Our Founders gave us plenty of advice for what we need to do to keep our republic, but it wasn’t taught in my schools, except voting and a need for education. However, voting is NEVER enough, so what do we have to do to keep our republic?
At the end of this article is an Appendix of quotes and context as proof of what I summarized in a bulleted list telling us what we had to do to save democracy.
Before we jump back to the past to look at the concerns and advice from our Founders, it’s important to look at some wise advice that President Eisenhower gave us about the military-industrial complex. (A complex refers to an informal alliance between government and some industry.) In his January 17, 1961, farewell address about dangers to democracy, Eisenhower said (bolding my emphasis),
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
What type of power was Eisenhower talking about? And what does “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” mean?
I’ll just say for the moment that voting is NOT enough.
We Need to Teach the Destabilizing Factors to Democracy
Before we look at the answers, you should know about my lifelong quest and how this relates to the answers. When I was around fourteen (multiple decades ago), an expert said on TV that America was in decline due to inequality. That both fascinated and scared me. No one else at the time was talking about this, especially at school. I’ve always had an insatiable curiosity, so I wanted to understand this.
However, my fascination goes beyond that. Funny thing is that I already wanted to study how to achieve peace and equality years before. Here was an expert saying that history shows inequality is related to the decline of democracy.
Why?
My Quest to Understand How Inequality & Lack of Peace Are Related to a Decline of Democracy
That’s what I wanted to know, so I’ve spent almost my entire life in search of understanding the mechanisms behind inequality and lack of peace and how they relate to the decline of democracy. We wouldn’t be here if a critical mass of people knew the destabilizing factors to democracies and took action to strengthen ours. We clearly need to teach these things in schools. However, many don’t want you to understand this because they would lose power.
Creation of Fox News in 1996 Signaled a Coming Civil War, Overthrow & Genocide
I’ve been warning people of a coming overthrow since shortly after Fox News started in 1996. The growing inequality under President Clinton in the 1990s already alarmed me. I knew an overthrow was coming at some point if we didn’t reverse this. However, Fox News took this to a whole different level. It’s an authoritarian tool spewing the “Big Lie” and promoting racism, misogyny, and other bigotry, along with demonizing Democrats. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, would be proud. There’s only one way to go with that – extreme polarization, which is Stage 6 of 10 of genocide. This is how civil wars, overthrows, and genocide happen.
Our Founders Would Not Be Surprised We Are Here
None of what is happening and what is coming is surprising, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to our Founders. I’ve been reading through our Founders’ papers. To create a new government, some of them studied patterns back to ancient times to understand why governments fell. Also, some Founders, like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, were diplomats and actually lived in Europe. They saw firsthand the problems in those governments and wanted to try to avoid those situations.
However, our Founders knew no government lasted forever and republics (representative democracies) were hard to keep.
Don’t Waste Time Debating, It’s On Life Support
To save on wasting energy in comments, the Founders used “republic” and “democracy” interchangeably, and so am I. By “democracy,” they meant a representative democracy where people elect a representative to vote on laws, etc., rather than a pure democracy where people directly vote on them.
Also, many Founders were concerned about majority rule, especially after Shays’ Rebellion (a reaction to our dysfunctional government that almost fell by 1787 — due to a supermajority requirement), so the Founders put various items in place, like the Electoral College, to maintain minority rule, which is exactly what the slaveowners wanted. Our notion of democracy has expanded over time. In 1789, most states limited voting to property-owning or tax-paying White males, which represented only 6% of the population.
Why are democracies hard to keep?
Our Founders Knew the Trend of All Government Types
To understand how to create a new government with the best possible chance of surviving, it was crucial that our Founders studied the trend of all government types. They saw that all systems of government had involved a power struggle. Samuel Johnson, an English essayist and moralist, wrote about this on April 10, 1753 (bolding my emphasis):
Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent; it still contracts to a smaller number, till in time it centers in a single person.
