crisis

Keep Your Head . . .and Freedom Too

by Stanley Baldwin posted May 13, 2009

An advanced country like the United States cannot survive long-term the victimization of its citizens. Granted, we will accept considerable injustice as endemic to our human condition. But eventually the people say, "Enough!" How close we are to that tipping point, no one knows. We do know that greed, fraud, and mismanagement has terribly damaged our national psyche as well as the economy.

One need only look at history to see the danger we face. More than one great country has been destroyed from within by its own alienated citizens. Most recently, the Soviet Union fell primarily because the Communist system could hardly feed its people. In that case, the cause was a repressive government combined with an unmotivated and unproductive work force.

Go back a few years to the French Revolution and you find some similarities. With the French it wasn't Communism-at that time still unknown-but it was financial hardship which the government could not or would not alleviate. King Louis XVI ruled in luxury along with his wife, Marie Antoinette, who, when told the peasants had no bread, famously replied, "Let them eat cake."

She was not so flip about the people's dissatisfaction when they marched her to the guillotine soon thereafter.

Repression
Some dictatorial regimes have prolonged their days in power by improving the circumstances of their citizens. Mussolini was popular in fascist Italy in the 1930s and early '40s because he "made the trains run on time." Even Saddam Hussein, though he brutalized Iraq, kept the electricity on, which no one has seemed able to do since. China is a tightly controlled country, but is elevating the standard of living for its people.

Will the United States go that route, infringing on individual freedoms more and more by government control of the major engines of national life such as banks, auto companies, big oil, and the health industry?

"Where will it stop?" some ask. "How much freedom will we have left?" Others respond in effect, "Well, you should have thought about that before you smugly said, 'Let them eat cake,' Where were you when the abuses were going on that have brought down our economy?"

Reform
Those who don't want to see revolution or repression in our country must help make freedom work. That means we must all demand--and make possible--a more equitable, just, and productive society including:

1. Financial institutions must stop stealing citizens' money. Banks and credit card companies do all they can to get people into debt and then charge excessive interest, fees, and penalties.

2. Scam artists must be put out of business. Criminals rush to every new crisis--whether it's debt relief, the flu, unemployment, health costs, diet products, or you name it--to defraud those who are most vulnerable and can least afford to be ripped off. No effective law enforcement exists against these predators.

3. Businesses and individual citizens must stop defrauding the government. Every government program, from foreign aid to military procurement to Medicare is victimized by supposedly reputable businesses who, in concert with ordinary citizens trying to get something for nothing, steal, waste, or misuse huge sums, with little ever done about it.

These are not the only reforms needed but they are urgent and provide a place to start right now. Reform is an unglamorous and frustrating effort, but we'd soon crank up enough enthusiasm to pursue it if we understood how sharp the guillotines will be or how galling the suppression of our freedoms will be if we do nothing.

Jim Stair:

There are several "doomsday" scenarios I have heard, but natonal bankruptcy (and devaluation of the US$) seems to be the most imminent (if an asteroid doesn't hit us in 2012). Economic "experts" across the political spectrum (with the possible exception of David Walker, the former US Comptroller General) seem to agree that spending wildly is all we can do to stave off another "great depression." It didn't work in the Weimar Republic, but as you indicated dictators can make the "trains run on time." One thing seems certain, the inflation that will result will eat up much of the savings/investments that frugal people have been trying to set aside for retirement and a "rainy day." Our government seems to be wanting to help only those who have already followed their own foolish path to economic catastrophe. Vera and I have tried to refinance our mortage, but the help that is offered will only get us deeper in debt, while promising slightly lower interest rates in the future.

Norene Riols (France):
Please don't quote sayings which have not been thoroughly verified. The popular remark about Marie-Antoinette is that she said NOT 'Let them eat cake' but 'why don't they eat cake?' Quite different. But this is a popular remark which was fabricated by goodness knows who. Serious historians know that she never made that remark. In fact Louis XVI was a king who has been greatly misunderstood. He was not the monster popular fiction tries to make him. More a victim of circumstances. He was ill-advised to flee the country. Had he not done so things might have turned out very differently. And France might still be a monarchy.

Stanley Baldwin:

Mea culpa. I apologize for failing to verify the truth of this Marie Antoinette quote. The story entered into my mental data bank long ago and I was not aware it had been refuted, I am sorry to have heaped undeserved scorn on this long-since executed woman. Such an action on my part, though done in ignorance, was unworthy of the principles that animate SPCH. Though rulers too often have been insensitive to their people's suffering and have pampered themselves in a way that the quote epitomizes, I was wrong to attribute the words or the attitude to her.

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