Richard,
Your argument that action could make something worse can be said about
anything, Richard. This is a slogan. And it sounds like a neoconservative
one. For example, neoconservative James Q. Wilson sums up the rhetoric of
"we could well make it worse" in the "Foreword" to The Essential
Neoconservative Reader (1996): "neoconservatives are not friends of
inequality but find the reality underlying these data complex and often
counterintuitive." From this assumption, Wilson argues that
neoconservatives don't want to do anything about inequality lest the screw
it up worse than it is.
Marvin Olasky crystalizes the essence of this in his book The Tragedy of
American Compassion. Great title, huh? He argues that our efforts to forge
social justice have resulted in making things much worse. On the House
floor (US House of Representatives) during the welfare "reform" debate,
Republican members made similar arguments, though with less poetry. One
gentleman from Florida compared the poor to alligators and said "Don't
feed the alligators," because if we did then they would soon be in our
backyard eating our dogs. A gentlewoman from out West (Colorado, maybe, or
Washington state) used the wolf protection program to illustrate the folly
of trying to change things; when they went to release the wolves from
their cages, the wolves didn't want to leave. Helping the wolves only
makes it worse for the wolves, is the moral of the story.
Now, I realize that you did not make such arguments. But these arguments
illustrate clearly the problem with the ideology of inaction that is
suggested in your fear of tampering with the sacred document of the US.
And these arguments go back to before the neoconservatives. The same
argument was used to justify slavery, saying that changing that system
might make it worse off for blacks. The same again for desegregation.
(Some argue that desegregation has made it worse for blacks!) That begs
the question of what constitutes "worse." So the Constitution, a class
document, guaranteeing a mode of production that is inherently
exploitative, should not be changed because things could be worse for
workers. This is more than a terrible argument. It is sort of reactionary.
It is also elitist because the subtext is the one used by the framers of
the Constitution; if left to the people they will screw it up, make things
worse. Madison or Hamilton once said something to the effect that the
stupid masses seldom choose right. The tragedy of compassion. Trying to
save the wolves.
You are some "revolutionary," Richard.
You missed my point concerning democracy and capitalism. History is not
proceeding under democratic control and it cannot, in part, because of
constitutional systems developed under liberal capitalism. The US
Constitution, like other express politico-juridical frameworks are
reflections of objective social arrangements. The US Constitution is a
document designed to legitimate exploitative arrangements. Because the
document is not democratic, it cannot be changed democratically to any
substantial degree. It must be dissolved at the same time that the social
arrangements it articulates are dissolved, and this can only come about
through revolution (a real revolution).
You wrote that I "note that economic justice is just as important as
political participation." You disclaimed that these were "not your exact
words." They are not only not my exact words but I didn't make a statement
with anything close to that meaning. I said that you cannot have political
equality without economic equality. That is very much a different sort of
statement. Systems are possible where people don't have to participate in
politics to have political equality. The point I was making was a much
deeper one about the fundamental antinomy between capitalism and
democracy.
The "Enlightenment notion of limited government" was developed to
legitimate capitalist domination. It should not be factored in, but
eliminated. Here again you assume that there is a non-political sphere in
which people engage in contract formation and that it behooves those
people to keep democracy out of that sphere. The notion of limited
governments rests on the antinomy I have identified. Through legal
devices, such as the Constitution, elites have created a private space of
tyranny. Hell, corporations govern. The "Right of Man" is a liberal
mythos. "Keeping government out of our lives" is a classical euphemism for
"Get democracy away from the people."
As for personal rights, these come not from dividing society up into these
political and depoliticized spaces, but from removing those limitations
and relations that exploit and oppress people. The fact that such rights
would have to be specified demonstrates the failure of the social system to
deliver real social justice. And look at what the Bill of Rights
ultimately does. It throws a few bones to the people, but then reinforce
the central point of tyranny of the whole system, that is, the protection
of private property. And the document itself, through the protection of
ideas, for example, is inherently tyrannical.
You say that "politics should be separate from civil society, and from
religion, and from information-access." But it cannot be, Richard. Society
is an organic totality. Politics cannot be lifted from this system and put
over there somewhere. Politics is part of every aspect of the system. I
recommend Sandra Harding's work to you. She makes very clear the fallacy
of depoliticizing institutions and behaviors. What this practice of
depoliticization does is to dissimulate power and domination. You would
create a space "civil society" where the people who are structured into
exploitative relations have no political recourse. You are unwittingly
supporting tyranny, Richard. I see no difference between the logic of your
arguments and the logic of the system you rhetorically decry.
Because you have embraced the liberal fallacy of democracy under
capitalism you have anthropomorphized institutions. You have argued that
you don't want governments burdened with operating the economy and so
forth. But the government is not burdened with this. People are. And the
question is whether you want only a few "entrepreneurs" and their
"enterprises" running civil society, or whether you want the people
running society democratically. You suggested in your post that I didn't
answer your question regard the distinction between capitalism and whatever
it is you are advocating. But what you advocate *is* capitalism,
specifically, a corporatist capitalism. If you want democracy you have to
articulate a scheme where power is in a whole other place, namely, with
the people. Your scheme doesn't do that, and it cannot because of the
false assumptions that underpin its logic.
You write that:
> Huntington is an enemy of democracy, and any use he makes of the term must
> be inerpreted as anti-democratic propaganda. You are taking his
> mis-definition of democracy as proof that the Consitution needs to be
> revamped! What logic is there in such an argument?
I didn't make this argument. Huntington makes the same argument you are
making. That is why I used him. Both you and him and other liberal
thinkers base their arguments on the maintenance of the antinomy between
politics and economics. You have demonstrated in this post precisely the
points I have been making. And the interesting thing is that you seem to
uncomfortable with your own argument. This is because, I believe, there is
a vague recognition that the argument you advance is inherently anti-
democratic. And the logic for this syllogism is blatant, Richard: You
advance Huntington's argument. You say that Huntington is an
anti-democratic propagandist. The conclusion is obvious.
Andy