Dec
26
Does the Earth belong to the Living? On Jefferson’s Letter to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789
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Letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Paris September 6, 1789
I think we can see a more radical Jefferson in this letter, one who may have changed in some ways after holding the Presidency, but I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that this letter has a few strange elements I can’t quite put together, and there are many teachers of mine and teachers of my teachers who know how to navigate this far better. Leo Paul de Alvarez used to cite this letter frequently for the sake of contrast with classical thought.
Outline of the letter:
Paragraph 1. Jefferson doesn’t know “by what occasion” this letter came about, although he spends significant portions of it speaking of France, what changes he might like to see there, and matters of property. What is curious about this letter is that it sounds like political theory, but the word “practical” occurs everywhere. “Practicable” is a word which occurs in this paragraph, and seems to have set a standard which brought this letter forth.
Paragraph 2. Jefferson proclaims “Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another” is a question that has “never…been started either on this or our side of the water.” He does not dwell on why this might be the case, i.e. that using language means using an inheritance from the past that binds us in critical ways (cf. Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking”), or that laws must be thought greater than us to be obeyed. He rather claims he can prove “no such obligation can be so transmitted.” His “self-evident” ground is “that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living,” and he begins making this evident by literally talking about the earth, or more precisely, the distribution of land after an individual has passed away:
“…The child, the legatee, or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to which they are subject. Then no man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be the reverse of our principle.”
Paragraph 3. Jefferson declares “What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.” He then starts talking about an ideal generation, one that is born on the same day and dies on the same day, and asserts that when a whole generation dies, a whole society dies.
Paragraph 4. There is no substantial difference between this “ideal generation” and generations as they occur now. We can use empirical data to track roughly when one generation was born and died, and we arrive at 19 yrs. as the “term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly extend a debt.”
Paragraph 5. It would have been possible for Louis XIV to go into debt so much that the whole of France could have been ceded to creditors in Genoa. Our “self-evident” principle about the earth belonging to the living, along with the expiration of debts every 19 years, allows us to say the French should not be kicked off their land, even with that amount of debt.
Paragraph 6. Our 19 year term makes it clear what one generation is doing to another when they rack up debt - they’re making the future literally pay.
Paragraph 7. “The law of nature” means “one generation is to another as one independent nation to another.” There is no moral obligation to take on the debts of one’s ancestry.
Paragraph 8. France’s national debt has an interest small enough that the payment of the debt is “practicable enough.” But since we’re talking about debts - contracts - wouldn’t the 19 yr. term, if applied, force people to be more rational? Borrowing would be kept within its “natural limits,” and the “spirit of war,” exacerbated by lenders’ inattention “to this law of nature,” would be “bridle[d].”
Paragraph 9. “No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law.” The earth, which belongs to the living generation, is managed and goods from it are taken “during their usufruct.” The living are “masters… of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government.” “Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.”
Paragraph 10. France, at the time of this writing, “most especially” applies the “principle that the earth belongs to the living.” Land is affected, and that in turn affects the holders of the land, and that in turn affects the efficacy of the values those who hold the land have as well as property claims in the future.
Paragraph 11. Jefferson exhorts Madison to talk about this subject as regards “contracting debts.” It would be assailed by some as “theoretical speculation” [yes, that is redundant. The theoretical is speculative by definition in this blog], but if it accompanies the first law on “appropriating the public revenue,” it could prevent European excess and keep despots away. After all, according to Jefferson, giving the power to declare war to the Legislature keeps the Executive in line, unlike so many other countries. The 19 year term keeps debt and reasoning that would indebt us indefinitely in line, and is more in accordance with reason, as opposed to relying on “English precedent” [which, of course, is where Montesquieu - not exactly an English name - principally argued from].
Paragraph 12. There is no news in this letter, for there has been no occasion.
