President Barack Obama quoted Teddy Roosevelt this week. Roosevelt was a Republican president, and some interpret President Obama’s speech as an attempt to grab the populist portion of the Republican party. But in many ways (save perhaps foreign policy), Roosevelt was a far more liberal leader than many modern presidents.
Not everything Roosevelt said and did is worth emulating. One would hope, for instance, that President Obama would refrain from invading Cuba or the Philippines. But if there is one message of Roosevelt’s that applies to the modern era, it is this: The job of government is to protect the people from big business.
Roosevelt came from an era of unregulated big business, of monopolies on essential goods and services like steel and railroads, of child labor, poor wages and few worker protections. Working class Americans worked long hours for little pay in dangerous conditions. Roosevelt didn’t go picketing with the unions, but he did set out to bust the trusts, end unregulated monopolies on American businesses and fight against the special interests that dominated American politics.
We’ve seen the effects of deregulation and special interests in modern society: The 2007 economic recession was a direct result of an unregulated mortgage market.
Why wasn’t it regulated? Because the representatives who should have ensured oversight received campaign contributions from lobbyists, within a system that retired members of Congress leave to become lobbyists themselves.
Roosevelt said “The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.”
That was more than one hundred years ago. Since then we have seen great strides in workers’ rights and working conditions. In the past couple decades, though, we have also seen greater deregulation and less oversight of big business.
Republicans and Democrats have both tried to claim Roosevelt as their own. He was a Republican, but later ran as a Progressive. He had many progressive populist stances that both sides would like to say they emulate. But has either party really been the party of Roosevelt?
Roosevelt remains one of America’s most beloved presidents. Have we forgotten the lessons of his presidency? Regulation has become a dirty word in modern politics. But it may be the one thing that can save our political and economic system.
Will we wait to regulate the markets until we see another economic crash? Will we wait to regulate industry until we have another mining disaster, another food contamination scare, another oil spill? Deregulation is not only the purview of Republicans.
Both parties, influenced by lobbyist cash and special interests, have allowed businesses to go unregulated, take advantage of employees and consumers and pay CEOs enormous salaries from money made through sub-prime mortgages and commodities futures. The parties allow multinational corporations to ruin our air and our rivers, our coasts and our forests, without paying a dime in taxes, in the name of economic prosperity.
Who can claim to be the party of Roosevelt without furthering the cause of business regulation in the interests of America and its people?