Thus, all the forms of governments instituted among mankind, perpetually tend towards monarchy; and power, however diffused through the whole community, is by negligence or corruption, commotion or distress, reposed at last in the chief magistrate.
This process should be taught in schools because it’s so essential to understanding and predicting how we would get here decades ago.
The Stages of Power Concentration in Governments
Johnson laid out the stages of power consolidation that we are following even today:
- Democracy – power distributed among the people
- Oligarchy – power concentrated in the hands of a few selfish, greedy, and corrupt individuals, not just the rich, who control or influence the many
- Autocracy – rule by a single person
Donald Trump, an autocrat, is a symptom of decades of power concentrating in the hands of oligarchs. He is a natural result of this process, if citizens are spectators to democracy. In fact, in 1998 Richard Rorty predicted in his book Achieving Our Country exactly how we would end up with an autocrat like Trump. Rorty was spot on, saying we needed a huge movement like for Civil Rights to stop this process.
Reasons for Power Concentrating
Johnson’s reasons for power concentration were “negligence or corruption, commotion or distress.” What do they mean?
Democracy Loses Power Through Negligence
What does “negligence” mean? Thomas Jefferson told us at least six things we needed to do to keep democracy, and will get to that in a few minutes. We will see how that relates to “negligence” and Eisenhower’s advice.
Democracy Loses Power Through Corruption
People in government tend to think of corruption as dishonest or fraudulent conduct, typically involving bribery. The laws in the U.S. have been too narrowly focused on this. We need to expand the definition. Lying is corruption. Injustice is corruption. Dark money is corruption. Corruption is moral rot. We need to see corruption at a moral level and hold people responsible.
The U.S. has historically had a difficult time holding the powerful accountable while going after the people, most frequently, with the weakest power. This is injustice, a corruption of our democratic principles. Democracies require truth and justice. Is it any surprise that rampant corruption destroys democracies?
That a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection was not convened right away and no one has been held accountable yet at the highest levels is a form of corruption of our principles.
Democracy Loses Power Through Commotion or Distress
Johnson talked about “commotion” and “distress,” so what did he mean? These could be broad. However, it’s important to understand how ruthless people grab more control wherever and whenever they can, especially during crises. For example, the U.S. wealth and power disparities have worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic, as this 2020 Business Insider article “American billionaires' net worths have grown to $4 trillion during the coronavirus pandemic” states. Naomi Klein calls this rapid power grab from people who are reeling from calamity “the shock doctrine,” which is also the name of her book.
Oligarchs don’t just profit off of natural disasters, like the recent pandemic or hurricanes like Maria in Puerto Rico, they intentionally create disasters and/or work to make them worse. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, there was resistance by the American oligarchy to take measures that would protect the people. The delays caused a large number of unnecessary deaths, unemployment, business losses, and more damages.
Not only do oligarchs profit monetarily from crises, they also gain leverage by putting policies in place to give themselves more political power. While shock and panic are overwhelming the populace, greedy and corrupt individuals and corporations are well-positioned to take advantage of them. This self-serving behavior is another reason our democracy has been trending toward autocracy bit by bit over the past 50 years.
Ancient Greek Example of Oligarchs Overthrowing Democracy
History shows us that democracies are fragile. There will always be a few people who lust for control of government and hate sharing power with the masses, so they will attempt to overthrow a weakened democratic government. For example, in An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander, Thomas R. Martin talks about a coup in ancient Athens during 411 BCE that overthrew democracy:
The turmoil in Athenian politics and revenues resulting from the Sicilian defeat opened the way for some influential Athenian men, who had long harbored contempt for the broad-based democracy of their city-state, to stage what amounted to an oligarchic coup d'état. They insisted that a small group of elite leaders could manage Athenian policy better than the democratic assembly.
