John Adams died on the 4th of July. Perhaps this was coincidence, but having read a bit of his work I strongly suspect not. I think he was disgusted. I think he chose to exit on the 4th as a protest; his final act of political expression. Sheer conjecture obviously, but if you read his later work it sounds like a man who has already seen the future and doesn't care for it a bit; may as well check out sooner rather than later.
Anyhow, today on this classic day of self congratulation I have chosen to dissent. I believe that our Constitutional system of government is a sinking ship and I have quoted liberally from Adams in defense of that position. My views are neither left nor right, they are anomalous. If nothing else, at least the internet affords crackpots like me a soapbox. If you’re bored, you may find my manifesto amusing.
Study government as you do astronomy, by facts, observations and experiments; not by the dogmas of lying priest or knavish politicians
Whatever is not built on the broad basis of public utility must be thrown to the ground
John Adams
That gaping, timid animal, man, dares not read or think. The prejudices, passions, habits, associations, and interests of his fellow creatures surround him on every side; and if his reading or his thoughts interfere with any of these, he dares not acknowledge it. If he is hardy enough to venture even a hint, persecution, in some form or other, is his certain portion
Theoretical books upon government will not sell. Booksellers and printers, far from purchasing the manuscript, will not accept it as a gift
I am confident that if my letters were printed, there would not be found six people in the world who would read them with attention
Experience and philosophy are lost upon mankind…
John Adams - Discourse on Davila
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John Adams was eminently qualified to be President; a Harvard trained lawyer and polyglot, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Western history, he was well equipped to judge on the important issues facing a young nation. As part of this broad wisdom, he had a firm grasp of two fundamental truths:
1) Government is (or should be) a science, not a superstition.
2) Dogma and misunderstanding (which permeated the subject even then) are an insurmountable obstacle to its progress.
If these obstacles held sway in Adam’s day, during the enlightenment, how much more so now, in an age when U. S. Lawmakers openly disavow the scientific theories of Evolution and human induced climate change? Most contemporary Americans would endure a root canal before reading Locke, Rousseau or Montesquieu; our elected representatives are no exception to this sentiment. In a more thoughtful age, Adams made a sincere contribution to the political literature, and suffered the rest of his life as a target for every sort of libel and slander; all because he dared to suggest (on the basis of voluminous historic evidence) that an overly democratic Republic might have some serious unanticipated consequences. Today,
no establishment intellectual would dare to question the divine perfection of our Constitution’s general plan; it would be an act of social heresy and professional suicide. But what kind of “science” enforces a rigid doctrinal orthodoxy?
We are - whether we wish to admit it or not - primates!, originating from a different configuration of the same double helix molecular blueprint as every other terrestrial creature. As Jared Diamond observes, to an impartial observer, humans are clearly a variety of Chimpanzee. To suggest that the structure of our complex, malleable and highly novel political institutions is (apparently) divinely ordained and somehow not a legitimate subject for searching inquiry, intense debate and continuous improvement, is to deny all reason. It is a denial, utterly absurd, in light of our species’ demonstrated inability to achieve a sustainable ecological balance. We are made from the same genetic material as Lemmings, but unlike rodents we have a capacity for self study and improvement. If we are wise we will avail ourselves of this talent and reform our anachronistic political institutions; otherwise, we may scurry en masse towards a nightmarish future. Adams would surely have a bitter chuckle if he could see us now. The creature with the greatest intellect; orbiting the planet and splicing genes, but also leveling cities and extinguishing countless other species. Seemingly capable of anything except controlling our own destructive habits; we slip steadily towards the abyss.
Some may be uncomfortable with this thinking; perhaps feeling that a mechanistic, utilitarian view of human institutions threatens their belief in “free will”. Even now, in the 21st century, it seems that most people interpret their world as a moral struggle between good and evil (or right and wrong if you’re secular). Individual choice is the dominant force in this worldview, with institutions taking a distant back seat. Assessing blame for the state of our Republic, the majority condemn politicians while simultaneously accepting the political process which produces them. In this view, the “democratic process” is sacrosanct but the individual players are a veritable plague of locusts. I prefer to set such moralistic thinking aside and view our problems more abstractly.
In physics, scientists can predict the behavior of sub-atomic particles - collectively - in terms of averages or probabilities, while the movement of individual particles remains unique and mysterious. Similarly, I believe that human individuals are unique and free; but as a group - on average - we respond predictably to external forces. Our politicians are as much creatures of their environment as any crack dealer or prostitute; in classic Newtonian fashion they all respond to external forces; given a better start in life they might have surprised us. We may blame individuals until we’re blue in the face, but our energy would be better spent analyzing the institutions which influence them.
