A LETTER FROM A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA, CONCLUSION


oh god, i just read the first half that you posted. "a democrat should emphasize domestic issues." that's new. i thought i was saying something more original than that. maybe my thoughts aren't fully formed and that's why it sounded so banal (maybe i have banal thoughts) so i'll go back to basics and try to organize my thoughts better. it's this idea of theme that prompted me to write in the first place.

first, contemporary politics seems so stale to me. geo-politically the world changed after 1989 and then again after 9/11. domestic politics has changed too. the old divisions between the parties over civil rights, taxes, the size of government and crime don't exist anymore.

the civil rights struggle is over. that is not a contradiction with my earlier suggestion that we should hammer the gop on it forensically but that was a tactical point over a matter of legitimacy. no republican supports repeal of civil rights legislation so SUBSTANTIVELY, if not tactically, the issue is dead.

bill clinton ended, for now at least, the split over taxes. taxes were THE issue in the '80's: prop 13, "tax and spend" and so on. clinton cut taxes, giving the republicans apoplexy because it took away their issue. my sense is bush's recent tax cut largely fizzled with voters, not that they don't want more money in their pockets, but as a rallying cry. i think voters thought it was sort of stale old-school.

clinton also innoculated the democrats from the charge of being the party of big government. he "ended welfare as we know it" and bush, the republican, has created a new cabinet department, drastically increased military spending and driven up the deficit.

and finally, the decline in the crime rate in the last 10 years has wiped that issue off the political map, and i don't think voters give either party credit for it, clinton for the economic boom or the republicans (giuliani) for the "broken windows" theory.

i think all of the above is beyond dispute. the world of american politics, domestically and abroad, is vastly different than it was 14 years ago. but politics is still being practiced according to the same paradigm it has been since the '60's.

when pollsters ask people to explain their party affiliation they still get the answers they did 40 years ago. people say they're democrats because the party represents the working class or the little guy. republicans say their party stands for smaller government, lower taxes, and more individual responsibility, but those are not wedge issues anymore.

the terms of the debate between the parties will change eventually of their own weight but what the democrats need to do is to force that change so that it is on terms favorable to us. "he who defines the terms of the debate wins the debate."

ignoring the specifics of the old divide, there is still a generalization that can be made that is still true: the social referrent of the two parties was and continues to be different, in emphasis at least. the republicans referrent is the individual, the democrats is some larger social unit.

these referents, the individual and the community, have been at the center of american politics since before the revolution.

"tocqueville came to the conclusion that there was an inherent
struggle in america between two opposing impulses: the spirit
of rugged individualism versus the conflicting spirit of community..." (1)

that explains a lot about american politics in the last 200 years and of the ideological differences that voters still see between republicans and democrats. walter isaacson wrote though that,

"franklin would have disagreed. a fundamental aspect of franklin's life
AND OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY he helped to create was that individ-
ualism and communitarianism, so seemingly contradictory, were inter-
woven." (2)

those two traits certainly can be in conflict and often have been in our political history but they NEED NOT BE and franklin was the proto-american who embodied this synthesis. it's my argument that it is the republicans today who are, in the main, responsible for keeping these two in conflict and that the democrats are positioned to resynthesize them into the unique american character that franklin embodied. if the democrats adopt this as their "philosophy" and let it guide their policies, as they have not done in the last 40 years then they will recast the modern political debate to their advantage.

republicans are proud to "conserve" things, especially traditions and values from other eras that have a nostalgic patina and a presumption of correctness for "having stood the test of time." they wear their little adam smith ties to their federalist society meetings and urge fealty to the "original intent" of the framers and a return to the values that inspired "our founding fathers."

by the mid-19th century the society produced by the american revolution was one where the common man and his interests dominated. (3) it was at this time that tocqueville wrote "democracy in america." this society was "unlike any that had ever existed anywhere in the world." (4) but mid-19th century america was as different from colonial america as it was from england itself.(5) in colonial times the hierarchical ordering of society was considered to be the natural ordering of things.(6). it was unquestioned doctrinally and unchallenged as the practical basis for government and social order.

common people, those who worked for a living, who were uneducated and ill-mannered, were seen as demonstrably unsuited for any other status in life and singularly unsuited to govern.(7) until the 1770's the colonists maintained a desire to remain subjects of the english crown(8) so long as they could get some relief in parliament on taxation and representation. their social philosophy was far, far from the philosophy of the common man that was to dominate in just a few decades and which almost all colonial thinkers gegarded as the ultimate governmental horror.(9)

above even the filial loyalty to the english crown the colonists revered the english constitution(10) whose "perfection," in john adams description, was due to the exquisite balancing of power among the three post-medieval social estates, the monarch, nobility and commons.(11) in fact, the colonists tried to put the cart before the horse. so convinced were they of the benefits of the english system that, when independence became foreseeable, they tried to create the three estates in america than an english-based constitution would then be employed to balance.(12), and in fact this was precisely what was done in canada. if some sort of federal or commonwealth arrangement could be worked out with britain then they would have their monarchy and would only have to find a way of creating an american aristocracy.

one of the potential talent pools for this aristocracy was the wealthy as proposed here by andrew oliver the provincial secretary of massachusetts in 1773:

"a way must be found 'to put a man of fortune above the common level
and excempt him from being chosen by the people..."the best
solution...was to create 'an order of patricians or esquires...to be all
men of fortune or good landed estates."(13)

colonial attitudes toward wealth, work and society were complex. the work ethic was exalted, but only as it applied to the rabble.(14) gentlemen did not work AS IN NOT WORK AT ALL, not just not work in what we would call blue-collar jobs.(14)

independence from the workaday world was necessary for a gentleman to pursue gentlemanly pursuits, like philosophy, science, war, and governing. ideally one inherited one's wealth but there was no such extensive class in america, so second-best was to have a source of "passive income" from real estate or money lending for instance.

if one had to work then it was best to make a lot of money quickly and retire early. benjamin franklin did that and retired at age 42 to the gentlemanly pursuits of philosophy, science and governing. and this has continued to be an american tradition from franklin to andrew carnegie to the dot.com millionaires to bill gates.

this "distribution of labor," if it can be called that, was also considered beneficial to the dull, untalented common worker who would revert to a criminal, drunken, slothful state of nature if he was not working.

attitudes toward spending followed a similar "logic." since gentlemen shouldn't work, and commoners should, it followed that only the wealthy should consume, and that they should do so prodigiously to keep a ready market for the goods produced by the common man, who by contrast should practice the virtues of frugality and thrift.

this arrangement, i am not making this up, DID NOT HAVE TO BE ENFORCED, it was actually accepted by people, workers included.

TO BE CONTINUED