Our Constitution, the law of our land, makes it possible to reconstruct our social institutions. Article V, the Amendment Clause, enables us to change the system through legislation, the legal and peaceful ballot way. The legal and moral basis for using a new system, for a fundamental change, is found in our early American traditions.
Thomas Jefferson, author of our Declaration of Independence, told us that his writings were for the people of that time, and that conditions would change as to the ways future generations would order and govern themselves. He declared that WE mustn’t look upon what his generation did as being written in stone, never to be changed, which is why the Amendment Clause, Article V, was included in the Constitution.
On the folly of keeping the Constitution exactly as was originally written, Jefferson wrote:
“We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their …ancestors.”
George Washington added:
The basis of our political system is the right of the people to alter the constitutions of government.”
Abraham Lincoln concurred:
Any people living anywhere being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most sacred right -- a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”
Lincoln went a step further:
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their CONSTITUTIONAL right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”
Perhaps James Madison, The Father of the Constitution, came closest to understanding how our present form of government, as well as the economy, established over 200 years ago, would not be desirable for future generations when he declared that the time would come when:
"Wealth will be concentrated in the hands of the few,” and that it would be necessary to “…readjust the laws of the nation to changed conditions.”
That time we believe is now. We need new laws… to democratize our necessary social institutions.., government and the economy. .We propose a social and economic democracy.
The general format of such an innovative concept can be further studied at :
While I definitely agree that the current society in the US (and those in all other parts of the world) is far from "a consistently prosperous, peaceful and harmonious" and that the citizens have "little or no real decision-making role" made by government, the "solution" provided in this article is not one at all.
I am going to be more detailed than the previous commenter.
"Social Ownership", socialism, has been demonstrated before in many places, including the US, and found to be terribly lacking. The more socialistic the society, the worse the outcome. The greater degree to which individuals owned their own property (including businesses) and made their own decisions, rather than done by some bureaucrat - the greater the individual liberty available - the better off that entire society. Simply look at the measures that were enacted in the US from the end of WWI by Wilson and greatly enlarged on by Roosevelt for examples of "socially planned"/government mandated economically related interactions. It was the approaching and then actual WWII that improved the economy in the US from what it was in the 1930s - if one is looking narrowly at only certain parameters to gauge improvement....
Even with the claim "We are not advocating any form of STATE ownership of our national industrial assets in which the administration and operation of our work places is governed from the top down.", massive State involvement is in essence what "social ownership" means of the type described. As an aside, I have serious doubts if the author ever had hir own business or was even closely associated with such ownership and successful operation. Even being part of a committee for an employer or some other organization would provide experience of the increased difficulty for efficacy with group decision-making; and the larger the group the worse the problem.
At the root of the problem of such a "solution" presented (again, since it is not new) is the idea that human beings are like ants or bees, living in animal societies for which the concept of individual does not exist, except for the Queen. All others are simply workers or soldiers there to attend to the Queen's needs for the furtherance of the colony and therefore the species. Use of the words "we", "us" and "our" - heavily used in this article - is greatly distorting to one's thinking, unless each individual included in that "we" has given permission for the writer/speaker to include hir. I do not include myself in the plural pronoun references of this article. So I say to the author, "Speak only for yourself and those who have given you specific permission." For more on the distorting effects on thinking by most uses of plural pronouns - "Collectivism in Language: Its Effects on Valid Reasoning"
The real solution for the mess of current society is not less individual liberty - new and more laws with a government actually part of business, even if supposedly only "socially necessary institutions". What exists now, and is promoted by some politicians for a greater amount, is fascism - the State is in a type partnership with nominally private businesses.
The real solution is a society that promotes a free market. There has never been a truly free market in the US or anywhere in the world. The suggestions in this artilce would not improve the lives of most living in the US, and they would bring into being a system of more government interference in the interactions of those who seek to trade to mutual benefit. A paradigm shift in thinking of the type described in "Social Meta-Needs: A New Basis for Optimal Human Interaction" must first occur in large numbers of people. This is not at all impossible, but that change must occur first or any more reasonable alterations (not those written of in this article) will simply degenerate into more of the same that exists now, or even worse.
**Kitty Antonik Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness, individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting
by
Kitty Antonik Wakfer (19 articles, 3 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 116 comments)
on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 3:58:47 PM
2 comments
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