Editorial Commentary
SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2013
A 50-Year-Old Question
By THOMAS G. DONLAN
Do we know the techniques that will abolish poverty?
One hundred and fifty years ago, Americans were at war over the most basic American rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which had been denied to 4 million African-American slaves. And 50 years ago this week, 250,000 descendants of the freed slaves, along with their white supporters, came to Washington to demand that their other rights, their civil rights, wouldn't be denied.
They sought the access to the ballot box promised in 1870 by the 15th Amendment, so that African-Americans could participate in self-government everywhere in the country. Many were ruled from county courthouses and state capitols across the South by officials whom they had no voice in choosing.
The marchers also sought economic rights, such as an end to open, legalistic discrimination in employment, in housing, and in public accommodations. Many also sought a change in heart, a change in Americans' ideal of public virtue—an end to racism.
The March on Washington was a powerful event in one of the most successful—and peaceful—social revolutions in history. The legislative changes enforcing the civil rights of African-Americans that the marchers sought would be accomplished in less than a decade. But the agenda of economic and social change advanced by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other speakers on Aug. 28, 1963, wasn't adopted and remains a subject for national debate.
True Economic Liberty
The full title of the event was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which suggests that economic reform was at least as important to the organizers as reforms of civil process and Access, although prosperous Americans today often overlook the economic and social dimensions of the campaign.
There are two kinds of economic inequality: the kind resulting from prejudice and oppression of otherwise equal people on account of ethnicity or religion; and the kind resulting from the normal differences of people in ability, preparation, or temperament.
As it did for basic civil rights, the March on Washington led to a nearly complete success against the purposefully oppressive type of economic inequality. The economic rights that King and the marchers sought were enshrined in laws, such as those regulating equal employment opportunity and those demanding affirmative action to create opportunity for minorities where it did not exist. But the larger economic result desired by many of the marchers has not arrived.
Everyone in America is much richer than their forebears were 50 years ago, and those at the very bottom of the economic ladder have much more support. Food, health care, and cash income are much more available and much more generous than they were for the poorest of the marchers.
But the second type of inequality remains, and Americans now debate the reasons.
A State of Mind
We do not doubt that racial hatred exists, but in the mirror 50 years distant, we should see that hatred has been forced into the shadows and offset, however imperfectly, by the powers provided by the Congress, the courts, and the executive branch to support its victims and maintain their civil rights.Yet poverty still is partly a racial issue.
On average, African-Americans have less income and less wealth than European-Americans. A greater percentage of African-Americans live in extreme poverty. The places where poor African-Americans live are more likely to have inadequate public schools, a gap magnified by the extra needs of poor children. African-Americans are more likely to be victims of crimes against person and property.
Poverty, however, doesn't cling to dark skin. Millions of whites are also impoverished, with an equal claim to the attention of more comfortable fellow-citizens.
Poverty is first of all a state of mind, and it is a mental state that Americans of all races are finding harder to break. America's famous upward mobility has declined along with the recessionary slowdown in economic growth.
When the great legislative enactments of the civil-rights era were complete, King preached in the National Cathedral in Washington—just a few weeks before he was murdered. He said in part that there was nothing wrong with being a wealthy person or with being a wealthy nation, but a great deal wrong with failing to use wealth to help the poor. He was against poverty, not against wealth, and he said: "This is America's opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty."
He was probably wrong about that.
At least, the techniques that have been tried since 1968—trillions of dollars of federal, state, and local relief, and antipoverty programs funded by progressive taxation and borrowing—have not succeeded in getting rid of poverty. The bottom 20% of Americans still earn about 4% of national income.
Those Americans who convert their high incomes into wealth and investment capital possess the techniques and the resources to create economic growth, which is the greatest national resource. It's growth that creates jobs and economic justice for all.
Americans who march this week in spirit with the March on Washington of 1963 must adopt a new agenda. It should include transformative education for the poorest people, adults and children, so they can grow into a role in a strong and expanding economy. Leaving them behind, no matter how well supplied with charity, is not the fulfillment of anyone's American dream.
Poverty, however, doesn't cling to dark skin. Millions of whites are also impoverished, with an equal claim to the attention of more comfortable fellow-citizens.
Poverty is first of all a state of mind, and it is a mental state that Americans of all races are finding harder to break. America's famous upward mobility has declined along with the recessionary slowdown in economic growth.
When the great legislative enactments of the civil-rights era were complete, King preached in the National Cathedral in Washington—just a few weeks before he was murdered. He said in part that there was nothing wrong with being a wealthy person or with being a wealthy nation, but a great deal wrong with failing to use wealth to help the poor. He was against poverty, not against wealth, and he said: "This is America's opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty."
He was probably wrong about that.
At least, the techniques that have been tried since 1968—trillions of dollars of federal, state, and local relief, and antipoverty programs funded by progressive taxation and borrowing—have not succeeded in getting rid of poverty. The bottom 20% of Americans still earn about 4% of national income.
Political Surrender
Current American political leaders have given up on the poor, except in rhetoric about preserving those social programs. Instead, they spend a lot of programmatic hot air on the needs of the middle class, since that's where the votes are. And they spend too much time denouncing the rising incomes and rising share of income of the top 10%, the top 1%, and the top 0.01%, even though the people who earn high incomes with hard work and high productivity are the most important people in the economy.Those Americans who convert their high incomes into wealth and investment capital possess the techniques and the resources to create economic growth, which is the greatest national resource. It's growth that creates jobs and economic justice for all.
Americans who march this week in spirit with the March on Washington of 1963 must adopt a new agenda. It should include transformative education for the poorest people, adults and children, so they can grow into a role in a strong and expanding economy. Leaving them behind, no matter how well supplied with charity, is not the fulfillment of anyone's American dream.
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