CONVERSATIONS ON JEFFERSON AND JEFFERSONIAN POLITICS
On Equality
George GoriI wanted to begin a topic with you that I find interesting. It is the question of equality. Conservatives and libertarians denounce it in the fiercest terms. They rail and whine about people being "naturally unequal". I agree that human beings are unequal in talent, looks, intelligence, and so on. But equality of these things was NEVER intended by the democratic revolutionaries. They believed in equality before law, abolition of privilege granted by the state, and equality in the enjoyment and exercise of natural right. Why do you think this is so misunderstood?
June 5, 2001
Eyler CoatesI believe that part of the problem on equality is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the term. For a Jeffersonian republican, equality means every human being has equal inalienable rights. But every human being is obviously not equal to others in character, natural attributes, capacities, etc.
Conservatives and libertarians seem to object to the concept of equality because they fear that the left wing uses that to try to make the condition of every person equal, or as close to being equal as practical. Perhaps some of them do see that as an ideal of a socialist society. Jefferson believed that persons were entitled to the unequal results of the efforts they put forth.
"Our wish... is, that the public efforts may be directed honestly to the public good, that peace be cultivated, civil and religious liberty unassailed, law and order preserved, equality of rights maintained, and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry, or that of his fathers." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural, 1805. ME 3:382
It may be that the gripe of the libertarians on this issue is not with us, but with the left wing -- communists and socialists.
June 8,2001
George GoriI agree. The impression the libertarians and conservatives give me, though, is that if we became a plutocracy, so what as long as we try to "redistribute wealth." What is strange to me is that in old monarchial and aristocratic societies they did redistribute wealth -- to the upper classes. They opposed labor laws, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, etc as "socialist" and seem to be atomists. I am also troubled by the fact that they have no problem with "supply side" economics which definitely does not benefit any class but the higher ones. I've even heard some blast Jefferson, Robert Bork specifically, for writing about equality in the Declaration. As you know Jefferson never believed in a communistic society, but he did believe in progressive taxation, equality before the law, abolition of feudal land laws, and taxation of the wealthy to support public education. For these things many conservatives and libertarians think he was a socialist.
June 8, 2001
Eyler CoatesActually, you raise an interesting question. How should we distinguish between a free society and a socialist society? What would be the difference between a benevolent plutocracy, and a free and just society? I think the key is what was expressed by Jefferson:
"Nothing... is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:48
Neither a plutocratic nor a socialistic society is a free society. But can labor laws, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, etc, be derived from a society that guarantees inherent and unalienable rights? If you acknowledge that work is a fundamental part of the life of man (and who can deny it?), then you must also acknowledge that for an individual to enjoy his inherent and unalienable rights in a society in which the vast majority of the citizens work and live under an economic system in which some of the citizens are permitted to exercise such a level of control over the working life of the largest portion of the citizens that it amounts to, in effect, life and death control, THEN you must also acknowledge that the very structure of the system under which most people work MUST be regulated in such a way that the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all those people will not be denied them. What good is it if you tell people they are equal, they are free, they have inalienable rights, and then tell them, "Oh by the way, there is a class of your fellow citizens who will control the essentials of your life, and you will be completely subject to their whims and demands"? That would turn our inalienable rights into a joke. All except the masters would be the equivalent of slaves. The inherent rights of most citizens would be a meaningless piece of rhetoric. Fairness, which is the result of equality before the law, must extend from the bottom to the top of society. Precisely what all that means in practice is something that must be worked out. But inherent and inalienable rights mean nothing if a person is subject to the arbitrary control of another human being in something so absolutely essential as how they work and earn their living.
June 8, 2001
George GoriI couldn't have said it better. Those salient points you make are the very ones conservatives and libertarians forget. I have heard many a conservative say "why should it bother me if a company has a monopoly on a product, or pays a poor, even subsistence wage?" My answer is that if a company has a monopoly or pays poor wages those PRIVILEGES are granted by a government, usually elected by us. If a government only passes legislation to benefit the wealthy class it ceases to represent the people and ceases to function for the benefit of society. Society, being the sum of individuals composing it, exists to benefit all of it's member. This is not to say that is can make us all smart, beautiful, successful, etc, but it can protect us in the exercise of our inalienable rights. I think many rightists forget the Declaration states "among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Among being the key word, implying there are more than just those three rights. I am going in the right direction?
