Above: "Barbed Wire," a drypoint etching by Edward Hagedorn (1902-1982), created while he was in the WPA, ca. 1935-1943. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
FDR's description of economic slavery
During his 1936
acceptance speech for presidential renomination, Franklin Roosevelt described economic slavery:
"An old English judge once said: 'Necessitous men are not free men.' Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for. For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government... The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live."
The New Deal did much to liberate the common man & woman from the bullies of the super-wealthy class. FDIC was instituted to protect small depositors from having their life savings wiped out by reckless bankers. The SEC was created to protect people from fraudulent stocks. Social Security was created to ensure that elderly Americans wouldn't be completely dependent on the malignant whims of the 1%. And so on and so on.
Debt slavery today
Thanks to the many blood-thirsty right-wing & neoliberal policies of the past several decades, especially the inappropriately named Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCA), which severely burdened low-income Americans, millions of people are now trapped in debt they cannot escape and cannot resolve.
Through a combination of stagnant wages, job outsourcing, job instability (for example, the "gig economy"), union deterioration, and the new debt-relief restrictions of BAPCA, there is a whole class of people who are now permanently insolvent. And their permanent insolvency has devastating (and deadly) consequences for their lives. Business journalist Martin Merzer explains that the permanently insolvent cannot get a fresh start in life (as bankruptcy intended), have perpetually bad credit scores, and are "endlessly harassed by creditors and are more likely to lose their homes through foreclosure" ("
Study: Law creates many too broke to file for bankruptcy,"
Nasdaq, February 2, 2015).
Permanent insolvency also limits job opportunities. An applicant's low credit score can make an employer view him or her as an irresponsible person. It's a sinister, snowballing quandary, a perfect example of America's financial and labor market ruthlessness: You lose your job, then your credit score tanks because you can't pay your bills, then your lower credit score hinders your job search, and then your credit score drops some more, making it more difficult still to get a good job. And policymakers, many immersed in sociopathy, do little or nothing to help you. (See, e.g., "
Discredited: How employment credit checks keep qualified workers out of a job,"
Demos, February 2013.)
Permanent insolvency has also, no doubt, helped fuel America's
rise in suicides and other
deaths of despair - especially for men. Unable to fill their breadwinner role, unable to hold their heads up high, and lacking the income to maintain a family, or even begin a relationship, they decide (after years of pain, depression, and loneliness) to kill themselves with a bullet, a fall, a bottle, or an overdose. As Dr. Angus Deaton of Princeton University explains:
"... many more men are finding themselves in a much more hostile labor market with lower wages, lower quality and less permanent jobs. That's made it harder for them to get married. They don't get to know their own kids. There's a lot of social dysfunction building up over time. There's a sense that these people have lost this sense of status and belonging. And these are classic preconditions for suicide" ("
The Forces Driving Middle-Aged White People's 'Deaths Of Despair',"
NPR, March 23, 2017).
Shame and humiliation: The fuel for debt slavery
Brown is right but, unfortunately, shame and humiliation prevents a lot of Americans from fighting back against their slavery, lest their own poverty and debt expose them to public ridicule. You see, despite our endless blabbering about being a Christian nation, we are anything but. In direct contradiction to Christ's teachings, we shame the poor, calling them "takers," "parasites," and "losers." Super-wealthy Americans have been extremely effective at turning middle-class and poor Americans against one another.
Through the think tanks, talking heads, televangelists, media outlets, and political marionettes they fund, the super-wealthy have created a wide-ranging cult of personal responsibility. They've convinced tens of millions of people that poverty and debt are self-inflicted wounds, by people who don't want to work, irresponsible people. When one middle-class or poor person says, "I need help," another middle-class or poor person is ready with a "F&ck you, you should have made better decisions" response. And the latter-type people, thoroughly brainwashed and devoid of critical thinking skills, provide cover for all the financial fraud, job exporting, and political manipulation that the super-wealthy want to engage in. Yes, the useful idiots have created the necessary distractions for the rich to burglarize the American Dream, and thus enslave millions through debt.
The solution... that we don't have the energy for
Is there a solution to debt slavery, and the overall decline of our financial health? Yes, and it roots are in the New Deal. But until the people have the energy to learn, and think deeply, about the New Deal, it ain't gonna happen. And unfortunately, I see no sign, whatsoever, of that happening in our lifetimes. Indeed, seeing so many liberals rally behind the Clintons, or the Obamas, or, even worse, Joe Biden, one of the
architects of debt slavery, tells me that, not only are
conservatives lost and unaware, but so too are many liberals.
It seems to me that the great mass of the country is stuck in an endless self-destructive loop, creating fertile ground for continued or worsening debt slavery. Like junkies, we take a hit of tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy, and our quality of life diminishes. Then we take a hit of deregulation, and our quality of life drops again. Then we take a hit of privatization, and our quality of life falls even further. Every step of the way, we crawl and grovel to our super-wealthy drug suppliers, the holy "JOB CREATORS," begging them for another hit, and then we waste away more and more - stagnant wages, exported jobs, more debt, less-secure retirements, and now, permanent insolvency.
Indeed, the latest Trump/GOP tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy is just another sign that, collectively, we can't critically think our way out of a paper bag.
