Lincoln's "Trickle-Up" Economics, Football "Hits" and a Meaningful Short Story

                                                               
                                                                                              

Lincoln's "Trickle-Up" Economics

Abraham Lincoln was a strange sort of Republican.  He had been a Whig until the Republican Party was founded in 1854.  He stood for things which are heretical to today's G.O.P.  Most Americans are familiar with the most famous of Lincoln's speeches, the Gettysburg Address, which concludes with these words:  “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
 

 
Lincoln, showing the strains of his Presidency.  According to Frank Goodyear, the National Portrait Gallery's photo curator, "This is the last formal portrait of Abraham Lincoln before his assassination. I really like it because Lincoln has a hint of a smile. The inauguration is a couple of weeks away; he can understand that the war is coming to an end; and here he permits, for one of the first times during his presidency, a hint of better days tomorrow."  The photographer was Alexander Gardner.

The first two attributes of government which Lincoln mentioned were quite understandable: “of the people” described who was being governed, and “by the people” described the democratic process through which the government was elected.  “For the people,” however, introduced a new concept, one that included in the role of government doing things for its citizens.  Up until then, government was expected to do little beyond defending the country and collecting taxes.  Lincoln was a firm believer in the “middle class,” and he felt, probably because of his humble origins, that all Americans should have the opportunity to climb the ladder of success, and that it was included in the role of government to make that ascent easier, removing obstacles in the way particularly when individuals were unable to do so themselves. 

Although Karl Marx published “Das Kapital” after Lincoln’s death, similar economic ideas were floating around during the middle of the Nineteenth Century.  Indeed, Lincoln believed in “capitalism” but gave it a secondary role to “labor.”  In 1861, his first Annual Message to Congress included the following: “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.  Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, producing mutual benefits.”   

Read that quotation to any of those aspiring to the Presidency in 2016 and, except for Bernie Sanders, all of the candidates would declare that you fail to subscribe to traditional American values.  Yes, probably to the values of Ronald Reagan, but not to those of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln advocated “trickle-up” economics where business flourishes only when labor does, the reverse of the G.O.P.’s affection for supply-side “trickle-down” economics where the opposite is true.  Strange kind of Republican, this Lincoln fellow.  And in the 1860's, when the economy of the Southern states was based on slave labor and the perpetuation of a land-owning aristocracy, these words were hostile to them, as they are to most Republicans today.

To help Americans achieve middle-class success, Lincoln was a supporter of a strong central banking system, improvements in roads, canals and railroads, and most of all enabling working class people to have a fair shot at climbing the ladder by not having to compete with that portion of our economy which was based on slavery.  The Civil War was fought, not to end slavery, a factor which initially was barely incidental to it, but to prevent the spread of slavery to the newly opened Western territories.  If this had been allowed to happen, economic opportunity for the “middle class” would have been choked off in those areas, as it was in the South, where no white American could rise to that "middle class" because of the advantage of the "free labor" held by slave owners.   

I’ve just finished reading “A Just and Generous Nation” by Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle, in which a lot of these ideas are expounded in great detail.

   
Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton are described by the authors as carrying on the fight for American opportunity which Lincoln initiated, although each did so in a changing economic environment.  You may not agree with these two scholars, but try to read the book.  

Jack Lippman

                                                

                                      

Football "Hits"

This past weekend the Pittsburgh Steelers knocked the Cincinnati Bengals out of the National Football League playoffs with a last second field goal.  They were only able to do so because a few plays previously, a vicious hit on a Steeler receiver by a Bengal defender was declared to be “pass interference” putting the ball within range of the goalposts.

  It was a rough game

The next day, the Seattle Seahawks similarly put the Minnesota Vikings in the position to win their playoff game with a last second field goal because of a penalty for illegal defensive blocking which drew a fifteen yard penalty.  Fortunately for the Seahawks, the Viking kicker came up with a case of nerves and badly missed the uprights from little more than extra point distance.

