Back in the 1940s, FDR had something known as the "economic bill of rights". It was considered a second bill of rights for Americans based on giving them economic rights in a post laissez faire political age. While I obviously have fundamental disagreements with FDR at times in his approach, and some of his proposed rights feel dated or misguided (such as a right to a job), I can't deny FDR's political legacy as an influence on my own approach to politics. I learned a lot from FDR, I liked his no BS attitude in taking on special interests, and I obviously believe that need a "new new deal" so to speak and a rewriting of the social contract within a 21st century context. A lot of my politics through much of the 2010s and even today had and has the aesthetics of FDR's style of economic populism, even if my own ideas are a little different at times. And this kind of fire is why I liked Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. He kind of brought that kind of politics back to the table, and I thought if Bernie was successful, it should shift the overton window where my ideas are at least debated and taken seriously, and either way, we'd have economic change that makes millions of peoples' lives better.
Anyway, between her anti poverty program, and now Marianne Williamson channeling her inner FDR and pushing her own economic bill of rights, it seems clear that she's the candidate to go for this election cycle if large scale economic change is your thing. I listened to williamson's speech on this and it was quite good. She's right, we need more than just tweaks around the edges, but a fundamental rework of our economy.
However, as you can probably imagine, based on her anti poverty plan and my reaction to it, we do have clear differences in ideology at times. I think a lot more like Andrew Yang ideologically, while Williamson sounds more like FDR and Bernie. With that said, let's actually discuss her economic bill of rights. I won't be quoting every part of her page on this, but I will go over each right and what I think about it.
1) The right to a job that pays a living wage.
Eh.....no. Sorry, but no. Jobs exist to make things, they're a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves. I believe, like Buckminister Fuller, that "we should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everyone has to earn a living." The right to a job is well meaning, and it is this well meaningness that makes me support people like Williamson and FDR as close alternatives to what I want. But I feel like tying income to a job only is a thing because we need monetary incentives to encourage people to work and do the things needed for society to function. By pushing a right to a job, we're, in the long term, encouraging make work and keeping people in a system of drudgery, when in reality, we should strive to ensure that every human being has to work as little as possible. Work should be made as voluntary as possible, and the work week should be reduced, or at the very least, the choice of how many hours to work should rest on the worker, rather than the employer.
So...both Williamson and FDR, and Sanders and the rest of the left for that matter, are all misguided here. What we really need is a right to an income, and that's what I would try to accomplish with a UBI. Beyond that, we should try to pursue full employment (among voluntary participants), or, to put it another way, minimize INVOLUNTARY UNemployment, but no one should have a right to a job. It's a completely nonsensical notion to me, and something that doesn't work under capitalism, and isn't even desirable to me.
Now, the second part of this is a living wage. I support a living wage in the absence of a UBI. I would support a minimum wage in the ballpark of $15-18 an hour if we were to raise it. With a UBI we could debate a lower amount, but still, I would argue unless the UBI is really high and really causes a work reduction response that puts heavy pressure on businesses that keep wages high, I would argue for at least some minimum wage. My UBI does scale nicely in households where it does get close to what is normally proposed as "living wage" territory (~$15 an hour), but given some would get less and given my UBI may not necessarily truly achieve freedom as the power to say no as I would like to call it, I could argue some minimum wage still being necessary even in a world with UBI.
That said, even if I don't support the right to a job, I do support the right to fair wages for work.
2) The right to a voice in the workplace through a union and collective bargaining.
Sure, but to one up Marianne Williamson once again, I support freedom as the right to say no, not just to any job but all jobs. This would greatly improve INDIVIDUAL bargaining power to the point that it would have the same macro effect on the economy as a union would have, where no one would work at a job if it paid poorly or treated workers poorly. The whole problem with capitalism is economic coercion, and I'm trying to reduce that coercion through a UBI. Unions are a strategy to accomplish these changes, it relies on banding together and confronting capital as a group rather than individually, forcing businesses to come to the bargaining table, but I honestly think that we should go further than just unions. We need to empower individuals as well.
Still, my UBI ideas would just give workers more bargaining power and allow them to strike more effectively than they do in the existing capitalist system. Still, I really do think we need to get beyond just...work here. Like, these ideas that Williamson, FDR, etc, have are great if you have a society where people have to work for a living, but again, my end goal is to shift humanity away from working in the first place. So all of these ideas become dated and stop making as much sense in my own ideological context.
