When Roosevelt uttered the term in that distinctive cadence of his, Leo Wallace felt all the blood in his body rush to his brain.
It was not an unfamiliar phrase.
For a doctoral student who had made Roosevelt’s New Deal the lifeblood of his academic career, those six words were like a lost passage of scripture—the most radical ideal of Roosevelt’s entire political life.
It was a brand-new “economic constitution” he had conceived for America’s future peace and prosperity as his life was nearing its end.
Leo found himself back in that warm virtual study.
Roosevelt was still seated in his wheelchair, but he was no longer the sorrowful reviewer of history.
He had become a stern mentor, ready to explain this long-buried blueprint to his only student.
“Those who criticized me always said I betrayed my class, that I wanted to turn America into a socialist country,” Roosevelt began, his tone calm yet powerful. “They were wrong. I never wanted to copy anyone’s model wholesale. I only wanted to graft, onto America’s own democratic tradition, a solid foundation that could guarantee economic freedom for all citizens. This bill was my answer.”
“Now, let us look at its first right—and upgrade it for the twenty-first century.”
Roosevelt’s gaze sharpened.
“First: every American citizen has the right to a useful and remunerative job.”
“Pay attention to my wording, Leo,” he emphasized. “It is a right, not welfare, and certainly not charity from the government. My Works Progress Administration and Civil Works Administration back then were only scaffolding temporarily thrown together with boards and glue under a national emergency. The true building should be permanent.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the most familiar images rose in Leo’s mind.
Rust-stained Pittsburgh, its shuttered factories like tombs of steel; countless unemployed workers, men of his father’s generation, numbing their despair with alcohol in bars.
Then the scene shifted.
In Leo’s imagination, a vast torrent of investment, guided by the state, poured into that Rust Belt.
Those unemployed workers took off their greasy overalls and changed into uniforms marked with the emblem of the “American Green Infrastructure Corps.”
They were no longer idle. They began laying a nationwide high-speed rail network anew.
They erected rows upon rows of enormous solar panels in the deserts of the West.
They climbed power towers, upgrading the old grid into a smart grid capable of meeting the energy demands of the future.
“Look, child.” Roosevelt’s voice rang out like narration from beyond the frame. “When private capital refuses to invest in the nation’s future because the rate of profit is insufficient, when they would rather throw money into Wall Street’s casino to spin in empty circles than build a bridge, then the state must become the chief investor—and the employer of last resort.”
“Let every American willing to work find a dignified and valuable position in the very cause of building his own country with his own hands.”
“This is the right to work in the twenty-first century.”
The images vanished. Leo’s heart surged.
Roosevelt gave him no time to catch his breath and continued with the second item.
“The second right: every American family has the right to decent housing.”
“A shelter for a family, a harbor where children can grow up in peace,” Roosevelt’s voice carried a hint of anger, “absolutely should not, and absolutely must not, become a financial instrument for those bastards on Wall Street to gamble against each other with!”
Before Leo’s eyes appeared the aftermath of the 2008 financial tsunami: the foreclosed houses scattered across the suburbs, taken back by banks after their owners could no longer repay their loans and left vacant for years.
They were like pairs of hollow eyes, staring at the failure of this nation.
Then the scene changed again.
These vacant houses were taken over and renovated under the unified management of a newly established “National Housing Authority.”
At the same time, on abandoned industrial land around the cities, new large-scale communities were rising from the ground.
These homes were modern in design, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly. Between them lay broad green spaces and parks, and they were directly equipped with well-developed public schools, community hospitals, and daycare centers.
“Housing must return to its most fundamental attribute: a place to live,” Roosevelt stated his core idea. “Through the power of the state, we build citizen apartments on a large scale, for rent only and not for sale. The level of rent will not be determined by the market, but strictly tied to the median household income of the area.”
“What we must do is turn real estate—a speculative market that has held countless families hostage—completely back into the most basic guarantee of people’s livelihood.”
The right to work.
The right to housing.
Leo listened, nearly rising to his feet.
Were these not precisely what he and his companions had called for, again and again, beneath the tweets of the “New Deal Ghost” and across all kinds of forums, only to be mocked by those so-called “realists” as “naive utopian dreams”?
And now, these dreams were being laid out one by one by one of the greatest presidents in American history.
But reason still compelled him to ask the question.
“Mr. President...” Leo’s voice trembled with excitement. “All of this... all of this sounds unimaginably wonderful, but... where does the money come from?”
He paused, then added, “We’re talking about astronomical figures. The federal government’s debt is already high enough.”
At this question, Leo felt the image of Roosevelt in his mind give a soft laugh.
