The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution--And Why We Need It More Than Ever [Paperback]

Cass Sunstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2006

In 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a State of the Union Address that was arguably the greatest political speech of the twentieth century. In it, Roosevelt grappled with the definition of security in a democracy, concluding that "unless there is security here at home, there cannot be lasting peace in the world." To help ensure that security, he proposed a "Second Bill of Rights" -- economic rights that he saw as necessary to political freedom. Many of the great legislative achievements of the past sixty years stem from Roosevelt's vision. Using this speech as a launching point, Cass R. Sunstein shows how these rights are vital to the continuing security of our nation. This is an ambitious, sweeping book that argues for a new vision of FDR, of constitutional history, and our current political scene.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While it doesn't succeed in making Franklin Roosevelt into a constitutional innovator, this disheveled book does bring into focus FDR's forgotten effort to address domestic "security," as WWII neared its climax. Roosevelt's inaugural address of January 11, 1944, asked Congress to adopt a "second Bill of Rights": guarantees of work, adequate housing and income, medical care and education, among others—promises designed to extend the New Deal (and thwart the appeal of communism). The indefatigable Sunstein (Why Societies Need Dissent, etc.) sketches Roosevelt's domestic policies and the logistics of the inaugural address (included in full in an appendix), then debates the never-adopted bill's merits, historically as its ideas kicked around in the post WWII-era, and as it might be taken up today. He tends to be scanty on the bill's potential budgetary toll and on the responsibility for one's own welfare that FDR thought the bill's beneficiaries ought to bear. Sunstein roams widely over legal history and precedent, but is focused and clear in showing how FDR sowed the seeds of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in whose 1948 drafting Eleanor Roosevelt played a crucial role) and energetic in discussing this proposal's further possible legacy.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"[Designing Democracy is] a nuanced but spirited journal across a broad terrain of constitutional issues.... This approach brings a fresh perspective to many of the well-worn but still vital issues of American constitutional debate."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (July 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465083331
• ISBN-13: 978-0465083336
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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65 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sunstein advocates an expanded Welfare State?, February 14, 2008

By 

Stephen J. Jaros (Baton Rouge, LA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution--And Why We Need It More Than Ever (Paperback)

I won't bore you with all the things that are good about this book (as usual, Sunstein's scholarship is first-rate, his prose is easy on the eyes even as the ideas are challenging to the mind). I'll get straight to my two problems with the substance of his advocacy of Roosevelt's "Second Bill of Rights", which encompass social-welfare rights not included in our actual Bill:

1) While Sunstein is careful to thoroughly review just about all possible objections - political, economic, legal, and moral - that one could throw at the idea of an expanded array of social-economic rights, the one he spends most of his time on is an attack on the "laissez-faire" idea that classic first-bill rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, property rights, and freedom of contract, are cost-free and don't require an active "government".

Sunstein shows that they do. But, the problem here is that he is demolishing a straw-man. I don't know of *any* modern "conservative" thinker who would disagree with the idea that a free market requires a significant amount of government - an elaborate legal system to enforce contracts, remedy fraud, document transactions; police and military forces to protect property, etc. Sunstein even quotes key free-market philosophers, such as Friedrich Hayek, to that effect. The only ones who truly believe in a literal absence of government are anarchists, and most conservative thinkers despise anarchists as much as they do leftists. No, the issue isn't whether we should have government or not have it, the issue is how *much* government we should have. By attacking an opponent who does not (or at least no longer) exists, Sunstein dodges that issue.

2) After addressing several objections to a Second Bill, Sunstein addresses the one of most concern to me: That Roosevelt's plan to "take from those who have large amounts of resources to ensure decent amounts for those who would otherwise be in desperate need" amounts to an immoral theft of property. In my view, the only people that i or any other citizen should be required, at point of bayonet, to support are members of my immediate family. If i am starving and my neighbor has plenty, it may be the right thing for him to give me food, and he may be worthy of condemnation by the community if he refuses to help me, but in my opinion he should not be required, by governmental force, to do so. To make my neighbor responsible for my well being would be morally wrong, a brutal violation of their right to dispose of what they earned as they see fit, with the caveat that they should be taxed to pay for essential government services that benefit everyone, such as police, fire, military, legal- the apparatus needed to protect "first bill" rights.