June 8, 2001
Eyler CoatesThe ideas you state that are repeated by conservatives and libertarians -- "why should it bother me if a company has a monopoly on a product, or pays a poor, even subsistence wage?" -- have within them the reason they feel as they do. Why should it bother ME. Their focus is on the big ME, and their vision does not encompass the fact that all of us, including each and every little "me" in the nation, are a part of a community of people. And what happens to the whole community affects, in one way or another, every member of it. In addition, in a very real sense, what happens to a significant number of the individual members of the community also affects the entire community. This is not rocket science. It just requires seeing beyond one's own self-centered interests. And that is precisely what Ayn Rand trains people NOT to do.
And it is exactly as you say. Each business within a nation acts under privileges granted it by a government which is a function of the WHOLE community. The government must look out for the interests of the entire community, and therefore it should and must act in the best interests of the whole. It is true that some of the self-centered persons are interested in seizing control of the government so that they can use it to look out for their own interests and NOT the interests of the whole. But when they do that, they undermine the best interests of the whole nation and contribute to its decline. In fact, in an ultimate sense, they thereby undermine the best interests even of themselves. They are, in other words, acting stupidly.
Basically, ours is a society of self-government. The people as a whole, through their government, govern the affairs of the entire society, and each individual person governs his own affairs in such a way as not to interfere with the equal rights of others to do the same. You have a lot of considerations all going on at the same time, and some of them, if taken to extreme, could contradict others. An individual might think it to his advantage to force government to act in a way that would bring him immediate benefit, while injuring the rights of others or even all others. But that cannot be allowed to be, in a society where all men are equal.
One thing that conservatives often worry about is the possibility of taxing producers in order to support non-producers. In fact, that may be one of their biggest fears. So, let's examine it. Is it in the best interests of society to do that? I think not, because it would only encourage citizens to become non-producers, and that would contribute to the decline of the society. The discussion of things that would fall under this heading could become quite lengthy (such as taxing the rich at a higher rate than the middle-incomes), and I'll not try to go into them all, but I think they could all be answered in terms that represent a balance between the interests of the whole and the interests of the individual. In a sense, the rich could be viewed as being very patriotic, because although they benefit the most from their participation in our society, they also contribute at a higher rate towards the upkeep of our society. We need them. But they need everyone else, too, because they could not amass a penny of their wealth if they were isolated from the society. A reasonable and just balance must be struck.
It is true that the Declaration does say that AMONG these rights are ... etc. But I must confess I have difficulty identifying other rights that could not be included within the basic three. In fact, if you have a proper grasp of what "life" means for a human being, you could say that that one alone encompasses the whole range of inalienable rights. But liberty and the pursuit of happiness make the meaning of "life" more explicit. Perhaps one could add a right to justice, for example, but that seems to be implied by the right that precedes the big three, namely "all men are created equal." But the rights specifically stated in the Declaration are not, in my opinion, to be taken as limitations, but as descriptors that provide the general character of the whole concept of inalienable rights. That, I believe, is the function of "among these."
June 9, 2001
George GoriExcellent points. I also have an example. Take Alexander Hamilton's views on commerce and government. He believed the wealthy must be "cemented" to the government by policies favorable to them. That would ensure their "loyalty" and be a "prop" to the government. He was defining the wealthy as having a SEPARATE interest from the rest of the people. This a very dangerous doctrine indeed. Shouldn't all of the community have an interest in government? Jefferson believed so. Also if the wealthy have a separate and distinct "interest" in government, won't they pervert their "interest" to their own ends? Your dissertation is right on the mark. All human beings in a state of society should have equal inalienable rights, regardless of economic or class status. Unfortunately Randians, libertarians, and conservatives fail to see this.
June 9, 2001