The Arc of History Bends Toward Justice and Liberty
Posted by CircuitGuy 11 years, 1 month ago to History
I recently posed the question of whether collectivism is causing serious problems for the people here. Most people say yes.
j_IR1776wg said his grown children are successful but not convinced their rights are disappearing. Khalling said that's sad. No it's not! j_IR1776wg probably taught them the value of liberty. They're successful, running things, making stuff happen. When some opportunity for reform appears, they'll be in leadership roles in their little corners of the economy ready to take action and without a discouraged spirit.
IMHO personal liberty is increasing over the long arc of history. When people invented agriculture and settled down, it gave people time to learn to do things beyond look for food. Strongmen appeared to settle disputes. The Code of Hammurabi was the first time someone wrote down rules _before_ the dispute occurred. The rules did not respect individual rights, but it was a huge step away from rule of force to rule by law.
The next leap in production was the industrial revolution. We produced more stuff than ever before. Karl Marx correctly identified that private ownership of these new means of production would not distribute the wealth “fairly” to those who did the work. The proposed remedy (communism) for this problem is worse than the problem itself.
Around this same time, people in America started talking about making a republic based on the idea that citizens had an innate right to their lives and gov't only had the rights the people grant it. It probably seemed like propaganda. It sort-of was. What were the chances they were creating some amazing new kind of republic in some remote backwater?
But somehow it works. Within a hundred yeas slavery disappears. The Senate becomes popularly elected. Suffrage is extended to African Americans and then to women. Violence in all areas of life radically declines. Solving a dispute with guns goes from being something people like Burr and Hamilton did to something seen as something for the uneducated and mentally ill.
Then automation and information technology appear. They allow people to produce and distribute products way down the long tail of popularity that would never have justified shelf space a decade earlier. It gets rid of gatekeepers. The saying that the press is only free to those who can afford a printing press disappears in my lifetime. Karl Marx turns out to be *wrong* once the means of production are cheap and widely available.
Today all kinds of jobs are being eliminated by automation and foreign trade. We may be approaching a time when we all can live an affluent 20th century lifestyle while robots do all the work, but we desire a 21st century lifestyle and beyond. This raises all kinds of new questions. People are freaked out because this means jobs are disappearing. Things are changing so fast; it feels like the Lexus is trashing our Olive Tree. OWS is one manifestation of this. “But I was _told_ someone would give me a job!? Whose fault is it? Let me just pick someone. Okay, how about the people who fund businesses. Yeah!” Another manifestation is privacy. In the past the gov't allowed the police to follow everyone around all day and watch everything they do in public, but it was impractical. Now it's practical, something the Founders didn't dream of. We're working through the issues. There's real danger of getting it wrong. Some people serious believe the Bill of Rights is out of date in the modern world. That's okay because they wrote it not for times when the value of rights was obvious but for times when we would be tempted to abandon them. Freedom minded people are fighting to get it right.
This response is not necessarily a general increase in decadence and/or a lack of respect for individual rights and property. They are tiny bumps on the road to more freedom and higher standards of living.
j_IR1776wg said his grown children are successful but not convinced their rights are disappearing. Khalling said that's sad. No it's not! j_IR1776wg probably taught them the value of liberty. They're successful, running things, making stuff happen. When some opportunity for reform appears, they'll be in leadership roles in their little corners of the economy ready to take action and without a discouraged spirit.
IMHO personal liberty is increasing over the long arc of history. When people invented agriculture and settled down, it gave people time to learn to do things beyond look for food. Strongmen appeared to settle disputes. The Code of Hammurabi was the first time someone wrote down rules _before_ the dispute occurred. The rules did not respect individual rights, but it was a huge step away from rule of force to rule by law.
The next leap in production was the industrial revolution. We produced more stuff than ever before. Karl Marx correctly identified that private ownership of these new means of production would not distribute the wealth “fairly” to those who did the work. The proposed remedy (communism) for this problem is worse than the problem itself.
Around this same time, people in America started talking about making a republic based on the idea that citizens had an innate right to their lives and gov't only had the rights the people grant it. It probably seemed like propaganda. It sort-of was. What were the chances they were creating some amazing new kind of republic in some remote backwater?
But somehow it works. Within a hundred yeas slavery disappears. The Senate becomes popularly elected. Suffrage is extended to African Americans and then to women. Violence in all areas of life radically declines. Solving a dispute with guns goes from being something people like Burr and Hamilton did to something seen as something for the uneducated and mentally ill.
