The political label “economic royalist” has lived on in current memory via recordings and reading of the speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt from the 1930’s. FDR, drawing on a populist tradition within the Democratic Party, used the label to portray the financial interests and Republicans who opposed the New Deal agenda during the 1930’s as essentially traitors to the intent of the US Constitution and the American dream. In his speech to the 1936 Democratic National Convention, FDR drew a contrast between the economic powers that opposed him and ordinary small businessmen:
For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital – all undreamed of by the Fathers – the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things. (complete speech here)
Echoing the language of the American War of Independence 160 years before, Roosevelt implicitly drew an equivalency between New Deal Democrats and American Patriots fighting for independence against the royalist sympathizers, also known as Tories, who sided with the British crown.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936 in front of Madison Square Garden in New York. Unlike any politician since, Roosevelt was able in no uncertain terms to condemn financial and economic malfeasance while holding out a role for legitimate businesses and businesspeople.
At first glance, the use of the concept or label “economic royalist” today would seem to be a throwback to a time when people knew enough about American history to know what a “royalist” was. Alternatively, it might sound like an old political debate overheard, with “economic royalist” the equivalent of “scoundrel,” a generic and perhaps outdated derogatory term. Yet I believe that there is something in the label that goes beyond either nostalgia or finding the most effective way via a put-down to win political sympathy. We have been experiencing over the last 30 years, a return to “economic royalism” which has led to the intensification of the commitments of its adherents rather than weakened it.
In the last few months, having listened to a number of the speeches and interviews from the extreme Right Republicans, such as Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Scott Walker that now dominate the Republican Party, it occurred to me that the policy framework that they propose as well as the economic model behind it, consists of treating the wealthy and corporations as economic royalty, with the privileges of kings and queens. Government should “make way for” the private sector, the “job creators”, and it appears as though these political representatives are happy to function as the courtiers who stand aside for the passage of a class of “higher ups” who will do as they please. On a human level, there is also something sad and obsequious about the overawed treatment of the wealthy that does not, as it turns out, correspond to their real virtues and talents, or for that matter, the real virtues and talents of any human being.
These are not just the personal attitudes of right-wing leaders but are reflected concretely in policy recommendations repeated ad nauseam by the radical Republican Right as well as by many in the supposedly populist Tea Party that attempts to claim the heritage of the American Revolution for itself. The piling on of tax cuts and other blandishments to the economic elite seem to function in current Republican cosmology as tribute to the rightful rulers of American society. The selling off of public infrastructure by state and local governments to wealthy investors at fire-sale prices, with little consideration of the value of public investment in them, is another sign of the creation of a caste of economic royals. The state of Indianahas sold the Indiana Toll Road to a consortium of wealthy investors, under a contract which stipulates that the state is constrained for 75 years into the future in building new highways or high speed rail that compete with the now-private Toll Road. The privileges and power accorded the new caste of the super-rich may be justified in the minds of the Right by their readings of the work of Ayn Rand, which suggest that there exists a small elite of capitalistic individualists, who produce almost everything of value.
Rep Paul Ryan and Speaker of the House John Boehner are two of many Republicans who sprinkle their speeches with references to "job creators" while advocating massive tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts to social welfare programs. These politicians treat the tenets of supply side economics as holy writ despite the mountain of evidence that suggest they don't work to create jobs or grow the economy.
The instruments of regulation and criminal prosecution for fraud and other business wrongdoings of the business elite are then anathema to these worshipful political courtiers who would see in these efforts to contain or punish a contradiction of the kingly or queenly prerogatives of economic elites, who cannot rightfully be overseen by government. The assertion of government’s legitimate authority in the economy contradicts the idealized picture of the business elite with which the Right, and through vigorous propaganda efforts, broader segments of the American political elite and population currently operate. Within the context of a new “economic royalism” the political and economic prescriptions put forward by the Republican Right are made comprehensible as part of this daft philosophical system but yet are in no way justified by reference to the real world and real people.
It would be one thing if the piling on of tax breaks for the wealthy, selling public institutions to private interests, and slashed regulations on business would in fact help the economy grow and generate good jobs but this has not been the case. Numerous analyses of the economic data of the last 30 years have pointed to slowing economic growth and widening economic inequality with a particularly obvious negative trend in the last 10 years. The legacy of the Bush tax cuts provides as clear a test as any of the employment and growth effects of cutting taxes on the wealthy. The “Bush Boom” of 2001-2007 provided in comparison to other economic expansions much lower employment and GDP growth. Apparently this program of treating powerful business leaders and wealthy donors like kings and queens is not working.
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