Dreams Of A Moral Economy: Budgets Are Value Statements
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Mayor Brandon Johnson often quotes Matthew 6:21 when discussing city finances. The verse is considered one of the core tenets of Jesus Christ, delivered in one of the greatest speeches in human history, the Sermon on the Mount. It suggests that a person’s, (or for the purposes of this article, a legislative body’s) priorities, values, and affections are directed toward whatever they treasure most.
Politicians say it, but the city council is wrestling with the question of whether or not we truly see budgets as moral documents, and if we do, what does that mean for Chicago during Trump 2.0?
Democracy vs Concentrated Wealth
In the summer of 2000, Ralph Nader accepted the Green Party’s nomination for President, and during his speech, he offered a quote that he attributed to Justice Louis D. Brandeis. “We can have a democratic society, or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.” Thanks to scholar and librarian Peter Scott Campbell, we know that the quote is a paraphrase of what Brandeis, known by many as “the People’s Lawyer,” said in 1905:
“There is felt today very widely the inconsistency in this condition of political democracy and industrial absolutism. The people are beginning to doubt whether, in the long run, democracy and absolutism can coexist in the same community; beginning to doubt whether there is a justification for the great inequalities in the distribution of wealth, for the rapid creation of fortunes, more mysterious than the deeds of Aladdin’s lamp.”
The industrial absolutism at the turn of the 20th century describes the system that enabled the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Rockefellers of the country to maintain absolute control over industry, leading to the creation of monopolies and the beginning of hyperconcentrated wealth in America. This moment evokes the labor movement of the 20th century, with deep roots in Chicago, and we see the working class obtain a measure of respect and justice amid the expansion of wealth across the country.
A Colorado congressman befriended Justice Brandeis and eulogized him with this defining message, which we can accurately attribute to the Nader reference. Congressman Keating said, in the voice of the late Justice Brandeis, referencing a conversation they had, “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
A Moral Economy Test Case?
You can replace the names of industrial titans of the past with the tech titans of today: Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos. What bearing does the wealth of the ultra-rich and large corporations have on Chicago’s budget negotiations? If a budget is a moral document, quite a bit.
A moral economy is an economic system based on shared notions of fairness, reciprocity, and community obligation, in which behavior is guided by ethical and social principles rather than market principles or profit maximization alone. It represents a set of shared expectations about rights, duties, and appropriate behavior in an economic context.
This month, anxiety around a basic need, food, hit an all-time high when the Trump administration threatened to withhold SNAP benefits in an effort to get Democrats to cave on the healthcare demands, to end the longest government shutdown in American history.
It’s essential not to lose sight of what’s happening nationally when thinking about Chicago’s budget. Donald Trump was prepared to weaponize food insecurity for political gain. You had a millennial in New York win the mayoralty, where he has been laser-focused on making the country’s largest city more affordable for working people, and you have a Mayor in Chicago asking the city council to articulate what “progress” means to them in this moment.
Amid the hyperpolarization of our politics and the influence of big corporations, the opposition to this budget is using fear as its weapon of choice to discourage Aldermen from supporting taxing the ruling class.
The recent polling done by Hit Strategies suggests that Chicagoans are clear. They want more corporate accountability, especially if it’s attached to ensure the recent strides in community safety and funding for education. Achieving budgets that actually reflect the values of everyday Chicagoans would represent a massive shift from the status quo toward people-first budgeting. This would be a fiscal approach that centers on the most vulnerable, without indiscriminately harming those who’ve done well.
We all do better when we all do better, right?
Protecting Chicago Budget
In a rally held outside of city hall, Alderman William Hall of the sixth ward opened his remarks with a chant. “Everyone say ‘Save the workers!’ Say, ‘Save the children!’ There are over 127 thousand people in Chicago with $1 million or more in their bank accounts… Chicago is not broke, but Chicago has historically been stingy toward our workers.. The way that we Trump-proof Chicago is to invest in children.”
Hall is a Freshman Alderman and Pastor on the Southside of Chicago and holds the same Black liberation theological frame as Mayor Johnson. He, along with several of his colleagues, has been making the case for Matthew 6:21 during this budget season in support of having the ultra-rich pay their fair share.