Then automation and information technology appear. They allow people to produce and distribute products way down the long tail of popularity that would never have justified shelf space a decade earlier. It gets rid of gatekeepers. The saying that the press is only free to those who can afford a printing press disappears in my lifetime. Karl Marx turns out to be *wrong* once the means of production are cheap and widely available.
Today all kinds of jobs are being eliminated by automation and foreign trade. We may be approaching a time when we all can live an affluent 20th century lifestyle while robots do all the work, but we desire a 21st century lifestyle and beyond. This raises all kinds of new questions. People are freaked out because this means jobs are disappearing. Things are changing so fast; it feels like the Lexus is trashing our Olive Tree. OWS is one manifestation of this. “But I was _told_ someone would give me a job!? Whose fault is it? Let me just pick someone. Okay, how about the people who fund businesses. Yeah!” Another manifestation is privacy. In the past the gov't allowed the police to follow everyone around all day and watch everything they do in public, but it was impractical. Now it's practical, something the Founders didn't dream of. We're working through the issues. There's real danger of getting it wrong. Some people serious believe the Bill of Rights is out of date in the modern world. That's okay because they wrote it not for times when the value of rights was obvious but for times when we would be tempted to abandon them. Freedom minded people are fighting to get it right.
This response is not necessarily a general increase in decadence and/or a lack of respect for individual rights and property. They are tiny bumps on the road to more freedom and higher standards of living.
Unemployment rates at late 70s levels (this not adjusted for self employed or underemployed)
Lowest percentage of Americans working since the Depression
Foreclosures at all time highs (3.4 million since 2008), massive govt intrusion on private health insurance-
For millions upon millions of Americans these ARE their prime earning years.
Most wealth centered around DC or state capitals or where large public institutions are located.
I am not even mentioning the massive intrusions by state and federal govts on our personal liberties. How can you not acknowledge this?!
Marx was right? Marx was incorrect. What is your definition of fair because mine is anything one earns in a non coercive manner is what you are entitled to. NO ONE ELSE.
The arc of History in the west over the last 100 years has been net less freedoms. I care about what freedoms I have lost in my own lifetime. I am not content that the world is much better off after most of the west came out of the Malthusian Trap. I want the same freedoms that skyrocketed a new country to the most powerful nation on Earth in under 160 years. I want the same freedoms that Hong Kong and Singapore enjoy-and they are right on the US's heels. We are no longer the most economically free and powerful nation we once were-and maybe that's due in part to "successful" people voting those very strengths in a nation away. Voting away my natural rights! It's tragic. When the most important values one has in life are threatened by anyone, I am reacting negatively.
One is not in a better position to take on issues as they come available if one is oblivious. We are losing freedoms daily. The dyke is down. These are not bumps. The fact that you are OK with freedoms you have lost in your lifetime leads me to believe you are making the argument for living in a gilded cage. As long as the cage is nice....I'm flying outside.
I know people in the world *do* make this mistake, but is that what your kids are actually saying?
I hope they wake up while I'm it is still alive..
My understanding of Hong Kong and Singapore is they are *not at all* models of freedom.
Regarding the last 100 years, US got women's suffrage in the past 100 years. The Internet got its killer WWW app making it widely accessible twenty years ago. Drug prohibition started 100 years ago, too, though, so it's a mixed bag.
It does seem like the stuff I read about in the 70s, freedom of information act, release of the Pentagon Papers, distrust of gov't, were better back then. I am not convinced there is an ongoing negative trend though.
I dismiss categorically the suggestion I mistake the comforts of increased production for freedom.
"WWW app making it widely accessible twenty years ago..."
and is currently being used to spy on the citizens of this nation. We have an administration currently that is completely ignoring laws including Freedom of Information Act. Within the last 100 years, everyone had to sign up and receive a number for themselves. But now-you can't leave the hospital with your newborn without a number being applied for. The Federal income tax was established, EPA, Dept of Education, the Federal Reserve, Dept of Homeland Security, The Patriot Act-you can't go through an airport without being searched and xrayed, federal czars appointed at highest levels accountable only to the President-no checks and balances, the FTC, a huge standing army positioned across the world-all of these are massive invasions to personal freedoms. The US is the only nation in the World that taxes their citizens on citizenship if they are not residing there.
In the face of all these tacts to suggest freedoms are advancing in the last 100 years is absurd, cg
Sherman Anti-Trust Act – Govt. seizing commercial property.
16th Amendment – Govt. seizing everyone's income.
Social Security – Govt. seizing everyone's retirement.
Medicare + Ocare – Govt. seizing control over everyone's healthcare.
Kelo V New London – Govt. seizing everyone's home.
