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In the struggling years of the previous depression a common name for programs that paid people to work on public issues was ‘make-work’ programs. Naturally, those who didn’t need them were a little sneering in referring to the WPA and CCC, and the name was meant to be demeaning. While we look back now and recall that the entire country suffered losses, just as we see now there were the untouched, and they did what your right wing is doing now. They criticized the needy as if they were responsible for their impoverishment, and referred to public works programs as ‘socialism’.
Coming from a family that was just getting into the ranks of the college educated, I heard much about the city poor who came under my parents’ tutelage in some of those programs. "What! They were working on programs that they called socialistic," you may well say. Yep, because like the wingers of the present, they considered that they had ‘earned’ their pay.
Today our teabagger element can’t stand that others should profit from government largess even though those earnings go back into the economy and support other profitable activity, raising the economy for everyone. Needless to say, mean spirits have not sprung suddenly from nowhere.
In the early days of this country, our Constitution was crafted carefully and with much argument to allow for protection of the common man. Democracy was given with some trepidation, and "if you can keep it" was (probably mythical) Franklin’s reputed blessing to the final document, with good reason. While there have been abuses, for the most part providing for majority vote has kept the country afloat. Creating a privileged class was recognized as being against the general interest – the very injustice that our ancestors had fled from in coming to the American continent. A privileged class cuts away the very prosperity that most benefits even themselves, by seeking a monopoly on the wealth of the country and ceasing the flow from one individual to another that elevates profits.
One of the proofs of shared incentives’ role in making economic health is now happening in devastated Haiti. There, programs are springing to life that pay for clearing the rubble created by last week’s earthquake. Being paid for work, the infrastructure is being revived while the workers are enabled to provide for themselves and their families. This makes so much sense, you’d think the U.S. government might even see it.
Foreign and government officials here are seeking to address a number of other problems, starting with the lack of money in the economy. Eric Overvest, the Haiti director for the United Nations Development Program, said that a new program would pay Haitians $3 a day to work for two-week periods to infuse cash into the economy. Almost 400 people began the work this week, and with about $4 million to disburse the program is expected to grow into the thousands.
The work involves clearing roads, ridding public areas of rubble and collecting corpses, some of which were being burned Thursday.
“The economy is totally stalled,” Mr. Overvest said. “Giving a cash infusion means shops will open. The $3 will go to the shopkeepers, who will buy more supplies and the money will be passed along. It will have a tremendous catalytic effect on the entire economy.”
This would work here, in the U.S., too. Work programs that restore the infrastructure also give the means to provide for themselves to our jobless multitudes. Money circulating in the economy would give rise to more businesses to take care of the working people. If this sounds like too simple a lesson to need telling, and indeed, it should be.
Business that is paid for by our government isn’t a takeover, it’s an infusion. Just as we had to during the depression of the 1930′s, we need to put our government to work doing what it’s there for. Our government was created to serve the public need, and that’s what it needs to do again. If reviving the country of Haiti can make that simple step back towards a functioning economy, we can learn that lesson here as well. We have the votes to put through programs for the public good. If we want to keep a government that serves the public, we need to use them for programs that are proven to work, without which the economy will not come out of these doldrums anytime soon.
‘Make work” beats strangling the economy by quite a bit, whether you call it sound economics, socialism or welfare.
29 Comments
“Money circulating in the economy would give rise to more businesses to take care of the working people. If this sounds like too simple a lesson to need telling, indeed, it should be.
Business that is paid for by our government isn’t a takeover, it’s an infusion. Just as we had to during the depression of the 1930’s, we need to put our government to work doing what it’s there for.”
Absolutely Correct!
The problem is that the Republican Party and some Democrats want to destroy this country. They would prefer we continue sending in our taxes for the betterment of our country without actually using those dollars for the cause. The elites will soon find themselves with no alternatives but the same genetically engineered food sold in the markets. I for one will be only eating my home grown and locally produced items.
If you think this sounds silly, then you must research the management styles and what the basic needs of workers are. First on the list is food, then shelter, etc. When we neglect the first basic necessity we are doomed. Whether you have work or not, you must eat to survive. Until Americans tell big Corporations they don’t want any of their poison anymore it will not change. We have to go back to square ONE!