Comment:
When I was at Rutgers, what bothered me most was the criminality hiding underneath “we’re all cool, right?” I remember seeing groups of people who had no business being in school pick on others in any way they could: one of the worst examples in my mind was a group of potheads, all failing out of their classes, who were housemates with a friend and got him, through very serious-sounding house meetings with all sorts of thinly veiled threats, to put bills they racked up in his name. They weren’t above stealing anything they wanted, and the only thing differentiating them from people you’ll meet at bars who’d be happy to stab you for five bucks was that they were stoned or playing video games most of the time to get to the bar. I’ve run into the latter sort of “outright criminal” before [boyfriends of exes find newer depths continually], and I always knock on wood before I travel, because I like to explore, and am very susceptible to running into those sorts and being taken in just long enough.
Libertarians and anarchists always irritate me because they don’t take this sort of awfulness seriously. The former would probably go so far as to argue that what I’m calling criminality is some kind of survival trait, and they’re more fit to reproduce. Karl Maurer used to say this wonderful thing in class about how there were people in life that were like “bubbles in the champagne:” without them, it isn’t clear life means a heck of a lot. Somehow I suspect those “bubbles” would find themselves “popped” if anarchism were taken more seriously.
Right now - even though I haven’t worked through the stranger parts of this letter, and I could be very wrong - no less than Thomas Jefferson is irritating me. He employs the difference between “natural right” and the “law of nature:” the failure of “natural right” to “oblige” means that whatever it has to say about justice is useless. The “law of nature” is all that reigns, and the term “natural right” drops out of the letter entirely in favor of “right” simply, as the “law of nature” drops out for the sake of “force.” He understands enough to reduce the political problem to a merely practical one. We recall, of course, that “natural right” properly speaking is the question of whether anything is just independent of our saying so.
He understands, and he reduces, which leads me to think the man who was implicitly carrying out “give me liberty or give me death” in authoring the Declaration may not entirely understand. He may just know the terms for the test, given by his teachers Bacon, Newton, Locke. Excellent teachers, to be sure.
And yet he assumes he has a oneness of mind with Madison. This I find most strange: if I were Madison, I would have thrown this letter in the trash. Does Jefferson understand at all that property protections are about letting people keep their heritage, be the caretakers of it? The problem with Bourbon France was that it alienated the people from the things dearest to them: the glitz of nobles and clergy took away from genuine pride in the nation, and worse, genuine piety. The reason why religious freedom matters is so that disgraces like St. Bartholomew’s Day cannot happen here: that was not faith, that was savagery.
But this letter may be far more nuanced than I’m letting on. Take note of Jefferson’s use of the term “usufruct” in paragraph 2 [quoted above] . Usufruct means you can do what you like with the goods produced by a property as long as you don’t damage the property. “Natural right” may oblige in less effective but more important ways. In paragraph 9, “they [the living] may manage it [the earth] then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct.” We could be uncharitable and tie Jefferson’s reduction of thematic numerology into empirical science in previous paragraphs to this; we could say that usufruct has been reduced to the power people actually wield - if the property is damaged, after all, they can’t get what they want. But again, the term could have dropped out altogether.
Still, it remains to track the term “justice” in this letter. There’s only “just,” and it occurs in paragraph 8: a “wise and just” nation declares that they cannot contract more debt than they themselves, within their own lifetime, can pay. Nevermind that some nations have had to save the world, and incur enormous burdens doing so: Jefferson’s notion of justice here seems to be the joking one in the Republic, where, when Glaucon gets his city in Book 4, Socrates identifies the guardians with the courageous and the wise, and everyone else with temperance perhaps, and then goes and looks for a class that is just. Since they can’t find a just class, Socrates declares that justice is “minding your own business.”
It is because of men like Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton I can do philosophy, and will continue to do so. The truth is not simple - it is difficult even to accept when found, and pursuit of it creates enormous debts, ones that make our current national debt and economic crisis look very small.
Nov
16
A Waste of Resources: The GOP’s New “Republican for a Reason” Site
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“Republican for a Reason” - Just look at it and you’ll see my main complaint. Does anything about that site’s garish design, needing to make an account, and focus on utterly worthless issues (candidates don’t read the party platforms) appeal to you? Do you really want to go there and post in the forums and be heard by people you don’t know and don’t really care to know?
