Divine Right
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
To change the world, we must change the way people think. The Declaration of Independence, a result of the Enlightenment, was an example of such a change. Penned just past the beginning of the end of the European monarchies – it was to change the world forever by saying that everything did not belong to any monarch – that governance itself belonged to the people.
The words of the Declaration of Independence declared America to be a democracy. Made America the shining beacon from which many other democracies would first take light.
For all of history – and even before – wherever found, monarchs had declared that monarchies were how it was meant to be. That all, even the people themselves, were property of the throne. For most of those years, the people at least pretended to believe the lie. The Declaration of Independence’s — Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — laid low this lie. It was indeed a most revolutionary document. One that with its — We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,— also cast off the old class system of Europe.
Meanwhile, in Europe, especially in mother England, the mid-18th century saw the beginning of the Industrial Age. One which saw the production of goods (an essential part of any economy) shifted from the heath, hearth, and small proprietors to large manufacturing plants owned by the wealthy. Their right to control the means of production and the power that went with this control created a new class – a new tyranny. This right and this new class required a new ‘how it was meant to be’ — that a new big lie be peddled.
Let the rationalization begin. A certain philosopher, himself a loyal subject to a monarch, said that this new accordance was as it should be; one that came down from god by the way of an invisible hand.
It was not, and it did not. The earliest economies were communal, the 3rd century BCE knew socialist monarchies, and scripture and philosophers like Plato and Aristotle were not in accord with Smith.
Smith wrote about the role of government in economies. But ?? Did Smith understand the role of an economy? — That the economy is every bit as important as the government? — That the two are coequal? Codependent? Others before him had.
By the 19th century, Fourier, Engels, Marx, – more than a few fellow philosophers – began questioning the right and wisdom of the wealthy controlling the means of production – began to understand that the economy is indeed every bit as important as, coequal to, the government itself. That the two were inextricably linked. That, rather than the people serving the economy, democracy must include the right of the people to an economy “of the people, by the people, for the people”** — that an economy should serve the people.
These boys of 76 could hardly have foreseen the Industrial Age with its Slater’s mills – Whitney’s cotton gins – Carnegie’s steel mills – Rockefeller’s oil empire, — that the ownership of the means of production by a wealthy few would give them the power to tyrannize the new nation.
These new titans of industry weren’t above appropriating divine right. Capitalism*, they said, was how it was meant to be.
Worked for them.
In America – for the rest of the 18th, all of the 19th, and the early part of the 20th century – the Declaration of Independence hadn’t made all that much difference for the common man. The common man watched the rise of a new aristocracy of the wealthy who could buy a government; not one “of the people, by the people, for the people”, but one of their liking. Today, many U.S. politicians avow that it is the right of the wealthy to control the means of production and tell us that this right is at least as divine as that once accorded to monarchs.
There’s no way that the writers of the Declaration of Independence could have foreseen the Industrial Age with its Slater’s mills, Whitney’s cotton gins, Carnegie’s steel mills, Rockefeller’s oil empire, — the ownership of the means of production by a wealthy few — that would come to grip the new nation. It would be unfair to blame them for not foreseeing the Industrial Age; for not including the right of the people to control the means of production in the Declaration of Independence.
But, what if they had?
— The Enlightenment’s fingerprints, especially John Locke’s, are all over our Declaration of Independence. Born in 1632, John Locke saw the need to separate church and state. If he had been born two centuries later, no doubt he would have seen the need to separate wealth and state. —
We now know that government and economy are inextricably linked. We now know what it means for a wealthy few to control the means of production; and the consequences thereof. That there can not be true democracy when a very few control the means of production; can use the wealth therefrom to control the government.
By now we have seen enough to understand that neither religion nor wealth should ever be allowed to get their noses under the tent of government and economics. We have seen how the very wealthy when they feel threatened strike back with such actions as the Ludlow Massacre, the ‘Conservative Manifesto’, the ‘Powell Memorandum’, and the recent packing of the U.S. Supreme Court. We have seen religious groups fall back, regroup, and then try again to impose religion on governance. Try time after time to rewrite history to say that the founders wanted a sectarian nation; of their sect, of course.
The Declaration of Independence freed us from the tyranny of the monarchies. The Constitution’s First Amendment was intended to free us from the tyranny of religion. To date, we haven’t anything to free us from the tyranny of wealth. Quite to the contrary, today we have a Supreme Court majority that is itself representative of wealth and religion, not democracy; and a bought and paid-for Republican Senate body.
One needn’t be a John Locke or clairvoyant to foresee the consequences of the extremely wealthy (or those aspiring to be so) owning/controlling Artificial Intelligence ( AI). First, they would use AI to control the world. Then, Generative AI would take control. There is no way that a matter such as what to do with AI should be decided based on wealth, on the interest of the very wealthy. Such a matter, such matters, should be decided based on what is best for we the people.
*Capitalism was the term given the wealth accumulated during the mercantile period. Hence mercantilism, more and more economies belonged to the wealthy. In a time when wealth was king and pretty much everyone else had nothing; wealth was indeed divine.
**from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
An exceptional essay.