Individuals are unique (and morally responsible for their actions) , but as a species our behavior is unquestionably amenable to modeling, prediction and manipulation. We would be foolish not to examine our political institutions with the same objectivity as a physicist (or Adam’s astronomer). Since Adams’s day, the material nature of our existence has been utterly transformed by science; but our political institutions remain virtually unchanged. Does this not seem surprising?
Others may accept the idea of “social engineering”, but simply feel the science of government was settled forever by the framers during a few brief months in 1787, with the results now immortalized in our Constitution; no further knowledge or advancement being possible. Like Newton’s Laws, the popularly elected bi-cameral Republic is - in their view - a permanent, fully perfected contribution to human knowledge. The intractable problems which surround us - the warfare, poverty, injustice and environmental devastation which blight our Republic - have, apparently, nothing to do with the science of government; our Constitution is in no way implicated. Short of divine intervention, however, it is difficult to imagine where else, other than government, we might look for solutions to such difficulties. And surely, if we accept that government is a science, we may reasonably ask: what advancements have been made since 1787? Every other branch of science has progressed immeasurably, and surely human society has changed quite a bit as well. Can this discipline of Government really be so static?
Of course not. As a field of study, human institutions are anything but fixed; they are a moving target. The society of ants and bees, and other chimpanzees, may be a permanent thing; amenable to final conclusions and ironclad pronouncements, but the society of humans is (and always was) a work in progress. Our Paleolithic ancestors foraged in small nomadic groups (possibly not too different from their Chimp ancestors); during the Neolithic period we stumbled upon agriculture, formed larger groups and acquired new institutions (like real estate, organized warfare and hereditary leadership). In 1787 the framers fine-tuned some of these institutions, but they hardly reinvented the wheel; yet agriculture, warfare and innumerable other things have changed virtually beyond recognition since the Convention. Perhaps the time for minor refurbishing of traditional institutions has past. Maybe it’s time to forget what we think we “know” and re-examine the fundamental premises on which our institutions were erected. Certainly the framers attempted to do this, and they’re rightfully applauded for the effort. Maybe we should pay homage to their labors by revisiting their premises and then decide if they’re still appropriate today.
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I know but one principle or element of government….a constant and perpetual disposition and determination to do to others as we would have others do to us
Justice is the only moral principle of government
- John Adams
So, what postulates did the framers accept; what durable wisdom did they derive from three thousand years of European and Mediterranean history? On what solid footings did they erect their work? Well, to begin, they concurred with Socrates and nearly every other philosopher (except perhaps Machiavelli); they stated unequivocally that Governments are created for the benefit of those to be governed - “freedom”, “happiness“ , “safety“, “justice“, “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare”; these are the goals of Government. Government is supposed to provide these goods, and ultimately derive its legitimacy through the “consent of the governed” who believe that these goods have indeed been delivered. This position isn’t science, it’s philosophy; but surely this is one article of faith which even a diverse and nominally secular society can agree on. In fact, it seems so incontrovertible as to be scarcely worth mentioning, except for a glaring inconsistency, the elephant in the room, which is so painfully illuminated by these words. If government is an institution that provides for the general welfare of a consenting populace, why is our society so unwell, and why is it that our consent is so clearly forced?
What are we to do with this information? Is this not an enormous problem? The Republic was instituted to support our health and happiness, and yet:
What justice when a small fraction of the population holds most of the wealth; and, by virtue of this wealth, enjoys an unlimited power to manipulate the political system?
What freedom, happiness and tranquility when the overwhelming majority, having little or no wealth, are de facto slaves to these wealthy overlords?
What welfare when our use of the earth’s resources threatens to render the earth uninhabitable?
What safety when the common defense threatens to annihilate us?
What consent when fewer than one citizen in ten approves of his elected representatives?
What person would seriously contend this is a more perfect union? Are these the blessings of liberty?
If we truly revere the framers, as so many claim to, then we must acknowledge this glaring and horrific discrepancy between the stated purpose of our government and the reality of the actual existence which we now lead. And if we will admit the obvious, and concede that our Government has become counterproductive to the desired ends, then we must look for some flaw in our Government. It is pointless to blame individuals, or even particular groups of individuals. Of course these parties are flawed, we are all flawed; but it is the function of Government to protect us; from each other and also from ourselves. Remember Madison, the “father” or our Constitution:
If men were angels no government would be necessary.
When government fails to achieve the desired ends it is absurd to blame that failure on the citizens. Government exists because the citizens are imperfect. When the citizens run amuck we must look to the Constitution, not the citizens. The other view is backwards.
