I've often thought over the past few years that my grandparents, who weathered the Great Depression, would have a lot of insight to offer on today's economy. Kevin Drum makes a similar point on his site today:
Almost everyone who's not already well off these days knows someone who's been ruined by a personal catastrophe, and this personal knowledge rubs off. You're worried that you could get laid off at any time — and not be able to find a job for months or years. You're worried that a sudden healthcare crisis could devastate you. You're worried that your pension fund or your 401(k) might not be there when you retire because you made bad investment choices.FDR dedicated the New Deal to "freedom from fear." He believed that government's role was not to provide handouts to the poor, but to provide a certain minimum level of security against the everyday catastrophes that ruin people's lives.
It is this minimum level of economic security that George Bush and modern movement conservatives want to abolish. In fact, it's the point of Bush's "ownership society": if everyone owns their own Social Security account, owns their own healthcare account, and owns their own college accounts, then the government no longer provides security against disaster. If you make a mistake, or if the market makes a mistake, you're screwed.
This is likely to be the eventual downfall of modern conservatism. Human beings have a deep desire for a certain minimum level of stability and security in their lives, and eventually they'll rebel against a party that refuses to acknowledge this. Life today is so much better than it was in the 30s that people have forgotten the basic New Deal ethos that made it that way. But if conservatives have their way, it won't be much longer before they start remembering.
That said, I am not sure what the government's actual role in this process should be. My initial feeling is that attention should be paid to restructuring the tax code in order to encourage 'good' corporate behavior. Instead of the government spending billions of dollars on health insurance, why not alter the tax code so companies have a big financial incentive to give all their employees good health insurance? Self-interest and greed are powerful motivators. If you make it worth a company's while to make life better for their employees, they'll do it gladly.
If this tactic worked (and whether it could I have no idea, I'm not an economist), it would have the added benefit of totally spiking the "democrats hate business" card.
On a more personal note, certainly this household has had a large share of income instability over the past few years. It's left both financial and emotional scars on us, and an intimate knowledge of how easy it is to fall out of the 'middle class'. You need to work hard to not become a victim of your unhappiness. Finding a good job may seem impossible but you still have to believe you can find meaningful work. You may feel resentful or envious of friends who are doing better than you, but you can't let that poison your friendships, or you'll have few friends left at a time when a broad base of emotional support is more important than ever.
And taking that perspective out to the realm of the political, you can't fall victim to class warfare rhetoric. Blaming X, Y or Z for your problems might feel good for a little while but it won't solve the problems. And more than anything, that's what we need to do.
That said, I agree with Drum that today's so-called conservatives are not solving the problems we're facing. We need to give something else a try.
