Why Long Should Be King: or, Discrediting the Opposition
- Long raises the point that both Hoover and FDR clearly stated in their campaigns that they opposed income inequality, and then accuses them of having done nothing about it.
- He says that if either of them had addressed the issue, it would have been a simple and painless process.
- Long's on a roll now, stating that if nothing is done to enforce the ideals of equality laid out by the Bible and the Declaration of Independence, then there's nothing that can be done to save the people or the country from the chaos and turmoil that are sure to follow.
- Long then sermonizes on how the government is like a religion unto itself, and how the people are suffering in order to prop up a government that doesn't even provide enough food to eat, clothes to wear, or houses to shelter.
- Children cry to their parents, and parents cry because they have to put the kids to bed hungry.
- Still, they work hard to support the government; how they manage to do that, Long doesn't know. That's real strength—still having faith is a system that's impoverishing you.
- Which is a lovely image to have in mind when we segue into the "details" of Long's Share Our Wealth Program.
- He opens with his famous line: every man a king. That's what the Share Our Wealth Program is about: "[e]very man a king, so there would be no such thing as a man or woman who did not have the necessities of life, who would not be dependent upon the whims and caprices and ipsi dixit of the financial barons for a living" (75).
- (Ipsi dixit, btw, means something people want you to believe just on their own personal credibility vs. it actually being supported by evidence. It's Latin for "He himself said it.")
- Long then lays out the details of his plan such as they are: to limit the income of wealthy families to a certain extent, and to ensure the income of the bottom-most earners to a certain extent.
- The specifics are hazy, but the picture is clear: an America in which the working poor are given a fairer share of the wealth they help generate for Scrooge McDuck's factories, railroads, oil pipes, and mines.
- The wealth isn't going to be divvied up equally, but it will be shared so that nobody has less than $5000 in wealth, which would be enough to own a home, a car, a radio, and other conveniences. Everyone will be able to afford to educate their kids.
- To do that, Long will have to limit the fortunes of the richest people to $50 million. (That's almost a billion in today's dollars.) It might have to be less to even things out—he'll see.
- Still, that's way more than any one man could ever spend in his lifetime.
- Furthermore, Long proposes an old age pension for needy seniors similar in principle to Social Security. He goes on to propose a reduction in work hours, saying that "all you have got to do […] is just limit the hours of work to such an extent as people will work only so long as it is necessary to produce enough for all of the people to have what they need" (94).
- People can even have a month vacation, maybe two months. And this was 30 years before Disney World.
- People could even take time to go back to school and learn stuff that wasn't discovered when they were in school.
- As far as all that agricultural surplus, it's a simple matter of balancing consumption and production. Just say no to a crop if you already have too much of it.
- May Shmoop suggest radishes and kale as candidates for this part of the plan?
- And here's the bottom line: to finance all of the above, Long will use taxation to bring those billion-dollar fortunes down from the stratosphere.
- He sums up: limit the fortunes, guarantee that no one owns less than one-third of the average wealth, take care of the old people, and reduce work hours. Too many hours of labor just go to producing stuff we already have too much of anyway.
- When every person has enough to eat and wear, then every man is truly a king.