The framers were scientists conducting an experiment; in the long term, their trial did not yield the desired result. We may, if we wish, throw up our hands in disgust or point our fingers at some convenient scapegoat; but the respectful and scientific thing would be to review their work coolly and dispassionately, in the light of practical experience and current scientific understanding. Perhaps, if we set the rancor and the orthodoxy aside we may view the subject anew; more like collaborating researchers and less like battling sectarians. We must examine their work impartially and seek to determine where the experiment went wrong.
“Checks and Balances” revisited
Food. Raiment, and habitations, the indispensable wants of all, are not to be achieved without the continual toil of ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind….The controversy between the rich and the poor, the laborious and the idle, the learned and the ignorant, distinctions as old as the creation, and as extensive as the globe, distinctions which no art or policy, no degree of virtue or philosophy can ever wholly destroy, will continue, and rivalries will spring out of them. These parties will be represented in the legislature, and must be balanced, or one will oppress the other. There will never probably be found any other mode of establishing such an equilibrium , than by constituting the representation of each an independent branch of the legislature, and an independent executive authority, such as that in our government, to be a third branch and a mediator or an arbitrator between them. Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
The great art of lawgiving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature.
John Adams
The above statements by Adams may provide a clue as to where the framers’ experiment went wrong. Proponents of our political system rarely tire of extolling the great virtue of its “checks and balances”, but as Adams states quite clearly here, the elaborate mechanism of our government was created solely for the purpose of maintaining a social order in which the rich are supported by the continual toil of ninety nine in a hundred. Two centuries before the “Occupy“ movement, the most thoughtful of the framers makes it clear that the Occupiers are absolutely correct in their assessment of American society. Similar explanations of our Constitutional system appear throughout The Federalist. What Adams says here, was once common knowledge among all educated men.
It would be unfair to condemn Adams and his peers. Class divisions are as old as civilization and the framers were both wealthy and pragmatic. We cannot reasonably imagine that they would have attempted to create a Utopia. They simply wished to design a Republic which tempered the excesses of grinding despotism and revolutionary anarchy. Set in the context of the 18th Century, their thinking was progressive and humane. But is this thinking still appropriate today?
Nominally, the virtue of this class balancing act was that each party would be protected. The one percent would be limited in its oppression of the ninety nine; the ninety nine would not overthrow the one. Order would be maintained and property would be secure. Well, we have had order, but the benefits derived by the ninety nine are surely overstated. The essence of checks and balances was to maintain the status quo; neither the rich nor the poor could fundamentally alter the system by themselves. But the status quo was not static, it was a dynamic system called capitalism; and two centuries of buying and selling and research and investment and consolidation have generated an entirely new status quo based on technology the framers never even dreamed of; like automated mass production, nuclear power, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. Surely this is a transformation worth contemplating. If the entire art of lawgiving consists in maintaining an economic system based on manual labor, what happens to Government when manual labor becomes virtually irrelevant?……
The “Class System” is not just a worn out Marxist cliché. It is a recognizable feature of the social landscape in every civilization which has ever existed. Adams describes its perpetuation as the central problem in Government. That being the case; is it unreasonable to examine this system in detail? Can we do this without simply being derided as “socialists” or worse? Would it not be scientific to examine the history behind the central feature of our political system? Is it not at least conceivable that an understanding of the class system may shed light on the self evident failures of our Constitutional system? In order to accomplish this examination, it may be desirable to frame the subject in a new way and shift from “politics” into “ecology”. Not that these two subject are necessarily so different, but it does fall outside of our habitual ways of treating the subject.
An Ecological theory of Class
How is the nature of man, and of society, and of government, to be studied or known, but in the history and by the experience of human nature in its terrestrial existence? - Adams
History (or her-story if you prefer) is not just a collection of facts, it’s a narrative. We use selected facts to tell a story that suits our taste. It’s a version of the old tale about three blind men describing an elephant; each “sees” an entirely different creature. Similarly, there have been a variety of themes used in historical storytelling:
Traditionally there was the great man approach, which concentrated on the one percent; major actors like Alexander, Caesar and Charlemagne.
There is a Cyclical theory which suggests empires and civilizations rise and fall, as if driven by some sort of cosmic pendulum.
The notion of Progress represents a linear historical theme in which humanity is constantly improving. This is really just a warmed over version of Christianity in which a futuristic Utopia has been substituted for the second coming.
Some historians concentrate on technology. This is surely relevant but is it the driving force?
The Marxists concentrated on social class and technology both, which seems a more balanced approach. But they also accepted the notion of progress and this was problematic
Economic historians follow the money. Charles Beard made this school famous.
Popular historians (like Howard Zinn) concentrate on regular people, the ninety-nine percent, which is a nice change from the great man school, but does it explain history?