Common Core – Govt. seizing everyone's children.
Yuk.
There. I said it. Our fellow "citizen" elected Mister Thompson as President.
And we also have a Floyd Ferris (John Holdren, Science Czar),a Wesley Mouch (Cass Sunstein), and dozens of Kip Chalmerses (Henry Waxman, Edward Markey, Frank Pallone right here in New Jersey, et al. ad nauseam)
I suggest to you that nothing short of another revolution will truly get us back to the liberty we have lost.
Your commentary regarding “The Code of Hammurabi” is enlightening, I would differ with you on whether it qualifies as law. At least as we understand law in modern times, it requires that individual rights are respected. I believe that there is little doubt that the King considered himself above the “law,” and settled things to his own best interest. This I would describe as nothing more than another form of tyranny. It is true that it was the first time a set of rules was promulgated that allowed the common people to have an idea of what they could do.
I t did change the way people lived when might automatically meant right.
I would propose that the Bible was the first written form of law that specified the 10 Commandments as the required way of life. This was further refined at the time of Jesus and is the basis for all law today. That is except for the laws being enforced that take the power from the people and rest it with government to decide as they see fit at the moment that serves government best. That is the reason that politicians always want more power and they way they see it, to grow power is to bribe the populace. This is no different as the time of the Roman Empire and the giving of bread and producing the mighty circus shows of the day. Of course to refer to the acts of gladiators and wild beasts eating Christians could hardly be called a circus.
You also quote Karl Marx, “Karl Marx correctly identified that private ownership of these new means of production would not distribute the wealth “fairly” to those who did the work.” Do you really agree with that statement?
In a truly free economy, the “producer” starts a business at his own financial risk and hires workers to perform work as directed. Each worker has the right to turn down a job, accept and negotiate his own compensation How does “fair” enter into this transaction between two parties. Karl Marx believed that “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” These words are the surest predictor of economic failure. To quote Karl Marx in defense of anything, I would consider a great mistake. Nothing he proposed ever amounted to anything positive for the worker and destroyed every economy based on his theories.
Your premise about, “What were the chances they were creating some amazing new kind of republic in some remote backwater?” I believe to be flawed as well. Remember that the founding fathers believed in God and prayed for his guidance. I would certainly take those odds any day. The United States won the Revolutionary War against the mightiest army on earth in those days, and was instrumental in winning WWI and the deciding factor for victory in WWII. Could this have happened without God's guidance, I doubt it.
Fred Speckmann
commonsenseforamericans@yahoo.com
The Roman Republic which devolved into the Empire laid down the 12 tables of Roman Law and posted them in the agora.
It is a divergence from this supremacy of fundamental, foundational laws which led to Caesar's grasp for power and the birth of the Empire.
You are right, but I would add that it was also the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire. Tyranny can never last.
Fred
My understanding is if the means of production remained expensive, the rewards would go to the few. This is a bad thing for reasons that go beyond the space I have here. That's a moot point, though, b/c technology is lower the cost of the means of production. As I said Marx's remedy was worse than the problem.
I'm saying people probably dismissed them as unlikely to win and unlikely to make a long term differentce--- unlikely to be the model on which many constitutions were based. Many of the Framers did NOT believe in a god that played an active role in the world. It was up to them to create something that lasted. I don't know what it was like, but it was probably hard to imagine they were building a model of liberty for the world. I know they were, but I'm saying back then it was easy to think it would never work.
All revolutionary's believe they will succeed and the Founding Father believed so as well. They also knew that if they failed, they would hang. A great incentive to succeed.
as to your statement regarding faith, it is a common misconception that they did not have faith in God. When properly researched the proof of their faith can be found in their writings and records of their lives.
you are probably right in that perhaps they didn't didn't realize that they were building a model of liberty, that's why I'm convinced that they were divinely inspired to serve as that shining example on the hill.
What other nation, despite our many faults, has ever been so instrumental in making this a better world.
I was born in East Germany and lived under Soviet occupation as a boy, even there I knew that America was indeed that shining light. I have lived in this country for 54 years and despite our present path to oblivion, I believe that we are still the shining light on the hill. Not even the present administration can change that belief. This too shall pass.
Fred
Your next sentence regarding "strong men" settling disputes as a positive thing can be restated as the local gang leader/chief thug/head looter giving orders to keep his slaves in line. Also,it can be argued that it's much easier for a thug to control a person whose survival is tied to a location (his potato patch, for instance) than someone who can simply leave and hunt & gather elsewhere.
I remember this one year, man, we went from.... well, nevermind... story for another time.