In this example, Johnson’s “commotion or distress” amounts to turmoil in Athenian politics, due to the disastrous war, causing great hardships, and the Athenian defeat in Sicily two years earlier. When turmoil happens, democracy is potentially weakened, opening the door for an oligarchic coup.
Obviously, coups are nothing new. We need only study history to see the pattern of struggle against oligarchies. In fact, while in Europe, Thomas Jefferson sent a trunk load of books back to James Madison, showing how oligarchic demagogues led insurrections to overthrow governments.
Oligarchs: Authoritarians & Their Tools
To maintain a democracy, it’s important to keep power from concentrating in the hands of oligarchs. Oligarchy is a form of authoritarianism. As “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” corruption of government grows as power concentrates. (It’s important to note that slaveowners were oligarchs, and oligarchs have been with us since the beginning.)
When oligarchs are not held accountable, they become ruthless, increasingly preying first on the most vulnerable among us – people of color, the poor, and others who have the weakest power. Oligarchs use racism, bigotry, other wedge issues, and other methods as weaponized tools to maintain and grow their power. These tools actually create distress and commotion in a democracy by dividing people, which again weakens democracies.
Beyond these tools, oligarchs use their wealth and influence to buy political power, which they use to change the laws, giving themselves more affluence. Then, they buy even more political power. As their power grows, they start preying on the general population more and more.
This is why the middle class has nearly disappeared with 90%+ of wealth in the top 20%. What about the top 1%? As of January 2020, when the video made, they owned 40% of the wealth. However, wealth inequality is so much worse now after the $4 trillion redistribution of wealth to the top.
Here's a brand new article as of October 8, “Top 1% of U.S. Earners Now Hold More Wealth Than All of the Middle Class.”
Power is a zero-sum game. When a few have much more, the rest of us have that much less. As their power grows, We, the People, grow weaker. As a result, democracy grows weaker. This is why massive inequality destabilizes democracies. It’s the power differential of the wealthy and influential vs the masses that undermines democracies.
Democracy can’t survive when 90%+ of wealth is in the top 20%. This shows how weak democracy has gotten.
The Wolves & Sheep Scenario that Jefferson Warned About
Our Founding Fathers, thinking themselves as enlightened, feared oligarchy, tyrants, and the trend of all governments toward abuse of power. Thomas Jefferson, a deeply flawed person, was one of our most liberal Founders with important insight into history and Europe. For example, he not only studied the rise and fall of European governments, but by living in Europe, he saw there were two classes of people: those with wealth and power and those without. He detested the ruthlessness that concentrated power created in Europe, which was akin to what we are seeing in America now. The rich Europeans were living off the oppression of the poor, forcing them to pay all of the taxes.
Moreover, for much of history to this point, European governments supported “survival of the fittest” or “natural selection” thinking. Shortly before James Madison and Alexander Hamilton began writing the Constitution in May of 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote a warning letter to Edward Carrington on January 16, 1787 (bolding my own):
Among the [European governments], under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Jefferson’s words are prescient. If the public doesn’t pay attention, the government will turn on its citizens. (This is exactly what we are experiencing.) Jefferson believed this so strongly that he even applied the idea to himself and Carrington, saying that they, too, would become ruthless and prey on the rest of the sheep. In that case, we would lose democracy and end up with the wolves and sheep scenario of feudalistic Europe.
Donald Trump and his oligarchs exemplify the ruthlessness that power consolidation creates. When autocrats take over, typically there is mass genocide. If you are reading along with my series on DailyKos about how we got here, I talked about how the Christian nationalist group the Family, among others, has been working toward installing a totalitarian terror-State, like Nazi Germany here in America, for over 60 years.
John Adams Feared Oligarchy & This Dangerous Attraction
Our second President, John Adams, was a political thinker, who studied power, especially of elites. He feared oligarchy and worried they would destroy our republic with help from this dangerous attraction.
