The Establishment Paradise (Part Three)

(Note:  This is the third and concluding segment in a three part series.  The first segment traced the evolution of elective office from a noble public service calling to more of an establishment paradise for the ruling class, with ease and plenty far removed from the day to day lives of ordinary citizens.  The second segment identified themes common from Boris Yeltsin's Soviet Union just prior to the collapse of its communist system to Ben Franklin in the early days of the United States.  Franklin, in particular, warned of turning elective office from posts of Honour to places of Profit, with potentially disastrous consequences...)

Is the ownership of Property subject to any substantive limitation under the US Constitution?  Is particular expertise required to hold elective office?  Or can an ordinary citizen learn on the job?  How real is the possibility that the American system of capitalism may experience a similar fate to the now extinct communist economic system under the former Soviet Union?

Mr. Franklin then considered the concept of Property rights.  He reminded the Citizens that these are Our creation, that for a seat at the table of the American Dream, what We have conferred as a Right, We also have the Power to take away:

All Property, indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention.  Hence, the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it.  All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition.  He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages.  He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

The iconic and fiery Andrew Jackson, face on the $20 bill and populist president of the common man, ushered in America’s first age of reform.  Instinctively, so it seems, Jackson understood the perils of the establishment paradise, unchecked.  Jacksonian Democracy reminded ordinary citizens that experience was overrated and that even ordinary, common citizens could learn.  Further, lifetime or long-tenured office-holding often led to inefficiency and even corruption.  The fresh, new blood of the ordinary citizen was required to bring strength, grounded, common sense qualities and the ability to renew the contest.

In May 1829, shortly after Mr. Jackson was inaugurated as the 7^th President of the United States, he elaborated thus:

There has been a great noise … (h)ow every man who has been in office a few years, believes he has a life estate in it, a vested right, & if it has been held 20 years or upwards, not only a vested right, but that it ought to descend to his children, and if no children then the next of kin --- This is not the principles of our government.

President Jackson elaborated:

Office is considered as a species of property, and government rather as a means of promoting individual interests than as an instrument created solely for the service of the people.  Corruption in some and in others a perversion of correct feelings and principles divert government from its legislative ends and make it an engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many.  The duties of all public officers are, or at least admit of being made, so plain and simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance; and I cannot but believe that more is lost by the long continuance of men in office than is generally to be gained by their experience. ...

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another.  Offices were not established to give support to particular men at the public expense.  No individual wrong is, therefore, done by removal, since neither appointment to nor continuance in office is matter of right….  It is the people, and they alone, who have a right to complain when a bad officer is substituted for a good one.  He who is removed has the same means of obtaining a living that are enjoyed by the millions who never held office.  The proposed limitation would destroy the idea of property now so generally connected with official station, and although individual distress may be sometimes produced, it would, by promoting that rotation which constitutes a leading principle in the republican creed, give healthful action to the system.

Yet almost 200 years later, amazingly, here we are, with Congressmen locked in to financially lucrative places of Profit.  They hold their offices seemingly ad infinitum, as if owned and fit to be passed down to their children.  The day is long gone where public service is its own reward – it has become institutionalized as the prize.

How will it end?  Will the Princes be dethroned?  Or the People enslaved?  In the end, it comes to little else.

In closing, we return to Boris Yeltsin.  A cynical question came from the floor during his unlikely yet successful 1989 election campaign, as the Soviet Union and its communist economic system convulsed toward extinction:

Tell us what it felt like to live in the “establishment paradise.”  Is it true that the ease and plenty promised in the historical stage of communism has long been the rule “up there?”

Although the US is a vastly different experiment in democracy, is it inconceivable that a similar fate may await the American economic system of capitalism?

-Michael D’Angelo

The Establishment Paradise (Part Two)

(This is the second segment in a three part series.  The first segment traced the evolution of elective office from a noble public service calling to more of an establishment paradise for the ruling class, with ease and plenty far removed from the day to day lives of ordinary citizens.  Boris Yeltsin spoke of the changes with the collapse of the former Soviet system.)

What tricks do Ambition (the Love of Power) and Avarice (the Love of Money) play on the life of one who aspires toward public service?  What type of men (and women) will these vices tend to attract?

