COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORNER - We All Do Better When we All Do Better
Written by Gregory Squires
The Shift from Market Participants to Citizens
I would like to pledge to you my faith and cooperation to make this a better country…for all of us to live in and to make you pledge in return, that as we move forward, we may feel that our country is safer because it is a better country to live in for everyone. - Eleanor Roosevelt speech to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters’ convention, 1940
Everyone does better when everyone does better - Jim Hightower, The Austin Chronicle 2015
…everyone does better when all of us do better - Reverend William J. Barber II White Poverty 2024
When everyone gets a fair shot, we’re all better off - Barack Obama Democratic National Convention August 20, 2024
The Institute for Policy Studies recently reported that the richest 5 percent of US residents own two-thirds of the nation’s wealth. Three men – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett - held more combined wealth than the total wealth of the poorest half of the nation. Median black family wealth ($3,500) was two percent of the median white family wealth ($147,000). The median Latino wealth ($6,500) was just 4 percent of the white median. About the only striking thing about these numbers is that these patterns are no longer at all striking to anyone who has been paying attention.
This cavalier attitude can be explained, at least in part, by the many who do not see this as an issue. The Wall Street Journal routinely runs stories about how the “radical left” (and to them this includes just about the entire Democratic Party) wants to confiscate money from the entrepreneurs who create the nation’s wealth and produce the nation’s jobs, undercutting the economic growth that will “lift all ships.” Punishing the “makers” and subsidizing the lifestyle of the “takers” makes no sense from this perspective. This neo-liberal view voices praise for the supremacy of private market forces though, as the recent financial crisis demonstrates once again, such voices often turn to the federal government to bail out these champions of free enterprise. Leading conservative economists from Nobel laureates Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman to today’s many supply- side acolytes also point to what they see as the essential connection between free markets and democratic political freedoms. But as another Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz, notes in his 2024 book The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society, quoting the Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin, “Freedom for the wolves has often meant death for the sheep.”
At the same time there are many calls to actually do something to reduce these wealth disparities and the associated costs. Housing subsidies, food assistance, reduced rate student loans and loan forgiveness, higher minimum wage laws, expanded earned income tax credits, trust funds for all newborns, are just some of the proposals offered by more progressive voices. All are well intentioned and most have a positive impact, but a limited one.
The key to realizing a substantially different future is to replace the current dominant narrative celebrating the role of innovative individuals competing for privileges for those who succeed in what are presumed to be free markets with a narrative of universal rights to be provided by way of collective action. Decommodification is a word that is starting to enter the community development lexicon. A first step, as Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian noted in their 2023 book The Privatization of Everything, is to recognize the difference between market participants, who focus on the pursuit of maximum individual material gain, and citizens, who understand that rights and responsibilities come with the benefits of living in a community.
Market based actions put responsibility on individuals to determine the wealth or poverty they experience. A rights approach places responsibility on government and other institutions to provide the basic goals of the American dream including a “living wage” along with a “suitable home and decent living environment.” And these rights are unconditional. They do not depend on a person’s race, immigration status, gender, income and related markers that currently shape access to the amenities most middle-class families take for granted. For example, nobody has to earn their way into a public library.
The “Right to the City Alliance” points the way. Its Mission Statement reads:
Right To The City Alliance (RTTC) emerged in 2007 with a strong and powerful vision to 1) halt the displacement of low-income people, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, LGBTQ communities, and youth of color, and 2) protect and expand affordable housing in tandem with a broader movement to build democratic, just, and sustainable communities.
And its platform calls for the following
Land for People vs. Land for Speculation
The right to land and housing that is free from market speculation and that serves the interests of community building, sustainable economies, and cultural and political space.
Land Ownership
The right to permanent ownership of urban territories for public use.
Economic Justice
The right of working-class Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, queer and trans people to an economy that serves their interests
Indigenous Justice
The right of First Nation Indigenous people to their ancestral lands that have historical or spiritual significance, regardless of state borders and urban or rural settings.
Environmental Justice
The right to sustainable and healthy neighborhoods & workplaces, healing, quality health care, and reparations for the legacy of toxic abuses such as brown fields, cancer clusters, and superfund sites.
Freedom from Police & State Harassment
The right to safe neighborhoods and protection from police, INS/ICE, and vigilante repression, which has historically targeted communities of color, women, queer and transgender people.
Immigrant Justice
The right of equal access to housing, employment, and public services regardless of race, ethnicity, and immigration status and without the threat of deportation by landlords, ICE, or employers.
Services and Community Institutions
The right of working-class Black, Indigenous, and people of color to transportation, infrastructure and services that reflect and support our cultural and social integrity.
Democracy and Participation
The right of community control and decision making over the planning and governance of the cities where we live and work, with full transparency and accountability, including the right to public information without interrogation.
Reparations
The right of working-class communities of color to economic reciprocity and restoration from all local, nation and transnational institutions that have exploited and/or displaced the local economy.
Internationalism
The right to support and build solidarity between cities across national boundaries, without state intervention.
Rural Justice
The right of rural people to economically healthy and stable communities that are protected from environmental degradation and economic pressures that force migration to urban areas.
These are broad goals that traditional political action is not likely to realize. Progress toward achieving these objectives calls for collective actions that are grounded in and lead to more democratic and equitable ownership and control of the nation’s economic resources rather than more traditional market-based approaches. But the seeds of such a vision have already been planted. Cooperatives, worker-owned firms, public ownership, land trusts, community development corporations, are just some of the forms that can lead to a right to the city.
As Gar Alperovitz (co-founder and co-director of the Democracy Collaborative) has reported, cooperatives currently exist in a wide range of industries including agriculture, food, insurance, energy, retail establishments, high tech manufacturing and more. For example, over 130 million Americans belong to a cooperative in which ownership is shared among the members, the most common being cooperative credit unions with 95 million members. More than 11,000 worker-owned businesses employ 13.5 million people. At least 255 community land trusts operate in 45 states and the District of Columbia. A universal basic income guarantee to bring family income up to at least the poverty level, an idea supported by people from various perspectives including Milton Friedman and Andrew Yang, is being experimented with in 32 US cities. Several cities are exploring the creation of publicly-owned banks following the lead of the state-owned Bank of North Dakota that has profitably served that state consistently since 1919. There are more than 1,950 publicly owned utilities with an average of more than 12,000 electricity customers each. In the Urban Institute’s May 2024 report on decommodification of housing (by which it means “decoupling access to housing from ability to pay”) dozens of state and local initiatives are described that include publicly-owned housing, efforts to limit speculation in the housing market, and programs to encourage community and collective ownership.
Tom Johnson, Mayor of Cleveland from 1901-1909 stated:
I believe in municipal ownership of public service monopolies because if you do not own them they will in time own you. They will rule your politics, corrupt your institutions, and finally destroy your liberties”
Market participants often do rule our politics, corrupt institutions and destroy liberties. Citizens have a different world view. They believe that it’s better for everyone when everyone does better.
Gregory D. Squires is a Research Professor and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at George Washington University.