What was this seduction? Adams believed the American people would have sympathy with the wealthy and an obsession with wealth as an indicator of worth, superseding one’s character. Luke Mayville, author and lecturer of political philosophy at Boise State University’s Honors College, details Adams’s fears in his 2016 book John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy.
Adams worries were very well founded. This is exactly what has happened. People’s worth is NOT based on character but on a caste system, where wealth, skin color, gender, etc. are intertwined and deemed more important than character in determining worth. Until we understand and confront the oligarchs and how they use wealth, gender, skin color, religion, etc. as tools to maintain power, we are going to be hard-pressed to save democracy for long.
Like John Adams, Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), Scottish historian and moral philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, saw the dangers of this admiration and sympathy. Mayville says (bolding my emphasis), “Ferguson highlighted the tendency among the people in commercial societies to bestow admiration and influence on fortune rather than character.”
This admiration and sympathy of wealth didn’t just exist since Adams and Ferguson’s time. In his 1767 book titled, “An essay on the history of civil society,” Ferguson referenced a quote by Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c. AD 56 – c. 120), who was a Roman historian and politician. Modern scholars widely regard Tacitus as one of the greatest Roman historians. Therefore, we should take this as a profound warning, along with the rest of what Ferguson said, which sums up so much of our current situation (bolding my own):
[W]hen wealth is accumulated only in the hands of the miser, and runs to waste from those of the prodigal; when heirs of family find themselves straitened and poor, in the midst of affluence; when the cravings of luxury silence even the voice of party and faction; when the hopes of meriting the rewards of compliance, compliance, or the fear of losing what is held at discretion, keep men in the state of suspense and anxiety; when fortune, in short, instead of being considered as the instrument of a vigorous spirit, becomes the idol of a covetous or a profuse, of a rapacious or a timorous mind; the foundation on which freedom was built, may serve to support a tyranny; and what, in one age, raised the pretensions, and fostered the confidence of the subject, may, in another, incline him to servility, and furnish the price to be paid for his prostitutions. Even those who, in a vigorous age, gave the example of wealth, in the hands of the people, becoming an occasion of freedom, may, in times of degeneracy, verify likewise the maxim of Tacitus, That the admiration of riches leads to despotical government.
Therefore, admiration of wealth and our caste system are actually destroying democracy. Of course, they are because admiration of wealth gives power to the oligarchs, who are at the top of the power structure in the caste system.
Beyond the admiration of wealth, Adams talked about men like Charles Koch, the radical who has been hell bent on destroying democracy for more than forty years. Mayville said Adams saw men like Koch as oligarchs and added (bolding my emphasis), “Insofar as republican governments were successful, their success was due in part to institutions and practices that successfully managed or counterbalanced oligarchic power.” Counterbalancing oligarchic power is exactly how the New Deal saved democracy during the Great Depression from fascism and communism. We must achieve this counterbalance again. It’s also known as countervailing (offsetting) power.
What Did Thomas Jefferson Say We Needed to Do to Protect Democracy?
Thomas Jefferson believed in the American people and education. He knew if people were properly educated about government, about holding government accountable, about the importance of community, about the need for the rule of law, etc., the American people could govern themselves better than the feudalistic monarchs and oligarchs in Europe. Education fortifies the masses against the wolves.
However, he knew that not educating people in all of this would lead to the degeneration of government and what we are seeing now. America is another example of a dying democracy as a pattern of history. We’ve nearly lost democracy in our past and saved it, but it takes effort and political will. Can we do it again?
Jefferson said we had to do at least six things:
- Educate the masses; it’s the foundation of democracy
- Vote (and get as many people possible to vote as possible, having educated them on how this will help them)
- Control corruption (which means we must have accountability)
- Control wealth accumulation, so it didn’t become a danger to the State and topple democracy, like now (This goes along with Adams’s advice on counterbalancing oligarchic power)
- Maintain a free press
- Have a “little rebellion” (his words) every generation to keep the country moving toward the ideals. We need to think of this as “good trouble.” Get out in the streets; strike or support strikes by not purchasing products from a company with workers on strike; boycott; unionize; organize; unite in solidarity to take some action, including informing others.