 

In watching these games, it is pretty clear that professional football is being played, except for passers, receivers and running backs, by a bunch of violent thugs who would be more comfortable on the lawless streets of some of our big cities where violence, and often firearms, are the rule rather than the exception.  This is particularly true at crucial moments in tight or meaningful games. The recent movie, “Concussion,” deals with the long term brain damage which professional football players experience from dealing with violence on the field.  Sooner or later, professional football as we know it, will fade from the sporting scene here, to be replaced by the kind of football (we call it soccer) played in every other country in the world.  I suspect this will happen over the next fifty years.  And college football will soon follow.

JL

                                            


                                      

Go West, Young Man, Go West 

(This short story, written by me in 2011, represents the kind of problem Abraham Lincoln worked to solve as President.  The cheap labor costs enabled by slavery in 1860 are analagous to the cheap labor costs enabled by lower standards of living in Asia.  A future American President will have to come up with ways for folks like Greg Witkowski to find opportunity for growth and success in this country.  Congress can help too.) 

It was exactly 5:45 PM when the factory whistle sounded for the last time.  TV crews and reporters were gathered at the gate of Westlake Manufacturing’s last remaining plant in the United States.  A TV reporter, microphone in hand, ran up to Greg as he came through the open gate.

“Sir,” he called out.  “Can I speak to you for a moment”?

“Sure,’ the not particularly happy looking middle-aged man replied.

Holding the mike between them him as the cameraman focused in on the scene, the reporter continued.  “This is Lou Brandson, CNN, and I am talking to one of the last employees leaving the Westlake Manufacturing Plant here in suburban Pittsburgh, the plant you’ve been hearing about so much in the news lately.  Sir, what is your name and how long have you been with Westlake”?

“Greg Witkowski, and I have worked here for twenty years, last five as a senior line inspector.”

“Well, how does it feel, Greg, to be walking out of your plant’s gates for the last time?  You know, this is a memorable date.”

Greg’s face looked drawn, but not unhappy.

“Yeah, they told us about it at a meeting last week.  We all knew it was coming, what with our plant being the last manufacturing plant left in the United States.  Places have been closing all over the country for years, we know, but we kind of figured this place would somehow manage to hang on.  I guess it’s a sad day.”

“Why,” the reported continued, “did you feel your plant would survive the changes in our economy which, effective this moment, have moved 100% of America’s manufacturing jobs overseas”?

Greg replied, “Well, we made a pretty complicated electronic gizmo here and we never figured they’d ever find the skills overseas to equal what we do here, but I guess they did.”

“Thank you, Greg Witkowski, an ex-employee of the last remaining manufacturing plant in the United States, which officially closed its doors today. And now back to Soledad O’Brien in New York.”

Once off the air, the reporter turned to Greg.  “What are you going to do now, Mr. Witkowski?  Did they give you a decent severance package?  Are they retraining you in a non-manufacturing job?”

“Oh, sure.  I get four months pay because of how long I worked here, but the benefits I get to keep ain’t much.  They talked some about training us for computer jobs in marketing, but they shipped those jobs to India last year and that fell through.  I looked around outside around here too, but I didn’t want to sell cemetery plots or work in a fast food place.  I could have got a lot of jobs like that.  But don’t worry about me. I saw it coming and made plans.”

The reporter, sensing a story, inquired, “What then, are you going to do now, Mr. Witkowski”?

Greg smiled at the reporter and reached into his jacket pocket.  He pulled out a manila envelope and opened it.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.  “I’ve been following up all the want ads and the trade magazines and I got a promise of a new job, doing more or less what I’ve been doing these past five years.  Remember that old saying, ‘Go West, Young Man, Go West’?  Well, I ain’t such a young man anymore, but I still can go west, very far west in fact.”

With that, the Westlake ex-employee pulled from the manila envelope the four airline tickets which would take him and his family to their new home in northwest Hunan province where the Chinese Ministry of Electronic Manufacturing Operations had promised him a job as line inspector in their new plant which was scheduled to open next month.

“There’s your story, Mr. Reporter.  Hello, China, Good-by, USA.”

JL 

                                       

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