[Peace-discuss] That dangerous radical Aristotle

[C. G. Estabrook]

Quite right. Similar points being made in today's FT and no doubt elsewhere.

That Prophet language may get you in trouble in some circles (with acolytes of 
the ever-modest Chomsky, I mean).  But Dante called Aristotle "The Master of 
Those Who Know," and Aquinas called Ibn Rushd "The Commentator" (on Aristotle, 
he meant), so I guess you have precedent... --CGE


Robert Naiman wrote:
> Krugman is advocating New Deal-style liberalism from his perch at the
> New York Times. Indeed, Krugman is arguing that Obama needs to be
> bolder than FDR - that FDR chickened out from doing a real fiscal
> stimulus after 1936, resulting in the deep recession of 1937.
> 
> Of course, the Prophet wrote this in 1998.
> 
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 4:51 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> A considerable majority of Americans are more or less in favor of New
>> Deal-style liberalism. That's remarkable, since most Americans never hear
>> anybody advocating that position...
>>
>> Now I don't think New Deal liberalism is the end of the road, by any means.
>> But its achievements, which are the result of a lot of popular struggle, are
>> worth defending and expanding.
>>
>> [The title, "The Common Good"] was given to me, and since I'm a nice,
>> obedient type, that's what I talked about. I started from the beginning,
>> with Aristotle's Politics, which is the foundation of most subsequent
>> political theory.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> (When I pointed this out at a press conference in Majorca, the headlines in
>> the Spanish papers read something like, If Aristotle were alive today, he'd
>> be denounced as a dangerous radical. That's probably true.)
>>
>> The idea that great wealth and democracy can't exist side by side runs right
>> up through the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, including major
>> figures like de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, Jefferson and others. It was more
>> or less assumed.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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."
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> (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.)
>>
>> It's extremely unlikely that what are now called "inevitable results of the
>> market" would ever be tolerated in a truly democratic society. You can take
>> Aristotle's path and make sure that almost everyone has "moderate and
>> sufficient property" -- in other words, is what he called "middle-class." Or
>> you can take Madison's path and limit the functioning of democracy.
>>
>> 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. That was
>> nothing new, and it will happen again.
>>
>> --Noam Chomsky, from The Common Good (1998)
>>
>>
>>        ###
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