Welcome to Working the Commons
October 29th, a Tuesday 92 years ago, saw the colossal failure of laissez faire capitalism. Entrusting the future of the world’s most promising democracy to a tiny elite of trust fund babies, oil tycoons and financial buccaneers was a spectacular failure.
It cost millions of immigrants and first-generation Americans their shot at the American Dream, which was not to become a member of that brassy upper crust that filled the opera houses and art galleries of New York; but to provide a safe home in a safe community and the economic security their children would need to build a better future.
When the U.S. stock market collapsed, it took the Gilded Age with it. The wiser members of America’s economic aristocracy retreated to their private estates in Long Island and Penobscot and other coastal retreats. It was no longer safe to parade their wealth and privilege in front of men who could no longer feed their children.
Concentration of wealth and opportunity in a tiny economic elite of trust fund royalty and financial privateers while ignoring the needs and aspirations of millions of American workers led to its inevitable end point, a complete collapse of the economy.
After fumbling around with vapid attempts to blame the victims by Herbert Hoover, egged on by those same elites who ruined the economy, the economic elite, the One Percenters of their day gave way to the desperate voices of the people and Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved from the New York governor’s mansion in Albany to the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C.
I mark that moment as the beginning of America’s attempt to restore a British notion that provided the template for the Magna Carta and for our own Constitution – the Commons.[JW1]
I mark that moment as the moment when America committed to being the shining city on a hill, a beacon to the world, symbolized so well in the torch held high by Lady Liberty in New York Harbor.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood something Republicans to this day do not grasp.
We Americans expect our government to protect all of us regardless of our economic status, to serve our interests as we articulate them through elections, and to solve the really big problems that stand between us and a secure and better future for us and our children regardless of the price tag. We Americans don’t want smaller government. We want better government. That means a government big enough to defeat our biggest problems, competent enough to govern wisely and efficiently, and responsive enough that we always know ultimately we are in charge through the regular exercise of our right to vote.
This is what The Commons is all about and why so many political battles are waged there every day, trying to control or free up access to it, protect it or attack it. The shared vision of what we as American citizens want to accomplish for ourselves and our progeny is all played out on the Commons. Whether or not the great American experiment in democratic governance in the form of a republic depends on what happens in The Commons.
The current President spoke to our shared interest in success frequently during the 2020 presidential campaign. He remains a firm believer that the access of every American to The Commons and every American voter’s ability to shape The Commons, despite the relentless attacks on voting rights and on the facts since the defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Let’s hope he’s right.
In the meantime, it’s my intent to use this space in the cyber version of our Commons to explore the issues facing our shared civic space and profiling the people who work the Commons every day and those who seek to control or expand its boundaries.
Our first closer look will be to examine the role of the local sheriff in defending and protecting the Common. This closer look will occur in the December edition of Working the Commons.
If you are a local sheriff or you work for one, or if you are looking to unseat one. I’m looking to do as many interviews with those who hold direct experience as I possibly can. Meanwhile, I’ll be working on the history and larger political context of the sheriff’s work in the Commons. Reach out to me. Share your stories, your contact information and referrals to people you think I should talk to by emailing editor@workingthecommons.com.
See you soon on The Commons, our shared space for forming a better union per our founding father’s aspirations in the Declaration of Independence.
Best wishes,
Jim Wavada
[JW1]Check to verify that the idea of the Commons really surface in England in this timeframe. Correct the reference if necessary by referencing th correct time frame.
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