Three Things

Thing One: As noted before, we now have front row seats to Trump’s attack on governing, the Constitution, his enemies, migrants, and the government protections built up over decades to protect us from the ravages of unrestrained capitalism, climate change, and globalized disease. The pundits have recognized that Trump’s aggressive efforts to see what he can get away with – the courts being the only potential obstacle – is an intentional effort to enlarge his power not by flaunting law and order but by bending it to his will.

The mostly unqualified sycophants with which he is seeking to stuff his cabinet will pass or not through the Senate – Hegseth squeaking by J.D. – and thus fully legally. As Jon Stewart recently noted, this is not fascism but entirely consistent with the 18th Century founding document – allowing a presidential monarchy – we seem to be stuck with. We will have to do something about that someday if we are to ever grow up. This bring me to ….

Thing Two: In the face of Trump flooding the field to keep everyone else off balance, the Democrats are either hiding, lost in a forest of self-analysis, or just plain waiting for the Trump chickens to come home to roost on all of those deluded people who voted for him. That is not much of a political party, more a herd of well-fed sheep. The Democrats need to find a way to address the issues that drove so many to place hope for a better life in Trump and the oligarch-loving Republicans amassed under the MAGA banner. This brings me to ….

Thing Three: The Democrats need, the country needs, to find a way to deal with the forces driving so many to feeling relatively deprived. All too many Americans feel that they and their children cannot reach, or maintain, the lifestyle of their own parents or grandparents. They are right to so believe.

The post-WWII economy of the Boomers peaked by the early ‘80s. Since then, inequality has been increasing while the Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats have favored capital over labor. Good paying union jobs gave way to low paying service sector work. Big capital fought off unions. The 21st Century has added further automation, now powered by AI, to further diminish the good paying working class jobs of the past. Health costs have risen, public schools struggle, drug use moved well beyond inner cities. Folks wonder what happened? So they look for those to blame – migrants, Jews, anyone different – and those to save them.

We need to face up to a few basics. We will never be a country full of high-paying work again. Tariffs won’t do it and build-it-here won’t do it. Most remaining (or recaptured) industry and many so called white-collar jobs will be done by machines and computers. For a while we may still need some skilled craftspeople like plumbers and electricians. But picking our crops, slaughtering our animals and rebuilding our outdated infrastructure will be done by machines and those migrants we say we don’t need. (No high paying jobs there.)

What is to be done? The Democrats will need to bite the bullet and revisit that approach long made anathema by the rich and their Republican servants: socialism. By which I mean, collecting substantial taxes from the obscenely rich and from big business, perhaps nationalizing fundamental platforms of the 21st Century economy such as Amazon and providing a guaranteed minimum income to everyone. This last would not be means tested or require looking for work and should be at least a few multiples of the basic poverty line. (Free healthcare, life-long education and varied public goods would supplement this.) We should, in other words, separate making and providing the goods we sell to ourselves and the world from the necessity to make them through human labor.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 27

For episode 26, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVII. Convention and Tradition -- Hume and Burke
 A. Natural Law hung on in France as revolutionary solvent of an antiquated
      system.
 B. In defense of revolution in England, natural law had no immediate 
     practical utility.
       1. Idea of deductive ethics and philosophy slowly rejected.
       2. Empirical philosophy stressing natural history of ideas and their
           derivation from the senses developed (as Locke suggested).
 C. David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, 1739-40)  
       1. Presented analysis that exposed pretensions of natural law to
           scientific validity.
       2. Use of reason had uncritically combined and confused three factors.
           i. Had effect of describing as necessary truths propositions that can
              make no such claim.
           ii. Can be things rightly called reasonable in the sense of being
               necessary and inevitable, e.g., formal implications where a
               conclusion follows if a premise is taken for granted--> deduction. (1)
           iii. No "comparison of ideas" can prove a matter of fact, and 
               relationships between matters of fact are never necessary in a strict
               sense but simply empirically correlated.(2)
           iv. Reason cannot dictate ways of acting, good or bad but can only
               guide us to know how to achieve desired ends and how to avoid 
               undesired ones.(3)

 Hume: "reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can
 never pretend to any other office than to save and obey them."