“Negligence,” as Samuel Johnson called it, means not doing at least these six things that Jefferson talked about. Americans haven’t done any of these things well. To save democracy at this point, we must do item #6 right away.
President Eisenhower, too, said we had to have “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry.” That comes back to all of these six items. We must keep watch of people with power and not trust them because “power tends to corrupt.” The power Eisenhower was concerned about was monopolistic power of big businesses, which is the basis for fascism – the disastrous misplaced power that has nearly destroyed our democracy. Since there are tons of monopolies and industrial complexes (military, prison, pharma, nuclear, etc.), we are surrounded by fascism. Democracy won’t survive unless we break up much of this power and watch it carefully.
Since we Americans, for the most part, have been spectators to democracy, we allowed the oligarchs to have too much power. Therefore, they have been destroying our ability to control the first five items on Jefferson’s list, and we are left with the sixth one.
Voting is NOT enough! If you are waiting for the rigged elections that the fascist GOP will overturn, that is too late. We need voting rights right now. We need accountability for January 6 right now. We need Court reform right now, too, to protect voting rights from the radicals on the Court and the stolen seats — that is stolen power.
Over 425 voter suppression bills in 49 states. That’s what we’re up against. That’s why we need federal voting rights legislation.
Authoritarian expert Sarah Kendzior tweeted out:
This is essential to grasp. You cannot vote your way out of voter suppression!
She actually quote-tweeted this tweet from a professor of politics:
Stop saying it will come down to turnout. That won't even matter if the Republican-held legislatures refuse to certify the votes. And you can't stop voter suppression with encouraging tweets. We're losing our democracy.
— Tamsin Shaw (@ProfessorShaw) 2:34 AM · Oct 10, 2021
As Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol Agent, who turned immigrant-rights activist, said,
I gotta say that all of my friends who come from authoritarian countries say that they do not understand why Americans are not in the streets demanding justice after January 6th or for voting rights, that our democracy is already lost.
— Jenn Budd (@BuddJenn) 9:37 PM · Oct 6, 2021
Exactly. If we aren’t out in the streets and causing other “good trouble,” pressuring Congress and Biden to pass voting rights, Court reform, and demanding justice for January 6, democracy will die. What is coming, in that case, is horrific. We are watching a parallel of how Nazi Germany rose in power. America will become a fascist, fundamentalist theocracy. Do you want democracy or a violent theocracy like ISIS?
Appendix: Jefferson’s Writings
On Education & Power Distribution
We must educate the masses because only they can protect democracy.
In 1782, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson said,
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree … The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth
There are three important thoughts here: (1) don’t trust the people with power because power tends to corrupt. Who’s watching those with the power? The people must hold those in government accountable; otherwise, power concentrates. (2) Education is very important. (3) Everyone must have the power to influence government, which includes voting and taking office. Democracy is only safe when as many people as possible have this power and influence. The more people who have this power, the less likely democracy will fail.
Without Educating the Masses, Jefferson Said This Will Happen
In Thomas Jefferson’s letter to George Wythe, 13 August 1786, Jefferson wrote,
I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
Jefferson knew exactly what would happen without educating the masses. Without educating people, including how to keep the oligarchs in check, “kings, priests and nobles” will rise up and take control. This is exactly what is happening with Trump, the Christian nationalists, and the other oligarchs.
Education & Freedom of the Press
In Jefferson’s letter to Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816, Jefferson wrote,
If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
There’s a reason the oligarchs have been destroying education, which is the basis for democracy or any movement. Without education, it’s predictable that democracy will fall. The same with the free press. There’s a reason the oligarchs say, “Fake news” to discredit the free press. Much of our “free press” has been corrupted, too.
