^^^^^ CB; Thanks for bringing this, shag. I mentioned FDR's speech and the second bill of rights , bill of economic rights, in a post to LBO-talk back in 1999. See below.
Harper's
CharlesB Mon Sep 13 12:06:48 PDT 1999
Partial History of struggle for full employment_
The famous People's struggles in the era of the Great Depression won a number of economic reforms. Symbolically, the success and highpoint of the historical political surge for full employment (the actualization of the right to a job) in the U.S. can be measured by the fact that in 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt presented to Congress in his State of the Union address an Economic Bill of Rights and said among other things:
(quote) We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity an be established for all -- regardless of station, race or creed -- the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries of shops or farms or mines of the Nation -- but also to eductation, housing and access to all forms of public facilities and services. (end quote) ("The Right to Earn a Living" by Sam Rosenwein _The Guild Practitioner_ Vol 44, number 2 Spring 1987; see also Roosevelt's State of the Union Message of 1941)
Harper's Charles Brown CharlesB Mon Sep 13 12:06:48 PDT 1999
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>>> Jordan Hayes <jordan at Infothecary.ORG> 09/13/99 02:49PM >>>
>From CharlesB at Mon Sep 13 11:12:18 1999
People have interpreted the Constitution a number of ways.
The thing is to change it.
It's been done before, like Prohibition.
Have you a proposal for a change you'd like to see?
((((((((((((((((((((
See below
Also, revive the ERA for equal rights for women , with a bill of particulars this time.
Other historical changes in the Constitution that are pretty good. Ist, 4th , 5th, 13th, 14th ,15th and 19th Amendments.
CB (((((((((((((((((((((((((((
For a Campaign for a Constitutional Amendment
for a Right to a Earn a Living Wage
by Charles D. Brown
Introduction
The goal of full employment and the highest quality of life for all is at the heart of our struggle to make human rights more sacred than property interests. To accomplish this goal in the United States will take a mass, organized movement that through progressive stages and leaps reforms and ultimately revolutionizes our relations of production. An important aspect of this movement will be the legal forms that come to crystallize and institutionalize the fundamental economic changes won by the People.
The tactics and strategy in the economic struggle always necessarily include political and legislative goals. As our efforts address the most fundamental politicaleconomic issues, it is important that we have goals, strategy and tactics concerning the most fundamental law of the land , the Constitution, no matter how much the ruling class is above even that authority for now.
"Why a right to a job: a historical materialist perspective"
Historical materialists focus on the working class and class struggle as keys to revolutionary social change in this epoch. This is the perspective worked out by Engels and Marx which holds that social ideas, ideals and laws reflect and are ultimately determined ,limited and changed by changes in the relations and forces of material production; and not quite equally so vica versa. Thus, historical materialism sees Constitutional changes, like all legal change, as ultimately reflecting underlying class struggles. In our era of the bourgeoisie , we herald the rise of the workingclass to emancipate itself and all of the oppressed groups and despised classes ( though taking longer than we thought !)
This approach sees that the U.S. ,connected with most of the globe more closely than ever, has capitalist relations of production. We have wage-labor and private ownership of the basic means of production.
The institution of wage-labor makes the need for a job fundamental for the overwhelming majority of the population, for they must work for a liviing. This institution of wage-labor means most people must sell their labor power to obtain the basic necessities of life, and avoid personal and social ills. It is not possible for most people to employ themselves in small, self-sufficient economic units and survive as they did in earlier societies. The economic system is highly socialized. That is it consists of a large number of interdependent economic enterprises of all sizes. This socialization of labor, or division of labor has reached a new qualitiative level and is in some sense global today, for example with "world cars" and other commodities assembled from geographically scattered points of production. The right to a job is a mature universal human right now. This is already recognized in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and indirectly in the United Nations Charter Articles 55 and 56 on promoting full employment and Article 6 of the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights ( See!
_The Guild Practitioner_ vol. 49 number 1 1987, "The Right to Earn a Living by Sam Rosenwein , "and _Special Issue on New U.S. Human Rights Laws"_vol. 51, number 3 summer 1994) The right to a job, or to earn a living, in a world wide web of wage-labor is central in the struggle for economic and human rights and to ameliorate human suffering. For, unemployment is a root cause of our most personal and social tribulations - poverty, hunger, homelessness, urban crisis, crime, suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction, physical and mental illness, wife abuse, child abuse, et al.
With the institution of wage-labor , the right to a job is also fundamental because the exercise of all other basic human rights and freedoms is dependent upon, first, fulfillment of the basic needs for material survival - food, shelter, health care, etc. A job is key to obtaining these. Modern citizens cannot speak, think, vote or travel freely if they cannot eat. They cannot obtain equality before the law or due process without legal counsel at costs. A job at a living wage is a prerequisite for a decent life and for the exercise of all other human rights and liberties. Institutionalized, continuous denial of work to millions of people , permanent mass unemployment ( even 4 % is mass unemployment) is a violation of a most critical human right undermining all of the human rights of those millions unemployed.
Unemployment is not a necessary part of an efficiently functioning modern industrial economy as many apologists for the American system claim. Rather unemployment is the result of an unplanned economy in which basic production is carried out with the goal of maximizing accumulation of profit for private corporations and individuals ( See Perlo _Superprofits and Crises_ International , 1988). Permanent mass unemployment is also a key tactic for keeping wages down by keeping the demand for jobs high in relation to the supply of jobs. If there were full employment, the bosses would have no scabs to hire to break strikes.
"We Need a Mass Movement to do it "
The masses of people have a basic and objective motivation and need to support establishing the general right to a job as part of the fundamental law , the Constitution. We will only have a movement if the great many become conscious that it is possible to win such a right, and only if the People wake up from their current Rip Van Winkle sleep.
Because of its place in production, the working class must lead any victorious struggle to institute progressive property laws, rights and the dependent other human rights. To lead, the working class must be class conscious and organized for struggle as a result of objective and subjective experience. That consciousness must include awareness of legal goals, the consciousness taking organizational form as elements of a political program. Because constitutional amendment requires 2/3 majority of athe Congress or the state legislatures to propose an amendment and 3/4 majority of the states for ratification, it also requires building a mass movement to accomplish. It is a method for involving masses in making fundamental law as opposed to a few lawyers arguing before a few judges in courts. It is an inherently popular tendency in our jurisprudence. Without ignoring the slow pace of the left movement today and the somnalence of the People, we prepare this legal strategy for the day when again pro-working class majorities are active and conscious as in the 1930's.
_Partial History of struggle for full employment_
The famous People's struggles in the era of the Great Depression won a number of economic reforms. Symbolically, the success and highpoint of the historical political surge for full employment (the actualization of the right to a job) in the U.S. can be measured by the fact that in 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt presented to Congress in his State of the Union address an Economic Bill of Rights and said among other things:
(quote) We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity an be established for all -- regardless of station, race or creed -- the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries of shops or farms or mines of the Nation -- but also to eductation, housing and access to all forms of public facilities and services. (end quote) ("The Right to Earn a Living" by Sam Rosenwein _The Guild Practitioner_ Vol 44, number 2 Spring 1987; see also Roosevelt's State of the Union Message of 1941)
According to Bertram Ross in "Rethinking Full Employment" (_The Nation_ Januray 17, 1987) "the result "of Roosevelt's thrust
(continued)