freedom&governments

8/3/2019 Freedom&Governments

1/6

Jesse Simpson

August 2nd, 2011

IB Language ArtsSummer Assignment

Freedom & Governments

Throughout history, humanity has been repressed by many various groups,

ideologies, and situations. These can range from fundamental hinderances, such as the

inevitable and inescapable aging and mortality that accompanies life, to the far more

avoidable ones organized by other humans. Repressive organizations can include

anything from an authoritarian or invading government to a powerful organized

religion to a corporation motivated purely by profit; it is the duty a government to lay

out and protect the rights of the people. To be a guardian of rights, this government

must be responsive and beholden to the people, lest it become yet another repressive

force.

The United States was founded on an ideal of a democratic government being a

positive force in the lives of people, guarding our most fundamental rights. This ideal is

communicated in the Declaration of Independence, a brave advocation for a form of

government designed to first and foremost protect the liberty of the people; repudiating

the tired philosophy which claimed the states purpose is to serve the monarch. This is

the primary motivation of the Declaration of Independence, which states outright,

That to secure these rights [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness],

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the

consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government


2/6

becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to

abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such

principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem

most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. This championing of the ideal

of a government being a positive force in peoples lives contrasts with the admonition of

the government of King George III and his perceived tyranny. The Declaration of

Independence puts forward and denounces twenty six acts of King Georges

government as despotic, abusive and destructive, building a case for why the United

States should be sovereign.

History shows that the source of oppression for a group of people is often not

just foreign or even domestic governments; private corporations, when given the power

to repress rights of their workers, customers or the general public for their own profit,

typically chose to discard any social responsibility people may believe the corporation

has. During the Gilded Age, workers were paid in scrip for the company store, children

were employed for long hours under brutal conditions, attempts to unionize were

frequently met with hostility from companies determined to squeeze as much profit out

of each man as possible. The political process was extremely corrupted, with political

machines using their power in government to give jobs or government contracts to their

loyal supporters. The egregious practices of the robber barons can be compared quite

neatly to those of modern corporationsthe union busting practices of McDonalds are

well outlined in Behind the Counter, from Fast Food Nation, which details the


3/6

attempts of workers in San Francisco, Montreal and Lansing to unionize and the drastic

measures taken by McDonalds. The section details how, A flying squad of

experienced managers and corporate executives was sent to a restaurant the moment

union activity was suspected. Seemingly informal rap sessions were held with

disgruntled employees. The workers were... flattered and stroked... [T]hey were

encouraged to share information about the unions plans and the name of union

sympathizers. If the stroking wasnt successful in obtaining information on the

unionizers, McDonalds would force workers to take a lie detector test and interrogate

them about union activities. In Montreal and Lansing, McDonalds even closed down

the restaurants where there were burgeoning unionization movements. This successful

thwarting of unionization attempts, combined with the massive mechanization and

deskilling of fast food work which allows franchises to hire new workers who need little

training, have resulted in there being not one unionized McDonalds in North America.

By oppressing the basic right of its workers to organize and collectively argue for fair

pay, benefits and hours, McDonalds joins many modern and historical companies (the

East Indian Trading Company) in limiting the freedom of the often vulnerable

population that works there.

While fast food corporations deliberately work to keep the salary and benefits

provided to its workers at a bare minimum, the U.S. government implicitly supports the

fast food industries with its massive subsidization of beef and the corn which feeds the

cows. As Corns Conquest, fromThe Omnivores Dilemma states, When I started


4/6

trying to follow the industrial food chainthe one that now feeds most of us most of

the time and typically culminates either in a supermarket or fast food mealI expected

that my investigations would lead me to a wide variety of places. And though my

journeys did take me to a great many states, and covered a great many miles, at the very

end of these food chains (which is to say, at the very beginning), I invariably found

myself in almost exactly the same place: a farm field in the American Corn Belt. This is

one of the main reasonsalong with keeping labor costs at a minimum through

mechanization and anti unionization and the cost benefits of mass productionwhy

McDonalds is able to offer $1 bacon hamburgers. Every federal taxpayer financially

supports the fast food industry, whether they know it or not. Of course, federal

subsidies of corporations in America are not limited to fast food companies; banks

received hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts during the last recession and sprawl

developers have their greenfield housing developments subsidized by governments

which pay for the highways that their developments require, to name just two examples.

These subsidies, obtained with the help of high priced lobbyists and the coercive effects

of money, show how the balance of power in America is corrupted and how

government can, with taxpayer money, support corporations ahead of all else.

Though often a guardian of the corporate class, the U.S. government has not

always been the protector of the liberty of even its own people, let alone others; women,

African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Hispanic

Americans, immigrants of all ethnicities, gays, and the poor were and are repressed or


5/6

discriminated against, and historically, their freedoms have been infringed on by the

government. Though most of these injustices are not actively being perpetrated by the

U.S. government today, their history provides a clear example of a government that can

hinder independence. Even the Declaration of Independence, the idealistic advocation

for self determination that galvanized the American Revolution set the stage for the

unprecedented genocide of Native Americans at the hand of the American government

with its line, He [King George III] has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and

has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian

Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages,

sexes and conditions. This is not to say that the United States has a purely negative

history with regard to protecting the freedoms of its people. Though it took a century of

partisan argument and four years of a Civil War, the U.S. did eventually eradicate

slavery, and with it, made sure Abraham Lincolns promise that, government of the

peopleby peoplefor the peopleshall not perish from the earth, was

fulfilled. The U.S. government did eventually break up the monopolies of the Gilded

Era (though the repealing of the Glass Steagall act and other loosening of anti

monopoly regulations have brought about new banking, cell phone and manufacturing

monopolies) and passed regulations to end child labor in factories, promoting the

welfare of the masses. It ensured the civil rights of minorities, provided a decent

retirement to every American, and cleaned up the environment through the Clean Air

and Water Acts. However, each of these was only achieved because of powerful pressure


6/6

on the government from vocal citizens. This illustrates the key difference between

government and other powerful organizations: we can chose who we elect, and we can

throw the bastards out of power if we want. Though selfish interest, lying, restrictions

on voting and misinformation may warp our form of democracy, elected officials are

always ultimately at the service of the electorate.

Nearly all powerful organizations will hinder the independence of one group or

another. Governments and corporations deny citizens or workers full freedom, and

living within a society or working for a corporation involves constant assessment about

which rights are worth fighting for. The equilibrium maintained between the

government and the citizen or between the company and the worker, is destroyed once

the citizen loses the ability to speak up and once the worker becomes thought of as

merely a necessary financial burden of the corporation. A good government can

actively support freedom by making sure the power in a society is not decided only by

the wealth one possesses and by defending human rights at all costs.

freedom&governments

Documents