If the GOP wants to hear from the grassroots, they’ll tear down that site, and just put up a blog where they link to various blogposts they agree with or think are thoughtful from around the web. The grassroots is saying plenty already, and the GOP can issue disclaimers saying that they only consider the various posts thoughtful, and they don’t necessarily agree with the content or all of the author’s other work.
Imagine how much buzz that blog would create in a matter of seconds. It would bring together a lot of right-wing bloggers that are a very loose network right now, and get their audiences to meet each other in earnest. Then activism could begin with a scope hitherto unrealized: remember, there were 47 million votes for McCain.
Nov
12
Lincoln in 1857, “On the Republican Party:”
Upon those men who are, in sentiment, opposed to the spread, and nationalization of slavery, rests the task of preventing it. The Republican organization is the embodiment of that sentiment; though, as yet, it by no means embraces all the individuals holding that sentiment. The party is newly formed; and in forming, old party ties had to be broken, and the attractions of party pride, and influential leaders were wholly wanting. In spite of old differences, prejudices, and animosities, it’s [sic] members were drawn together by a paramount common danger. They formed and maneuvered in the face of the deciplined [sic] enemy, and in the teeth of all his persistent misrepresentations. Of course, they fell far short of gathering in all of their own. And yet, a year ago, they stood up, an army over thirteen hundred thousand strong. That army is, to-day, the best hope of the nation, and of the world. Their work is before them; and form which they may not guiltlessly turn away.
1. Over at Real Clear Politics, Jay Cost argues this election isn’t a “realignment” because there wasn’t an issue (slavery, the gold standard, the welfare state) that transformed the electoral landscape.
I don’t think “realignment” is the right term for what we’ve witnessed. My own thought is that the culture wars being so one-sided resulted in what we saw this election, and more importantly, the tantrum from the eventual victor that existed for 8 years before. There really are two Americas: modern, secular, progressive-radical America is not an aberration that took over some professorships in the 60’s and founded an ice cream company or two later. The elites have succeeded in creating far more like them in values, if not ability. What they want is for this country to embrace European social democracy.
What we have seen is the emergence of a voting bloc that is not partial to conservatism at all. The Democratic party doesn’t need to cater to the South or fiscal conservatism in any way anymore. Everyone knew - or should have known - that then Senator Obama’s numbers regarding his plans were a bit fuzzy. I say “emergence” because these voters are not at the peak of their power yet: more time will inevitably result in gains for them, as near complete control of the educational system is theirs.
2. Perhaps the reason why this isn’t a “realignment,” though, is because of the incredible amount on the line with issues such as slavery, industry and government relief in a Depression. Not just necessity but the question of “what is justice” were being considered at those times. Each “realignment,” quite obviously, reduced to the issue of equality - what is just is sharing freedom, opportunity or wealth as opposed to aggrandizement by one or the other party.
Right now, while the Left preaches social justice, we know the incredible materialism that underlies these claims. “Social justice” isn’t justice - all of us know this. It’s an attempt to overturn more established values for the sake of greater comforts by uniting some of the discontented. To some degree, this is acceptable - we can do things that are seemingly harmless, so why not? But the greatest comfort is feeling good about being moral, and “social justice” allows for people to have this feeling without actually being moral. All you need to do is blame everyone else for everything. The dangers are sequential - a politics dominated by (messianic) celebrity, complete with the rule of gossip over policy; the emergence of conspiracy theory and paranoia as mass movements; finally, overt violence against others based on perception. The Netherlands is the prime example of degenerate politics: they think they’re better than everyone else even though they can’t defend their own leaders or citizens; they can’t even prevent the rise of actual fascists among themselves, despite calling everyone they disagree with a fascist.
3. The moral issue we face is very large, but not as large as the quite obvious and unacceptable attempt to spread slavery. I think, at best, we’re flirting with the first stage of degeneracy, and not even that. Only the mainstream media and a few loud, obnoxious idiots think Obama is the Messiah. But it’s dangerous because of what it means for the office of the Presidency, not because there was dancing in the streets election night. People have the right to celebrate what they think is progress, and certainly, this election was unthinkable 50 years ago. We can all celebrate the more fundamental progress that allowed it to happen.