On Corruption
Corruption will always be a concern that must be controlled.
In Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Spencer Roane, 9 March 1821, Jefferson said,
But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch.
Corruption will start creeping into government, so the public has to be attentive to public affairs and stop the corruption.
This next quote is not from Jefferson, but he copied it into his Commonplace Book:
[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, Book VIII, Chapter XII:] “When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil." --Thomas Jefferson copied this into his Commonplace Book.
Removing corruption of which injustice is a part has to be a top priority. These means the oligarchs responsible for January 6 must be held accountable. Without fixing this, it’s very true that nothing else can be accomplished. The oligarchs, themselves, are corrupt. Our fight is democracy vs. oligarchy.
On Controlling Wealth
Jefferson lived in a time when the U.S. was an agrarian nation. He didn’t like manufacturing and big cities and saw them causing all types of problems in Europe with huge disparities in wealth. However, the Industrial Revolution had barely started in the U.S. when the Constitution was written in 1787, and great wealth and power expansion by individuals had not yet occurred. That mainly began with the railroads in the 1850s.
Therefore, Jefferson’s ideas on wealth have to be taken holistically, since wealth accumulation today is greatly aided by technology. People can literally make millions and billions in one day. That was not possible in Jefferson’s time. Also, Jefferson said a lot of different things in different contexts about taxes, so like the Bible, it’s easy to cherry-pick. We must take his work as a whole about what will preserve democracy and create the widest possible happiness of people in a modern, technological society.
I see Libertarians often say that Jefferson hated taxes. He did, but they conveniently leave out why Jefferson knew taxes where necessary. The government needed them to function. Also, wealth accumulation and inequality had to be controlled, so they didn’t become a danger to the State.
Note that I’ve put these quotes in chronological order. The first was before the Constitution was written when there was a crisis in our first government under the Article of Confederation. The latter two were after his presidency (1801-1809).
In Jefferson’s letter to James Madison, 28 October 1785, Jefferson said,
I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property… Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
Jefferson favored taxes on the rich, especially consumption taxes mainly on imported goods that everyone else didn’t pay.
In Jefferson’s letter to Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, 15 April 1811, Jefferson said,
We are all the more reconciled to the tax on importations, because it falls exclusively on the rich, and with the equal partition of intestate's estates, constitutes the best agrarian law. In fact, the poor man in this country who uses nothing but what is made within his own farm or family, or within the United States, pays not a farthing of tax to the General Government, but on his salt; and should we go into that manufacture as we ought to do, he will pay not one cent.
This next quote is very important, but it has to be taken holistically. Today, which such great wealth inequality, Jefferson’s solution is not going to fix the problem.
In Jefferson’s Addition to Note for Destutt de Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy, [ca. 18 May 1816], Jefferson said,
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: and the better as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates one.
Jefferson wanted to protect democracy and knew there was a point when massive wealth endangered democracy. Giving equal inheritance today to children when one has mega-millions and billions isn’t going to fix the danger. We must use wealth taxes to control wealth. The New Deal did this, along with other countervailing powers of corporations, which saved democracy from fascism and communism in the 1930s.
On a “Little Rebellion”
Many of the Founders were rattled by Shays’ Rebellion, causing them to fear majority rule. Jefferson actually was not afraid, and saw these series of rebellions for what they were: ways to move the dysfunctional government toward the ideals he set out in the Declaration of Independence. In these two letters, he was trying to justify that a little rebellion was a good thing. It’s the “turbulence” he talked about:
Jefferson’s letter to James Madison, 30 January 1787, Jefferson said,
The mass of mankind under [democracy] enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has it’s [sic] evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing… Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. … It is a medecine [sic] necessary for the sound health of government.
Jefferson’s letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 November 1787, Jefferson wrote,
God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
[Updated on Oct 11 with a new article showing that the top 1% of U.S. earners now hold more wealth than all of the middle class]