On the COMMERCIAL REPUBLIC question:
I think we must look at the Constitution, technically speaking, as fundamentally a Hamiltonian-Madisonian document. This not merely because of these gentlemen's influence at the Philadelphia Convention, but because of the still more enduring influence of their work The Federalist.
Now, it is of course true that The Federalist has plenty to say, by way of illustration and reflection, on matters of wider interest than the technical features of the document it defended. I enjoy aggravating modern idealists by sharply pointing out how low an estimate of human decency Publius expresses in his writings. By no means can he be said to take a rosy view of all private enterprise. The Fall is a stark and staring thing to him, and in evidence above all in the mercenary instinct. This grittiness was surely the influence of Hamilton, who had a streak of pessimism in him; some of the first businessmen he met were slave traders in the Caribbean.
But how does Publius propose, in defense of the frame of government he devised, to answer this pulverizing fact human depravity? Well, since his direct purpose is confined to the frame he designed, the final answer to that question must be left to his allusions and suggestions, alongside the later writings and actions of the men who collaborated in his authorship. These were, after all, articles in the popular press set down with an expressed intent.
So, for the purposes of the The Federalist, we get a variety of arguments generally organized under the phrase “checks and balances,” which present a system where factionalism (depravity in political form) is obstructed by its very proliferation. There is the absolutely vital states-vs.-federal distinction, later weakened and broken down by SCOTUS encroachment. There is bicameralism, which shows its quality in comparison to the usual French unitary legislature. There is the combined energy and limitation of the Executive Branch (later, also, effaced or expanded, depending how you look at it, by court jurisprudence). There is the Electoral College, which further narrows a historically wide electorate. Etc.
What theory of civil association undergirded the teaching of The Federalist is a fascinating question, but in any case I do not think we should impute to Publius any naivety about what sort of faction would naturally rise to prominence as the nation prospers. Civic and religious associations, neighborhood councils, townhalls, guilds, societies and banquets — all the rest of the welter of middling institutions that Tocqueville taxonomized with such warmth — would always have their place, but only the commercial factions would unite interest with means on a national level. No doubt a great deal about the 21st century would surprise and even shock Publius, but the fact that a great American corporation long dedicated to the commercial promotion of “the progress of science and useful arts,” General Electric, would generate headlines and would exert considerable influence in the realm of politics, is not one of them.
The framework of thinking and working out constitutionalism set down by Publius is, in my opinion, rightly called a theory of commercial republic. It contrasts with the British system, where republicanism is grafted on to strong remnants of the modified ancient regime. It contrasts with the French system, where republicanism takes on an almost Roman or Rousseauian severity, and the people, having thrown down the crown, do not scruple to take on property as well. French democracy races off toward socialism, while British democracy retreats back, after the initial plunder of the Church, into the arms of a vague but perceptible traditionalism, ever reforming, ever compromising. But in America, the commercial interest itself becomes the bulwark of liberty. How this is accomplished is a complicated matter, which I have only sketched in very brief remarks; but I do think that its practical success bears out historically that a commercial republic is a workable form of government. Publius does not teach nonsense; he teaches that middle class democracy can successfully be made out of the striving and hard-working enterprisers from among the people, toiling under conditions of equality.
Comments (22)
Apropos of my argument in the prior thread, I would say the following: the commercial republic can be successful if and only if some means is found of checking the concentration of wealth, and thereby, of power; this can be achieved if and only if some Good beyond commercial success, and beyond the mere aggregation of individual material goods, can be found and recognized in law. Nothing is now more manifest than that we do not toil under conditions of equality, but of vast inequalities of every nature. The mere opposition of commercial faction to commercial faction does not generate this limiting principle, or Good. The supremacy of the economic must be checked and bridled by the non-economic, lest plutocracy be the end of republicanism.
