Musings on John Adams and Republican Government
After reading John Adams' "Defence of the Constitutions of the Governments of the United States" (1787 - 1788, 3 volumes), his views on how a republic can work have become very clear. Further reading on John Adams in the Encarta Encyclopedia showed that he was the primary author of the Massachusetts constitution (still in use today) which became the model for many of the other states' constitutions. It appears also, judging from his book, that he was a primary architect of the U.S. constitution, though it was not all his own work.
The Wikipedia article on Adams gives only one mention of his book (The Encarta gives little more). Their statement is:
"While in London, Adams published a work entitled A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States (1787), in which he repudiated the views of Turgot and other European writers as to the viciousness of the framework of state governments. In this work, he made the controversial statement that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart from other men in a senate."
Well, first of all, Adams' oppostion to monarchical governments are what separated him from Turgot. His opposition to aristocracy is what separated him from Hamilton which is actually what led to his falling out with the Federalist party- to apply such a statement as the above to him is dishearteningly ignorant. His oppostion to simple Democracy is what separated him from Thomas Jefferson. Unlike these other men, Adams appears to have learned from history, that whenever all power is concentrated in one center there is tyranny. The solution began with Plato in his "Republic" though it was rather primitive. It advanced somewhat with Machiavelli and was revolutionized with Adams, though it is not a very common view. The common principal is the division of government into three parts.
The word Republic comes from 'res publica' and means: 'representing the people'. The problem is not with the word, but with the practice. A representative assembly that makes decisions by majority alone can only represent little more than half the population, and much of their time will be taken up with preserving their majority by oppressing the minority. We see that in the U.S. today on issues of race and religion very clearly, but these issues mask the larger issues of Capital production v.s. military preoccupation.
An aristocratic government, or government by a senate comprised of the "the rich, the well-born and the able" will be contemptuous of the commons and slavery in various forms will emerge anon. In Early Rome for instance, after monarchy was outlawed, the nation was ruled by a senate, who oppressed the commoners with debt to the point of shackles. They even held the power to create and disempower dictators to carry out their will. In Titus Livy book 2 we read:
"In spite of this triple military success both parties in Rome remained as anxious as ever about the issue of the political struggle, for the money-lenders had used all their influence and employed every device to produce a situation which was not only unfavorable to the commons, but tied the hands of the Dictator himself".
It was upon this occassion that the Tribunes were formed whose function it was to protect the people from the consuls, which were the normal executive agents of the senate. The tribunes could not be composed of anyone from the senate. It was only after this that Rome could recover from their weakening condition and fend off their hostile neighbors, who were bent on destroying Rome while it was in this state of potential civil war.
This sort of history fills Adams' works. He was never an advocate of government of one class alone, let alone a senate, although he was landed himself. For a wealthy, functioning nation, history shows only one clear pathway, and that is a balanced government that contains each of the three forms. Whenever one form or another gets the upper hand, it will usurp the rest of the power, and there is nothing then to stop it except violence by the oppressed.
So, first of all the statement in the Wikipedia is misleading in that it is out of context. It appears, to the uninformed mind searching for knowledge, that Adams was a snobby aristocrat who believed entirely in aristocracy. This is such a base insult to Adams. Adams was against simple forms of government, which is why he had so many antagonists. It was primarly his antagonists who were the lesser informed.
Secondly, much of what Adams wrote in his work was quotes from other sources. After reading his work, I recall this statement, (the version I read came from a library, so I can't quote details, though I wrote some stuff down) but I believe it was made by Machiavelli. In that segment, Adams conditionally agrees with Machiavelli, but not entirely. He makes several corrections, the one being the control over the 'purse' of government by a house of representatives, and an independent judiciary appointed during periods relatively free of political turmoil. Hence, the words quoted by Wikipedia as Adams', are not even his. Though he did believe that the classes had to each be represented by the independent branches of the government.
