Freedom Reclaimed: Rediscovering the American Vision Review

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Freedom Reclaimed: Rediscovering the American Vision ReviewOver the last thirty years freedom in the US has come to mean individualist action in the market place with government, beyond providing minimum security, being seen only as capable of restricting freedom, certainly not able to enhance freedom. While admitting that there has always been that strain of thinking in America, the author makes the case that it is a view that is contrary to what the Founding Fathers thought and what transpired over the first 75 years of the twentieth century.
A central view of the Founding Fathers was that to fully participate in political affairs, citizens must be free and independent. That is they must have access to sufficient property to sustain themselves and their families and not be subject to the dictates and whims of others. That Lockean ideal was at least theoretically achievable at the time, because most people were small farmers and the US had vast stores of land. Such free and equal citizens were part of the republican ideal of fully participating virtuous citizens.
Freedom, for the author, goes well beyond the absence of capricious state authority. Freedom is synonymous with empowerment. A genuinely free man must have access to sufficient economic resources to lead at least a basic and respected life that permits time for self-improvement and social involvement. Furthermore, in a government of the people, a free man must be able to equally participate in the political process and not be trumped by the privileges of wealth.
It is contended that free-market freedom gains legitimacy because "equal opportunity" exists for all. But it is clear that the privately run US economy falls short by at least 20 percent of sufficient good employment opportunities. Those impacted include both the unemployed and the much larger number of those earning too little to lead basic and decent lives. The author emphasizes "adequate" opportunity over "equal" opportunity.
What has happened is that formerly good jobs have become inadequate jobs. Over the last thirty years there has been a massive redistribution of income to the upper level of earners. Median wages over the period have been flat, while average wages have climbed, even though productivity has increased by nearly 50 percent over the same time. The minimum wage stands at one-half of where it should be to sustain a minimally decent life. American families in this economic environment are surviving by greatly increasing their hours worked and assuming large debt.
Genuine freedom for the author is a moral and social issue. Freedom is not about the lone wolf operating freely on his piece of property. The author suggests that we as a society are obligated to create the conditions and ensure basic outcomes that will allow all citizens to participate equally in social and political affairs. The solution is not to emphasize charity or "compassion" as so many advocate. Charity is an uneven, ad hoc process that is dependent on the personal inclinations of the giver - there is no real obligation. It is through the political process that we as a nation make decisions that affect us all, including decisions about basic economic security.
It seems rather odd that for a nation that touts its freedoms, that freedom has taken on such a minimalist meaning. Of course, this is due to the rise in the immense power of corporations in the economy and their ability to control the media (corporations also) and the political process. They absolutely do not want the government to intervene in their affairs, even though they do have immense social impacts. However, they do not eschew government largesse, including all manner of tax breaks. Ignoring the deleterious consequences of paying full-time workers only one-half of what is necessary for a minimally decent living, they claim the working of neutral market forces. Actually, it is a maldistribution of power. It is an absence of power by workers at the workplace and in the political process.
The author wants the notion of freedom that predominated at the time of the founding and followed in first 75 years of the twentieth century to be reclaimed. The farming society of the colonial period is long gone, but the need for genuine freedom is not. One would have to feel that the founders would have adapted to industrial, market society in ways that would have preserved genuine freedom, including a larger role for government. The author points out that forming the US state was in fact an increase in government over the former confederation. They were wise and practical men, but they are also gone. What is most definitely missing from the author's work, is any sense of how freedom will be reclaimed in the current environment. Corporate and market values seem to be so ascendant as to drive out other conceptions of life, including schemes that would try to modify corporate behavior to restore economic, and thereby social and political, freedom to all citizens. The funding of politicians and the running for elective office by the rich are evocative of the era of the robber barons of the nineteenth century. Reclaiming freedom may well be wishful thinking; we may be at a point of no return.
Freedom Reclaimed: Rediscovering the American Vision OverviewHas the nation's infatuation with the free market warped the true meaning of American freedom by its emphasis on the self-serving individual in a "looking out for Number One" world?Freedom is America's most treasured value. InFreedom Reclaimed, John E. Schwarz examines the profound implications of the difference between the vision of American freedom that the Founders enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the free-market idea of freedom that is ascendant today. Schwarz shows how the three-decade shift toward free-market freedom has brought economic hardship to the majority of Americans and suffering to the political life of the nation. As the nation moves further away from its impelling original commitment, most Americans now have only limited access to the freedom the Founders envisioned. Schwarz sets forth a program that can help America return to its ennobling vision and resume its historic journey.In policy discussions on employment, education, social issues, and health care, Schwarz recasts our understanding of what freedom means and involves. In so doing, he transforms the way we see our world and revitalizes our ability to change it for the better. (2006)

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