Attributes of a Virtuous Commonwealth

Introduction to the idea that government should focus on the "common wealth."

You can probably read a law textbook talking about concepts like commonwealth. But they are going to look at the subject legally. For example there is a Commonwealth established by the countries of the Pacific that created a charter that lists principles starting with:

"The Commonwealth of Nations is a voluntary association of independent sovereign states, each responsible for its own policies, consulting and co-operating in the common interests of their peoples and in the promotion of international understanding and world peace."

The Concept of Commonwealth as antidote to Tyranny

The Concept of Commonwealth

The concept of commonwealth comes from a term that John Locke used to translate a Roman Term that had a slightly different meaning. John Locke seems to have invented the term because in his "Twin Treatises" he writes:

"133. By “commonwealth” I must be understood all along to mean not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent community which the Latins signified by the word civitas, to which the word which best answers in our language is “commonwealth,” and most properly expresses such a society of men which “community” does not (for there may be subordinate communities in a government), and “city” much less. And therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use the word “commonwealth” in that sense, in which sense I find the word used by King James himself, which I think to be its genuine signification, which, if anybody dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better"

Wikipedia translates Civitas thus:

"the Latin term civitas (plural civitates), according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law (concilium coetusque hominum jure sociati). It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilities (munera) on the one hand and rights of citizenship on the other. The agreement (concilium) has a life of its own, creating a res publica or "public entity" (synonymous with civitas), into which individuals are born or accepted, and from which they die or are ejected. The civitas is not just the collective body of all the citizens, it is the contract binding them all together, because of which each is a civis"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civitas taken 8/16/2012

John Locke was playing a deep game there. And it is a joy to read his Treatise on Government because if one reads it in context one can see what masterful arguments he is giving, and how subversive they still are. When I was researching this paper I went to the Cato Institute and read up on John Locke there -- and they recommended ignoring the body of his work and concentrating on the beginning and the end of the treatise. But the treatise is a work of definition like an encyclopedia, a work of refutation, of exquisite exegesis, and of a wonderfully human and "common" logic.

And by choosing the word "commonwealth" to translate "civitas" John Locke was performing a valuable service for the world, for the world civitas implies merely cities, and civilization, but the word commonwealth says something about why people come together. And so he was saying something about the "state of civilization" in contrast to the "state of nature" and was talking to the aristocrats of his time who were advancing an idea of civilization and liberty that was akin to the Social Darwinian arguments of our time.

The concept of social contract derives from the Latin understanding of the concept of a republic united by law. It wasn't invented by Enlightenment philosophers but represents an ancient idea of social contract or "concilium" where a social body gives people both rights and responsibilities with respect to one another. I never found the expression "social contract" anywhere in his book. What I found was an explicit and implicit reference to basic principles of civility, common sense, and affection for common law, common people, and the notion that a civilization exists for the sake of the people and the common good. Hence with this simple expedient of translation John Locke was redefining a term and enriching it. Since his time others have parsed his expressions and tried to limit the meaning of commonwealth to the most parsed and constrained definition of civitas they can, but in the Two Treatises he was making the case for commonwealth as an antidote to Tyranny.

John Locke does this by attacking the strawman arguments of Sir Robert Filmer in his Patriarcha. But he's doing more than that. Filmer was dead when John Locke was a man. John Locke states his reasons in his opening lines, he found it's arguments false and misleading:

"confess myself mightily surprised that in a book, which was to provide chains for all mankind, I should find nothing but a rope of sand;"

He found Filmer's work a wonderful punching bag on which to hang his theories. Filmer wasn't much different from most libertarians or righties of our day, who "flatter the princes" into thinking that they rule by divine right. They also teach and practice a deluded, perverse and mistaken notion of liberty, which Locke refutes in this wonderful passage:

"The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it."

The property of this world is in common among us all, and entrusted to those who possess it as a trust. It is a trust given to mankind and all forms of rule, official-hood, or other officer elevations are in the context of this notion of Trust. And he continues:

"Freedom, then, is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us: “A liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws”; but freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it. A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of Nature."