Historically the Senate belongs to the aristocracy, and Adams would agree with that. In our times, this would be the capitalists and not the money-lenders, since money is NOT capital, it holds value only by fiat and in fact the actual value is grounded in the functioning of the economy itself. Hence, if anyone were entitled to interest, it would be the consumers themselves and not the banks. That sounds odd, but it is much more based on capitalist principals than the charging of interest today is. If, for instance, we choose that the money lenders and not capitalists should hold the Senate, then capital should all join the Democratic party, because commoners is all they will soon be.
Now, let us look and see if Adams was correct in fighting for a senate where capital would reign dominant and accept their position in the functioning of a well constructed nation. That is within his view where there is also a House of Representatives that hold one third of the power and an executive branch that represents the government class which also retains one third of the power. Gosh, need I start another paragraph or is the term 'lobby' enough.
Today, lobbies have taken the place of capital having an actual branch of the government where their actions would otherwise be measured, contemplated and executed in a fair and rational manner to the advance of themselves AND everyone else. Sadly, this loophole is not limited to the senate, but to the house of representatives and executive branches equally. Resulting in all power concentrated in one center. Article IV, section 4 of the United States constitution guarantees every state a 'Republican' form of government. An aristocracy is not a republican form of government in the modern world. In ancient Rome people learned this was false, and recorded its failure. We know it is false, hence it is false. Being false, it is unconstitutional. Being allowed to use gambling machines on election days doesn't do anything to assuage this situation either.++++
One suggestion is a constitutional amendment limiting campaign contributions to House challengers to $100.00 per donor, Senate contestants to $10,000.00 per donor and Executive contestants get something that matches the average of the upper Senate totals out of tax coffers, divided equally between the top four contestants.
This would start to shape the branches of government to the way they were intended by those who actually knew what they were doing. Further, lobby sums should be regulated in the same way. Ultimately, it could be construed that the 24th amendment against poll taxes should bear on lobbying. If a congressperson can take money or gifts in order to gain their favor or attention, this is a defacto purchasing of votes.
For example, almost any competent econometricist could come up with a fairly dependable figure for the price of a vote on the marketing side of the equation. If a congress person ran on a ticket and gathered such and so many votes over their competition, they could technically trade those votes for cash on the various sundry issues of lobbyists. If their accounting were accurate, they could earn enough cash to purchase a reelection but not truly represent the people who voted for them. This is in fact buying votes. If the people whom the representative represents can't afford the price the representative puts on hearing issues, there is in fact a poll tax, since their votes were cast in vain unless they can pay to play. In other words, they can vote, but it doesn't count until they pay.
One suggestion is for lobby sums to reflect the same limitation as campaign contributions. This at least would level the playing field for the House of Representatives so the people, whose branch this is supposed to be, could afford to have their issues heard.
While this can be construed as a diatribe against capitalist power, in fact it is the opposite. Smaller capital makes up over 80% of the capital in the United States. Smaller capital doesn't come up with the tens of thousands of dollars that lobbying dispenses on a regular basis. Most of this money comes from the larger conglomerates and banking. For the majority of the capitalist class to be represented, it needs a common political party, one it doesn't have to share with the other form of political power.
Banking, need I go into my arguments, does not really represent capital, since money is NOT capital, but a vessel to hold value by fiat. Banking does belong in the republican party of today. Having money does not qualify as a right to profit, though the ownership of the bank itself and the employees' labor fully deserve what they earn. So, this additional money has set up a power loop which influences the government to sustain interest and in fact minimize the regulation of it, which in turn extorts copious returns that can readily be fed back into the political parties and legislators to widen the loophole. Since the charging of interest causes inflation and inflation and interest together diminish profits, functional, real capital loses political influence to the same extent that the financial extortionists gain it. The result is a diminishing of the wealth of the country, a diminishing of new investment in energy efficiency, new technologies, sustainable farming, more marginal economic sectors..., since the riskier investment returns can not compete with the extortionist power loop.
So, the argument goes, we need a U.S. Capitalist party to bring together all the capitalist interests in the country, whereupon, the smaller capitals would have an influence more proportional to their numbers. In addition if the U.S. Capitalist party were to take over the U.S. Senate, we could realize the full intent of our founding father's vision of a model republic. This in a time where we really need to come together and function as one nation rather than an assembly of selfish individuals. Or more accurately, selfish tyrants. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have good arguments against that one.