The stalemate at City Hall primarily centers on the mayor’s Community Safety surcharge. When the charge was proposed, it would generate $100M in revenue, affect only the top 3% of businesses, and create the Community Safety Fund to protect mental health services, domestic violence/gender-based violence services, community violence intervention programs, and youth employment. Chicago, under the Johnson administration, is leading us through one of the safest years since the 1960s, significantly outpacing the national downward trend in crime. Now the question is: how do we sustain it, and, more accurately, what are we willing to do to build the safest, most affordable big city in America?
Research by the Economist identifies a strong statistical correlation between a city’s safety index and its human development index. Researchers call the relationship a “virtuous circle”: a safe environment attracts economic growth, and the income generated helps fund further safety-increasing investments. In short, community safety is good for business. The Mayor’s budget proposal puts the moral depravity of federal economic policy on trial. When the Trump administration facilitates the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history, it feels less scandalous for America’s third-largest city to ask the wealthiest among them to pass those savings on, to support the programs that will inevitably lead to more business growth and improve their bottom lines.
Public Policy For Whom
Public policy can be defined as an expression of a government’s actions, intentions, and responses to public problems, taking the form of laws and regulations. It reflects a government’s strategy and commitment to addressing societal issues and achieving goals related to public health, safety, welfare, and the economy. That expression is most often felt by the taxpayer in how their tax dollar is allocated. Chicago has historically balanced its budget on the backs of working-class families by raising property taxes, increasing fines and fees, and selling off public assets to plug short-term gaps.
I’ve had the privilege of supporting the last two significant efforts to win progressive revenue in Illinois and Chicago over the last five years. First, on the Fair Tax, and most recently, on Bring Chicago Home. Here’s what I learned from my Grandmother and my friends.
My Grandmother, Diann Davis, almost didn’t participate in this ad in 2020. The Governor I helped elect was moving forward with a key campaign promise to bring Illinois out of the ice ages and have the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. It was Ken Griffin and the real estate lobby that effectively confused seniors like my Grandmother, leading them to believe that the Fair Tax would impact their retirement income and give legislators unchecked authority to increase taxes. Thankfully, Diann’s grandson worked for the Governor and ensured that the misinformation intentionally fed to seniors did not affect her vote or those in her sphere of influence. It wasn’t enough.
We still lost: the Fair Tax ballot initiative didn’t reach the 60% threshold necessary for adoption, despite 71% of Chicagoans supporting it.
This would lead you to think that when Mayor Brandon Johnson and the coalition that elected him put Bring Chicago Home on the ballot, a real-estate transfer tax that would tax on property sales north of $1M to raise $100M dollars annually to combat homelessness, just four years after the Fair Tax defeat, that Chicagoans would easily support it.
You would be wrong. We lost that fight 52-48. 97% of homeowners would not have been affected by the tax, yet roughly 60% voted to reject the measure. The real estate lobby, once more, was effective in using fear to beat an initiative that could have been monumental for our city, in an attempt to deal Mayor Johnson and the progressive movement a political “defeat”. I learned from both of these experiences that the organizing necessary to bring forth transformation is not only complex, but deep and intentional, and unfortunately yet to be realized sustainably.
Alderman Hall shared this with me during an interview: “Chicago is a global city, with international partnerships built by people from 77 communities across this great city. Times have changed, people are concerned, but Chicagoans have always risen above the distress of the current day. The fight and passion you see on TV, social media, and even in this statement are the soul of those who refuse to be used, are economically disenfranchised, and want their fair share of this economic oasis in Chicago. Believe it or not, we can all have a fair share of this $16 billion global economy. Historically, Black and Brown people have been given pennies on the dollar for our labor, few promotions in industries, yet we always come together and share within, while being cut out. This is the time where we can move from pity to parity and strong economic partnerships”.
By December, Chicagoans will see how the city’s heart aligns with her treasure, and that will say a lot about where we are as a city. Mayor Johnson says that we get to run, win, and lead with our values. That we can negotiate the details, but we mustn’t negotiate our values.
The City That Works is being tested, and the results of this exam will have implications for decades to come. History most certainly has its eyes on us.