The work that needs to be done is still that of unity: Lincoln’s first evaluation of the Republicans is the correct one. To that end, whining about social conservatives (see here and here) being a detriment to the party is babyish and stupid. I am not going to tell people who are disproportionately fighting for our freedom - 40% of the Armed Forces says they are evangelical, but knowing evangelicals, that number is undoubtedly higher - that they can take a hike. They actually value something more than their own wallets or security or winning elections - imagine that.
Moreover, continuing Bush-bashing, as is being done here, is even dumber. The pundit class - LGF, Brooks, Frum, Goldberg, O’Rourke and many others - is very dumb right now, but that’s because they never believed in education. They hold that conservatism is obvious, as if a change in media alone will make people wake up. Education serves media for them, not the other way around: “Liberal Fascism” was written so you would approach the news better.
To me, we have the conservative/alternative media we need already. Changing minds is going to take time, but we need to start in earnest, not just to win. We can reasonably expect a lot from partisanship, after all: once upon a time, it helped destroy slavery.
Nov
8
Briefly Noted: That “Office of the President-Elect” Thing is a Disgrace (cf. Federalist 70)
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This is a rant. Do I think anything bad will actually happen because of this stupid office? Not really. Do I think it is a good thing? NO.
I’m not saying this to be anti-Obama. He will be my President, and I’m happy to have a President. Furthermore, this terrible idea of an “Office of the President-Elect” has been around a while - he’s only using what’s already there. But the overly fawning media coverage, coupled with his high-sounding rhetoric - I mean, it was bad before, but now it looks like people really do think this guy is the Messiah - has led to what I suspect is the first real violation of Constitutional form.
It’s one thing for the “Office” to be there, it’s another to use it like the way he’s doing now, as if he’s been inaugurated already and his mandate comes with no qualifications. There’s a big difference between making a transition and seeming to be the Emperor of the Universe.
Remember all those arguments back in US history class the Founders made? The ones about the Executive power not being divided, since when you had multiple executives you had chaos?
That’s what we have now, except there isn’t much chaos. All I see is lots of attention favoring one man: Barack Obama. He can stand up there and say everything he likes and talk about “transition” and gloat about his team. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has to do the actual work of day-to-day governing. Obama can simultaneously reject their policies vocally, strike what he thinks are insider deals with other foreign leaders and undermine the day-to-day work, and get all the benefits from a White House that has said it wants to make the transition smoothly.
You might say: “So what, President Bush isn’t being treated fairly.” If that were all that was the case, I wouldn’t be speaking about this. The issue is that Barack Obama is more powerful right now because he’s doing damage to the Presidency generally, and this will cost even him down the road. Let’s look quickly at Federalist 70.
Hamilton establishes that “energy in the executive” is a good thing -
It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.
Now if you want “energy,” the executive needs to have “unity.” “Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number.” I think you can see how the mere office of a President-elect makes every decision questionable; promotes “activity” counter to the activity currently necessary; endangers “secrecy” (everything you need to tell the President-elect so he can do his job later is liable to slip). “Dispatch” is the only thing not harmed because President-elect Obama is all talk and “change.gov” right now.
Hamilton goes on to describe how “unity” can be destroyed:
This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject, in whole or in part, to the control and co-operation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him. Of the first, the two Consuls of Rome may serve as an example….The Roman history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the dissensions between the Consuls, and between the military Tribunes, who were at times substituted for the Consuls. But it gives us no specimens of any peculiar advantages derived to the state from the circumstance of the plurality of those magistrates. That the dissensions between them were not more frequent or more fatal, is a matter of astonishment, until we advert to the singular position in which the republic was almost continually placed, and to the prudent policy pointed out by the circumstances of the state, and pursued by the Consuls, of making a division of the government between them. The patricians engaged in a perpetual struggle with the plebeians for the preservation of their ancient authorities and dignities; the Consuls, who were generally chosen out of the former body, were commonly united by the personal interest they had in the defense of the privileges of their order.
It’s always worth it to go back to the Federalist. The strongest argument on the surface is that an “Office of the President-Elect” attacks the Presidency itself. I think given the rhetorical nature of the Presidency today, the “Office of the President-Elect” might as well be the President.
