A few weeks ago here I recommend a small tome entitled, Time for Outrage (Indignez-vous!) by one Stephane Hessel. This book is a tract written to the young people of today's France and represents a wonderful little treasure of epigrammatic sentences told in a warm, personal, and passionate style.
The author was around during World War II and saw first-hand the horrors of the Nazi regime. He saw how the French resistance fought Hitlerism, and as a natural corollary to that movement, advocated for a just society for France after the war, something other than domination by big money interests -- which dominance would mean fascism in another form.
My enthusiasm for Mssr. Hessel has abided strongly during the last winter and now the opening of spring. A few years ago the world saw something called the Arab Spring, a movement for greater democracy in the general region of the Levant. It seems to the present writer that the West in general needs a Democracy Spring. This would be a spring both in the sense of the season of Spring, and also in the sense of a fountain of good sense put into motion.
The following brief excerpt from Time for Outrage follows a description by Hessel of the new Social Security system enacted as promised by the Provisional Government of France. Other industries were also nationalized -- all for the benefit of the people at large. Some would call this communism. I don't. I call it populism. At any rate, Hessel says the rationale for such take-overs was "that the nation reclaim all major means of production thus far monopolized, the fruit of the workers' labor; all sources of energy; the riches of our natural resources; the insurance companies and the largest banks; that a true democracy, both economic and social, be established, which implies the eradication of the economic and financial feudalism ruling our economy." (Apparently a quote from the founding days of the French Provisional Government.)
Is this not the program we need for America now? Notice what are not included in the nationalization program: small businesses, small banks, family farms, private schools, churches, and other individual and small enterprises. This comes very close to the mixed-economy I have been advocating for the U.S. Major areas of economic enterprise and freedom would stay in private hands. In one sense, the more of this kind of enterprise the better. But monopolistic concerns would be limited or broken up as necessary just as in the days of the Theodore Roosevelt trust-busting. Thus, what I am proposing is not so very different from what has already been.
We have seen in about the last forty or forty-five years a massive effort to twist America toward that feudalistic economy Hessel is warning us about. Isn't it time to return to rationalism, to individual enterprise and not obeisance toward to oligarchs of the 21st century? How much longer must we wait?*
*As the old labor song says, "You've got to organize."
A reference:
Document of the French Liberation Government (in French)
The author was around during World War II and saw first-hand the horrors of the Nazi regime. He saw how the French resistance fought Hitlerism, and as a natural corollary to that movement, advocated for a just society for France after the war, something other than domination by big money interests -- which dominance would mean fascism in another form.
My enthusiasm for Mssr. Hessel has abided strongly during the last winter and now the opening of spring. A few years ago the world saw something called the Arab Spring, a movement for greater democracy in the general region of the Levant. It seems to the present writer that the West in general needs a Democracy Spring. This would be a spring both in the sense of the season of Spring, and also in the sense of a fountain of good sense put into motion.
The following brief excerpt from Time for Outrage follows a description by Hessel of the new Social Security system enacted as promised by the Provisional Government of France. Other industries were also nationalized -- all for the benefit of the people at large. Some would call this communism. I don't. I call it populism. At any rate, Hessel says the rationale for such take-overs was "that the nation reclaim all major means of production thus far monopolized, the fruit of the workers' labor; all sources of energy; the riches of our natural resources; the insurance companies and the largest banks; that a true democracy, both economic and social, be established, which implies the eradication of the economic and financial feudalism ruling our economy." (Apparently a quote from the founding days of the French Provisional Government.)
Is this not the program we need for America now? Notice what are not included in the nationalization program: small businesses, small banks, family farms, private schools, churches, and other individual and small enterprises. This comes very close to the mixed-economy I have been advocating for the U.S. Major areas of economic enterprise and freedom would stay in private hands. In one sense, the more of this kind of enterprise the better. But monopolistic concerns would be limited or broken up as necessary just as in the days of the Theodore Roosevelt trust-busting. Thus, what I am proposing is not so very different from what has already been.
We have seen in about the last forty or forty-five years a massive effort to twist America toward that feudalistic economy Hessel is warning us about. Isn't it time to return to rationalism, to individual enterprise and not obeisance toward to oligarchs of the 21st century? How much longer must we wait?*
Common interest would prevail over individual interest, just as the fair sharing of proceeds between workers would override the power of money. The Resistance proposed 'a rational reorganization of the economy that would ensure the subordination of individual interest to the common interest, a structure freed from the dictatorship of executives that is but a replica of the fascist state,' and the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944-46) acted as a channel for these proposals.-- Stephane Hessel in Time for Outrage
*As the old labor song says, "You've got to organize."
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| Flag of the French Provisional Government. Source: Wikipedia |
A reference:
Document of the French Liberation Government (in French)
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