The Good Old Days

Terry Paulson's latest article is about how bad things are these days what with our dependence on the government and punishment of rich people and all.

For years, American rights have been turned on their heads. It hasn’t been sudden, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal, Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom, and FDR’s New Deal—all chiseled away at America’s founding principles. All promised a seductive social contract based on “economic rights”—the right to a job, a decent home, medical care, decent wages and benefits.

Yep - if we could only go back to the idyllic time of the 1890s. Back when American workers had no protections and few rights (except for the right to quit and go to another low paying job).

Of course in the 1890s relatively few Americans were employed by the big industrial companies. The service sector existed primarily as a collection of locally owned restaurants and shops. The percentage of Americans working for big corporations is considerablly higher than it was in the 1890s. And big corporations have historically been the ones who have treated their workers the worst. It's one thing to screw over your busboy who you employ and see regularly. It's another to screw over thousands of busboys who you don't know, you assume are either part time highschool pukes or lazy shiftless jerks, and you'll never have to see anyway.

But then again, Paulson presumably doesn't care much about the American working class anwyay; if they wanted to do they would be upper management anyway.