The original vision behind the program, which turned 88 this week, is a vision of freedom, justice, and security for each, and for all.
The United States Declaration of Independence describes liberty as a fundamental and “self-evident” human right. Unfortunately, the word has been usurped by the political right, which frames it as the freedom of the powerful to exploit and abuse others without restraint. As someone once said , “The rich man is as free to cross a bridge in a carriage as the poor man is to sleep under it.”this week, offers some insight into a broader definition of liberty.
That’s why Roosevelt presented Social Security as a vision, not merely a set of policy prescriptions. Social Security was created as many nations were making the transition from agrarian to industrial economies, bringing profits for the few and challenges for the many. Shrewdly, Roosevelt framed his response to this transition in distinctly American terms, as an extension of longstanding values.
I am not for a return to that definition of Liberty under which for many years a free people were being gradually regimented into the service of the privileged few. I prefer and I am sure you prefer that broader definition of Liberty under which we are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.
The original Social Security bill also included federal aid to state and local public health agencies and an expansion of the Federal Public Health Service. While it did not include national health insurance—“at this time,” to use Roosevelt’s words—that was clearly part of the overall goal of achieving comprehensive individual security for all.
Roosevelt had been fine-tuning this vision since at least 1912, when as a state senator he spoke to a gathering called the People’s Forum in Troy, New York. As historian Harvey J. Kaye notes, it was there that the future president began to identify what he called a “new theory of the liberty of the community rather than liberty of the individual.
That’s an infringement, not just on democracy, but on liberty itself. A truly free society would have greater rights to unionize, to regulate, to break up big banks and mega-corporations, and determine the working lives of its members in a more democratic fashion.
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