Thus Locke's commonwealth is a civilized place where people live within their own property and use the commons for the common wealth and the common good as well as their own wealth. For Locke Freedom is to live within a civilized world where there is consensus, and common sense. For John Locke God didn't create monarchy or aristocracy, or even a right of the Church over all the world, but rather:

The Commons are a Common Trust.

1. That by this grant, Gen. i. 28, God gave no immediate power to Adam over men, over his children, over those of his own species; and so he was not made ruler, or monarch, by this charter.
2. That by this grant God gave him not private dominion over the inferior creatures, but right in common with all mankind; so neither was he monarch upon the account of the property here given him.

That concept of trust is how he put limits on the power of kings and executives, officers and judges, legislators and all others who exercise power. And he elucidates this with a wonderful exegesis drawing from the Book of Samuel and the story of how Samuel gained and lost the Kingship of Israel. Starting with how Samuel became king:

"those who liked one another so well as to join into society cannot but be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship together, and some trust one in another, they could not but have greater apprehensions of others than of one another; and, therefore, their first care and thought cannot but be supposed to be, how to secure themselves against foreign force. It was natural for them to put themselves under a frame of government which might best serve to that end, and choose the wisest and bravest man to conduct them in their wars and lead them out against their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler."

And something similar he describes as happening when Samuel made Saul King of Israel.

"As if the only business of a king had been to lead out their armies and fight in their defence; and, accordingly, at his inauguration, pouring a vial of oil upon him, declares to Saul that “the Lord had anointed him to be captain over his inheritance” (ch. 10. 1)."

A captain leads by the trust of his army and is there because he is the most excellent and accomplished strategist and warrior the commonwealth can find. John Locke makes the case that Saul won his position because he won the trust of both Israel and God, but he notes that these two trusts are synonymous.

"And therefore those who, after Saul being solemnly chosen and saluted king by the tribes at Mispah, were unwilling to have him their king, make no other objection but this, “How shall this man save us?” (ch. 10. 27), as if they should have said: “This man is unfit to be our king, not having skill and conduct enough in war to be able to defend us.” And when God resolved to transfer the government to David, it is in these words: “But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought Him a man after His own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over His people” (ch. 13. 14.)."

So a King, or executive has the duty to 'save' the people he is entrusted to lead. And trust is necessary for all other offices. And in the Republican scheme of government the ultimate trust resides with the legislature and then with the people:

149. "Though in a constituted commonwealth standing upon its own basis and acting according to its own nature—that is, acting for the preservation of the community, there can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. For all power given with trust for the attaining an end being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security...."

In a commonwealth the people have the right to cashier or remove any of their officers when they violate their trust. And John locke, in saying these things was stating revolutionary things. Things that the Whig party he helped establish would later try to distance itself from. John locke however, refutes people like Edmund Burke who denied that people should even have the right to cashier misbehaving officers. But I'll get to that later.

The concept of Commonwealth, when coupled with concepts like trust, rule of law and the right of the people to remove officers, are revolutionary concepts and concepts that should be the basis of creating communities that function well. The concept of Commonwealth, by establishing these principles stands as an antidote to even the potential for tyranny, of "Private Separate Advantage", in a government where the governors and officers, rich and powerful, see themselves as entitled to violate the trust the people put in them.

Definitions related to Democratic Republicanism

Res Publicus — Concern of the People

A Republic is a State that is governed, at least in theory, for the benefit of the whole People of that State. A state that is not governed that way is a Tyranny:

Bad Government is also tyrannical government and undemocratic government. This is a constitutional problem. It is not always a problem with laws being "unconstitutional" in the sense of not according with our wonderful national constitution. Rather, it is often a problem of bad design, of poorly constituted government. Such bad government is a result of not applying basic principles of good government to the design of government from top to bottom.

Ryan and Republican Policies

Paul Ryan was selected as Romney's running mate yesterday, and he and Romney make quite a team. Both are adamant about looking out for the wealthiest members of our society -- at the expense of the rest of us. Romney is running for President on a platform of cutting social services, laissez faire in business, doubling the defense department and starting wars in Iran and maybe with long time business partners like China.

