Well, all that talk about liberalism really got the philosophy part of my brain spinning again.
(A quick note -- the class I mentioned in my previous post on the auto industry was about classic liberalism, which is entirely different from the term "liberal" in modern U.S. usage.)
I dug out my copy of Ludwig von Mises's Liberalism: The Classic Tradition this morning and read over some of my old pencil highlights made in 1997. A lot of it still provokes an internal sense of "rightness" in me: the advocation of individual freedoms, the private ownership of property, and even a sense of "socially conscious" capitalism:
It hardly occurs to anyone, when he forms his notion of a capitalist, that a social order organized on genuinely liberal principles is so constituted as to leave the entrepreneurs and the capitalists only one way to wealth, viz., by better providing their fellow men with what they themselves think they need (11).
Sign me up, Ludwig!
But obviously, capitalism as it lives today has had catastrophic failures. Devout followers of von Mises and the Austrian School of economics have argued that if we truly lived in a liberal society, none of this mess would have happened in the first place, and you can't blame laissez faire capitalism.
It's certainly a point worth discussing, but it doesn't do much to move us forward from here, and here's why: whining about not having a true laissez faire capitalist society will get us no where because it's never going to happen in the United States of America. For better or for worse, we are entrenched in a society where the government provides a LOT more than the police and defense force the classic liberal would have. Ideals are a beautiful thing, but the pragmatist in me also recognizes that the bigger our society, the greater the law of inertia demands that the programs we currently have in motion stay in motion. Or put another way, the state of the nation is at rest and remaining at rest.
I personally think that inertia is actually crippling us at the moment. When America was founded, there was very serious debate over whether or not a republic could work over such a large population covering such an immense land mass. But back then, America only had about four million people and the limitless west. And the writers of the Constitution established a system that was flexible and could adapt and flow easily. James Madison regarded the size of our republic as a blessing (FYI, read this link if you get a chance. "Federalist No. 10" is one of the most important documents in our founding.)
Keep in mind that in 1787, there were only a couple of successful republics in the history of civilization, and they were typically ancient and small. Very few people believed a republic could succeed at all, let alone one with seven million or more people spread out over the entire eastern seaboard. However, I think there is still some validity to the notion that a successful republic has a certain maximum size. Check out this quote from Montesquieu's (a French enlightenment philosopher who the founders adored and quoted frequently)The Spirit of the Laws:
It is natural for a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise it cannot long subsist. In an extensive republic there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are trusts too considerable to be placed in any single subject; he has interests of his own; he soon begins to think that he may be happy and glorious, by oppressing his fellow-citizens; and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his country.
In an extensive republic the public good is sacrificed to a thousand private views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is more obvious, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses have less extent, and of course are less protected.
"Men of large fortunes... oppressing his follow citizens" and "the public good is sacrificed to a thousand private views" ... sounds like corporate fatcats and special interests on a near prophetic level to me.
Maybe Montesquieu was right all along, but that the "extensive republic" he feared doesn't really kick in until you hit about 300 million people?
300 million people who don't really care about civics is a powerful resting force of inertia that is very, very difficult to move. Quite simply, the founders would be shocked that we haven't amended the Constitution more than we have. But heck, it seems like we used to from time to time. From the Bill of Rights to 1971, we amended the Constitution a little over once every 11 years. Over the past 38 years we've amended it once, and it was nothing more than a minor bureaucratic fix on how congressmen are paid.
I will say this much, the election of Barack Obama is certainly a strong sign that we may have overcome at least some of our fatass inertia. But even Obama understood that he wasn't going to get elected by advocating radical change (no matter what McCain/Palin tried to get you to believe). For example, he didn't run on a platform of socialized healthcare for all, he ran on a platform of government making healthcare more affordable -- the root system, warts and all, will still remain.
Unfortunately, I think this inertia with our economy and our politics is just anathema to actually fixing most of our problems. We are at a stage in our country's history when we must ask incredibly difficult questions, and should we find difficult answers, we must have the strength and will to move forward on those answers. Were it in my power, I would say we should write an entirely new Constitution (something Thomas Jefferson thought we should do every 19 years or so) where we ask ourselves questions such as, "Do we as a society wish to continue the unfettered right to bare arms, or do we fell there should restrictions on gun possesion?" "Do we as a society wish to regard healthcare as a right for all of its citizens?" "Do we wish to establish new rules and ideals in regards to the economic system that best fits a civilization of 300 million or more people?" "Do we need to strengthen the wall between church and state?" "Should our bill of rights include protections for sexual orientation?" And we should probably even ask questions such as, "Does personhood really begin at conception?"
I love our Constitution. I love the freedoms it protects. I love the genius and simplicity of its words and the checks and balances it establishes. Were I to be a member of a new Constitutional Convention, I would want to keep the grand majority of the document. Unfortunately, I feel we have shamed our founders because we have chosen to regard it as gospel rather than the fluid, flexible system of government it was meant to be: a document for the living, not the dead. And unfortunately, it now has the mass of 300+ million people split roughly 50/50 on any important question tied around its neck.
Inertia. What a bitch.
