilous moment. It is incumbent on all to see why and how trust in government has reached a new low. Powerful economic forces undermining democracy have subverted the Constitution and the government. In sum, corporations have too much power. Money in politics has corrupted the system and is increasingly the decisive factor in shaping and enacting laws as well as deciding what laws are not enacted.

The legions of lobbyists... are conscious representatives of forces that are eating away at popular control of government. 

The legions of lobbyists buying off politicians, the policymakers, elected and unelected, who make policy through the prism of corporate, big energy and military-industrial interests are not a shadowy elite, but are conscious representatives of forces that are eating away at popular control of government. They represent a “corpocracy” (the convergence of big business and government) that is gutting popular sovereignty.

A contest over the nature and purpose of government is deeply embedded in the nation’s history. The Founding Fathers were wealthy white men from the land owning, slave owning and mercantile classes. Among their original aims was protection of their property rights and limiting the influence of average working citizens.

That vision was challenged from the start by a competing view that government was not solely the protector of private property rights and the individual pursuit of wealth. It was also served the collective needs of the nation for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” for public services that could not be fulfilled on an individual basis, for protection of the commons that belonged to the entire community and for social stability based upon popular participation in decision-making.

Thus, Thomas Jefferson and others fought for and won a Bill of Rights to protect citizens from coercive government and to guarantee the fundamental rights of free speech and free assembly. Jefferson and James Madison, one of the principal authors of the Constitution feared, not only limited government, but also the “moneyed powers” of capital. Corporate charters were created in the early years of the Republic to limit the powers of corporations that Jefferson, and later Abraham Lincoln feared could destroy democracy.

Jefferson and Madison feared, not only limited government, but also the “moneyed powers” of capital.

At the heart of the nation’s history – and its progress – are grass roots social movements that persistently fought to make government responsive to the people’s needs. At the dawn of the 19th century, skilled workers fought for the right to form producers’ guilds, the forerunners of labor unions. A movement for public education arose to advance the nation’s stated aspirations for equal opportunity. The abolitionist movement formed to contest the institutionalization of slavery in the Constitution and to demand and end to the “peculiar institution.” In the mid-19th century, Lincoln’s and other brave voices among the New England transcendentalists were raised against the Mexican War that was largely driven by a desire to expand slavery. Throughout those years and the years following the Civil War a few courageous voices were raised to protest the genocidal destruction of Native American tribes.

At the heart of the nation’s history – and its progress – are grass roots social movements... 

In the wake of the Civil War that brought the fulfillment of the abolitionists’ crusade to end slavery, a brutal industrial order arose, abetted by a government heavily infiltrated by rising corporate money. The US Senate became notorious for turning over huge tracts of land to railroads and land speculators. Social movements arose to challenge the thievery spawned by an alliance of government and big money. National labor federations were formed that eventually won the eight-hour day and an end to the vicious exploitation of women and child labor. In the late 19th century, a powerful populist movement arose on the plains, in the South and in the cities to fight the increasingly monopolized and predatory banking and railroad industries. The Sherman Anti-Trust Law was won to curb the increasing concentration of wealth.

In the early 20th century the Progressive Movement fought against the deplorable conditions facing waves of European immigrants crowded into squalid slums. They battled for pure food and drug laws and to limit political corruption by enacting civil service legislation. The first major movements for conservation of public lands emerged to launch a century-long battle to preserve the environment. In 1909, black and white progressives formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to fight lynching and disfranchisement of African Americans, auguring the emergence of the modern civil rights movement. An antiwar movement sought to rally the country against US entry into World War I, viewing the war as an effort to re-divide the world’s resources among competing imperial powers.

In the midst of the Great Depression of the thirties, powerful movements among working people arose... to demand that the government deal forcefully with the urgent needs of millions of unemployed.

In the midst of the Great Depression of the thirties, powerful movements among working people arose to build modern industrial labor unions, to forge unity among black-and white workers and to demand that the government deal forcefully with the urgent needs of millions of unemployed. Without that powerful, united force Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal would not have happened. There most likely would have been no legislation to protect labor’s right to organize, no Social Security, no laws to protect home owners, no public works to ease the burdens of Depression.

The battle against fascism in World War II brought with it important gains (but by no means final victories) in the struggle for racial and gender equality. With emerging Cold War, scattered prophetic voices fought against a major assault by the government on constitutional rights. The battle for racial equality continued to advance with the formal end of school segregation by Supreme Court decision. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the rapid growth of the grass roots movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. heroically challenged social segregation itself.

A great movement against the Vietnam War, sparked in large measure by young people, emerged in the 1960s. That movement began to seriously question the motive behind the government’s rhetoric about defending the “freedom” of the Vietnamese people. It perceived the sacrifice of thousands of American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives as an attempt achieve economic and strategic objectives to advance imperial power and wealth. That dream of empire that led to dispatch of military forces to the Philippines, to Central America, Vietnam – and now to Iraq, has extracted a high price, reminding us that dominating other people and their resources is not worth the life of one US soldier, undermines our national security and makes a sham of our call to the world for democracy.

The civil rights movement made historic gains [and] turned its energies to the deeper cause of uniting the poor and eliminating poverty. The assassination of Dr. King and other leaders left that transforming cause a task yet to be completed.