Mr. Yeltsin understood what can happen when ordinary citizens lose faith in their government:

Without faith (in our leadership) even the best and most enlightened changes in our society will be impossible to accomplish.  And when people know about the blatant social inequality that persists, they see that their leader is doing nothing to correct the elite’s shameful appropriation of luxuries paid for from the public purse, then the last droplets of the faith will evaporate.

And when faith evaporates, change follows.  The only point of discussion is one of degree.

Let’s redirect our attention to early America, to the time during which the US Constitution was drafted in 1789.  From the earliest days of the republic, Ben Franklin had warned of the inherent danger of ambition and greed, when combined, having the human tendency to turn posts of honor into places of profit, or an establishment paradise.  Upon returning home after participation in the secret deliberations, Franklin was said to have had an inquisitive exchange with a Philadelphia woman:

“What have you made for us, Dr. Franklin?” the woman had wanted to know.

“A republic, madam, if you can keep it,” Franklin replied.

Franklin understood that democracy was not forever assured in the US, and that active, informed citizenship would be required not only to keep but also to help it evolve.

In a speech at the Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin discussed the merits of limiting the perks of our elected lawmakers within the laws of human nature:

Sir, there are two Passions which have a powerful influence in the Affairs of Men.  These are Ambition and Avarice; the Love of Power and the Love of Money.  Separately, each of these has great Force in prompting Men to Action; but when united in View of the same Object, they have in many Minds the most violent Effects.  Place before the Eyes of such Men a Post of Honour, that shall at the same time be a Place of Profit, and they will move Heaven and Earth to obtain it.  The vast Number of such Places it is that renders the British Government so tempestuous.  The Struggles for them are the true Source of all those Factions which are perpetually dividing the Nation, distracting its Councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous Wars, and often compelling a Submission to dishonourable Terms of Peace.

He turned to the type of men which such personal incentives would attract:

And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable Preeminence, thro’ all the Bustle of Cabal, the Heat of Contention, the infinite mutual Abuse of Parties, tearing to Pieces the best of Characters?  It will not be the wise and moderate, the Lovers of Peace and good Order, the men fittest for the Trust.  It will be the Bold and the Violent, the men of strong Passions and indefatigable Activity in their selfish Pursuits.  These will thrust themselves into your Government, and be your Rulers.  And these, too, will be mistaken in the expected Happiness of their Situation; for their vanquish’d competitors, of the same Spirit, and from the same Motives, will perpetually be endeavoring to distress their Administration, thwart their Measures, and render them odious to the People.

Those personal gains would be smeared into the fabric of our bedrock institutions, where they would leave an impressionable and lasting stain.  And before long, augmentations would be sought, leading to a tipping point pitting the governing against the governed:

Besides these Evils, Sir, tho’ we may set out in the Beginning with Moderate Salaries, we shall find, that such will not be of long Continuance.  Reasons will never be wanting for propos’d Augmentations; and there will always be a Party for giving more to the Rulers, that the Rulers may be able in Return to give more to them.  Hence, as all History informs us, there has been in every State and Kingdom a constant kind of Warfare between the Governing and the Governed; the one striving to obtain more for its Support, and the other to pay less.  And this has alone occasion’d great Convulsions, actual civil Wars, ending either in dethroning the Princes or enslaving the People.  Generally, indeed, the Ruling Power carries its Point, and we see the Revenues of Princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more.  The more the People are discontented with the Oppression of Taxes, the greater Need the Prince has of Money to distribute among his Partisans, and pay the Troops that are to suppress all Resistance, and enable him to plunder at Pleasure.  There is scarce a King in a hundred, who would not, if he could, follow the Example of Pharaoh, --- get first all the People’s Money, then all their Lands, and then make them and their Children Servants for ever.  ...  But this Catastrophe, I think, may be long delay’d, if in our propos’d System we do not sow the Seeds of Contention, Faction, and Tumult, by making our Posts of Honour Places of Profit. …

(The third and final segment in our three part series turns to a discussion of property rights, a man-made proposition, shifting to Andrew Jackson, the President of the Common Man, before concluding in the present.)

-Michael D'Angelo