Freedom, Democracy, Equality and Economic Well-Being: Hope for the Future?
In this holiday season,
where glad tidings and thoughts of a brighter future in the year to come
are the rule of practice, I will offer my own holiday tidings by
submitting that there is hope for our future, as a country and as a
people.
Contrary to Obama’s “hope and change” tripe (which even the most
ardent of Obama supporters must recognize by now as one of his greatest
ruses), and contrary to the bleak view of hope as wishful thinking, I
suggest that hope is a rationally-motivated projection toward the future
on the basis of rudimentary and incomplete present-day evidence that
leads one toward optimism.
This is optimism that certain ideas or
goals are achievable that is based on signs of progression of
individuals and/or culture. When one “wishes for the best goal to be
reached, with a lack of evidence that there is a direction shown by the
evidence, however, circumstantial, it is not hope; it is faith, since it
has no evidence. Thus, my definition is contradictory to that of the
pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty, who holds that hope is an
unwarranted sense of longing
[http://www.american-philosophy.org/archives/]. Contrary to Rorty, if we
look at some of evidence of current ground-level movement, something is
indeed shaking on the ground that makes hope warranted, in that there
is some evidence for hope that we will change our fortunes for the
better in the years to come, but it is not entirely justified (not yet).
1) Once the genie of
freedom, equality, and economic well-being for all has been let out of
the bottle, it cannot be corked, as the Egyptian revolution showed. It
is always a “two steps forward, one step back” movement, of course, but
that there is a growing tide of support among citizens of the world for
equality of distribution is certainly clear. Despite the fact that
numerous polls show that Americans remain stubbornly self-centered (for
one example, see the latest widely-reported polls of U.S. citizens who
believe that personal economic well-being is more important than working
to stop climate change, by a 3:1 margin), worldwide, citizens of
countries who have been hardest hit by the “austerity measures” of the
economic elite have found their voice for equitable distribution of
social goods (e.g. Greece, Portugal, and other European countries). Furthermore,
organizations like the World Bank have produced recent studies that
conclude that “the higher use of direct taxes tends to make the final
distribution of income more equal—that is, direct taxes generally tend
to be progressive,” and advocate “linking fiscal policies with the
concept of equality of opportunities” (“Social Spending,
Distribution, and Equality of Opportunities,” June, 2013). So there is
change in air, but it is small and largely ignored by the mainstream
media.
2) Perhaps due to the influence of the “Occupy” movement, the coming
generation already seems to recognize both the elitism and the
consequences of Ayn Rand-style selfishness and individualism, and they
are looking for a better philosophy, even if not committed to an
alternative as of yet. Not only do I see this difference very clearly in
my college students, but even Diane Ravitch has wondered aloud in her
public writings whether our kids today are “the greatest generation”
[see “Our Kids Today: The Greatest Generation?” in the Huffington Post,
October 16, 2013: hhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/education-testing_b_4109068.html]. Her reasons are different from mine, but they do fit here.Thus, there seems to be a growing recognition among those of the younger generation who are recognizing that something is amiss and that their future may not be as positive as it has been for past generations. This entails, for many, that selfishness, as several of my students have stated it, is only a philosophy for those who “already have.” Despite all attempts by its progenitors to universalize it, it is now being reported, albeit circumstantially at this point (e.g. Democracy Now!, since pollsters generally don’t poll people who are specifically on the lower end of the economic spectrum), that people who are on the losing end of the philosophy of selfishness are starting to wake up to the fact that this alleged “virtue” is only touted by those who are already in positions of money, influence, and power.
It is no mistake that the most vocal supporters of Rand’s philosophy are people like Ron and Rand Paul and Eric Cantor. Rand Paul owns millions of dollars worth of rental property in Kentucky and Florida, and lists himself as president of a shady company called “Alchemy,” through which his income seems to flow. His dad, Ron, owns millions of dollars in stocks at 24 different companies [www.pageonekentucky.com]. Eric Cantor, for his part, has a current net worth of $2.97 million, while his wife pulls in just under a mil with her serving on the board of corporations like Domino’s Pizza [www.therichest.com/]. With incomes like these, and with their powerful political influence, is it any wonder they are touting the virtues of selfishness, and acting so as to shield and keep their money, power, and possessions? But the rest of the country, whose economic fortunes are heading in the other direction from these Randians, recognize the post hoc nature of their philosophy of selfishness.
3) The growing movements for
environmental responsibility (e.g. Keystone Pipeline; Bill McKibben’s
350.org), for minority rights, for equity in our tax structure (e.g. a
significant campaign plank in deBlasio’s New York City mayoral
campaign). There are many commentators who belittle these movements in
American culture as superficial, as temporary (all too soon to be
overcome by corporate money and power), or as “too little, too late.”
But this is cynicism, and it contributes to continued lethargy and
excuses not to keep pushing forward.
4) Events such as the
workers of Boeing rejecting their corporate-friendly union’s embrace of a
new contract shrinking their wages and benefits, and a similar movement
with 54
Walmart workers being arrested in November in what organizers called the
biggest act of civil disobedience by Walmart employees of all time.
According to Democracy Now!, this
followed a year of repeated strikes against unfair wages, poor working
conditions and ongoing corporate retaliation against those who are
speaking out against the retail giant. About 500 Walmart workers and
supporters had gathered to protest outside L.A.’s Chinatown Walmart
before sitting down in the middle of the busy street in front of the
store.
5)
The rebirth of reason and a reasonable ethical viewpoint among younger
people shows the start of a movement away from baby-boomer Freudian
psychology which reduces humans to emotional creatures and has resulted
in a relativistic hedonism and surface happiness as individual
pleasure.
But there is no reason to embrace wholesale optimism, either. What hedges my optimism are concerns such as these:
1) Governments, as could be
said of all institutions in general, either are never democratic (at
least when they don’t have to be) or that they are undemocratic in
proportion to their size and/or to the extent that they have no direct
accountability to the people. By “direct” I mean that the people debate
and vote on the major issues of the day, such as going to war. The
bottom line is that governments are not democratic unless they are made
to be democratic by an ongoing press of its people. There is reason to
believe that this may not happen in the wholesale involvement of the
majority of Americans, given American reluctance to get involved and
stay involved in such movements and pressures.
2) It takes the informed and
rational consent of the governed to operate a country democratically.
If the people are uninformed (either by clever concealment of leaders or
by their own lack of interest, ability, and/or commitment in the
operations of their government) or irrational (i.e. subject to
propaganda and manipulation, in bread and circuses fashion), then
democracy fails, and with it, hope for the immediate future.
The future, of course, is not guaranteed to anyone, and no one knows
what it will bring. But based on some basic ground-level rumblings we
are starting to see, however small they may be at the moment, there is
at least circumstantial evidence that there may be better news in the
years to come, and not as much of a reason as we have had recently for
being too pessimistic about the future. A Happy New Year to us all.
Dr. Robert P. Abele holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Marquette University He
is the author of three-plus books: A User’s Guide to the USA PATRIOT
Act (2005); The Anatomy of a Deception: A Logical and Ethical Analysis
of the Decision to Invade Iraq (2009); Democracy Gone: A Chronicle of
the Last Chapters of the Great American Democratic Experiment (2009);
and a contributor of eleven chapters to the Encyclopedia of Global
Justice, from The Hague: Springer Press (October, 2011). Dr.
Abele is a professor of philosophy at Diablo Valley College, located in
Pleasant Hill, California in the San Francisco Bay area. His web site is
http://www.spotlightonfreedom.com/
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