Good thinking, Peasant Party. Raising your own food is actually something many of us have been doing a little bit more every year. And you’re right, when we don’t buy, the mogul horde doesn’t suck quite so much of our blood. I’m glad you brought it up. There are several ways to starve the monsters, and we can get pretty creative about it.
We are about to start paying for Roosevelt’s biggest mistake – Social Security.
We already paid for it, it’s taken out of your salary. Wingers have borrowed from it until it’s in jeopardy, but social security is your money.
Yeah longer lifespan’s for old people is such a drag. Killing Social Security and Healthcare heck Fox News voters are in the higher age demographics if we cancel Social security now I think the increased Death Rate would hand the next election to the Democrats.
Sheesh cut military spending instead to lets say only twice what Russia spends! Millions for war not a cent to help America is the GOP plan?
Peace dividend military spending only twice what Russia spends we already tried spending more money and we lost 2 wars lets down size the Military and force them to think how can we win wars?
Is money for Star Wars a better investment than bullet proof vests and armored Humvee’s? Can we really afford to ignore Ossama and get Iraqi oil? Is it really a good use of Pentagon money to pay Former Generals to lie to Americans on the news about how well the wars were going for 8 years?
I don’t know about you but I’ve been paying for my Social Security for 32 years. That is a pretty long time to be paying in with little to no interest and the GOP yelling about taking it away from me. If they want a mass uprising, the people will give it to them over that. It is OUR money!
I had the pleasure of visiting the Sherando Lake recreation area in central Virginia about two years ago.
For anyone who doubts the value of the old Civilian Conservation Corps, I recommend a visit.
Great, sounds worth a trip.
The Riverwalk in San Antonio is another wonderful public work from depression era programs that made work.
Seconded getting inner city youth to plant shade trees on river banks could help ease our carbon footprint also lower river water evaporation pus it could cut crime rates.
We will need jobs that pay a living wage not the Mcdonalds wage though.
Forget the Tea Baggers young voters of all races need jobs. Wall Street don’t like it we point out that kids who come of age in bad economic times don’t spend nearly as much as kids coming of age in better economic times.
For a Consumer economy thats a crimp on any economic recovery since young people do spend more of their income.
Very true. The young, the unemployed, the elderly and the impoverished spend a large proportion of what they get through assistance programs, something that we have just had great evidence our tax dollars do not do when gifted to the banks, and the wealthy.
Amazing that the right cannot see that welfare to corporations does NOT make a healthy economy.
The wealthy it should be pointed out invested their cash in companies that needed a bailout. They invest in gamboling at odds Vegas would laugh at.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/21899
True. And you will recall that hoarding of gasoline stocks drove up the prices to the point that started the accumulation of debt by workers who didn’t have enough disposable income to accommodate the strain on their finances this caused. Another form of investment that did harm to the economy.
Put young people to work building Levy’s of the same quality they have in Holland, or the next hurricane their might not be a New Orleans. We lose the oil pipeline off the coast again for super tankers oil prices will skyrocket.
I’m guessing oil workers fixing the pipeline might not be the most focused workers when their homes are under water.
Have been thinking that the Obama administration would be coming out with a new WPA program.
Just spent a week in Northern Colorado doing some winter hiking with family and friends. The beetle kill of lodge pole pine is unbelievable (spent years hiking in these areas 35 years ago). Talked with folks a great deal about how a government jobs program in these areas to cut down these damaged trees could be an effective way to not only deal with decreasing the likelihood of future forest fires but create many jobs. These damaged pine can be used for building, wood pellets for wood pellet stoves etc.
Keep thinking that the Obama administration will create a new nationalWPA program creating new jobs programs that will benefit the country.
Deaths of trees ‘catastrophic’
Every large, mature lodgepole pine forest in Colorado and southern Wyoming will be dead within three to five years, killed in a mountain pine beetle infestation unprecedented in the state.
In 2007 alone, the infestation once centered on the Western Slope tore through another 500,000 high-elevation acres and embedded itself along the Front Range, exploding in Boulder and Larimer counties where affected acres grew by 1,500 percent
Diary!
Saw the devastation a couple of summers ago, I can imagine what it’s like now without the low temperatures needed to kill back the beetles. Sad, indeed. And good suggestion for work programs.
