The Economic Bill of Rights

During his final State of the Union address Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke about what he said could be considered a second bill of rights which may be referred to as The Economic Bill of Rights. In his address he said some important things that ring true such as:

We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people — whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth — is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

He described the original Bill of Rights as proving itself inadequate:

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights — among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however — as our industrial economy expanded — these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

This is very likely the first and most blatant blurring of the nature of rights ever promoted by a president. It has set the tone for our widespread misunderstanding of what rights are as a majority (or at least a vast minority) have come to view the following as rights equal to the rights described and protected in the Bill of Rights.

  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of 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 from unfair competition and domination by monopolies 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.

As someone else has said – these are all goods, but only one of them is a “right.” The only real right is the right to trade goods and skills in an atmosphere free from unfair competition. The rest of this list are only protected as far as that one right extends – that every person has the right to not have others undercut their efforts as they labor to acquire a useful and remunerative job, enough money to provide adequate food, clothing, and recreation, a decent home, adequate medical care, protection from economic fears, and a good education.

Along with the first example I cited of things that ring true in his words is this:

People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Both of those truisms however are incomplete. To the first I would add that no matter how low our standard of living we cannot afford to give up on true principles in exchange for popular sentiment. To the second I would alter it to say that people who are dependent on a central political authority for food and work are the true stuff of which dictatorships are made – being hungry and out of a job only make them ripe for recruitment.

It is interesting to note that as we have pursued policies to provide government funded education, economic security, and now health care in order to eliminate sickness and the economic distress of unemployment and underemployment the result is more widespread economic fears. Because of the ubiquitous belief in these so called rights many people wish to turn to government for security even where the government is the cause of the insecurity in our nation.


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6 responses to “The Economic Bill of Rights”

  1. Dan Liljenquist Avatar

    Great analysis!

  2. Reach Upward Avatar

    Very astute. Populism sounds good. It doesn’t work so well in practice.

    Although you are correct about the right to freedom from unfair competition, FDR didn’t really mean it that way. He meant it as a pretext for protectionist policies.

    All of FDR’s ‘rights’ can be boiled down to one phrase: The right to forcible confiscation of as much of your neighbor’s property as the majority will tolerate.

  3. David Avatar

    Or to put it in words more in line with political correctness – they all boil down to the right of government to (ab)use its position to take as much property from the productive as is necessary to ensure that the laws of work and economy do not apply to those who are indigent or not interested in work. (Yes, I view those as two separate groups which should be treated differently. Government makes no such distinction which is a part of the problem because it thus encourages people to join the latter group who would otherwise be productive citizens.)

  4. Scott Miller Avatar
    Scott Miller

    Excellent comments. As I reflect upon these points I come to a couple ideas. First, the rights we have by virtue of the Constitution seem to be there so that we can make unecumbered choices in our individual and collective lives. That is, we need the right of speech, religion, assembly, bear arms, appropriate trials, so that we can be totally free to make whatever choice we want to make irrespective of the consequences. Under these rights I could, if I so desired, make threatening comments about political leaders. Yet at the same time, I am subject to the consequences of my actions.

    The second set of “rights” that FDR discussed seem to provide us protection against the consequences of our own actions. Therein lies a very subtle difference. If I don’t want to work as hard as the next person, or circumstances or choice prevent me from getting an education in order to attain a job the provides more money than another, I can just fall back on FDR and have the government create the equality of distribution. Under FDR, I lose the need to be responsible for my actions.

    In the first, my rights to speak my mind and worship without fear of goverment intervention allow me to develop my full character, whereas in the second, the government gets to develop my character in its image.

    This sounds eeringly similar to another discussion in another time and place as to agency to choose and compelled behavior.

  5. David Avatar

    Another way to summarize the differences between these two types of “rights” is that the first set tries to guarantee an equality of opportunity while the second set attempts to guarantee an equality (or at least minimize any inequality) of outcomes.

    (Yes, this does sound similar to another discussion in another time and place.)

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