But has there ever been an Ecological school of history which explains the evolution of our political institutions primarily as a social adaptation allowing some human populations to compete more effectively in the eternal struggle over habitat? Not so far as I know, but I don’t understand why not. We are biological creatures after all; we do exist within the context of the earths biosphere and we are a part of the complex web of ecological relationships which describe it. We are born, we grow, we reproduce and we die; our populations compete for habitat and are limited by the available resources like all other creatures; surely these facts have a bearing on our history. No theory of history is complete; each is a model, a simplification, an effort to extract the most important elements from the full complexity of available information. An ecological interpretation of the class system may also be a gross simplification, but doesn’t it make sense to at least consider this perspective? The same impartial observer who would recognize “humans” as a variety of chimpanzee (and not some totally unique and unprecedented species) would also surely recognize the natural history of this species as a major factor influencing its current forms of social organization. Adams says we must understand the history of our terrestrial existence; he died before Darwin published but I think he would have been very quick to accept the implications of evolutionary theory.
Today, in the 21st Century, most people seem to feel that the usual rules don’t apply to humans; that whatever our problems may be, they defy analysis in the same terms that we would apply to other species. Well perhaps there is truth in this; a species which manipulates nature on the scale that we do does seem to play by different rules. But it wasn’t always like this for us, and if we consider human history from an ecological perspective this may offer us some novel insights. Like every other creature, we adopted social behaviors which suited our means of existence; once useful, now these behaviors have become harmful. Understanding how these social habits arose may be the first step towards controlling them.
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Like most (if not all?) other species, humans are territorial and competitive. Once we acquire something, we hang onto it for dear life. We justify this behavior with customs, codes and legal finery, but in the final analysis we are as primitive as two hyenas fighting over the same carcass. Unsurprisingly, our primate forbears are the same way. Jane Goodall had to wait a few years before witnessing her first full-on Chimp “genocide”, but now, after decades of close observation, we know that Chimps are no nicer than humans. They lack weapons but they’re hardly pacifists. And those distant human ancestors who followed the Chimps; they weren’t so different either. Jared Diamond, who has spent decades observing the modern remnants of Paleolithic hunter/gatherer populations, has also noted a violent streak. To paraphrase loosely, he suggests that it was a major event in human history when people first learned not to kill strangers on sight. These indigenous cultures are already far removed from Goodalls Chimps, but there is still an undeniable family resemblance.
The Earths resources are finite and life is a violent affair; each species struggles for its niche in the total environment, specific populations compete with neighboring groups for a domain within that hard-won niche and individual creatures fight for place within their respective populations. These considerations apply to Chimpanzees, they apply to Paleolithic primates (whom we arbitrarily choose to call “human”) and they applied equally to those Neolithic populations which stumbled upon agriculture. Today, we manipulate our environment with godlike powers, but our social forms remain the product of an earlier time when humanity was still weak, and daily violence was an unavoidable fact of life.
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Following the last ice age, our ancestors learned of a new way to acquire food. Agriculture allowed humans to extract sustenance from the earth more efficiently than hunting and gathering; it was a highly successful adaptation for our species, giving us a huge advantage over every other creature. We are told this shift to agriculture was the beginning of “Civilization” , and clearly it was the beginning of something enormous (whatever we choose to call it); but it was not the end of our subservience to the fundamental requirements of ecology.
Every population (of any species) will breed and multiply until it reaches a limit where the birth rate and death rate balance each other out. There are fluctuations of course, but behind these fluctuations there is a fundamental ecological relationship based on the full complexity of the earths organic and inorganic systems (in essence, everything from the variations in the jet stream to the latest mutation of some microbe). For humans, agriculture altered these relationships enormously, but our species was still subject to the eternal necessity of balancing its population.
Many of the factors limiting population growth can be labeled as environmental; such as weather, predation and disease; but in addition to these externally imposed limits there are also self imposed limits. Some creatures will eat the offspring of their rivals, some will eat their own offspring, and “war” is known even to ants. Consciously or not, each species understands the nature of limits and will use violence against its own kind in the service of necessity; either to limit competing groups inhabiting a contiguous domain or to eliminate competing individuals within a population. Jane Goodall witnessed this behavior among chimps, Jared Diamond has noted it among Paleolithic humans, and all of the same forces continued to apply even after humans gained agriculture.
If anything, agriculture would only have served to intensify our violent tendencies. Hunter/gatherers never achieve the population density of agricultural humans, so there are fewer opportunities for conflict between groups; and when hunter/gatherers do enter conflict there is presumably a good chance that one group may move, rather than fight. But agricultural humans are tied to a specific geographic domain along with their crops, and agricultural humans achieve far greater population densities than their hunter/gatherer relatives, so serious conflict between groups seems much more likely to occur.
