I'm a Liberal, I'm an American, and I'm not Stupid!

It was a telling moment as Marco Rubio, a photogenic tea party favorite and newly elected US Senator from Florida took the podium with his wife and small children in formation behind him and delivered his victory speech last Tuesday night. He provided a crystal clear presentation on just what the teapublican party has now come to represent. And he provided crystal clear evidence that the chickens have come home to roost after several decades of allowing the right to define what is an American liberal. In fact, over those decades many liberals, me included, ran from the label (I tried to go with progressive for a while). Now the very idea of liberal for a significant percent of the population has come to be equated with a slew of anti-American actions and philosophies. The truth is that we, liberals, must shoulder part of the blame. And we, liberals, have to take the mantle back by clearly defining what the our philosophy really is and proudly shouting it from the rooftops, from our blogs and twitters and status updates over and over again until it penetrates the lies and misrepresentations that have been left unchallenged for so long.

In talking about the political views of President Obama, Bill O’Reilly defined something called “progressivism” earlier this year as: “Progressivism wants to take your stuff. That’s it. That’s what it is. They want to take your stuff.” In the same broadcast Glenn Beck added: “I will go a step further. They don’t just want to take your stuff. They want to control every element of your life.” It seems like that’s pretty scary stuff to be associated with, very Un-American. And, speaking of scary, I wish I had a nickel for every time liberals have been equated with marxists, communists, socialists and even fascists. Because we want to take everybody’s stuff and control everyone’s life we, therefore, must have a big federal government. By extension then, government is evil and anything done by government is evil. And the liberal’s favorite tool, a massive federal government is also totally incompetent at anything it tries, ever. Evil and incompetent. There is another entire vein of thought that liberals must be stupid or we would all become conservatives. Of course that argument might run into a little turbulence from those accusing liberals of being an east coast group of over-educated elitists. For the liberal, welfare has apparently become the opiate of the masses. And so the litany continues. Liberals are both evil and masterful manipulators of the American people bent on taking everybody’s stuff and controlling everybody’s everything, and, simultaneously naïve fools not smart enough to understand how the real world works and thus leading the country to ruin. Got it?

So in the face of this overwhelming “evidence” against the merits of modern American liberalism, I’m forced to ask myself, “Why am I a liberal? Is it in fact a character defect? And, if so, is there a cure?

The answer to these questions for me is really pretty easy. By training I am an economist and, as such, I have a deep and abiding respect for “the market.” Theoretically I accept that there is no better way to allocate resources and distribute wealth than through the operation of the market. Practically, the twentieth century is full of examples of countries trying to operate some other form of economic system only to lead to economic catastrophe. But, (you probably figured there would be a ‘but’) as any economist will tell you, the market only results in the most efficient allocation of resources and wealth based on the initial allocation of resources and wealth. If you change the initial allocation then the market will find a new “most efficient allocation of resources and wealth” different than the one that resulted before. If you change the initial allocation again, you will again get a different final allocation. In fact, for every initial allocation, there is a different final allocation. Therefore, the question I had to ask myself was, “What is the most just initial allocation?” (I’m always asking myself a lot of questions.) Is it just and equitable for whole segments of the population to be trapped in poverty and lack while another tiny segment continues to amass ever more and more wealth? This is, in fact, the central question that separates teapublicans from liberals in America today. This is the question of “social justice.” And the concept of social justice is as American a concept as “free speech” and “separation of church and state.”

One of the many myths (aka lies) perpetuated by the right in America is that a group of long dead men commonly known as “The Founding Fathers” we conservative/libertarian types who created a constitution in order to prevent liberals 200 years in the future from being able to interfere with corporations’ ability to make profits. In fact, the founding fathers actually fought bitterly over many of the exact same issues about the role of government in a capitalist society we fight over today. In fact, one father, Thomas Paine, wrote an essay entitled “Agrarian Justice” written in 1796 in which he lays out his argument on the need for redistribution of wealth to promote what he called agrarian justice and we call Social Justice.

In this fascinating essay Paine explains that prior to cultivation of land (what he calls civilization) extremes of wealth and poverty didn’t exist.

“To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.

Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.”

Paine isn’t arguing against progress, but only looking to redress the great inequality created by economic progress. Because of agricultural progress populations in many cities exploded. This made it impossible for society to revert to subsistence living (the natural state) because there were now too many people and too little land in the cities for this. Therefore the masses became dependent on those who owned the land (and eventually he adds personal capital as well; “Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.”) Those who owned the land and improved it to provide food for the masses became wealthy from the land. And Paine defended their right to become wealthy because of the service they provided. The problem arises, according Paine, because in the natural state God had created the land to serve all the people. The wealthy land owners only deserved the wealth coming from the improvements they made to the land, and not from the land itself which naturally belongs to all. Therefore the wealthy owe something to the community which he calls ground rent. In a natural state “every man would have been born to property.” And, “every person born into the world after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.” This is what Paine refers to as Agrarian Justice.

Paine further explains that this transfer payment to the “dispossessed” is a right, not a charity.

“But it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the plan. In all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally active than charity, and with respect to justice, it ought not to be left to the choice of detached individuals whether they will do justice or not.”

What was required was a redistribution of income managed by the government. Paine then laid out a proposal to provide a stipend to all individuals upon reaching 21 years of age, as well as an annual stipend for the elderly and disabled (social security). All laid out in 1796. I heard a rumor that Paine’s essay on health care reform was lost in a fire. Just a rumor. But it would just seem like common sense.

So when someone tells us that we need to return to the values of the founding fathers our answer needs to be yes. Just like at least one founding father we believe in social justice and need to retake America from the corporate elitists and apologists.

God Bless America, founded on Liberal Principals.