This is the real rub, because as Sunstein notes, many provisions in the "Second Bill", such as Social Security and a right to public education, have pretty much become law anyway. What hasn't become law, and what Sunstein really wants, is a welfare state that provides expanded housing, food, shelter and medical care for the poor, and not just at a bare minimum, but including enough spending money so that they can participate in the broader culture via purchase of consumer goods, too. Sunstein rejects the notion that people require only the "bare minimum for survival", saying that poverty is "relative", and in our affluent society people will not feel like "whole citizens" unless they have a lot of what they see others enjoying on television.

On pages 205-206, Sunstein addresses "my" point about the morality of "taking from the rich to give to the poor" by arguing that if one is to say that taking from the 'haves' to give to the 'have-nots' violates the rights of the 'haves', one would have to agree that "people have a right to their current holdings, and any dimunition amounts to a rights violation". Sunstein says that this position is implausible, because it is only the existence of laws and public institutions that make those holdings possible. He says "without public support, wealthy people could not possibly have what they own.... those who denounce government largesse as a violation of rights disregard the extent to which their own rights are a product of government".

That's it! That's his reply. In my opinion, it is totally inadequate, because if we take Sunstein's argument seriously, government can diminish any of our rights at any time for any reason, simply because it is government that protects them. If GW Bush wants to enact a law that allows the FBI to wire-tap anyone without a warrant at any time they please, or shut down newspapers that criticize the war in Iraq, one couldn't cry foul about one's rights being violated by an intrusive government, because by gosh it's only by the grace of government that we have any rights at all!

Since to me this was the key issue that Sunstein had to address and in my opinion he failed to do so, i was unconvinced by the thesis of the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars vaccine against violent revolution, July 25, 2011

By 

history man - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever (Hardcover)

book does a good job of analyzing many arguments for and against FDR's proposal. Only thing I thought it lacked was a thorough analyses of the consequence of not accepting FDR's bill as law. FDR's bill of rights needs to be realized in order for all Americans to exercise our existing bill of rights. Especially that of the right of pursuit of happiness. Because, in the current system that nurtures individual greed, majority of the people are just too busy pursuing to secure shelter, health care, decent education, job etc and has no time to pursue happiness. these things should be a basic right of all so that people can truly pursue happiness instead of wasting a life time on securing the basics. If FDR's bill of right does not become a reality, sooner or later people will realize that they are in a hopeless situation created by the super rich and start a revolution.....If the super rich are smart, they should work hard to make FDR's bill into law, because this will make it possible for them to enjoy their riches for a long time without the threat of revolution where their amassed riches will be taken away by force as well as make them more rich because it will create more consumers to consume products and services produced by their industries.

33 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FDR's vision, February 18, 2005

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever (Hardcover)

The idea of the Second Bill of Rights appeared in the classic State of the Union address by Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, and is an underground current of American culture. It was also in part the inspiration for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That this speech, and the real FDR, is so little known tells us something of the times, but the birth of an idea foretells perhaps its future return. The powers that be don't wish that we realize the incomplete nature of our democracy, and the history of this speech mostly explains the apoplexy of the resurgent right wing. This book explores the history and legal background, and the way this second bill almost became a part of the American system in the 1960's. Everything was in place, and then the election of Nixon stopped the momentum as four new conservative judges were placed on the Supreme Court. The conservative tide after that is the story of our generation and the incoherence, reactionary destruction, and inequality it has spawned. An idea whose time has long since come, and whose second coming we can certainly hope and work for.