In conflicts between hunter/gatherers and farmers it seems clear that farmers will always have the edge because of their greater population density. The hunter/gatherers are outnumbered and presumably retreat into the wild. But when the hunter/gatherers have all been displaced and a regions agricultural potential has been fully exploited by various populations of farmers, then the neighboring agricultural populations will eventually come into conflict when all of the good land has been occupied. It’s inevitable; sometimes disease or famine may preclude the necessity for inter-group conflict, but at some point two agricultural societies expanded into one another, and the resolution of this conflict had to be violent.
There is an account in one of the classic histories describing an armed incursion by Gaullist settlers into territory claimed by the Romans. When confronted by an envoy over this breach of Roman sovereignty the Gaul leader scoffs at their contrived legalistic reasoning: We take this land by right of the ancient law which says that men who are hungry will farm land which is empty. Evict us if you dare, but you may expect to pay dearly for this earth. These Northern “barbarians” had a much clearer grasp of reality than the “civilized” Romans.
Form follows function. Human agricultural societies are designed to do two things:
extract sustenance from the earth
defend (or extend) the domain of a given population.
The specific behavioral features which maximize these functions are universal to all agricultural societies across the globe and they are as fundamental to civilization as the wheel and fire. Job specialization and regimentation; every society has them, and they were (for most of human history) absolutely essential.
The peasantry, comprising the bulk of society, worked diligently to produce as much food as possible; but despite their superior numbers, this group was always controlled by an aristocracy of professional warriors who protected the domain (or realm) from competing groups. This aristocracy relieved the peasants of their agricultural surplus and also pressed them into service as rank and file soldiers when needed. A class of lawyers, priests, financiers, traders and artisans supplemented this arrangement; but most people were peasants, while a relative few concentrated their full energies on warfare and government.
Right or wrong, good and evil; these concepts were irrelevant. Violence was essential to the operation and maintenance of this social organism. The military aristocracy pressed the peasants as hard as possible because their surplus supported the army. If they failed to do this, some stronger neighbor would invade and do it for them. In fact, there is archeological evidence suggesting that humans were actually much healthier, on average, before the advent of “civilization”; in other words, the aristocracy often pushed the peasantry to the brink of starvation. Progress and Civilization, if such things truly exist, came with a very heavy price tag. Ecology cares not for our human value judgments.
By now, this arrangement undoubtedly looks familiar, and the political overtones are inescapable. Yes, it is the same class system alluded to by Adams. It’s not just a cliché, the class system is as real as death and taxes and gravity; the bulk of humanity have been exploited and slaughtered in the service of this behavioral adaptation since the beginning of history. Once agriculture was discovered, this behavior became a biologic necessity. Farming allowed humans to expropriate a much greater share of the earths resources, but the price for this success was a grinding mechanistic social system which reduces most people to the level of interchangeable parts. It is a machine designed for conquest and subjection, without conscience or remorse.
Is this the system that the framers were so intent of protecting? Is the maintenance of this brutalizing social machine the “central problem of government”? If there is even a shadow of truth in this supposition then surely we must acknowledge that the perpetuation of this social automaton in the 21st Century represents a dire threat to our health and happiness. In the framers era, this class system remained the essential basis for all society; they sought to make the system run as smoothly as possible and we may admire them for their effort. But contemplate for a moment the manifest insanity of allowing such a mechanism to continue running in a world where all of the original ecologic parameters have been radically transformed and humanity now holds the power to mold its environment and manage its population with science, not violence. What purpose is served by war today? Why must there be oppression in the midst of plenty? Regard the modern world and ask yourself; does this not look like the work of a machine run amuck?
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Despite the uncomplicated logic of this argument for a an ecological theory of class and notwithstanding the framers own public assertions about the class-oriented function of “checks and balances“, most people will probably find it very difficult to reconcile this view of the U.S., as a conservative bastion of ancient class divisions, with the more accepted perception of our Republic as a progressive product of the Enlightenment; a modern bulwark of individual liberty. But regardless of the stirring language in the Declaration of Independence, was the Republic created by the Constitution really so very different from the Feudal forms of government which still prevailed in Europe at that time? The French peasantry which revolted just a few years after the Convention clearly fit clearly fit the description of an oppressed agricultural class supporting a military aristocracy; were the Pennsylvania farmers of the Whiskey Rebellion really so different from their peers on the other side of the Atlantic? No doubt, the Revolution was a watershed moment in American history, and certainly life in North America was tremendously different from life in Europe, but were these differences of degree and detail or did they signify an actual fundamental divide between two wholly different systems?