The Wikipedia article on Adams gives only one mention of his book (The Encarta gives little more). Their statement is:
"While in London, Adams published a work entitled A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States (1787), in which he repudiated the views of Turgot and other European writers as to the viciousness of the framework of state governments. In this work, he made the controversial statement that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart from other men in a senate."
Well, first of all, Adams' oppostion to monarchical governments are what separated him from Turgot. His opposition to aristocracy is what separated him from Hamilton which is actually what led to his falling out with the Federalist party- to apply such a statement as the above to him is dishearteningly ignorant. His oppostion to simple Democracy is what separated him from Thomas Jefferson. Unlike these other men, Adams appears to have learned from history, that whenever all power is concentrated in one center there is tyranny. The solution began with Plato in his "Republic" though it was rather primitive. It advanced somewhat with Machiavelli and was revolutionized with Adams, though it is not a very common view. The common principal is the division of government into three parts.
The word Republic comes from 'res publica' and means: 'representing the people'. The problem is not with the word, but with the practice. A representative assembly that makes decisions by majority alone can only represent little more than half the population, and much of their time will be taken up with preserving their majority by oppressing the minority. We see that in the U.S. today on issues of race and religion very clearly, but these issues mask the larger issues of Capital production v.s. military preoccupation.
An aristocratic government, or government by a senate comprised of the "the rich, the well-born and the able" will be contemptuous of the commons and slavery in various forms will emerge anon. In Early Rome for instance, after monarchy was outlawed, the nation was ruled by a senate, who oppressed the commoners with debt to the point of shackles. They even held the power to create and disempower dictators to carry out their will. In Titus Livy book 2 we read:
"In spite of this triple military success both parties in Rome remained as anxious as ever about the issue of the political struggle, for the money-lenders had used all their influence and employed every device to produce a situation which was not only unfavorable to the commons, but tied the hands of the Dictator himself".
It was upon this occassion that the Tribunes were formed whose function it was to protect the people from the consuls, which were the normal executive agents of the senate. The tribunes could not be composed of anyone from the senate. It was only after this that Rome could recover from their weakening condition and fend off their hostile neighbors, who were bent on destroying Rome while it was in this state of potential civil war.
This sort of history fills Adams' works. He was never an advocate of government of one class alone, let alone a senate, although he was landed himself. For a wealthy, functioning nation, history shows only one clear pathway, and that is a balanced government that contains each of the three forms. Whenever one form or another gets the upper hand, it will usurp the rest of the power, and there is nothing then to stop it except violence by the oppressed.
So, first of all the statement in the Wikipedia is misleading in that it is out of context. It appears, to the uninformed mind searching for knowledge, that Adams was a snobby aristocrat who believed entirely in aristocracy. This is such a base insult to Adams. Adams was against simple forms of government, which is why he had so many antagonists. It was primarly his antagonists who were the lesser informed.
Secondly, much of what Adams wrote in his work was quotes from other sources. After reading his work, I recall this statement, (the version I read came from a library, so I can't quote details, though I wrote some stuff down) but I believe it was made by Machiavelli. In that segment, Adams conditionally agrees with Machiavelli, but not entirely. He makes several corrections, the one being the control over the 'purse' of government by a house of representatives, and an independent judiciary appointed during periods relatively free of political turmoil. Hence, the words quoted by Wikipedia as Adams', are not even his. Though he did believe that the classes had to each be represented by the independent branches of the government.
Historically the Senate belongs to the aristocracy, and Adams would agree with that. In our times, this would be the capitalists and not the money-lenders, since money is NOT capital, it holds value only by fiat and in fact the actual value is grounded in the functioning of the economy itself. Hence, if anyone were entitled to interest, it would be the consumers themselves and not the banks. That sounds odd, but it is much more based on capitalist principals than the charging of interest today is. If, for instance, we choose that the money lenders and not capitalists should hold the Senate, then capital should all join the Democratic party, because commoners is all they will soon be.