There was no mockery in that laugh; instead, it carried a trace of approval.
“A good question, child.”
“This is always the ultimate question they use to strangle all progress. And the answer to this question involves the next and most important battlefield before us.”
“The third and fourth rights,” Roosevelt continued, “the right to adequate medical care and the right to a good education.”
“Let me explain it in the simplest words: a person’s life and death, and a young person’s future, should never be determined by the thickness of his parents’ wallet.”
Another set of images immediately appeared before Leo’s eyes.
He saw the headquarters of bloated, enormous, labyrinthine private health insurance companies, and the extremely luxurious administration building at his own university, where the number of administrative staff even exceeded that of full-time professors.
In his eyes, these two buildings were two enormous tumors sucking the blood of the nation.
Then, in the silent vision, the two buildings collapsed with a thunderous crash and turned into dust.
Rising from the ruins was a new scene: simple, bright, and efficient.
At the terminal of a nationwide “Universal Health Care System,” patients could swipe their ID documents and receive necessary treatment, with bills settled uniformly by the state.
On public university campuses freed from exorbitant tuition, students focused on study and research, while professors returned to their essential duties of teaching and scholarship. They no longer needed to waste half their energy applying for the pitiful bit of funding needed for their projects.
“Where does the money come from?” Roosevelt’s voice cut in with the precision of a scalpel. “You saw it. We restore health care and education from industries that can endlessly extract profit back to the public services they were always meant to be.”
“Sever those layers of subcontracting, those financial and administrative tumors clinging to patients and students to suck their blood, and the money will naturally be there.”
“Leo, this is not creating something from nothing. It is merely taking back from those legalized parasites the resources that belonged to the people in the first place.”
These words sent a shudder of relief through Leo’s entire body.
But he knew this was still not the final answer. These were still only repairs to a dilapidated house.
And next, Roosevelt told him where the true objective lay.
“The fifth right,” the president’s voice became incomparably sharp, as though it could slice through the very air, “the right to be free from unfair competition and domination by commercial monopolies.”
“This is the core of everything, Leo. This is also where I did the least, and where I failed the most, back then.” For the first time, he admitted his own limitations so plainly. “I fought those trust magnates all my life. I did win some battles, yes, but I only pruned their overgrown branches. I never truly touched their roots.”
“Now, it is time.”
Roosevelt’s voice was filled with resolve.
He pointed out to Leo the true battlefield of the twenty-first century, and the enemies that had to be targeted.
“Finance, energy, data.”
“Remember these three words, child. These three fields are the lifelines of modern civilized society. Whoever controls them controls everything.”
“They can determine whether a nation’s economy prospers or collapses, whether we possess a clean future or are suffocated by fossil fuels, whether people’s minds are free or manipulated by algorithms.”
“They cannot, and absolutely should not, be held in the hands of a small number of private individuals whose sole purpose is profit.”
Leo felt as if his heart were about to burst from his chest.
He knew this was the true blueprint for revolution.
“Therefore, our solution must also be direct and thorough.”
“First, establish a National Investment Bank. Its only purpose will be to serve the real economy and national infrastructure, completely replacing Wall Street’s speculative function of creating profit only for itself.”
“Second, through legislation, gradually bring major oil, natural gas, and electric power companies under state ownership, or reorganize them into public utilities jointly owned by communities and employees. Their operations must place energy security and environmental protection as the highest principles, not shareholder profit.”
“Third, and most importantly.” His voice became especially solemn. “Legislate and declare that every citizen’s personal data is sacred and inviolable digital private property protected by the Constitution. Tech giants like Omni, Google, and Facebook may provide services to citizens as custodians, but they have no right to use that data for their own profit.”
“The ultimate ownership of data must be returned to every citizen who creates it.”
This vast, clear, yet incomparably radical blueprint slowly unfolded in Leo’s mind.
He was utterly stunned.
After the shock passed, his mind—tempered by the beatings of reality—thought of the deadliest obstacle.
“Mr. President...” His voice was dry. “To accomplish all of this, even just any one part of it... would be tantamount to formally declaring war on the entire ruling class of the United States.”
The more he spoke, the heavier the chill rising in his heart became.
“They will use every force at their disposal to stop us... The media will paint us as devils, Congress will delay with endless procedures, the courts will declare our bills unconstitutional, and even...”
He did not dare finish, but both he and Roosevelt understood what remained unsaid.
The military, the police, and those intelligence agencies hidden in the shadows.
The image of Roosevelt in Leo’s mind became extremely solemn.
“You are right.”
“So this is not merely economic reform.”
“This is a revolution.”