Thank you so much for these important ideas.
yes,
but what if
the people decide they want a government that does not threaten their religious values?
what if they sincerely believe, however insane you think they are, that it is their right to alter and abolish such a government?
the record of countries claiming to let the people decide how to control the means of production does not show a high regard for individual human rights.
i offer this as a matter of logic, not preference. but i suspect that the “religion” you think is trying to control the country right now is actually the work of “the wealthy” who are a little smarter about these things than we are.
‘Separation of church & state’ appears in the Constitution at the insistence of folks like Jefferson, Madison, Franklin (presumably) who were ‘Deists’. They believed in god but as an entity that was detached from the affairs of mankind. Deism is considered a heresy by the Catholic church, it seems. So such notions of Separation may be headed for the scrap pile.
There is actually some argument about ‘heresy’ in this case.
If one is not regarded as a believer, and Deists are not, then one cannot be regarded as a heretic, officially, it is said.
Hardly anyone claims to be a Deist these days.
But many are reluctant to come out as atheists.
Some of them call themselves agnostics.
Deist is a polite way of putting Atheist, which is by definition no religion
Nothing in there about no god … no religion
Unsurprising The Church labeled both heretic …
Ten Bears
I am not so sure Deist means “no god.” even to the Founders and Framers. Those people certainly had plenty of evidence of the dangers of state sponsored religion to not need to give up their “belief” in god to write a separation of church and state into the Bill of Rights. They lived in a time where belief in god was in the air they breathed and there is plenty of evidence that Jefferson, Washington, and even Tom Paine (not to mention Isaac Newton) believed in a “god” even if they had some trouble with “religion.” We, on the contrary live in an age of atheism so severe that we see it in every “agnostic” or people who just don’t give a damn.
The Chriatians I knew insisted that they did not believe in “religion” but in Christ. Personally I think Jesus tried to rescue belief in God from superstition. But I am a heretic.
Many “atheists” don’t recognize that they do make a religion out of “there is no god.” If they were just atheists, the would go about their lives minding their own business, but instead they run around trying to convince the rest of us to join them in worshipping “no-god.”
I’ve been an atheist for most of my life, and I never proselytize it.
You are entitled to believe what you want to believe, just so long as you allow everyone else to do so. And even if you don’t, oddly enough.
Dobbs
sorry, can’t resist: “democracy” is all about making people do what you believe they should. just because some people call what they believe “religion” does not disenfranchise them.
personally, i belive in someting called regulated capitalism. the Republicans, finding themselves at the top of the food chain, believe in the law of the jungle. very recent Republicans believe in government by force…which ultimately is what all government is..but democracy at least limits the use of force to about what most people agreed they could live with. R’s today believe in unregulated use of force to do whatever they want, to hell with what anyone else believes. oddly, so do some liberals…but since they currently don’t have the power to get away with it, they talk about a kind of morality, which they say has nothing to do with religion, but just the obvious right of everyone to “demand” what they want from “the government.”
I have never reached the high levels of atheism, because i have always been of a scientific bent and like to base my beliefs of what i think is evidence. as far as i can tell there is no evidence whatsoever for “no god.” i also think it is important to keep track of what you are talking about. “Scientcetists” always end up talking about religion when they think they are talking about Science.
oh, yes, then there are people like magamoron Speaker of the House who thinks “no law respecting an establishment of religion” means you can do whatever you want as long as you call it your “religion.” I am pretty sure the Framers though of Establishment of religion as something like what they had seen in England to a few undred years: a “church” (hard to define) supported by the government financially by taxes and exclusively by the “law of the land.” this was taken to mean that the government could not tax churches because “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” i’m okay with that, but not so much whenit means some con man can call himslef a church, invest the donations from his flock in real estate and claim exemption from taxes.
too bad the South did not think of that..”Hey, all us southerners believe god is white and would send us to hell if we served blacks a cup of coffee.”
“democracy” is all about making people do what you believe they should.
On this we heartily disagree.
“democracy” is largely about tolerating what others believe.
Dobbs
you mightnot disagree so heartily if I madec clearer what i mean.
democracy is a way of making laws. laws are ways of making people do what “you” want. the thing about democracy is that all the people get a say (presumably), so (theoretically) they have to come up with something most of them agree they can live with.
you might call this “toleration.” but toleration is not “law”, though you might pass laws that encourage toleration (on pain of punishment?)
some religions teach toleration (and some do not), but this is not arrived at by law, but by personal conviction.
in both cases it only works as long as people have some idea society cannot exist without at some level understanding “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” not that anyone actually remembers this when under stress, or a cop is watching them. [to the idea that the big Cop in the sky is watching them…I think Jesus was trying to teach that the guy he called”Father” did not act as a cop, but as a … well, father, but not like some fathers who act like cops, even bad cops, or insane kings.]
btw
for Some reason Angry Bear refuses to notify me of comments, so if you comment about this it might be a little while before i get back to you.
Ken, we must be on the same wavelength. I was just rereading some American history and like you, I focused on the Declaration of Independence. I actually took out a yellow marker and drew it through the line:
My original thought was maybe the time is now right, and the existing “form of Government” has “become destructive of these ends,” (i.e. “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”) and it’s time to “alter or to abolish it, and institute a new Government.”
