The Bill of Rights Needs an Economic Update
By David Chmielewski
On January 11th, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered what would become his penultimate State of the Union address. The 1944 State of the Union is often overlooked, but in actuality, the address contains some of FDR’s most clairvoyant insights. As part of his ongoing New Deal agenda, FDR included an iconic passage in his speech discussing his conception of a Second Bill of Rights, which would focus on economic, rather than political, rights. To use FDR’s words directly:
“We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.”
FDR was speaking at a time when the United States was in crisis and involved in wars spanning Europe and Asia. As the nation is under threat again, this time from a deadly pandemic and political instability, now seems to be the perfect time to reinvigorate FDR’s call for economic rights.
As every American is inevitably taught in school, the Bill of Rights protects a number of political rights, guaranteeing everything from freedom of speech to equal protection under the law. While these rights are essential and should be protected, American history has made clear that guaranteeing political rights alone is not enough to ensure an egalitarian democracy. Political rights can be easily stripped away when a group lacks the economic clout to protect itself from more elite groups.
For example, measures to suppress citizen’s right to vote frequently target low-income communities. Since the Reconstruction Era, we have seen many effective forms of legalized voter suppression. While the Voter ID laws of today are not as blatantly discriminatory as the poll taxes of days past, they still suppress votes through their significant expenses and time commitment. Additionally, the closing of polling stations in and around marginalized communities contributes to this modern-day suppression of voters. These examples demonstrate how economic security and the security of political rights goes hand in hand. Here, we can see the embodiment of FDR’s words from the State of the Union as he notes “that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.” One can not truly be free if they lack the economic power to protect their right to said freedom.
Additionally, the very existence of these political rights is threatened by the lack of protection for economic rights. When people lack basic necessities, highfalutin principles like democratic values understandably become a much lower priority for them. Instead, their political will can be manipulated by those who promise economic security while threatening the security of democracy and human rights, with Hitler’s rise to power in Germany on the back of a crippling economic depression being the quintessential example. As FDR states,
“People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”
Furthermore, the recent shattering of norms and democratic backslide in the United States can not be explained by a political vacuum; the politicians who perform that norm-breaking are elected by a constituency increasingly desperate for real economic change, regardless of the consequences for democracy. In that sense, the security of democracy and economic security are inextricably linked, meaning if America wants to promote democracy’s existence, it must improve the population’s material existence.
This undeniable link between the safety of political rights and economic conditions points to the notion that the policy of the United States must be to ensure the economic prosperity of every citizen. Even if one does not believe in a moral imperative for providing economic justice, the purely practical motivation of ensuring the protection of other rights demands America to formalize a notion of economic rights. The specific form of these rights can be debated, but it seems clear that the enjoyment of political rights is impossible without a sense of security in basic necessities such as healthcare, housing, and access to food. However, the American government has frequently failed to provide citizens with the means to achieve even these bare necessities; without a legal obligation to do so, this state of affairs will likely continue. Therefore, there is a clear need for an actual Economic Bill of Rights, one which would act with the original Bill of Rights to ensure American security in both the political and economic realm.
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