Posted by Maximos | March 28, 2011 7:28 PM
If the 10th amendment were taken seriously, the mere fact that the commercial interests will exercise a lot of national clout wouldn't matter nearly as much. There would be no vastly powerful federal government for them to lobby or to harness the energies of in the service of getting special deals or what-have-you. It seems to me that the state vs. federal power balance would do a lot to prevent any private interest, including commercial interests, from having vast nationwide power by way of a reciprocal arrangement with the government.
Posted by Lydia | March 28, 2011 8:26 PM
Lydia,
Merely taking the 10th Amendment seriously would not solve the problem of the centralization of economic power. Back in the Gilded Age--when the principle of federalism was much more alive than it is today--many state legislatures were wholly-owned subsidiaries of the trusts and the railroads. That is where the Populist unrest on the Plains in the late 19th century came from. Many Populists, and later the Progressives, looked to the federal government and increased regulation in order to deal with the problem of economic centralization. Their solution was, of course, not really a solution, since it simply made it easier for moneyed interests to capture one federal regulatory agency than for the company to buy votes in 50 separate legislatures. Nevertheless, it remains true that federalism by itself was not able to solve the problem, and the Populists and Progressives were dealing with real problems of our commercial, and increasingly industrial, society.
Posted by Stephen | March 28, 2011 10:54 PM
I don't remember my Publius, but if "commercial republic" implies a polity whereby commerce is the chief organizing principle, then I'm quite sure that is something to be avoided.
And herein is our dilemma. Wealth is a necessary (but not sufficient) means to achieve many good public ends. And only commerce creates wealth. Therefore, good government must be a friend of commerce and economic enterprise. But if the commerce class is merely oriented towards amassing its own wealth, no invisible hand is going to make that work for the common good. Good government is therefore charged with restraining and directing the designs of commerce as needed, in accordance with some higher conception of the Good. Which is precisely what we, in America, lack and have always lacked. Commerce cannot be the chief organizing principle of a republic worth keeping.
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | March 29, 2011 12:10 AM
Stephen's comment is most apposite, in that the trusts and railroads suborned quite a few state governments, often by simply dropping sacks of cash on the desks of legislators and judges; then, when populist movements resisted this corruption, and managed to enact legislation curtailing the political power and economic rents of the trusts, the latter appealed to the Supreme Court, which incorporated the Bill of Rights, via the Fourteenth Amendment, against the states. That is to say, an Amendment intended to secure the political and civil liberties of freed slaves was perverted into an instrument of the liberation of corporations from regulation. Once that transpired, the only option - the next turn of the dialectic - was Progressivism, and national-level regulation.
Posted by Maximos | March 29, 2011 8:25 AM
Also, it's notable that at the time of its founding the GOP was simultaneously strongly pro-business and in favor of a stronger, more active role for the federal government. The two things are by no means mutually exclusive.
Posted by Rob G | March 29, 2011 10:23 AM
That was pretty much my point, though without knowing more I would probably quibble at the outright phrase "buy votes." But near enough. So it's still very much worthwhile to try to reduce federal power, from several different perspectives.
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2011 10:28 AM
Maximos,
You say,
"...when populist movements resisted this corruption, and managed to enact legislation curtailing the political power and economic rents of the trusts, the latter appealed to the Supreme Court, which incorporated the Bill of Rights, via the Fourteenth Amendment, against the states. That is to say, an Amendment intended to secure the political and civil liberties of freed slaves was perverted into an instrument of the liberation of corporations from regulation."
Meanwhile, according to La Wik, the story is more complicated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
When I looked up the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago case it was hardly a case of a corporation wanting to be free of cumbersome regulation.
So I don't think your history is correct.
Jeff C.,
You say,
"Good government is therefore charged with restraining and directing the designs of commerce as needed, in accordance with some higher conception of the Good. Which is precisely what we, in America, lack and have always lacked."
I think this is too strong -- is it really true that we have always lacked a higher conception of the Good in America? I look around at some of the magnificent civic, cultural, and church buildings and parks here in Chicago and I see daily the evidence that this statement is too broad.
Posted by Jeff Singer | March 29, 2011 12:39 PM
Uh, seriously?