Lived in Colorado for 15 years from late 60′s into early 80′s. The beetle kill was underway then. Have come to Colorado every summer since that period of time but had not been back up into the area between Walden and Fort Collins for years along CR 14 along the Poudre River since the late 70′s. The large stands of lodge pole pine are devastated in that region. Devastated. Looks like 50% on the south slopes are a done deal. Can not imagine the forest fires that are going to take place in the next decades in these regions if these areas are not cleared of all of the dead and damaged trees. The lack of snow and freezing temperatures is starting to add up.
Every state has their needs for a new WPA force. My parents live down the road from former GM plants in Dayton Ohio. Empty buildings now. People need to be put to work. Living wages along with health care coverage. Create new incentive, re newed feelings of worth and pride in this country. While reminding folks how we got here. Deregulation, greed etc.
In the 30′s the out of work were given jobs, and along with that training in things like growing crops, cooking, fencing, simple construction. A huge difference can be made.
Fires are threatening our whole drought-stricken west, and I really am afraid this will another disaster brought on by Big Oil and its determination to wreak havoc for profit.
Going to need more well trained fire fighters in these regions.
Was in Lonewolf Oklahoma around Thanksgiving spending time and taking care of x mother in law who is now 89 and still living at home. As I traveled through one boarded up town after another with a Wal Mart every 45 or so miles in that neck of the woods. I kept seeing Co-op on every other old gin, or barn in the state (had forgotten about this since I was last in Oklahoma). Kept bringing this up with some of the classy old timers I talked with. Kept bringing up how Co-ops were basically socialism at work. Sharing resources, equipment etc. Find this “co-op” aspect of the Red state of Oklahoma so interesting.
In an old 1950′s cotton gin in Lonewolf I spent hours touring and talking with the Co-operative cotton gin operators about the state of our economy etc. We discussed how the cotton grown in Oklahoma is processed in the state and then bundled and packaged up to be sent to China and made into tshirts and other clothing and bedding products and sent back to the states. Talked a lot about how manufacturing in the states has gone to China and elsewhere and how there is a need for a manufacturing base in that state due to the cotton resources there. How new jobs could be the outcome and less pollution due to keeping the shipping of the cotton local.
Wal Mart has been absolutely devastating to small towns across the region. Not telling you folks anything you do not all ready know. But always amazing and depressing to see
Leen, thanks for the comment, you remind me of a lot that still remains of farmer coops. We still have dairy co-op stores too, that grow, make and sell products locally. That is another field ripe for make-work programs, isn’t it? Very good thoughts.
Thank you, Ruth. You spelled it all out clear as a bell.
While in China a few years ago, I saw a dozen men using sledge hammers to break up a cement sidewalk. “One man with a jackhammer could easily do the work of all those men,” I told my guide.
“True,” she replied. “But then one man would have a job and eleven would be out of work.”
“Why are there so many people sweeping the streets with branches tied to sticks?” I asked.
“A street-sweeping machine could do the job just as well,” my guide said, “but then all the sweepers would be out of work.”
“What about the beggers?” I asked. “Why isn’t someone caring for them?”
My guide pointed out that all the beggers I’d seen suffered from horrific crippling deformaties. “There are those who travel all over the country to find such people,” she replied. “They bring them to places like this, and provide for them in exchange for work.”
“But what work can these poor souls do?” I wondered.
The guide said, “They beg.”
No, I am not suggesting that we adopt the Chinese approach to employment. Just saying that when there are too many people and too few jobs available, “make work” becomes absolutely essential. A point you made clearly and powerfully.
The China approach sounds good accept for how they treat beggars.
Thanks, having seen this program work, I am absolutely unable to understand why the many benefits it can bring are not being enabled yet.
In Oregon all gas is pumped by someone paid to do the job this plan provides lots of low skilled jobs. I think this plan would be great in any place where the winters are so cold drivers do not want to get out of their car.
Also tire gages give the gas pumpers tire gages make them check every ones tires. properly inflated tires save gas.
In Appalachia, the public work program started with Lumber clearing and building of the Parkways. The Blue Ridge, the Pisgah, etc and National Parks are a result of those efforts. Let’s not forget our famous Landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and more.
Each day I read where American based companies, like one in California, making products for green energy are selling out to China. If Congress really is interested in the American Economy, they would slow that process down or stop it all together until we are sure footed again.