Now, let us look and see if Adams was correct in fighting for a senate where capital would reign dominant and accept their position in the functioning of a well constructed nation. That is within his view where there is also a House of Representatives that hold one third of the power and an executive branch that represents the government class which also retains one third of the power. Gosh, need I start another paragraph or is the term 'lobby' enough.
Today, lobbies have taken the place of capital having an actual branch of the government where their actions would otherwise be measured, contemplated and executed in a fair and rational manner to the advance of themselves AND everyone else. Sadly, this loophole is not limited to the senate, but to the house of representatives and executive branches equally. Resulting in all power concentrated in one center. Article IV, section 4 of the United States constitution guarantees every state a 'Republican' form of government. An aristocracy is not a republican form of government in the modern world. In ancient Rome people learned this was false, and recorded its failure. We know it is false, hence it is false. Being false, it is unconstitutional. Being allowed to use gambling machines on election days doesn't do anything to assuage this situation either.++++
One suggestion is a constitutional amendment limiting campaign contributions to House challengers to $100.00 per donor, Senate contestants to $10,000.00 per donor and Executive contestants get something that matches the average of the upper Senate totals out of tax coffers, divided equally between the top four contestants.
This would start to shape the branches of government to the way they were intended by those who actually knew what they were doing. Further, lobby sums should be regulated in the same way. Ultimately, it could be construed that the 24th amendment against poll taxes should bear on lobbying. If a congressperson can take money or gifts in order to gain their favor or attention, this is a defacto purchasing of votes.
For example, almost any competent econometricist could come up with a fairly dependable figure for the price of a vote on the marketing side of the equation. If a congress person ran on a ticket and gathered such and so many votes over their competition, they could technically trade those votes for cash on the various sundry issues of lobbyists. If their accounting were accurate, they could earn enough cash to purchase a reelection but not truly represent the people who voted for them. This is in fact buying votes. If the people whom the representative represents can't afford the price the representative puts on hearing issues, there is in fact a poll tax, since their votes were cast in vain unless they can pay to play. In other words, they can vote, but it doesn't count until they pay.
One suggestion is for lobby sums to reflect the same limitation as campaign contributions. This at least would level the playing field for the House of Representatives so the people, whose branch this is supposed to be, could afford to have their issues heard.
While this can be construed as a diatribe against capitalist power, in fact it is the opposite. Smaller capital makes up over 80% of the capital in the United States. Smaller capital doesn't come up with the tens of thousands of dollars that lobbying dispenses on a regular basis. Most of this money comes from the larger conglomerates and banking. For the majority of the capitalist class to be represented, it needs a common political party, one it doesn't have to share with the other form of political power.
Banking, need I go into my arguments, does not really represent capital, since money is NOT capital, but a vessel to hold value by fiat. Banking does belong in the republican party of today. Having money does not qualify as a right to profit, though the ownership of the bank itself and the employees' labor fully deserve what they earn. So, this additional money has set up a power loop which influences the government to sustain interest and in fact minimize the regulation of it, which in turn extorts copious returns that can readily be fed back into the political parties and legislators to widen the loophole. Since the charging of interest causes inflation and inflation and interest together diminish profits, functional, real capital loses political influence to the same extent that the financial extortionists gain it. The result is a diminishing of the wealth of the country, a diminishing of new investment in energy efficiency, new technologies, sustainable farming, more marginal economic sectors..., since the riskier investment returns can not compete with the extortionist power loop.
So, the argument goes, we need a U.S. Capitalist party to bring together all the capitalist interests in the country, whereupon, the smaller capitals would have an influence more proportional to their numbers. In addition if the U.S. Capitalist party were to take over the U.S. Senate, we could realize the full intent of our founding father's vision of a model republic. This in a time where we really need to come together and function as one nation rather than an assembly of selfish individuals. Or more accurately, selfish tyrants. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have good arguments against that one.
posted by lou_srewlect | 3:14 PM
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