And of course Ryan and his buddies are engaging in the same idea rustling, rebranding, and newspeak that they've been using since they created the Tea Party to "distract and divide" people, while abusively projecting their policies on progressives. His medicare plan would:

"Under Ryan’s plan, the government would help seniors buy health insurance — rather than receive coverage straight from Medicare, as they do now".Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79584.html#ixzz23HYysLIP "

And what that means is more overhead charges for the insurance companies, and eventually vouchers that will dispossess seniors of even minimal coverage.

Ryan's votes for the Bush Policies helped create our Great Recession (Depression really) and to impoverish millions of people. And those policies will enrich the already wealthy, destroy the middle class, and eff the poor.

Think Progress article states;

1. Ryan breaks up the large market clout of Medicare and pushes seniors into less efficient private insurers. As Rick Foster, Medicare’s chief actuary, admitted during a recent House Budget Committee hearing, since traditional Medicare is far better at advancing delivery system reforms, securing lower reimbursement rates with health care providers, and operating under minimal administrative overhead, transferring Medicare beneficiaries from free-for-service Medicare into the private health market would not contain overall health care spending. It would only shift costs.

2. Seniors who enroll in traditional Medicare will likely pay more for their benefits. That’s because under Ryan’s budget, private plans will be able to cherry-pick the healthiest beneficiaries from traditional Medicare and leave sicker applicants to the government. The budget states that enrollees would be “guaranteed a plan that is at least the value of the traditional fee-for-service Medicare option,” but private insurers could still attract a healthier population by simply ratcheting down services that sicker beneficiaries rely on (like chemotherapy) and building up coverage for healthier applicants (like preventive services). Should they succeed, traditional Medicare costs will skyrocket, forcing even more seniors out of the government program. Seniors who are priced out of traditional coverage over time would enroll in private plans and receive care through more restricted provider networks relative to what they currently enjoy (where nearly all hospitals, doctors, nursing homes participate). Ryan pledges that “CMS would also conduct an annual risk review audit of all insurance plans participating in the Medicare Exchange,” but as the experience with Medicare Advantage demonstrates, existing tools are still insufficient to address cherry picking.

3. The “premium support” credits won’t keep up with health care costs. Fortunately, the vouchers seniors will receive are no longer indexed to inflation. They instead rely on actual average bids in any given geographic area and would do a better job of keeping up with health care costs every year than the original Ryan proposal. But seniors in high cost Medicare areas could still experience a cost-shift and would be responsible for the difference between the amount of the premium credit and the actual cost of the policy.

I'm glad they selected Ryan, he epitomizes the heartless and short sighted policies that are destroying our democracy. He's an Ayn Rand believer and an elitist, whose idea of Liberty is the tyranny of business, the wealthy, and authoritarian (Taliban) style religion.

Further reading:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/20/448008/three-reasons-why-the-medicare-reforms-in-ryans-new-path-to-prosperity-still-set-us-on-the-wrong-track/

The Case for Green as Biblical

There is a strong case for a narrative that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's wanderings were driven by climate change and man created land degradation caused partly by overgrazing and poor agricultural practices. Why did Abram feel the calling to leave "Ur of the Chaldees?" Because, the evidence shows that vast tracks of farmland were salted by poor irrigation practices. The land was first abandoned to grain growing, and then turned into full desert by overgrazing. The legend of Gilgamesh recounts the felling of vast forests in what is now Syria and Turkey.

Jacob goes to Aram, where those forests once were. He prospers on raising goats and sheep. Why did he leave? Evidence shows repeated cycles of deforestation and abandonment in that part of the world, including Greece. Mostly caused by overgrazing and/or poor farming practices.

Jacob returns to Israel because the land had recovered from a drought. He's driven to Egypt, because the drought returned and his kin were not going to let him back in what is now Syria. And Joseph's 7 good years, and 7 bad years nearly exactly track El Nino. Again, the Government is able to enslave people because of repeated cycles of drought; some of which were exacerbated by overgrazing, poor water conservation, and bad land allocation.

The Hebrews were Apiru, homeless herdsmen wandering the borderlands and they were able to transform themselves into Ibri because the original people of Canaan were decimated by disease, drought, warfare, and economic collapse. Folks like to preach the blood thirsty interpretation of their settling of the "promised land" but when the bible says "God will fight for you" the archeological record shows plague and starvation depopulating entire nations.