Undoubtedly the colonists enjoyed a larger degree of personal freedom and better economic prospects than most European peasants. The lightly populated habitat of North America offered a vast range for agricultural expansion with little of the population pressure experienced by Europeans living on a continent that had been filled up for centuries. Also, the colonists were, in the early years, largely absolved from much of the Crown taxation burdening English citizens; and the Catholic and Anglican churches, oppressive institution which traditionally support the State, were largely excluded from the Colonies. But still, in the final analysis, the U.S. was a commercial and military enterprise, like any fief or kingdom. The several states agreed to joint taxation for the purposes of a common defense; reasonably assuming they might have to defend their territory from various European powers, or put down a rising of the peasantry (like Shay‘s Rebellion). It was a compact created in secrecy by a group of the most powerful men in the Confederacy and the results were obnoxious to many of the farmers who bore the brunt of the burden for supporting this venture. Some, like the Whiskey Rebellion farmers in Pennsylvania, even resorted to violence, but the military aristocracy defeated them easily.
It really seems as though the main differences between the east and west shores of the Atlantic were a matter of degree. A new population in a previously unexploited habitat enjoyed possibilities not open to the population remaining in the ancient environs; but the fundamental nature of social organization was essentially the same. The most substantial difference between the two populations appears to have been the means by which they chose their rulers. In continental Europe, inherited titles were the norm and elective positions the exception; in the U.S. there were to be no inherited titles, the very idea was outlawed. All rulers would be elected.
This final difference, on which so much blood and ink have been expended, is universally regarded as something more than a mere detail. Americans across the political spectrum regard their voting rights as a sacred privilege marking them a free people; the keystone of their Civil Liberties and a great gift from the Enlightenment. But this hallowed institution seems to co-exist very easily with obscene extremes of wealth and poverty; it has been no obstacle to slavery, conquest or oppression. Why, even Adolph Hitler was elected once.
Is it possible that the advantages enjoyed by the colonists were primarily the result of an accident of geography having little to do with their political institutions? Is it conceivable that voting is actually not such an enlightened institution? Perhaps we may even describe voting as an ancient practice; an evolutionary adaptation at the very heart of the class system. Certainly this would go a long ways toward explaining some of our more intractable problems.
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Politics
Democracy…I have always been grieved by the gross abuse of this respectable word. One party speaks of it as the most amiable, venerable, indeed, as the sole object of its adoration; the other as the sole object of its scorn, abhorrence, and execration. Neither party, in my opinion, know what they say.
Is not representation an essential and fundamental departure from democracy? Is not every representative government in the world an aristocracy?
Permit me to ask whether the descent of lands and goods and chattels does not constitute a hereditary order as decidedly as the descent of stars and garters?
There is a natural and unchangeable inconvenience in all popular elections…he who has the deepest purse or the fewest scruples will generally prevail
The multitude have always been credulous, and the few are always artful.
John Adams
Consider the origins of the class system in the first agricultural society. Farming had swelled the .population until warfare between two neighboring groups was inevitable; bloodshed was imminent. This prospect raises an interesting question; who raised and led the first army? We may not know his name or what he looked like but we can certainly make a respectable guess about his character and personality. He was the shrewdest, toughest son of a bitch in the group; able to prod, con, intimidate, inspire or simply pummel his peers into battle.
He had the foresight and calculation to understand that a conflict was inevitable and he may actually have used this solid rational argument to persuade a few people, but others required a more creative approach. For those ruled by fear, he painted a horrific picture of the devastation they would experience if they waited for the enemy to attack first. For the greedy and hungry, he held out the promise of new lands to till. For the lustful he described the women they would enslave. And for those who were truly ambitious, his peers in violence and cunning, he held out the prospect of shared rule over this new dominion (some of these died mysteriously in the days following the great battle) And with every audience he emphasized the ugliness and the backwardness of the “barbarians” on the other side of the river/hill/forest etc…As superior and virtuous beings, they would easily prevail over those savages. …Was this individual not a politician? Was this process not a political campaign? Was he not “elected” by his peers to be their commander and chief? Has this process really changed so much in ten thousand years?
Form follows function. Agricultural societies are designed to extract sustenance from the earth and to defend or (preferably) extend the group domain. The universal features which have always been associated with these functions are job specialization and social regimentation. The operation of this social machine is a process called politics, and politics has its own set of universal features.