       3. The attacked the three branches of natural law system.
           i. Natural or rational religion -- a rational metaphysics showing the
              necessary existence of anything -- is impossible.
           ii. Rational ethics also since values depend on human propensity
               to action and reason cannot itself create any obligation. 
               Virtue is just a quality of mind that is generally approved. 
           iii. Contractual, consensual theories of politics also as government
                doesn't really ask subjects to consent. Loyalty towards
                government is as common as feeling that agreements should
                be kept; purposes of political allegiance is to keep order and
                preserve peace and security while contract creates mutual trust
                between private persons.  Both are binding because stable
                society is not possible without them.
       4. Hume didn't find man to be as calculating of his self interest as
           did Bentham and the French utilitarians.
       5. Common interest exists as body of conventions shown by experience
           to serve human needs in a general way.  Rules provide stability as
           men need to know what they can rely on:
           i. Conventions regulating property --> justice
           ii. Those that legitimate political authority 
           iii. Utility includes self interest and social stability
 D. Hume's conclusions largely accepted but branded as merely negative.
       1. Logical result was empirical positivism.
       2. Metaphysics, religion and ethics went on, however, in more or less
           traditional forms.
           i. Kant and Hegel attempted to reunite reason, fact and value
           ii. tendency to either depreciate logic as compared to sentiment or
               to hope to combine the two (Carlyle)
           iii. respect for sentiment led to new estimate of custom and tradition,
               as unfolding of reason rather than its antithesis (Burke)
           iv. view of history as gradual unfolding of the absolute 
 E. Edmund Burke accepted Hume and saw a society's standards as
      conventions based on propensities.
       1. Saw conventions as repository of achievements of the species.
       2. Saw society and propensities as human nature.
       3. Consequently, traditions of a nation's life have utility above their
           contribution to individual utility.
       4. Therefore, tradition of constitution, and of society at large, ought to be
           object of almost religious reverence.
       5. The species is wiser that the individual or any movement.
       6. Supported Whigs because the particular outcome of the English
           revolution they represented was by that time tradition. 
           i. Consequently, his theory of representation looked back to the
              17th Century
           ii. Denied representation being of individuals or territories
           iii. Parliament was meeting place of dominant interests where they
               could be held accountable
           iv. did, however, see positive benefits of parties as groups of men
               pursuing their natural interests upon some shared principle.
       7. A people was a "true politic personality" -- a community held together
           by sense of membership and duty and not calculated self interest.
       8. Man could not live on private stock of reason.
       9. Statesman consulted spirit of the constitution to gain clues for its
           development; statesmanship is an art. 
       10. Rejected French Revolution as destruction of society through
             destruction of government.
           i. For Sabine, Burke confused state, government and society by
              interchanging them.
           ii. Resulted in transferring reverence toward society to reverence
               to the state.
           iii. Practically made politics religion and saw unfolding immanence
               of God.
       11. Rousseau and Burke shared reverence for community.
       12. Hegel systematized Burke, though no direct link.

Next week: Hegel -- Dialectic and Nationalism




   
  