At the cost of lives and the safety of many, the civil rights movement made historic gains in the fight against Jim Crow. It turned its energies to the deeper cause of uniting the poor and eliminating poverty. The assassination of Dr. King and other leaders left that transforming cause a task yet to be completed.

Thoroughgoing cultural change in the sixties opened up a new consciousness of women’s equality, of the rights of gay, lesbian and trans-gendered people and of the dignity of all who have come to our shores seeking a better life. That consciousness also gave fuller meaning to family values which have substance when women have the right to choose, when children and youth have access to education, when families have decent, secure shelter and when hard work is rewarded fully and fairly.

Throughout the nation’s history, ordinary people, confronted with entrenched greed, malice and injustice invariably made the right choices at the most critical moments. Working people took up arms to defeat slavery. They fought hard and made gains against the brutality and exploitation of rising industrialism; they responded effectively to the opportunity to build industrial unions in the Great Depression; they engaged fully in the fight against fascism in World War II and gave crucial support to the movements for racial equality and social justice in recent years.

While some in our society saw working people and waves of immigrants only as a means to build financial empires for the few, many others believed that the primary function of an economy is not to create profit, but to provide good jobs and general prosperity. The results of their efforts were decent wages, safer working conditions, the 40-hour workweek, social security and the rights of people who worked to organize for better conditions.

Today our country is trapped between the power of global corporations that substitutes money and greed for democracy and extremist ideologies that promote intolerance, racism and grotesque conspiracies at every turn. Racism, in particular, has been one of the greatest single obstacles to democracy and justice for all. While privileges extended to whites are tangible, the long-term effects of racial prejudice and injustice have been devastating for all races. Racism has grievously misdirected and obscured the real causes of discrimination and injustice – the anti-democratic power of entrenched corporate wealth – instead asking us to focus upon the most powerless segments of our society. Wherever the economic and social conditions of African Americans and other minorities have been depressed, so have the condition of white people been seriously depressed. Those regions of the country that have experienced the greatest racial discrimination also have the lowest levels of wages, education, health care and housing for all races.

We need to rein in the destructive power of the financial sector that has maliciously fed off the growing debt of working people and has smothered small business

The recent economic recession has made the conjoined injustice of racism and poverty more profound, especially in a society where the top economic layers enjoy undreamed-of prosperity. Joblessness among African Americans is nearly double that of whites; black men and women make 62 cents on the dollar earned by whites. Less than half of black and Hispanic families own homes and they are three times more likely to live below the poverty line. That should end the claim that the election of an African American president has led to unearned advantages for minorities.

Immigration has also become a poisonous source of misdirected enmity. We must not forget that we are a nation of immigrants with only Native Americans entitled to the status of indigenous people. Nor must we forget that that vast upheavals in populations have been caused by the globalization of capital, by corporate agriculture that has driven millions of subsistence farmers from their lands, by a “race to the bottom” in pursuit of the cheapest labor that has made life intolerable for legions and have forced them to migrate to wealthier countries. Immigration has enriched our culture and the labor of immigrants has added great value to the country’s economic resources. We need to tap into the country’s tradition of generously welcoming immigrants – a generosity that welcomed our forbears. We need legislation that ends the brutal roundup of the undocumented, that provides immigrants with immediate security and that opens a clear path to citizenship. Above all, we must end the demonizing of immigrants who are not the cause of the grave problems facing the nation.

Great social movements have enriched our original constitutional ideals, have advanced democracy and often have fought successfully to make government responsible to the people’s needs. In that profound spirit, we need to focus upon the need to dismantle corporate sovereignty and replace it with popular sovereignty. We need to join with all who are angered by the bailouts of big banks and the capture of government by big business. We need to reform our election laws to break the corrosive power of big corporations. We need to reverse through constitutional amendment, the outrageous Supreme Court decision giving corporations the rights of human beings.

We need to rein in the destructive power of the financial sector that has maliciously fed off the growing debt of working people and has smothered small business. We need to re-regulate Wall Street; we need an effective government program to create employment that is not being created by the private sector. We need millions of “green jobs” to rescue the environment from crisis and with public input build a new economy based upon the principle of sustainable growth. We need re-born democracy that can rebuild the crumbling infrastructure and decay of our economic and social life. We need to end destructive militarism that has caused incalculable wreckage of life and property and rebuild our global relations on the principles of mutual respect, cooperation and unqualified commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

We need to rebuild a society in the spirit of democratic ideals that respect labor and all accomplishments...

We need a society whose core values stem from the principles that we respect our fellow human beings, cooperate with them and take care of each other. We need to rebuild a society in the spirit of democratic ideals that respect labor and all accomplishments; a society that does not need to be the largest jailor on earth; a society in which no one is demonized, ignored or excluded from democratic participation.

We must choose now between the malignant power of big corporations conjoined with government and survival itself. We cannot continue to hurtle down a road to economic ruin ground in the polarization of wealth and poverty, to military doom based on endless wars and bankrupting arms spending and environmental doom based on reckless profit-driven dispensing of fossil fuels. Above all, we need to both salvage and reinvigorate democracy. The present and future of this country, of our democratic ideals and of life on this fragile planet depend on systemic change that reaffirms justice, equality and freedom for all.