A Freedom Once Born must yet be Nurtured (Edited)

Now, this is a report I wrote about three years ago, so some of my outlook has changed, but I'd like to post it here anyway, for the sake of discussion if nothing else. Enjoy.

(Edit: Again, as this post gains attention, I want to emphasize that I did write this material, but it was some time ago, in fact it was a report for school. I wrote passionately and at that time I agreed with all it's content, but as I've grown, some of my outlook and worldview has changed. This is not the time or place to go into such detail, but I will say I'm far less anti-capitalistic. I'll admit it has it's problems, but it has benefits too, and as I explore and study more in the future, my views on such matters will unfold. So please, check back into my blog sooner and later. This post is for discussion purposes, not an expression of present opinion.)

A Freedom Once Born Must Yet Be Nurtured

© Dylan Wheeler 2010
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Toiling, sweating, heaving and shoveling dirt and gravel, a man uniformed in yellow and orange works on the roadside, reeking of wet cement, his feet slipping in muddy clay. Such a man he was, to be looked upon with envy by another. The second stood, fingers clenched hopelessly to a wire fence, longing to cross the yellow tape with black 'do not cross' lettering. He then departs: turns in another job application to another corporation that is not hiring, stands in another multi-hour line of strangers waiting for too few food stamps, and then moves onward to make another withdrawal from an A.T.M., to have another access fee deducted from his hard earned money. He is not unemployed, but his hours are too few and far between, and no-one dares to tell his irritable boss for risk that he might be put off. Both men in this example walk the streets they built, a common sight for those who drive. The tires of new cars made in other countries that cost more than college tuition pummel the cement that the workers thrive on, their drivers distracted by wireless headsets connected to hundred dollar phones, driving back to yet another pompous restaurant to pay too much for yet another meal, one to be half eaten and refrigerated in metal foil and forgotten until found rotten and thrown away, into a black bag to be tossed on the same road they spit their gum on, the same sidewalk the workers built. The black bag lies there, until the same underpaid workers haul it away and bury it in a landfill with a different shovel crusted with the same dirt. Their government calls it freedom; freedom for men to 'choose' where they wish to work, and freedom for business bosses and managers to choose whom they hire and fire at will; and shrugs it off.



In such a state, a government has no say in its economy, the one and only economy in the industrialized world with a caste that walks and starves to a slow death in the streets. It is a utopia to the ungratefully wealthy, a dystopia to those who lay the bricks and roads and keep them clean, and a trophy to those who designed it, to be placed on a shelve and collect dust under a hot, buzzing spotlight.

Such a trophy state has arisen from years of history; a glorious past filled with valorous efforts, revolution, and change for its people. Such a trophy country that plants its flag in the noblest ideals and takes siege of the world's history books and enriches their pages with freedom, liberty, and justice for all. Such ideals are good and fine and, undeniably so, essential for the morality of a country, but the role of a government does not stop there. Such a government maintains, but does it provide? Should such a government not feed and nurture its liberty? Or should it lock it away in a metal cage, protected from attack, yes, but close-minded to change and new beliefs, its glory in-tact but suppressed like a radiant candle in a dusty, translucent lantern. Contrary to the belief that United States is in a faultless condition, her citizens need to know that there is a better way to be free than to bow to the constant, turbulent flux of her capitalist economy, and they must know this method, this idea, is in use today in more countries than any other economic system, and it is a system held in high esteem to cater to the prosperity of all people, not only to those of the higher caste.

Every country should have a constitution, and a guarantee of rights, neither of which to ever be changed for the worse. Human rights, stones unwavering through political strife, should always be maintained. America has a focus on what are known as First Generation Human Rights: security, property, and political participation. However, the politics of the world offer more to the globe: Second Generation Rights: education, healthcare, and welfare (Fagan). These rights have been sought after by many governments in the very near past, years in which a generation still alive today fought wars, and the ideas of government welfare have become associated with and embedded in the theoretical clockwork of communism, totalitarianism, and Nazism. However, where each of these brutal entities has faltered is when they sought Second Generation Rights at the expense of the First. This is why these ethically grotesque governments failed, but it is not at all the only way Second Generation Rights can be attained.

Where as communism dominates politics and economy, and capitalism provides neither in stability, socialism is an effective and progressive form of government that both flourishes in its economy (Peter 2) and allows the country's political system to provide all Generations of Human Rights.

The word socialism is connoted in the same extremes as communism, but it is essential to know that they are not identical, nor at all similar. There is a simple disambiguation: communism controls its people, and does not provide First Generation Rights, but socialism allows for freedom, open business, and private property; the same rights enjoyed by other constitutional democracies, and provides the extended Second Generation Human Rights. This changes a minimum of the society's aspects: the government would provide the basic necessities for survival, thus eliminating the 'street-starving' caste. This means food, housing, healthcare, and education. As for the means, the dreaded questions of high 'European-style' tax rates and low quality public service arise. The Human Development Index ranks hundreds of countries based on the level of progressiveness in their societies. Of the top twenty, 70% are socialist, the highest being Norway, a socialist economy, which shall be used as a comparative example. The United States is ranked thirteenth, one of the few capitalist states that make up only 20% of the list. The same organization ranks these countries by amount of income tax, and the U.S. in eighth place is more heavily taxed than Norway in fourteenth. Ranked by total income per person, Norway is fifth and the U.S. is ninth. These and other factors, such as life expectancy, of which the U.S. is not even in the top twenty, place socialist states as 65% of the most well developed countries, with capitalism yielding a lowly 26.25% (Statistics of the Human Development Report).

