Noblesse Oblige

There used to be such a thing as noblesse oblige. I've heard people argue that FDR was its epitome. He was a slightly downwardly mobile aristocrat (they were spending "principle," not just income, FDR lamented). He found empathy for the people out there suffering in the Great Depression, possibly because of his own sudden disability from polio.

Noblesse Oblige makes sense for the elite, FDR argued, although most of his own class disagreed. His argument, the argument of the intellectuals of the New Deal, makes sense today: unless you moderate the extremes of income, unless you make sure the needy are taken care of and unless you ensure that more and more have the opportunity to make something of themselves, you will either have revolution, or fascism. Democracy will die, or be destroyed.

Of course, in the 1930's it was easy to see the alternatives: the USSR and the 1000-year Reich. Today, the elite feel falsely secure: there is no alternative. Communism is dead and Fascism is invisible. Maybe this is what Capitalism Triumphant looks like.

The Nobel economist, Joseph Stiglitz, points out that when a society becomes as unequal as ours, when 1% rule and gain more and more of its wealth--the US today--there is a loss of community. The elite have less and less in common with the lower classes, and reject any need to help them even when they are in dire economic straits. They cut funds to services, which don't serve the elite, like public libraries, Head Start, even Food Stamps and unemployment insurance. And they cut taxes on themselves. After all, it's their money.

The US has a myth of a classless/middle class, mobile society that never really existed; it's now, by income and wealth, the most class stratified of any developed country. Our politics shows that.

While cutting everything else, the elite support the military. Their children won't serve in it, but they can make money on all our military adventures; it's good for business.

The GOP represents the elite rather faithfully, but a good number of Democrats represent them, too, due to bribes (campaign funds) and/or a common class. So far, there are very few like FDR, even among Democrats.

But FDR's argument is relevant: without real reform--and government helping people in need--by creating jobs, for example--the chances for radical revolution increase exponentially. Revolution could be either of the right or of the left, but the elite ultimately lost even with the right-wing totalitarian dictatorships they favored in the past.

Yet, clearly, the GOP doesn't buy FDR's argument.

Most Democrats bought it long ago, but forgot about it.

Protests may be the only way to get even progressives to remember--and act, despite their Wall Street supporters. Otherwise, we'll end up serfs or slaves to the new Roman Senators--until there is an explosion: a Spartacan uprising, or a radical revolution.