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Duncan Lindsey
University of California, Los Angeles
"One by one, with astonishing rapidity, the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union crumbled before the assertion of people's power, whose common watchword was the realization of a genuinely representative and responsible democratic form of government. In the last decade of the twentieth century democracy rediscovered its optimism and universality." (Harding, 1992, p. 185).
The largest category of poor in the Unites States
are children. There are more than 14 and a half million children
in the United States who live in poverty, while more than 5
million children live in families with less than half the poverty
line income. Too young to carry their own cause, these children
often suffer out of the limelight and in silence. These figures
seem implausible in a nation of such enormous wealth.
Why have we allowed such poverty to persist among such a precious
resource as our children? It certainly isn't because we don't
know what to do. Child welfare policies and programs that could
end child poverty have been available during the last several
decades. This isn't rocket science. Nor is it the cost of these
policies and programs which stops us. As the Children's Defense
Fund has pointed out, we could end child poverty for less than
three percent of all federal spending.
There is a collective will to end child poverty and support for
the expenditure required, even in a time of massive federal
government budget deficits. It isn't the money that stops us.
What prevents us from ending child poverty? The fundamental
problem is that our political system fails to provide a mechanism
that lets the interests of children to be represented. In modern
democratic societies like the United States, political power
derives from the vote. Those who can vote are able to assure that
their needs and interests are protected. Yet, children are unable
to vote.
One could imagine the consequences for any
particular group if they lost their right to vote. Their
interests would depend on the good will and sympathy of others.
Perhaps their rights would be protected by the courts. But in
very real terms, their interests and needs would rapidly fall in
importance among elected officials.
One could imagine, for example, about what would happen to
seniors, if a law was passed ending the right to vote for those
over 65 years of age. It wouldn't take long for the Social
Security System to be raided. Seniors would find Medicare and
Medicaid being gutted. The condition for senior citizens would
rapidly decline. In no time at all, seniors might find themselves
in the same situation as children. Seniors would lose their
political power and become dependent on the good will and
sympathy of others who have their own compelling interests.
One in five children in North America live in
poverty. The enormous wealth of these countries makes this fact
almost incomprehensible. Nevertheless, children have seen their
needs placed at the back of the national agenda. Several years
ago all of the major political parties in Canada agreed to an
idea called Canada 2000. Accordingly, the goal was to unite and
work together in a non-partisan basis so that by the year 2000
poverty among children would be eliminated. To date, very little
action has followed these words. The goal was a noble gesture
that has failed to produce any real programs or policies. As with
so many other pronouncements on behalf of children, they end up,
over the long haul, to be empty promises. Too many other concerns
surface that have more powerful voting blocks and constituencies
behind them. Lacking political power, the concerns of children
are set to the side. If we ever hope to end widespread poverty
among children, then we need to think about ways to insure that
the interests and needs of children are represented. We need to
think what, until now, has been unthinkable.
Until children have representation in the democratic political
system, their needs will be neglected. Progress toward gaining
children the right to representation will take time. Efforts to
lower the voting age will require a constitutional amendment in
the United States. However, until we recognize the centrality of
the child's right to vote, progress will be episodic and short
lived.
We need to consider giving children the right to vote at age 16
(or even 14 after they have developed the required formal thought
processes) or the right to assign their proxy. Obviously before
they develop the cognitive skills and emotional maturity
necessary for making difficult political judgments, children
cannot be expected to vote. Perhaps these children should have
their right to vote exercised by proxy. We could assign their
proxy to their principal care giver. If children were given the
franchise, then their interests and needs would receive attention
equal to other groups in democratic society. To restore our
obligation to children will require imaginative solutions that
today seem unthinkable. It wasn't that many years ago when blacks
were denied to right to vote. Women received the franchise with
the 19th Amendment in 1920. Perhaps we can experiment with giving
children the right to vote. Until children have the right to
vote, we may simply continue a cycle of concern and neglect of
children's issues that has failed to produce substantial
progress.
It might be argued that providing women with the right to vote
has not really led to fundamental changes or improvements for
women. Unquestionably, progress for women has been too slow. But
it would be hard to imagine what the situation of women would
have been (or would become) without the right to vote. It would
be unthinkable to even imagine a situation where women were
denied the right to vote.
Government establishes the rules the community
will abide by in deciding how resources (such as the Gross
Domestic Product) will be distributed. In a society where special
interest politics shape governmental interests, those groups able
to fund the campaigns of elected officials will see their
interests protected and legislation which is favorable to
protecting and improving their interests enacted. Likewise, those
groups who are unable to make substantial contributions to the
campaigns of elected officials will see their interests go
unprotected. Further, those groups, such as the poor, who have
historically recorded low voter turnout will be especially
vulnerable. And most of all, those who do not vote (i.e.,
children) are unlikely to have their interests protected and will
likely fare poorly in competition with others in the arena of
political decision-making.
We can lay the foundation for ending widespread poverty among
children only by empowering the children themselves. This will
require giving children the right to representation. The
mechanism for achieving this representation will require creative
and innovative problem solving, but we can do it. What we need to
do is give up some of our own power so that children can have
what we already enjoy. It won't cost us any money. It won't add
to the federal deficit. But it will add to the political and
moral wealth of the nation. We ought to be able to enter the next
millennium with our children having equal representation in our
political institutions.
Children's Defense Fund. (1991). The state of
America's children 1991. Washington, DC: Author.
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical
thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books.
Harding, N. (1992). The Marxist-Leninist detour. In J. Dunn
(Ed.), Democracy: The unfinished journey 508BC to AD1993 (pp.
155-187). New York: Oxford University Press.
Lindsey, D. (1994). The welfare of children. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Peel, E.A. (1971). The nature of adolescent judgment. New York:
Wiley.