Therefore, the tax scare is not the dragon in the cave it is thought out to be, but merely a simple obstacle, easy to overcome with the right methods. Taxes based off income make an excellent example: the more one can afford to aid his country, the more he contributes. He does not loose, and will likely continue to be 'wealthier' than the lower classes. This sounds preemptively like the rich catering to the poor, but is not immediately the case. Take the aforementioned anecdote of the two street workers. A minute distribution of wealth allows them to leave their long work day to a humble home and a refrigerator filled with enough food to feed their families, a right that all people are entitled to. The only result is that the man driving on the roads they built would own a car tenth the price, eat a meal not so conceited, and with no effort at all contribute an unquestionable amount of security to his country, all while still owning a larger house and a working car. Additionally, his child would not have to worry herself over not being able to afford higher education due to her father's high income preventing her from receiving government aid and her father's high spending habits expunging her resources, because her government will be well prepared with more than enough resources to provide her inalienable human right to education.

The benefits of socialism have been made clear. Its distinctive advantages make it hard to resist. Yet, there is a caste, usually an upper class minority, who refuse to accept that capitalism, the overwhelming economic policy in the United States, is inefficient enough to require change. If it is not broken, why fix it? Against this, there are, fortunately for the common middle and lower class citizens, hard facts.

Studies at Harvard University show that 45,000 United States citizens die every year (that is someone's child, spouse or sibling gone, and a family sling-shot into an emotional plague once or twice every 12 minutes in America) because they cannot afford healthcare. Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor of medicine, one of several who helped lead the study, quotes that, "If you extend coverage, you can save lives" (Harvard Medical Study).

Then, even if one is in a fortunate caste that can afford private healthcare, a separate study shows that 1 per every 5 insured patients of the largest insurance companies are denied life saving operations by their beguiling insurers who, bluntly, "just don't want to pay," according to the co-president of the three organizations that lead the study, Deborah Burger, who continued to say, "Every denial has real, sometimes fatal consequences" (California's Real Death Panels…).

Additionally, capitalist economies are continuing to provide fewer and fewer jobs to their native countries as outsourcing (the hiring-out of third world country residents) throws away jobs to abused, underpaid workers, whose rights, such as the right to organize and improve their working conditions, are repressed by their contractors (Causes of Child Labor). Resources show that 48% of small businesses, 63% of medium sized businesses, and 83% of the largest corporations outsource. Out of all companies in North America, 73% of them outsource, denying their native countries needed jobs in favor of cheaper, unethical labor (Sunlil). Capitalist style lack of government involvement opens the door to this abuse, spawning many major issues, not unlike the current spur of child labor. Intense poverty of about 1/5th of the world's six billion plus population forces children into labor. This veil on their hopes of a better future for themselves and their communities prevents 125 million children from attending school, a task not taken lightheartedly. The Global Campaign for Education estimates that "free, quality education for all children would cost about ten billion dollars, the same as 4 days of global military spending" (Causes of Child Labor).
Undeniably, Capitalism is flawed.

Undeniably, there is a fact, that the necessity of a full-scale economic revision is eminent. Change, like history, is inevitable. Remove the privately owned, bureaucratic healthcare and neo-liberal, pro-profit welfare corporations with decade long waiting-lists and unreliable coverage in exchange for a single, sufficient, static system that provides to the United States citizens the inalienable human rights to receive an education and to live without fear of sickness, starvation, and unemployment; in short, the constitutional pursuit of happiness; to set an example for the world. One could label such a system socialist, but if that is the name, so be it, for it goes by many other words: progressive, humane, logical, ethical, and right.



Works Cited
"California's Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims." California Nurses Association. 2 Sept. 2009. National Nurses Organizing Committee. 6 Oct. 2010 <http://www.calnurses.org/media-center?press-releases/2009/september/california-s-real-death-panels-insurers-deny-21-of-claims.html>.

"Causes of Child Labor." Child Labor Public Education Project. Labor Center of University of Iowa. 29 Sept. 2010 <http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/causes.html>.

Cook, Peter. "Discrediting Neo-Liberalism: The Social Democratic Welfare State of the Netherlands." Washington and Lee University. 2001. Washington and Lee University. 29 Sept. 2010 <http://www.wlu.edu/documents/shepherd/academics/cap_01_cook.pdf>.

"End of the Great Depression, the." The Great Depression. Southern Illinois University Carbondale. 29 Sept. 2010 <http://www.museum.siu.edu/museum_classroom_grant/Museum_Explorers/school_pages/bourbonnais/page6.htm>.

Fagan, Andrew. "Human Rights." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 5 July 2005. University of Essex. 30 Sept. 2010 <http://www.iep.utm.edu/hum-rts/#SH3c>.

"Harvard Medical Study Links Lack of insurance to 45,000 U.S. Deaths a Year." New York Times. 17 Sept. 2009. Harvard Medical School. 6 Oct. 2010. <http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/harvard-medical-study-links-lack-of-insurance-to-45000-us-deaths-a-year/>.

Miskelly, Matthew and Noce, Jaime, Ed. Political Theories for Students. Farmington Hills: the Gale Group, 2002.

Otterman, Sharon. "Trade: Outsourcing Jobs." Council on Foreign Relations. 6 Oct. 2010 <http://www.cfr.org/publication/7749/trade.html>.

Sharma, Sunlil. "Outsourcing Trends and Opportunities." Ganthead.com. 5 Nov. 2004. Cerebral Works. 6 Oct. 2010 <http://ganthead.com/artivles/articlesPrint.cfm?ID=
221004>.

"Statistics of the Human Development Report." United Nations Development Programme. 2009. Human Development Index. 30 Sept. 2010 <http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics>.