As far as the PRO act goes, I do support the concept, although I would not elevate this to the point of being an economic right worth mentioning.
3) The right to universal quality health care.
Heck yeah, we need to guarantee some system of universal healthcare, whether it takes the form of single payer or a robust public option. I support single payer in principle but given my UBI obsession I may need to compromise here to make the numbers work with a public option.
4) The right to a cost-free higher education.
Yes, outside of UBI she's nailing my priorities nearly completely. After healthcare my emphasis would be free college and student loan forgiveness. She's right that this is needed for democracy to function properly, as well as the normal discussions about economic mobility.
5) The right to good, affordable housing.
Once again, she's nailing it. Housing is another top priority for me given how unaffordable it is in our society.
6) The right to a clean environment and a healthy planet.
I agree with this in spirit. heck, I support a build back better style climate build as a top priority too. But this seems a bit ambitious. She talks a lot about ramping down natural gas exports and fossil fuel productions, but let's not do the same stupid thing that Germany did when they went full green only to become completely dependent on Russia for energy. Sadly, we need the dirty crap until we can actually get replacements to the market. We need to wean ourselves off of this responsibly, not just go full on cut everything overnight. I think a Biden style BBB plan is the best compromise between getting away from this stuff, while doing it responsibly. Yang's 2020 plan is another interesting alternative for me.
7) The right to a meaningful endowment of resources at birth.
This is nice, it reminds me of THomas Paine's citizens' dividend, but honestly, rather than give everyone a lump sum of resources from birth or at age 21, we just give people an income stream. After all, this plan does little for people already born or in adulthood. Second of all, a lump sum could be spent irresponsibly, such as on college (in existing in society), or otherwise blown by some 18-25 year old who doesn't know what they're doing. I'd rather give people a stream of money where if they waste it, there's always next month. I feel like UBI would give people more economic security than this would.
8) The right to sound banking and financial services.
I mean, I'm neutral on postal banking. I think it's an interesting idea but I don't overly emphasize it. I think that it could work in conjunction with my UBI, imagine everyone getting their UBI through a postal banking service, for instance, if they don't choose another place to receive it. It's an idea. I wouldn't call this a "right" though.
9) The right to an equitable and fair justice system.
Uh, seems out of place on economics. I know there are issues with the justice system, but this seems more a case for bolstering the original bill of rights, rather than pushing for a second one.
10) The right to cultural and civic involvement in democratic life.
Much like the first one, I don't really like this one. Don't get me wrong, I support the arts and think UBI would be a godsend to artists who tend to struggle to support themselves financially. But...I'm not supportive of just giving artists money for being artists, or pushing some sort of "public works project" or "jobs program". Also, this feels as out of place as FDR's pivots to farmers in his original economic bill of rights in the 1930s. It's just a bizarre priority here.
And again, did I mention that I feel like UBI would be a solid way to help artists in and of itself? It's not up to the government to prop up the art industry as much as it's up to the government to give people an income that allows them to self actualize and figure out their own lives. Which would help artists get off the ground and give them a start with which they can hone their craft. I just feel like UBI would address so many of these points that she's trying to bring up more effectively.
Conclusion
I mean, before I say anything else, let me just say that Williamson coming out with this has made me more passionate about her candidacy. She's actually largely on the same page with me here, and I really feel like our goals are mostly aligned. However, much like happens with me vs most other leftists and liberals in general, there's too much emphasis on employment here. I believe that we need to do better and go further, and not just talk about guaranteed jobs and living wages and unions and stuff like that, but a full on basic income. A 21st century economic bill of rights should have UBI as its centerpiece in my opinion. It would provide a level of economic freedom and security that no other policy can provide, and would actually render several of these other rights somewhat redundant.
Perhaps I should provide my own 21st century economic bill of rights in the future. I've thought of how I would structure them, but I would like to think out the details a bit more. This is more just a reaction to Williamson's ideas. I think that she means well and has some really good ideas, but obviously, I think they require a bit of fine tuning.
Still, much like with her anti poverty plan, I give her economic bill of rights a B.
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