My obsession with Congressional rules reform would fall in line with some major “alterations” to improve the effectiveness of the existing government, but not necessarily forming a “new Government.”
But I thought your focus and discussion of the transition away from the peoples’ rights, contrasted with those of the wealthy, the power of the economy, the titans of industry, and capitalism was also interesting. You say, “Seems unlikely that even if the writers of the Declaration of Independence could have foreseen the Industrial Age.” This would be where I would introduce the thought that maybe they (or at least some, wealthy & powerful Federalists, & investors) DID foresee it. Maybe Jefferson, the primary writer, didn’t see it, but I think the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton who was also very much involved in the Constitutional Convention, did see it.
Thomas Jefferson, the youngest member of the Continental Congress, who was appointed to prepare the Declaration draft was actually somewhat lackadaisical regarding the deliberations at the time and was nearly late to the meeting where Independence was being discussed. He was assigned the drafting responsibility because of his writing skills and intelligence. He wanted to convince the world that this new government was different from the world monarchies and he said the Declaration was “intended to be an expression of the American mind.” It’s important to understand that aside from the pointed and profound wording of the Declaration, which has reverberated throughout the world for centuries, there was really a significant class distinction between the “common man” and the rich and powerful, and the obvious conflicts of freedom and slavery. We need to remember that it was basically the rich, well-educated, and politically powerful who met in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution.
From the beginning, those class distinctions have been built into our government structure since the “Great Compromise” of 1787. Of course, the 3/5 compromise on counting the slave population was reached which avoided the whole controversy of whether to abolish slavery, but by design the U.S. House of Representatives was specifically to represent and involve the masses of the common man. It was also well known at the time that the Senate was to represent the individual states, but Hamilton, the major contributor to the Federalist Papers, said it also said it represented “the rich and well-born.” Even in a time when the concept of “majority rule” was a benchmark of democracy, the cumbersome Electoral College process was designed to prevent the masses from being fooled and electing a less-than-desired (by the rich & well-born) candidate.
So the revered and marveled Constitutional system of “checks & balances” which provided oversight on the various branches of government also provided a check on the common man masses from gaining too much control of the government. The phrase, “all that glitters is not gold” comes to mind.
Now, more on the subject of the early vision of the Industrial Age and the disconnect between the masses and the economy, Alexander Hamilton, who I would call a brainchild of American capitalism seemed to have the instincts for private sector speculation, investment, innovation, business development and the need for government involvement in all of that. President Washington put this dynamic individual who came from humble beginnings in the exact spot to exercise those instincts as Treasury Secretary.
Hamilton, assigned with getting the new country on sound economic footing, proposed the Bank of the United States which was outside of the direct framework of the Constitution. It was very controversial, but Hamilton argued that it was part of the “implied powers” of the Constitution under the “necessary & proper” clause. He convinced Washington and the Congress to support the Bank in spite of major disagreement from Jefferson who was an advocate of the common man. The Bank was very successful in attracting major private investments in the new country and strengthened the involvement and control of the wealthy in the workings of the new government. The Supreme Court, in 1819, upheld Hamilton’s necessary & proper argument.
In the same year, 1791, Hamilton also released his, “Report on Manufactures” which proposed a series of far-reaching tariffs, subsidies and incentives for the private development of manufacturing facilities to make the new country more self-sufficient and independent of foreign goods. The specific proposals were not approved by Congress but many of the concepts were approved the following year which again benefited the wealthy and strengthened the relationships of business and wealthy investors in the involvement of the government.
In summary, despite the lofty language of the Declaration, the underpinnings of our democracy have from the beginning been highly influenced by the wealthy, well-born, well-educated, and politically powerful and connected interests. In recent times the general public and the masses of common folks have lost even more of their influence with vastly decreasing, proportional representation in the House of Representatives, the influence of gerrymandering, the various twists and turns in discounting the concept of “majority rule”, the gross misrepresentation of masses in the Senate, and the continuing reliance on the outdated Electoral College process.
J.P.
This is the one I am guessing.
Hello Bill,
I just posted a comment to Ken’s “Divine Right” posting. Nothing shows up. Let me know if I need to repost.
Thanks.
J.P.
The system does not believe we should write long comments. I just approved it. Sorry, just let me know. I can always fix it (I think).
been highly influenced by the wealthy, well-born, well-educated, and politically powerful and connected interests. In recent times the general public and the masses of common folks have lost even more of their influence with vastly decreasing, proportional representation in the House of Representatives, the influence of gerrymandering, the various twists and turns in discounting the concept of “majority rule”, the gross misrepresentation of masses in the Senate, and the continuing reliance on the outdated Electoral College process.
J.P.
Long comment is up.
Good work, thanks! BTW I just posted a new blog post:
“Chatting With AI On Better Government”
https://jpmcjefferson.blogspot.com/2023/12/chatting-with-ai-on-better-government.html
You are welcome to repost if you want to.
JP
J.P.
How about Monday? Usually, I am scrambling for new posts on Sunday. Hoping to pick up more writers.