So there is a "green" interpretation to the events of the bible and a strong case to be made for the intended role of man as a steward of the environment, intended to treat the world as a Garden of life to be tended as well as used by him, and tended responsibly. We need more work-sweat and less arrogant blasphemy.

Pilgrim Soul

Pilgrim Soul

Stars scream in x-ray cries,
as black holes rip out their heart and they die.
Spinning flattened around a hole,
their remains cry in d sharp.

Oh, how lovely looks that harp,
strung in a circle around a dark black hole.
Why would worlds end in such an awful manner,
but from a distance with such beauty?

Oh, I wander the light mystic,
and see things no human can ever know.
I am a sprite of the imagination.
I am a drop of Universe, I am a pilgrim soul.

Christopher H. Holte

More poetry at: http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/

Business, Friend or Foe? TR and process improvement

George Will thinks the desertion of the most wealthy of the business wing from the progessive cause in 1912, for what has emerged as "conservatism" was a good thing that "saved the constitution." He claims:

"By preventing former president Theodore Roosevelt from capturing the 1912 Republican presidential nomination from President William Howard Taft, the GOP deliberately doomed its chances for holding the presidency but kept its commitment to the Constitution."

(source: Prior Post and Washington Post commentary: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-republicans-dont-just-use-dog.html

I criticized this in my last post, but that is not entirely fair, the fact is that Taft was Theadore Roosevelt's ally until he ran against him, and that Taft, while not an exciting perfect avatar of progressive ideas, was doing a pedestrian job of trust busting before Roosevelt ran against him. By attacking Taft, Roosevelt was starting a revolution, but also was engendering pushback, and the blowback is what we call the conservative movement, which is essentially a reactionary movement designed to preserve the power and prerogatives of the immensely wealthy, but is couched on fear of the tyranny of popular executives. An article on the election of 1912 notes the point of view of those who he fought:

"Critics of Roosevelt are not quite so kind. Roosevelt had a huge ego, and his lust for power could not keep him on the sidelines. He stabbed his friend in the back and overlooked the positive sides of Taft's Presidency. Whatever the motive, the election of 1912 would begin with two prominent Republican candidates."

Source: 43f. The Election of 1912:http://www.ushistory.org/us/43f.asp

So, in some senses, Teddy Roosevelt broke a delicate consensus. In some ways it had to be broken because unless the power of monopolists like J.P. Morgan was challenged they'd simply keep pushing for even more monopoly and power until they completely degraded both democracy and the prosperity of the many. And there was no way to challenge this without offending the rich and powerful. But Taft was not the enemy, until Roosevelt made him one, and Roosevelts ideas might have had his support if he'd been more diplomatic. But asking the "Bull Moose" to be diplomatic was too much. Roosevelt could be dictatorial and rough with his opponents. But he missed an opportunity by splitting the Republican party. That split never healed until all the progressives were driven off. The modern republicans are the party of Hoover and Coolidge as the result, and both inherit more from J.P. Morgan and Taft than from Roosevelt, though they all give lip service to him.

Converting the Business Community back to progressivism

But the quandary remains. You'd think that business would be the most progressive community available to politicians, and indeed many businessmen are on the side of progressive causes even in this day of partisan and corrupt Chambers of Commerce and Citizens United. But they aren't. Part of this is business culture. Business folks push the myth of self-made independence. The myth is that businessmen don't get help from anyone else and reach the top by their own sweat and tears.  This myth is found on the immense amount of self-motivation and gumption needed to succeed. Most businessmen succeed by tremendous sweat equity. Even so, catch them on an effusively appreciative days and most of them will tell you how they never could have succeeded without a business angel who helped them at some point, or a lucky break on contracts or customers.  They know, better than they'll sometimes admit, that it takes a community to succeed. The current advertisement war between Romney and Obama over how much help most businessmen need to succeed represents the power of pride, and hubris over reality.

