How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy?
A must read article….
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At what point does great wealth held in a few hands actually harm democracy, threatening to turn a democratic republic into an oligarchy?
It’s a debate we haven’t had freely and openly in this nation for nearly a century, and last week, by voting to end the Estate Tax, House Republicans tried to ensure that it wouldn’t be had again in this generation.
But it’s a debate that’s vital to the survival of democracy in America.
In a letter to Joseph Milligan on April 6, 1816, Thomas Jefferson explicitly suggested that if individuals became so rich that their wealth could influence or challenge government, then their wealth should be decreased upon their death. He wrote, “If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree…”
In this, he was making the same argument that the Framers of Pennsylvania tried to make when writing their constitution in 1776. As Kevin Phillips notes in his masterpiece book “Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich,” a Sixteenth Article to the Pennsylvania Bill of Rights (that was only “narrowly defeated”) declared: “an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness of mankind, and, therefore, every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.”
Unfortunately, many Americans believe our nation was founded exclusively of, by, and for “rich white men,” and that the Constitution had, as its primary purpose, the protection of the super-rich. They would have us believe that the Constitution’s signers didn’t really mean all that flowery talk about liberal democracy in a republican form of government.
But the signers didn’t send other people’s kids to war, as have two generations of the oligarchic Bush family. Many of the Founders themselves gave up everything, even risking (and losing) their lives, their life’s savings, or losing their own homes and families to birth this nation. …
So what did motivate the Framers of the Constitution?
Along with the answer to this question, we may also find the answer to another question historians have asked for two centuries: Why was the Constitutional Convention held in secret behind locked doors, and why did James Madison not publish his own notes of the Convention until 1840, just after the last of the other participants had died?
The reason, simply put, was that most of the wealthy men among the delegates were betraying the interests of their own economic class. They were voting for democracy instead of oligarchy.
As with any political body, a few of the delegates, “a dozen at the outside” according to McDonald, “clearly acted according to the dictates of their personal economic interests.”
But there were larger issues at stake. The people who hammered out the Constitution had such a strong feeling of history and destiny that it at times overwhelmed them.
They realized that in the seven-thousand-year history of what they called civilization, only once before, in Athens – and then only for the brief flicker of a few centuries – had anything like a democracy ever been brought into existence and survived more than a generation.
Their writings show that they truly believed they were doing sacred work, something greater than themselves, their personal interests, or even the narrow interests of their wealthy constituents back in their home states.
They believed they were altering the course of world history, and that if they got it right we could truly create a better world.
Thus the secrecy, the locked doors, the intensity of the Constitutional Convention. And thus the willingness to set aside economic interest to produce a document – admittedly imperfect – that would establish an enduring beacon of liberty for the world.
One Response
The simple definitions given for Democracy as an ideal often leave out the importance of participation not just by the people, but by the poor people. This feature important to democracy was discussed both by Plato and by Aristotle, and formed the basic disctinction between Democracy and Oligarchy. Embracing Democracy relies upon the fundamental understanding of its nature and purpose, as well as to discern its benefits of free trade through capitalism. When the principles of free trade or collusion are allowed to overshadow the political principles by which wealth is spread among an entire nation – by educational elitism, or by intentional advantage by birth, inheritance, or design – the outcome can only be an oligarchy, not a democracy which requires the investment and voice of all, not the few in controlling collective decisionmaking. America has bypassed democracy as inefficient, limiting, and undesirable and embraced capitalism to produce the efficiencies inherent in oligarchies. The way back, if that is possible, lies in refining the principles espoused by founders (including recognition that it may well have been designed to benefit its wealthy, white originators). The estate tax limits may not be the only method of increasing the advantages of democracy. The method may be by using educational freedom and free tuition to increase participation by those not ordinarily thought of as having the rights and privileges of participation due to poverty, discrimination, and preconceived notions of the importance of educational elitism as superior to government by the whole people which most would suggest is the common practice in our current vision of the republic. Addressing all features where common people have been excluded, and used or abused to provide advantage to the oligarchy of the elite is of far greater advantage than by seeking to limit the few who have inadvertently become poster boy oligarchists.