Who Has a Locke on Natural Rights?

It is clear now. He who has the most property wins. Life IS a Monopoly Game in America and perhaps throughout the globe. The object is to amass the best pieces of property, develop their potential worth, and rent them out at good rates of return. If you don’t have property, you lose. When Jefferson threw in the Pursuit of Happiness and took out Possessions from the Declaration of Independence, he assumed mention of possessions was unnecessary. After all, the founding fathers were all propertied gentry, and they were the only folks that counted, then and even now, as it turns out. It seems English philosopher John Locke’s (1632-1704) list of natural rights was right on: Life, Health, Liberty, and Possessions (Property).
We keep hearing about the widening gulf between rich and poor or between whites and people of color, and clearly the Republican strategy to reward propertied people with even more property is winning over any other strategy out there. For instance, while the banks got bailed out for their unfortunate investments in mortgage-backed securities, which were none other than risky loans to people who could ill-afford the houses they were enticed to buy with sub-prime mortgages, the poor suckers who took out the loans suffered while the bankers made out like bandits. “Too Big to Fail” was the mantra rationalization for the big bailouts while “Too Small to Win” was the fate for the soon property-less masses who suffered foreclosure.
The Republicans are making sure right now that the upper 2% of income earners in America are protected from any compromise of their disproportionate earnings by more graduated taxation while the poor folks try to survive on the cheapest food available: fat and fast. (There goes Locke’s inclusion of health as a natural right.) The Republican argument is that increased taxes would shrink jobs, but the fact is that throughout the past three years job growth has stagnated under lower taxation because most companies have outsourced jobs overseas. The holdings of cash that the typical multinational corporation once residing in the United States keeps abroad for fear of having to pay American taxes is a testament to the shift of production away from America and to foreign sites. Moreover, the stockholders are first in line to receive the rewards of profit-making while workers are at best secondary.
Republicans are interested only in preserving the property of the rich, which they assume is rightfully earned. In fact, those so-called earnings are because of the systematic, deliberate laws hammered out over the course of history that preserve the holdings of the rich whether they are tax laws, property laws, or stockholder rights. For example, mineral rights law (split estate) which gives mineral rights owners the advantage of being able to drill for natural gas within 350 feet of your house beneath your surface property is typical of the advantage the corporate rich have over regular folks. You have no say in whether or not they can drill there. They simply can by law.
Now the Democrats are shifting further and further toward the right in order to show some attempt to reduce the truly alarming national debt as well as the equally alarming rate of debt increase plaguing our national economy. But to put the burden of correction on the poor and middle class while the rich continue to distance themselves from the masses economically is the most egregious injustice imaginable. There is no trickle down thanks to corporate labor outsource policy, so taxation became the only way left to create jobs in America and that hasn’t worked either. The private sector simply won’t do it. And there is no incentive to do it.
What we have today is the corporate equivalent of the rich individuals who once upon a time squirreled their fortunes away in Swiss bank accounts. The wealth of America is off-shore, and many corporations are unwilling to bring their money back to the States.
If we lowered corporate taxes (we have one of the highest rates in the developed world at 35%) to something more competitive, would that solve the problem? Perhaps it would. Perhaps more money would flow into the Treasury coffers because corporations would import their profits more readily. So why is that idea not on the table? Why is it all about cutting spending?
But no matter how low we lower corporate taxes, will corporations not continue to seek out places to do business in the developing world where labor is cheaper and tax rates are still even lower? Of course they will because corporations, almost by definition (there are exceptions) are loyal to stockholders first and countries of origin when it is profitable. There is no loyalty unless a particular owner or CEO decides location of factories does not simply go to the lowest bidder. Her decision may include some sense of loyalty to national pride or her particular community. That used to be the case and still is to a select few corporate leaders such as the CEOs of Lincoln Electric or Smuckers.
The irony is that public ownership often brings a diffusion of responsibility and ethics because the ownership itself is so technically broad that CEOs can hide behind a veil of principles that say maximizing profit is all-important. To try to satisfy particular constituencies with other agendas is simply too difficult. Unless the stockholders themselves voice alternative priorities the CEO may pursue, the default priority is always profit. If we can’t hold our politicians accountable to serve the greater good, how can we possibly hold CEOs accountable when their “natural” priority is sheer profit?
Of course profit enables purchase which results in property: real estate, cars, and other stuff. The stock market has rebounded handsomely since 2008. The job market has stagnated. The purchasing power of the propertied classes has grown; the purchasing power of the working class has shrunk.
The fact is politicians, no matter what party, are propertied people. There is not a truly poor or actual working class person among them. It is in their self-interest, therefore, to preserve the status quo, to preserve the propertied privilege of the few over the many. Locke was more down to earth than Jefferson, more pragmatic it turns out. The Pursuit of Happiness is an ephemeral thing; property, on the other hand, is a real estate. As new politicians they may enter the political arena with the idealism of Jefferson, but sooner or later they will succumb to the reality of property as the driving force overpowering any other nod to virtue or altruism.
Therefore, we will continue to be a country not for the people or by the people; we will continue to be first and foremost a country for the propertied. Locke had a lock on what would become reality in America long before Jefferson sat down to write the Declaration of Independence. History has shown that no matter how man tries to move mankind in the direction of equality, property will always be the great separator of even those who allegedly were created equal.