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 14

For episode 13 see here


The Theory of the Universal Community

XIV: Three Challenges to Christian Society

  A. Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII, France vs the papacy (1296-1303)
       1. Theory of papal supremacy brought to completion 
       2. Church saw spiritual realm including temporal means to spiritual ends
       3. Royalists tried to limit spiritual to questions of conscience making it
           dependent on secular arm for coercive power
       4. Papists saw pope supreme in the Church with both swords belonging
           to it
       5. Pope was successor to St. Peter, ruled by divine right
       6. Royalists legal formula was that the king has same power in the kingdom
           as emperor has in empire
       7. Saw king as independent of both emperor and pope 
       8. Confrontation between king and pope produced conception of the
           kingdom as political power not dependent on tradition of the Empire 
       9. Brings back Aristotle's idea of the state not requiring sanctification of
           religion to be legitimate
       10. Anti-papists argued along two lines
           i. spiritual power limited to only proper moral and religious exercise
           ii. objection to tyrannous rule and call for some form of representation
               and consent
  B. Marsilio of Padua and William of Occam (1323-1347)
       1. Temporal power established independently of spiritual 
       2. Considered question of absolute monarchy vs constitutional monarchy
       3. Problem shifted to relation between sovereign and corporate body be
           ruled
       4. Marsilio: Averroist Aristotelism
           i. separates reason from faith, both are true and yet may contradict 
           ii. reasserts human society as self-sufficient in the fullest sense
           iii. good life is good in this life and good in next, reason is truth of
                good life here with revelation as truth for the next life
           iv. consequences of religion in this life limited to spiritual teaching.
           v. clergy are just one class in the state among others and as such
               are subject to state regulation
           vi. made distinction between divine law, from God, for attaining best
                of the next life from corporate power, for attaining the best in this
                life
           vii. only human law carries earthly penalties
           viii. anticipated Luther on the priesthood of all Christians, denial of
                  hierarchy in the Church especially the pope, view of religion as
                  essentially an inner experience, and denial of cannon law
           ix. as practical, concedes a General Council to oversee the Church as
                 representative of the corporate body
       5. William: The Freedom of the Church
           i. advocated for excommunicated minority against papal sovereignty,
               rights of subjects against ruler and rights of minorities
           ii. saw theology as mainly having to do with supernatural things,
               while reason was the realm pf philosophy
           iii. continued tradition of Duns Scotus against St. Thomas 
           iv. argued for representative check on papal power 
           v. derived authority of the emperor from election by the College of
                Electors standing in the place of the people
  C. The Concilian Theory of Church Government 
       1. John Wycliffe and Jan Hus argued that the whole church (all Christians)
           was the recipient of divine law and spiritual power
       2. As part of the dependency on secular support, made the case for 
           greater dignity of royal power over spiritual power in this life
       3. Conciliarists provided first great debate on constitutionalism against
           absolutism
           i. spiritual power is vested in the church as a corporate body
           ii. clergy, including the pope, merely ministers or organs by which the
               corporate body acts
           iii. looked to custom, not will, of the people as source of authority
           iv. force of law, in general way, comes from consent
           v. the Council was to share authority with the pope but pope was allowed 
               to typically continue monarchical rule unless overstepped bounds
       4. With the failure of the conciliar movement, pope became the first of the 
            absolute monarchs and the theory of papal absolutism became the 
            archetype for monarchical absolutism

Connecting constitutional movements of the 17th and 18th centuries to the conciliar movement of the Middle Ages "was the conviction that lawful authority is a moral force while despotism is not, and that society itself embodies a force of moral criticism to which even legally constituted power is rightly subject. (327-28)

Next week:  Machiavelli
  

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 11

For episode 10 see here

 The Theory of the Universal Community

 XI. The Folk and Its Law
    A. Between 6th and 9th Centuries, Roman Empire (and antiquity) broke.
       Europe came under Germanic invaders
    B. Repeated invasions in 10th and 11th Centuries, little philosophical or 
       theoretical activity
    C. Authority of Fathers Cicero unbounded
    D. Early Middle Ages political thought
       1. Germanics saw Law as belonging to the folk as if it were an
          attribute of the group
       2. there was great diversity of laws
       3. Law seen to be externally valid and to some degree sacred, pervaded
          all of life
       4. Law seen to be discovered not made

"The belief that law belongs to the people and is applied or modified with their
  approval and consent was therefore universally accepted.... Historically the
  apparatus was later than the idea that the people was a corporate body which
  expressed its corporate mind through its magistrates and natural leaders."(206) 

       5. King bound to follow Law as it could be ascertained by consulting
          immemorial practice
       6. each enjoyed protection of Law according to rank and order as his fathers
          had
       7. limits on the king were therefore vague
    F. Three sorts of claims to royal power were combined
       1. Kings inherited throne
       2. Election by the people
       3. Ruled by grace of God
       4. first two became more distinguished as constitutional practices became
          regularized and clearly defined
       5. Monarchy and Papacy became elective (in the Empire)
    G. Feudal relations and ideas
       1. large political and economic units not practical
       2. agricultural practices and conditions made the village community and
          farm lands almost self-sufficient
       3. System of land tenure and vested rights
          i. land was wealth
          ii. obligations were contractual, mutually binding
       4. King was titular representative of the public interest, his rule stood on
          res publica as a continuation of the commonwealth tradition with king
          as chief magistrate
       5. King was not absolute, acted through his court or council
       6. John of Salisbury recognized the ancient tradition