So why can’t we have two “Consuls,” perhaps one to be all rhetoric and one to actually do stuff? The issue is that having two executives is giving not merely a faction, or two factions, but factional warfare itself the supreme power. The only reason why ancient Rome didn’t tear itself apart immediately was that the Consuls were cut from the exact same cloth. The only reason why we’re not tearing ourselves apart, perhaps, is that a Harvard MBA and a Harvard Law grad hold the position of current and future President, respectively.
But try this stunt with people who have real grievances against each other and you’re asking for someone, as they make the transition, to do very subversive things and exacerbate tensions between the rest of us to fever pitch. The real issue with a divided Executive is that it tells us that we don’t have to be united as a people, the result of the vote and our adherence to laws do not matter.
I need to be clear here: I don’t think the American people are going to break laws or commit vote fraud because of this “Office of the President-elect.” I do think a few very ambitious people within the government are going to try and find new ways to attack the powers of other branches and grab power for themselves. None of this would be bad, even, if it weren’t for the fact that properly balancing them out is an issue - as we’ve noted, the precedent is for one guy to take all the credit and another to do all the work, and that’s not a stable balance.
The damage that’s being done here, to be most exact, is this: unless Obama’s Messiah image continues, the Presidency alone does not have the ability to unite us formally like it needs to. If his image slips a little bit, all those romanticized and glorified members of his “team” in the past few days will be looked at as representing factions we find ourselves closer to. It is possible to undermine yourself by creating rivals within your own cabinet and party you don’t need. Given that Obama’s stance on FISA is out of lockstep with the netroots, and his NAFTA and campaign finance positions might also be potential sources of conflict, the division of the Executive his newfound office promotes is not a good precedent.
Nov
8
“Doing” Something for the Republican Party Instead of Whining has yielded this Extended Whine
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As some of you know, I’m toying with the idea of starting another blog, one where I and some team members look for Republican candidates across the nation, profile them, maybe interview them, and then link readers to their site so they can show some support.
I, of course (*clears throat, puffs out chest*), think the educative part of this process is the exciting thing - what it would do is inject a direct political element into the news. If done right, for example, when the topic of off-shore drilling comes up, readers of this proposed blog would be more apt to know the pertinent national players involved from knowing more about the Congressmen whose districts this impacted. They could then start constructing for themselves the story of which national/state/local politician or bureaucrat had a particular interest, and exert more control over the news cycle, instead of being carried away by events.
The problem with this, besides the practical problem of “hey, I already run a blog,” is that this could be the most boring blog ever created. I have to give the Founders credit - they did a really good job of creating a system where very ambitious people would get all proud of themselves because they could get a bill out of committee only to see it die in a floor vote, or think that they were revolutionizing government because they wrote a whole new bunch of procedures for inter-office memoranda.
And anyway, if I’m going to spend time educating about “this politician stands for such-and-such, see this voters’ guide,” stuff you can learn on your own, am I not totally wasting my time? There are more important things to think about and debate: they haven’t been debated for centuries because people were dumb and wanted to kill time before they died. They were debated because even a fraction of an insight changes a lot.
I’m still toying with the idea. I kinda wish someone else would take the lead and be openly partisan, and if it is being done already, tell me, I’ll link to whomever’s doing that in my blogroll. I’d rather be writing about Emily Dickinson and advancing something more non-partisan always. It is my job to help people make their best arguments regardless of what I think of those arguments [btw, no one has quite gotten the joke about this definition yet]. I’ve said I’d like to help create more thoughtful liberals, but the ones who are partial to that project are reading this now, and have taught me tons already and will teach me much more.
Btw, while we’re at this: Do you consider conservative blogging, on the whole, successful? I’m thinking it has done a marvelous job of creating an echo chamber, and I’m not sure how that happened.
And yes, I know the tone of this is elitist. I hope someone will ask why it is the non-partisan education may rank above a more partisan one, even though the person giving the latter may be of significantly better character than I’ll ever have. It’s a good philosophic question to start Saturday morning off with.