I point to one narrative arc of a complex process - which arc is detailed quite nicely in Jack Beatty's The Age of Betrayal - but because there are other narrative arcs in the process and epoch, my arc doesn't exist, or is invalid? Because the part is not the whole, the part is unreal?
Posted by Maximos | March 29, 2011 12:52 PM
Granted that the legislators, citizens, and organizers of this or that civic project may have a higher conception of the Good on that level. And that's a whole lot better than having a false conception of "good" on a wider level.
But we have lacked this higher conception of the Good as an organizing principle of the Republic, a purpose for which the Republic exists and to which the activities of commerce and government are, or ought to be, directed - as opposed to being a "commercial republic" in the sense I mentioned earlier (which may not be the sense intended by Hamilton/Madison or Paul Cella).
One contender for the title of America's Chief Organizing Principle, if it is not to be commerce, might be "the pursuit of happiness" - which wouldn't be so bad if our people had a common understanding of the nature of happiness and the conditions necessary to secure happiness. But instead we are a republic of third grade essays on "what America means to me" with no right or wrong answers.
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | March 29, 2011 1:33 PM
but if "commercial republic" implies a polity whereby commerce is the chief organizing principle, then I'm quite sure that is something to be avoided
Jeff, I do not think that implication is detectable in Publius. "Chief organizing principle" is far too strong. Republicanism is the organizing principle: liberty under self-government by deliberation, persuasion and consent.
"Commercial" is a descriptor used to indicate the contrast between American and classical republicanism. The classical variety, and even many modern theories, presupposed that the commercial interest was a profound danger to the public square, the encroachment of which would spell certain doom. The classical school had lot of history behind it. Republican forms had historically worked in small, very tightly-bound communities. City-states with powerful honor codes, like Sparta. To introduce wide diversity, commercial endeavors, is to risk the subversion of that code, to lose the identity that binds citizen with citizen. Republic succumbs to anarchic factionalism. Warlordism and despotism ensue.
Since Publius was proposing republican forms for a huge, extensive and varied nation of many hundreds of communities, his innovation was to introduce the idea of liberty out of multiplicity through the federal system. It is doubtful that many European republicans expected his innovation to work.
So the commercial gets embraced into this machinery like any other community with an interest. Commercialism softens factionalism, substituting for warlords businessmen. The competition of interests and ambitions gets absorbed into the rough and tumble of politics. Recall how this discussion began, with my dilation on how martial valor evolved into enterprising excellence.
Thus I return again to the problem of plutocracy. When any commercial interest, now consolidated and centralized and indeed global in reach, grows in stature to such an extent that the federal system's careful checks are overwhelmed, plutocracy threatens.
Folks have mentioned the Court's usurpations. It unquestionably a very serious problem, perhaps the most serious threat to the republican form, to self-government in America. On the one hand substantive due process has allowed the law to privilege one corporate form of "personhood" while narrowing the liberty of underprivileged (so to speak) corporate forms. Churches cannot refuse their facilities for homosexual marriages but Goldman Sach's immunities shelter countless charlatans and GE is taxed at a lower rate than me. The Court has assumed the office of legislator and made a mess of things. This judicial usurpation has the potential to be fatal to American liberty.
Posted by Paul J Cella | March 29, 2011 1:45 PM
I've made a couple attempts to sketch out my understanding of America's Chief Organizing Principle.
True Exceptionalism
There are related posts here at W4 as well.
Posted by Paul J Cella | March 29, 2011 1:51 PM
The courts and also (which I would guess the anti-federalists might have anticipated) the federal Congress, aided and abetted by the courts. I believe it's Antonin Scalia who has pointed out the confusing nature of blaming "activism," as though the alternative is simply for the court to be inactive. As Scalia has argued, the real problem is not activism (as opposed to "passivism"?) but rather the wholesale abandonment of originalism. Sometimes the court needs to be active to rein in the federal Congress where it is going beyond its enumerated powers. Sometimes the court needs to spread its hands and say, "That's not unconstitutional, and it is up to the state (or federal) legislature to decide." The court doesn't seem to know properly when to take _either_ of these stances. And it's hardly unpredictable that the federal government (including all the unelected bureaus) will rush in wherever it is permitted. The process had begun at least during the FDR presidency--or at least it became blatant then.