The first and most essential requirement for any leader is to create some semblance of unity within his group. He must convince the disparate factions within his group to work together; he must forge a coalition. It is a process which almost certainly predates all written histories and even the agricultural societies which made written history possible. Of course, a hundred thousand years ago in a hunter/gatherer tribe, the replacement of a chief (perhaps trampled by a Mammoth) would not require campaigning or balloting; there would be, perhaps, two or three obvious leaders among this group, and a natural process of factional formation would quickly determine who the next chief was. If the contest was close there might be a scuffle to determine the issue, but is that so different from modern politics? Even today, political violence is common in many cultures; and the U.S. has had its share of assassinations, violent protests and voter intimidation as well. We even had the duel of Burr vs. Hamilton; do fine clothing and oil paintings really make the incident any less primitive? If they had worn animal skins and fought with stone knives would this be so different? No, the democratic process is not a recent invention; it is an ancient mechanism brought to us by evolution; a human variation on the theme of dominance and submission which is continually active in all groups of social animals. It is the perfect tool for selecting the devious and brutal Aristocratic leaders who were essential to the care and maintenance of the class system.
Most social animals, other chimps included, establish relationships of dominance and submission purely through aggression; but we articulate primates have a greater range of options at our disposal. Violence serves a purpose but it has limitations. No individual could hope to rule a large group purely on the basis of continual, overt displays of force. The trick is to form a coalition of individuals who agree to fight with you, then you have a convincing threat to back up your edicts. If people fear your coalition then they will fear you. A majority is the ideal coalition because the math is irrefutable; obedience is virtually assured. This is the real foundation of our much vaunted faith in “majority rule”; morality and ethics have nothing to do with it, it’s an unconscious acknowledgment that if 51% of the group favors something the other 49% would be wise to go along.
And how do you form a coalition? Violence and intimidation certainly can play a role; but it’s much more efficient to use the full arsenal of tools described by Adams:
artifice, dissimulation, hypocrisy, flattery, imposture, quackery and bribery
The 18th Century language is quaint, but the concepts are timeless. You can be certain that all of these activities were well known long before anyone was writing things down. In fact, the ability to lie, consciously and convincingly (a skill underwriting most of these pursuits), is so basic to our species that it has even been observed in other primates. Certain monkeys, illiterate creatures whose “language” consists of a small number of “calls”, have been observed to fool their enemies by pretending that a predator is upon them. In essence they cry “Wolf”, to distract their competitors. To say that lying is synonymous with politics may be a slight exaggeration but it’s not far off. More accurately, perhaps, we might say that lying and politics are Siamese twins; connected at birth and virtually inseparable. Viewed in this light, Political Reform is clearly an oxymoron. Political leaders are the human embodiment of natural selection in action; they do whatever is necessary. This rarely corresponds with anyone’s idea or morality.
Whether you choose to call your faction leader chief, king, president, emperor or dictator, the title matters little, once the victor has assumed power they must do whatever is expedient. All rulers are disciples of Machiavelli; if they aren‘t then they won‘t rule for very long. . In a world of shifting alliances, secret agreements, double crosses and continuous warfare, the leader cannot blink. If an enemy is advancing on the castle, he may wish to pillage his villages and burn the crops to deprive the invaders of sustenance (if the peasants starve as a result this is the cost of doing business). If he’s the invader, it may be expedient to take a city and then slaughter every last resident. If the peasants are rebellious he must periodically make an example out of some, impaling their heads on the city wall. And don’t forget his intimates; family and friends are all potential competitors so he can’t afford to be squeamish here either; duels, assassinations and hunting accidents are all part of the program. It’s a nasty business but absolutely unavoidable, and since it’s unavoidable he may as well try to enjoy it. There may even be an evolutionary basis for sadism here. The deep seated connection between sex and violence may be labeled as a “perversion”, but both of these behaviors are essential to our being and they probably inhabit the same neighborhood in our neurological circuitry. As we said, the practical exercise of power rarely corresponds with anyone’s idea of morality.
In fact, if Evolutionary theory holds that we’re only concerned with our progeny and relations, then what happens when the ruling class segregates itself from the subject class? If royals only procreate with other royals and millionaires only procreate with other millionaires, then the health of the subject class is a matter of the greatest indifference to these leaders. As long as tax payments are made and the army is strong, then nothing else matters. Viewed from this perspective, peasants, factory workers and office drones may as well be a different species from their leaders, akin to domesticated animals. How much humanity have we ever shown to farm animals?
So, in summary, voting is not a progressive gift from the Enlightenment. Politics - the process of faction formation and coalition building - is an ancient activity, inseparable from agricultural society with its specialization of labor, regimentation and economic inequality. Politics is only an elaboration of normal primate behavior with its continual displays of dominance and submission. It is an evolutionary behavioral adaptation which allows this inherently violent process to be conducted with a minimum of overt physical violence. The establishment of regimentation and hierarchy proceeds as efficiently as possible, thus allowing more of the groups violence to be directed outward against rival groups. In this way the group has a better chance of maintaining and extending its domain. And, to the extent that the political class (that is the class of potential “candidates”, not voters) is able to segregate itself and avoid procreating with the non-political class, group leader have only a limited evolutionary interest in the health of the group. In essence the political class are actually parasites; their concern for the group as a whole is limited only to keeping their host intact and healthy enough to support the parasite class.
