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<span style="white-space: pre;">> On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 12:30
PM, Ron Szoke <<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:r-szoke@illinois.edu">r-szoke@illinois.edu</a> <br>
> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:r-szoke@illinois.edu"><mailto:r-szoke@illinois.edu></a>> wrote:<br>
> <br>
> The book referred to is _The Coming Caesars_, by Amaury de
Riencourt<br>
> (Coward-McCann, 1957, 384 pages)<br>
> <br>
> "It is the contention of this book ... that the greater the
social <br>
> equality, the dimmer the prospects of liberty, and that as
society <br>
> becomes more equalitarian, it tends increasingly to
concentrate <br>
> absolute power in the hands of one single man" (p. 5).</span><br>
<br>
In other words, the 'liberty' of some depends on inequality - i.e.,
that that liberty not be enjoyed by many.<br>
<br>
In fact, Caesarism/Bonapartism/fascism historically arose from
intractable class struggles, brought to an end (or rather frozen) by
authoritarianism. <br>
<br>
Consider the actual careers of Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte,
and the 20th century dictators. (And <i>The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Napoleon</i> remains a fascinating analysis of such history,
showing "how the class struggle in France created circumstances and
relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to
play a hero's part.")<br>
<br>
From Aristotle to Marx, democrats (economic as well as political)
recognized that "the free development of each is the condition of
the free development of all" (as the latter put it).<br>
<br>
Aristotle took it for granted that a democracy should be fully
participatory (with some notable exceptions, like women and slaves)
and that it should aim for the common good. In order to achieve
that, it has to ensure relative equality, "moderate and sufficient
property" and "lasting prosperity" for everyone.<br>
<br>
In other words, Aristotle felt that if you have extremes of poor and
rich, you can't talk seriously about democracy. Any true democracy
has to be what we call today a welfare state -- actually, an extreme
form of one, far beyond anything envisioned in this century...<br>
<br>
Aristotle also made the point that if you have, in a perfect
democracy, a small number of very rich people and a large number of
very poor people, the poor will use their democratic rights to take
property away from the rich. Aristotle regarded that as unjust, and
proposed two possible solutions: reducing poverty (which is what he
recommended) or reducing democracy.<br>
<br>
James Madison, who was no fool, noted the same problem, but unlike
Aristotle, he aimed to reduce democracy rather than poverty. He
believed that the primary goal of government is "to protect the
minority of the opulent against the majority." As his colleague John
Jay was fond of putting it, "The people who own the country ought to
govern it."<br>
<br>
Madison feared that a growing part of the population, suffering from
the serious inequities of the society, would "secretly sigh for a
more equal distribution of [life's] blessings." If they had
democratic power, there'd be a danger they'd do something more than
sigh. He discussed this quite explicitly at the Constitutional
Convention, expressing his concern that the poor majority would use
its power to bring about what we would now call land reform.<br>
<br>
So he designed a system that made sure democracy couldn't function.
He placed power in the hands of the "more capable set of men," those
who hold "the wealth of the nation." Other citizens were to be
marginalized and factionalized in various ways, which have taken a
variety of forms over the years: fractured political constituencies,
barriers against unified working-class action and cooperation,
exploitation of ethnic and racial conflicts, etc.<br>
<br>
(To be fair, Madison was precapitalist and his "more capable set of
men" were supposed to be "enlightened statesmen" and "benevolent
philosophers," not investors and corporate executives trying to
maximize their own wealth regardless of the effect that has on other
people. When Alexander Hamilton and his followers began to turn the
US into a capitalist state, Madison was pretty appalled. In my
opinion, he'd be an anticapitalist if he were alive today -- as
would Jefferson and Adam Smith.)<br>
<br>
Throughout our history, political power has been, by and large, in
the hands of those who own the country. There have been some limited
variations on that theme, like the New Deal. FDR had to respond to
the fact that the public was not going to tolerate the existing
situation. He left power in the hands of the rich, but bound them to
a kind of social contract.<br>
<br>
The two generations of US political/economic history since de
Riencourt's book show a marked contrast. The first - which ended in
the mid 1970s, when the Nixon administration ended the Bretton Woods
agreement - adhered to the that social contract. The second -
roughly the Carter administration to the present - revoked that
contract under the name of "neoliberalism." The results included an
intensification of the class struggle, the extreme concentration of
wealth (surpassing 1929 - equality in America peaked about 1969 and
declined at an accelerating pace since), and the Great Recession.
<br>
<br>
[Regular correspondents will not be surprised that most of the
foregoing comes from Chomsky. It has, in Henry Kissinger's
surprised phrase, "the extra, added advantage of being true." --CGE]<br>
<br>
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