The Future of the American Dream (Page 3)

This article is excerpted from William Greider's new book, Come Home, America. Copyright © 2009 by William Greider. Permission granted by Rodale Inc.

Beyond these essential steps, there are taller mountains to climb. We can envision loftier goals that require social imagination and then practical testing before gaining broad agreement and implementation. This is where we get to dream a little. Can we imagine, for instance, a country that is virtually without poor children? A nation in which every child grows up entitled to explore life's possibilities, free to go anywhere in this diverse country and feel at home? Can we imagine an economic system that is not organized on the principle of command and control, on the few giving orders to the many? Can we envision an economy designed to serve the society, rather than the other way around? Some will say this is an idle daydream. I say it is our birthright, our inherited privilege. We are Americans. We get to think larger thoughts about our country and ourselves. Daydreams are a seedbed for the possible. We can argue later about how to achieve them.

To encourage people to free up their imaginations, I add a radical proposition: instead of asking what will be good for the economy, government should start by asking what will be good for our people and society. Instead of thinking first about how to help businesses flourish, ask what people need in order to flourish in American life. Essentially, I am suggesting a reversal of the usual process employed by the system. In its efforts to take care of business, the social question is often never asked. Here are three big ideas--favorite daydreams of mine--to illustrate what it means to put the people first.

First, every American who is willing and able ought to have the right to a job that pays a livable wage. If the private sector will not provide these jobs, then the public sector should be the employer of last resort. Franklin Roosevelt described the goal--the practical equivalent of full employment--in his "second Bill of Rights," and the public has overwhelmingly endorsed the principle ever since. In recent decades, the economy has drifted even further from the promise, creating in its place a broad labor market of the underclass--temporary jobs paying unlivable wages and often filled by undocumented immigrants. Guaranteed public jobs paying more than the minimum wage would permanently and automatically stabilize the economy, swelling the ranks of public workers in recessions and shrinking them when private jobs become more abundant. Instead of punishing the working poor most severely in downturns, as the system does now, the government would redistribute the costs of recession so that all taxpayers would share the burden as a public obligation.

The social consequences of a change like this could be profound: it would be a direct assault on the poverty and hopelessness of inner-city precincts and decaying rural towns where the same pathologies ravage families and young people without regard to race or ethnicity. Real jobs would mean that reliable incomes would flow into those communities, providing a concrete basis for economic development and neighborhood restoration as well as the redemption of damaged lives, especially the prospects for young people.

Obviously, permanent public employment--jobs for all who need them--would be enormously expensive, but the fulfillment of large goals can begin with smaller steps. The government might set some guidelines, then sponsor 100 or 200 projects sited around the country and invite impoverished communities to compete for those in their area. What work needs to be done? What skills and equipment are required? People can answer those local questions for themselves. Some initial efforts will fail, but the country will learn from the mistakes and from the successes.

The second idea is that everyone who works, whether in the front office or on the assembly line, deserves to "own their work"--that is, the right to exercise personal responsibility for what they do and enjoy mutual respect and the capacity to contribute and collaborate in important decision-making within the firm. These elements of individual voice and status are critical to satisfaction in one's work, but democratic qualities are largely missing from American workplaces. When most people go to work, they submit to a master-servant relationship in which a few people determine everyone else's behavior and most employees are denied a voice in the matter and have no right to object or criticize. These confinements are especially strict for lower-wage workers but often extend far up the occupational ladder to include middle managers and professionals.

Breaking free of this rigid top-down system and liberating workers to enjoy the freedom (and responsibility) of being human would represent a profound change for our society, a great leap forward in our social development as a people. As it happens, the shift to more cooperative and respectful workplaces can also yield economic gain for the nation. As numerous academic studies have shown and outstanding companies already understand, collaborative relationships between top management and the workforce are more productive and profitable. Instead of being ruled by fierce conflicts, the different elements within these companies share information constantly and steadily improve by learning from their mistakes. The profits are shared because the workers are also the owners.

This reorganization of employment and ownership cannot be commanded from afar, because it requires everyone--workers and bosses--to change, to put aside old hostilities and begin trusting in more open communication. That change is very difficult for people to achieve in any setting. Government can encourage the pursuit, however, by setting out some incentives and loose guidelines for reforming work. One of the most promising routes to change is the employee stock ownership plan that invests everyone as co-owners with the same economic incentive--sharing the returns from self-improvement. Some 11,000 companies--mostly smaller businesses--are organized this way, and workers accumulate capital savings in addition to their pensions. Employee-owned companies, however, must also make internal reforms to establish mutual accountability and honest communication if they want to gain the full benefits of having worker-owners. The concept may seem alien to many, but its core assumptions are very American: a practical belief that equality and liberty can be present in our daily lives.

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