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Very few will credit these speculations. Most people remain infatuated with the “reforms” of the past several centuries: property requirements were eliminated and secret balloting was introduced; women and minorities were included; indirect elections were eliminated, many states have a ballot initiative and we‘ve even dabbled in campaign finance reform. Yes, it may be better to be included in the political process than it is to be excluded, like slaves or medieval peasants, but do any of these improvements alter Adams eternal truth?
He who has the deepest purse or the fewest scruples will generally prevail
These words are as true now as they were over two millennia ago in Italy. And even though most will acknowledge that the process is highly imperfect, there is still an unwavering faith throughout our society that elections are far superior to any possible alternative. This is the faith of a desperate man in front of a slot machine. He has no other hope so he must believe that this is his lucky moment. But in the long run, the house always wins.
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Any reader still remaining after all this time is surely deserving of a brief summary. Like Adams, I feel pretty certain that no one will read these strange and subversive ramblings. Still, perhaps there is even one person out there? For you then, a brief summary.
“Political Science” is a recognized scientific discipline with a department in every college and university, but so far as I’m aware these academics confine themselves to the minutia of polling and gerrymandering and such; the academic equivalent of seeing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Substantial questions about the basic structure of our Republic go unasked and certainly unfunded, because the basics are beyond question; being the functional equivalent of religious orthodoxy in the middle ages. John Adams encountered this attitude several centuries ago and it seems apparent that thinking today is even more hostage to the acceptable conventions than it was in then. Still, something should be said even if no one will listen. The following bullet points are (in my opinion) incontrovertible:
1) It is manifestly obvious that our Constitutional system has failed to meet the objectives stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble. Social justice is practically non-existent and we fail even to meet the minimum biological standard of establishing a sustainable ecological relationship with the planet.
2) It is Absurd to blame these problems on individuals or organizations or parties. The Constitution is the supreme law, intended to account for the machinations of these entities. When a society encounters severe ongoing problems which threaten to rent its very fabric and destroy the biologic basis of its existence there is only one place to turn; the Constitution must be revisited.
3) A cursory reading of the framers makes it quickly apparent that socio-economic class distinctions were at the very heart of their plan. But today, if you talk about class in the public forum you are immediately denounced for inciting “class warfare”. Still, our Constitutional system has failed and socio-economic class is the elephant in the room which can no longer be ignored. An understanding of the natural history of this institution may be helpful for an understanding of our problems.
4) Humans are primates and our natural history has an ecological component like every other species. Viewed from this perspective it seems apparent that social class is as old as the specialization of labor which is the basis for civilization. It also seems clear that the class system, in which the few control the many, has a sound evolutionary basis as an essential behavioral adaptation which enables agricultural societies to compete more effectively in the eternal struggle over habitat. Since humanity was unable to control its population by any other means, warfare between different agricultural groups has been an essential component of the human ecological dynamic for many thousands of years. The class system is a social mechanism which supports warfare.
5) The class system was essential in the pre-industrial world but now all of the original ecological parameters have changed. Modern medicine, scientific agriculture and (most importantly) birth control make a stable society with full social and economic equality both possible and desirable. Warfare and economic oppression are no longer necessary and certainly not desirable; unless perhaps you are in the one percent who enjoy dominance over the rest of society (for these individuals the aphrodisiac of power/sex/money has eclipsed any possibility of rational thought). These individuals will do absolutely anything in their power to stop a major restructuring of our society.
6) The heart of the class system is the very thing which Americans have been taught most to revere; our system of Representative Democracy. The political process by which leaders are chosen is at least as old as civilization and it is a process which selects purely on the basis of direct personal gain for the candidate. The majority of candidates always have and always will behave in a purely amoral self-seeking manner (that there are occasional exceptions is undeniable, but also wholly irrelevant). For candidates, their gain is almost certainly our loss, no matter how many modern bells and whistles you add to the process under the name of reform.
7) It is impossible to predict the future but it is also impossible to witness the carnage wrought by the class system and not expect more and worse as time passes. The leaders are utterly amoral and irrational and may be expected to drive this machine until it is no longer capable of being driven. My personal prediction for the coming centuries is a high tech version of the middle ages, but there are certainly other possibilities; none however that are pleasant I fear.
In my opinion there is an inescapable conclusion which must be drawn from the speculations contained in these pages. If we don’t substantially amend the basic structure of our Constitution there is very little hope for the future. No doubt, Constitutional amendment is an exceedingly difficult task but we cannot say it is impossible without even making the effort. Is there anybody out there?