This means that in a very real sense we no longer have the country Publius was recommending, the country he envisaged.
Posted by Lydia | March 29, 2011 2:21 PM
"This judicial usurpation has the potential to be fatal to American liberty."
And I think a strong case can be made that the expansion of the executive is deleterious as well.
Posted by Rob G | March 29, 2011 2:37 PM
Paul,
The latest issue of City Journal has a delightful long essay by Myron Magnet about Madison:
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_1_urb-james-madison.html
A lot of the essay is a biographical sketch, but it also deals with Madison's ideas about republican government -- here is just a taste:
Posted by Jeff Singer | March 29, 2011 9:50 PM
Paul, thank you for the patient explanation despite my interjecting myself late in the discussion. I need to get used to the terms you are using. In that sense a "commercial republic" is, as you say, an effective force for the restraint of factionalism when most every faction represents a commercial or economic interest. But the term is confusing because, in essence, we have become quite another kind of commercial republic, have we not? When I hear "commercial republic" I think of the apologists for Calvin Coolidge's much abused statement "the chief business of the American people is business".
By "organizing principle" I meant the end toward which any polity might be organized - "a core assumption from which everything else by proximity can derive a classification or a value". A republic is valuable insofar as it organizes things in the service of this or that principle. Our Chief Organizing Principle is therefore not our form of government itself, but its raison d'etre.
It seems to me that closest thing we have to declared national organizing principles are set forth in the Declaration and in the Preamble of the Constitution: the pursuit of happiness, justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, the general welfare, the blessings of liberty - all very good things. Perhaps it is necessary, given the reality of pluralism, that these allow for wide interpretations and contain assumptions that need diligent unpacking. The founders were content merely to mention them rather than bind the government or its agents in a specific or accountable way. So, while they are rhetorically useful, they are much too weak to serve as a basis for reviving the foundations of our government and society.
I'm taking much too long to say that the United States lacks a formal, overt commitment to religious or metaphysical truth - to a principle that justifies our existence as a nation. Every nation has a purpose under God's heaven, and if we don't know what that is, if we don't acknowledge it before men, why should we continue on as such? Is it enough just to be exceptional, even if ours is an exceptionalism of realism and humility? Is it truly realism if we do not, then, confess what is real? (I need to carefully digest your essay before commenting further.)
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | March 29, 2011 9:57 PM
but only the commercial factions would unite interest with means on a national level
I am with Jeff C. If you look at the 2 major factions, they certainly include commercial interests, but they are FAR from defined in terms of commercial interests as such. Republican and Democrat parties each harbor people who hold greatly dissimilar commercial attachments, and there are quite a few Dems who hold similar commercial interests as quite a few Repubs, and vice versa. Commercial AND social AND religious AND other sorts of interests constitute those factions. Lots of other national factions exist, like the Roman Catholic church, the Boy Scouts, etc. Many of these are not commercial as such.
Another possible meaning of "commercial republic" would be a government wherein commercial interests explicitly control the seats of government. Robert Heinlein wrote a story like that, I think: "my esteemed colleague, the representative of General Motors..." We certainly don't have that kind of republic yet.
Paul, I will have to read your other site later, no time now.
Posted by Tony | March 31, 2011 12:23 AM
I don't know about Catholics anymore. Modern Republicanism was created by Protestantism. America's form of government and revolution was a carry over from the English Civil Wars and is mostly a product of Atheists; John Toland, Marchmont Needham, Harrington. Aren't Catholics supposed to be about the Old Order and upholding the Logos, called the natural law? America is a break from the natural law. Furthermore, commercialism is a sign of materialism. The Founding Fathers of America were all students of the Enlightenment and the Enlightenment really was Atheists.
