The Paradigm Hardly Anyone Talks About

You here about all kinds of paradigms. Democrat-Republican, Conservative-Liberal, Libertarian-Statist, Keynesian-Supply Side Economics, there are all kinds of politics out there. Most of them are shifting at this current time; something I am happy to point out, and the first one listed above is getting ripped apart as I type. They’re in for the same thing, but that is best saved for another post.

The paradigm I’m referring to has to deal with power; specifically, where most of the power is held at Washington DC. When this country was created; the duty of creating legislation (especially laws pertaining to monetary policy) was held exclusively in the Legislative branch. It was the Executive branch’s duty to enforce said laws, and the Judicial branch’s job to interpret these laws. It was set up that way intentionally; as a compartmentalized government was what the founders were seeking, they wanted a stark contrast from England’s monarchy style of government, where the ruler wrote, enforced, and interpreted the law. As it looks from the way I described it; the legislative branch has the most power in Washington, but we all know the Legislative and Executive branches were of equal power (the Judicial branch was intentionally crippled to keep from striking down law, but gave themselves that power with Judicial Review in 1803, a smart move if you ask me). I’m talking in the frame of creating legislation.

Like a lot of things shifting, there was a fundamental and key power shift that occurred during the Great Depression. The legislative branch under Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal; a package that attempted to recover the economy through roughly five thousand different means. Several thousand of these means include creating new federal government-sponsored work programs, many of which are still in place today. Here’s a list of a few of the 100s of new programs created by the New Deal. Notice anything familiar? The FDIC, Social Security, etc. we all created under the New Deal, and still go on today. This solidified Roosevelt’s feelings about the youth owing and supporting the elder members of our society. Voluntary support is good, but I’m digressing again…

Anyway, this act laid down a framework. Guess who was given administrative power over these new programs? That’s right, the Executive branch. You see how the frame, well, works? While most of these programs were created for money allocation; some were created to write regulations; most of which pertained to working for the government or on public projects, but also write a mass of regulation pertaining to running a business, with unions in particular. Thankfully, the Supreme Court ruled out most of these acts and agencies a few years later due to an infringement on various aspects of state government and the Commerce Clause (something that’s heavily used today, not rightly in most cases). However, a stunning example of which is the National Recovery Administration. While the things they did were ruled out, they reappeared through the legislative branch later in the Wagner Act. The National Recovery Administration was pretty much renamed to the National Relation Labors Board. They still exist, click their name to go to their website.

As a matter of fact, this comes from their website:

The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency vested with the power to safeguard employees’ rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions.

While most of what they do is pretty good (go to their labor violations page, it’s hard to disagree with them), it’s an example of a government administration intervening with private business, something it has been doing for over almost 80 years. Another example you say? Alright. How about the seizure of private property. Roosevelt had the gall to seize the nation’s gold to help transfer to a “gold backed” paper currency. Of course, we all know where that went. Anyway, how did he do this? Executive order of course! Executive order #6102 to be exact. How about a third example? This next one is on the “kind of counts” list, as Congress did volunteer to give up some legislative power.

The Federal Reserve, created in secrecy in 1913; now handles most of the monetary policy in the US, on top of ALL of the money. The only thing Congress does is appoint seven members to the Board of Governors, which then go on to approve the vice president of the organization and other higher-up employees. In this way, it seems like the Congress has a majority say in what occurs, but actually the Federal Reserve (a private organization) advises the Board of Governors what to do. Then, the government usually does what is advised. So while the government still does make decisions, the money comes exclusively from a private bank. Congress has no direct control of our currency. People are waking up to this and are protesting, just Google “End the Fed” for this increasingly exciting movement.