And most businessmen respect success. That is part of the myth too. They figure "if he can do it, I can do it too," and so they not only admire, but they emulate and elevate in status those who have succeeded wildly. Often, until they are caught openly admiring ruthless scoundrels without looking too carefully at the methods those scoundrels used to get their money. I don't know how many of today's criminals are yesterday's business heroes. The pattern goes back in my memory to Ivan Boesky, who as universally admired before his fall, through the dot com geniuses who openly bragged that their business money was to lose money for the business while scamming purchasers in the Initial Public Offering.  People soon forget.  The recent Facebook IPO was almost a event for event repeat of IPO's that occured before the internet bust in 2001.  Business ethics is loudly advanced in trade magazines, but is usually not enforced until a group has egg on their face and start looking for a scapegoat. I still remember reading about what a Mensche Bernie Maddoff was before his pyramid scheme was revealed. I remember the thousands of convention goers cheering wildly at the heads of Amway and their "Direct Chain" -- because American businessmen admire success, and success is hard enough that they sometimes forget their souls while pursuing it.

For that reason, historical figures like J.P. Morgan who straddle the ethics line are openly admired even as they get criticized.  And many businessmen, like lawyers, define what is ethical by the legal limits of what they can get away with.  But this also means that until a business directly is impacted by monopoly or oligopoly, and sometimes even then, small businessmen are often not only blind to, but actively in support of the business practices of their wealthy, powerful, and unethical business colleagues, even when those policies are the real cause of their own misery.  If de-regulation would make their work more convenient, they don't even think about how the banks will then set policies that put them out of business with high interest rate loans and bureaucracy that makes their elected governments look like laissez faire. Banks are businesses like their business and the businessman sees himself as a future financier.  They don't see the direct harm of monopoly, plutocracy and regular frauds and swindles until it is too late. Or they see where they can survive by going along and being complicit. Either way many businessmen who ought to embrace long time progressive causes often embrace the propaganda that defends the status quo instead.

Why that is a mistake and why there is opportunity for progressivity

But what we need to teach them is that corruption is also bad business, bad process, and that good governance is compatible with democratic republican concepts, checks and balances, divided government, and democratic concepts like direct participation, democratic controls and separation of powers.  Businesses, even more than the rest of us are sensitive to bad government because they deal with it all the time. And businessmen experience bad government often on a personal level when they go to borrow money, make payrolls, or want to add to their businesses.  For that reason most businesses are very aware of the role of good governance; good process, good procedure, good engineering, in the success of their businesses. You hear business oriented politicians such as Gingrich waxing element about 6 sigma and CMMI and applying those concepts to running government. Sometimes it seems they see process improvement as a panacea.  But genuine process improvement needs to be applied to all walks of the act of governing or it won't work. As long as the business model is top down most businesses are helped by process improvement only to the extent that the hierarchy of bosses is willing to follow the ideas. And as a result what is taught as process improvement is very project oriented but almost completely ignores concepts like sustainability, program management, or externalities. From the point of a manager the delivery of a product is the end of the process.

More reformers need to be familiar with business and business terminology if they want to enlist the extremely powerful business community and defeat the worst designs of the oligarchs who presently dominate that community.  Autocracy, oligarchy, monopoly, and the resulting tyranny and oppression are not only bad for their customers, they are bad for business.  Businessmen should realize that they can't govern a community the way they govern their shop and that separation of powers is necessary to make sure that those performing a role are accountable and don't get muddied on their behavior due to conflicting roles.  Dictators are not only evil persons but bad management.  Separation of powers allows an executive to be a dictator when executing his appropriate role and to have consent of the governed when dealing with policies that he or she shouldn't dictate.  If we can explain to people how democratic republicanism is just good process we can get a lot further with people than we presently do.

That was TRs mistake. His basic concepts were good, but not mature yet.  He saw that trust busting wasn't working because we needed to organize large systems with some kind of unified control or those systems would periodically fail. He gave up on trust busting and was in the process of wanting to switch to using a Federal Trade Commission to organize the trusts. This would not have worked because the principles of control it was based on were not (and still are not) mature enough to keep the few from optimizing the trusts at the expense of others. His ideas were good, but because they weren't really realistic enough, the business community balked at them.  The big trusts, the JP Morgans, Rockefellers, etc.... were able to take advantage of this to break up the Republicans. Because of that progressives and populists joined together in a conflictive and sometimes contradictory relationship instead of business and workers. And many businessmen went in the direction of the Tea party.

Until progressives have realistic processes and structures that meet the needs of businessmen as well as their need for regulation, our current adversarial system will continue, and the insanity of conflict will drive people apart and to extremes.  More coming.....