Eric Nelson came out with a book called The Hebrew Republic, Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought. America's government is really a teaching from Jewish sources as well! So what are Catholics glorifying the American psuedo-republic for? Have you lost your minds and your bearing?
Posted by W Lindsay Wheeler | March 31, 2011 12:47 PM
The Founding Fathers were not all enamored of the Enlightenment in equal degree, and many of them disagreed with certain Enlightenment thinkers precisely with respect to those ideas in which they rejected divine authority. In especial, the Founders did not base the concrete actions of the initiating of the Revolution or the Constitution in a rejection of God. Rather, most of these men saw in their actions a profound agreement with divine demands with respect to the civil order.
St. Robert Bellarmine, in De Laicis:
Some of the works of St. Robert Bellarmine were found in the libraries of Jefferson and Madison. It is not unjust to suppose that they borrowed from Bellarmine as well as from Enlightenment sources.
Posted by Tony | April 1, 2011 11:19 AM
If I remember my Aristotle right, the Good forms of Government consisted of Monarchy, Aristocracy and a Politiea which is Mixed Government. Mixed Government is a Republic, i.e. The Spartan Republic and the Roman Republic. Both of these exhibited Mixed government and both started under Kings!
Democracy is the Bad form of politiea. This got convulted in the Renaissance and in the Enlightenment with the formation of Democratic Republicanism which is Modern Republicanism. It is really just Democracy.
Democracy does not and can not follow the natural law! Absolutely not. One of the principles of the Laws of Nature is the principle of Righteousness which dictates that only one thing is dedicated to do one thing. It is found in Xenophon where he writes, "...and nature willingly teaches righteousness". Democracy does NOT have righteousness, does not practice righteousness and therefore can not have the Natural Law (or Laws of Nature). Democracy is a bad form of government, always will be. And the celebration and glorification of America is sadly misplaced. Americanism has to be condemned in all of its facets. Americanism is a heresy. It is a Judeo/Masonic construct. It has nothing to do with the Natural Order or the Old Order. Democratic republicanism is an oxymoron. And let me remind people that Thomas Jefferson was a Socianist! All so-called deists were! And that included with it Spinozist materialism, that Nature/God were the same thing!
Posted by W Lindsay Wheeler | April 1, 2011 12:50 PM
Reminds me of Sam's song about Tom's nuncle Tim.
Posted by Tony | April 1, 2011 8:10 PM
Are we forgetting Thomas Jefferson and his agrarian stance? He said, "The Yeomen of America are not the Canaille of France". The difference Jefferson was pointing out was the Farming, agrarian, character of America. Thomas Jefferson specifically bought the Louisianna Purchase so that American families would have forty acres and a mule.
The Rule of Law is found only in Nature. Nature has Laws. Agrarianism fits humans, or gives them the concept of Laws. City do not. Plato made this point in his Laws. The citizens were to have one house in the city and the other in the country. The city was far removed from the coastline. The main business was Agrarianism.
Furthermore, Western culture and civilization is not built on "liberty" but on Order and the "care of the soul". This is part of the Graeco-Roman heritage that forms the basis of Western Culture. "Liberty" is a product of the Enlightenment, which destroyed Western culture. Liberty is not the end-all-be-all of government. Order and "care of the soul" is.
In Plato's Republic, Socrates states that "Where money is prized, Virtue is despised". Money drives out Virtue. Can't have a Republic without Virtue. Second, even Homer noticed "The Phonecians are all fine sailors, but they are all rogues". Meaning that commercialism, capitalism makes men into rogues. There is no 'fixing' capitalism.
All the republics of ancient antiquity were built by the citizen/soldier/farmer. That is the basis of classical republicanism. Rome degenerated after mercantilism came to the forefront of economics. The kyklos happened just as Socrates predicted; it was a republic, which devolved into a democracy c. 100 B.C. and the constant civil wars which devolved into a Tyranny when Julius Caesar seized the throne.
True republicanism can only be built upon the soldiering class and Agrarianism.
Posted by W Lindsay Wheeler | April 4, 2011 1:08 PM