ND Matters: ND Legislature waging class warfare
If little else, the North Dakota legislature is giving us a classic example of class warfare. Of course, those benefiting from the conflict are quick to deny its existence because it reveals their greed and selfishness.
Intelligent observers untouched by the issue have confirmed that there is a long standing conflict between the wealthy ruling class and the poor.
Ruling Class in Control
The ruling class is that class which controls the state and owns the means of production, including the land, natural resources (oil),workshops, factories, giant retail business and financial institutions.
On the other hand, the actual producers of wealth are those in the lower classes who have nothing but their ability to work and are therefore practically owned as slaves.
According to Rosseau, the thoughts of the upper class are “you have need of me because I am rich and you are poor. Therefore, I will permit you to have the honor of serving me.”
Madison Worries
About Classes
In Federalist No. 10, James Madison affirmed the existence of a class conflict: “...the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property, Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.”
In the contemporary world, billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffet told the New York Times tongue-in-cheek that “there’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” He often complained that his secretary was paying more taxes than he was.
No poor people in legislature
Because there are no poor people in the legislature, it enacts laws that are suited to the middle and upper classes. Even though some of these laws would be turned over if the public was given a chance to vote on them, the legislature is determined not to hear the voice of the lower class.
Every session, the legislature has sought to shut the people out by curtailing the initiative and referendum. With no effective opposition party, the legislature will get away with it and the state will move another step toward authoritarian government.
Evidence of Class Warfare
So let’s look at the evidence.
One of the big issues in the legislature has been two kinds of tax cuts – income tax and property tax. Both are structured to give the biggest windfalls to the wealthy. The upper class legislators were more excited about the tax cuts than about the needs of thousands of low income people who are working two jobs to make it through the month. This is class warfare.
Nothing was said about giving every failing student tutoring to make them more productive in later life. We are deserting them.
In Moral Man and Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr said that “it has always been the habit of privileged groups to deny the oppressed classes every opportunity for the cultivation of innate capacities and then accusing them of lacking what they have been denied.” This is class warfare.
All Economics
On the whole, the legislature has been focused on economic programs that eventually benefit the wealthy. There has been practically no discussion of the human needs in the state. That is class warfare.
Free lunches in the schools for all children was dropped at one point because it would cost $10 million. This when the Legacy Fund is brimming with over $9 billion and the cash carryover to the next biennium is another $2.5 billion. This is class warfare.
As I have noted in the past, this money belongs to every person in North Dakota and not the privileged few. So where are the benefits for the struggling lower class? Why aren’t the kids of today as entitled as kids 20 years from now? This is class warfare.
No one will answer these questions because legislators are not held accountable in their home districts.