Next week: The Investiture Controversy  

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 9

For episode 8 see here

 The Theory of the Universal Community

 IX. Cicero and the Roman Lawyers

  A. Known [Western] world soon to be under single political rule like
       Mediterranean
       1. Melting pot became single community
       2. No politically self-conscious nations 
       3. Stoic ideas of world-state, natural justice and universal citizenship
           became common property of all educated men
       4. World ruled by God, father to human who were therefore brothers
  B. Development of these ideas followed two lines
       1. embedding of "natural law"into Roman jurisprudence
       2. development of religious implications of law and government rooted in
           plan of Divine Providence
       3. little political theory done systematically
  C. Cicero not original but very widely read
       1. Wrote to bring Rome back to Republican virtues but failed
       2. Most important contribution was to give statement of Stoic doctrine of
           natural law universally known in the West through the 19th century
       3. Natural law arose from fact of God's providential government of the
           world and from rational and social nature of human being which makes
            them akin to God
           i. In light of this law, all men are equal

"Indeed Cicero goes so far as to suggest that it is nothing but error, bad habits
  and false opinions that prevents men from being in fact equal." (164)

           ii. Equality is moral requirement rather than a fact, contrary to Aristotle
       4. State is a moral community, the res publica, or affair of the people 
       5. Membership in the state is common possession of all its citizens, as is its
           advantages of mutual aid and just government.  Thus:
           i. its authority arises from the collective power of the people
           ii. political power when rightfully and lawfully exercised is corporate power
              of the people (and only to be exercised by law)
           iii. state itself and the law is subject to God, in effect to moral or
               natural law
   D. Roman lawyers
       1. Classical period of development of Roman jurisprudence , repetition and
           elaboration of Cicero in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD
       2. Speaking in terms of right and justifiable powers (legalistic argumentation)
           remained a generally accepted method of political theorizing
       3. Positive Law was seen as approximation to perfect justice and
           definition of the right, lawyers seen as "priests of justice"
       4. Emperor's will has force of law because people transfer to him their
           power



Next week: Seneca and the Fathers of the Church


 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 6

For episode 5 see here.

Theory of the City-State

VI. Aristotle: Political Actualities
 A. Lays groundwork for the study of politics separate from the study of ethics
 B. Looks at the ethical basis, arrangement of offices, social classes within state,
       as well as recognizing the differences between the legal constitution and 
       the constitution in practice
 C. Analysis based upon an understanding of the political and economic
       constitution of the state
       1. Democracies differ according to inclusiveness and economic structure
          of the state
       2. Oligarchies differ on eligibility and distribution of property
 D. Three branches of government: deliberative, administrative and judiciary 
 E. Combining best of both types is the polity or constitutional government*
       1. Foundation of large middle class which is the most stable as not too
           rich or too poor
       2. Balancing of quality (aristocracy) and quantity (democracy)
 F. Defines state as community between contractual relations and paternal rule
 G. State originates from bare needs of life but continues for the sake of the good
       life -- which is the first truly civilized form. 
 H. The "nature"of a thing revealed after growth has taken place; nature redefined
       as convention. Through the growth of community comes the state.
 I. The state is natural because it contains the possibility of a fully civilized life
      but conditions must be right, thus an arena for the statesman to act.
 J. Fundamental constituents of nature: form, matter and movement
       1. Statesman must be descriptive and empirical to ascertain the possibilities
          of the actual
       2. Also must consider the ideal to give form to the possibilities

*Note:  Aristotle divides governments into six types, three ruled by the best one, few or many and their negative forms were rule is in the hand of those not guided by reason but by self-interest.

 

 Next week: The Twilight of the City-State