America Liberty and Democratic Infrastructures
Fins-NC8-04 [Hypertext Document]
American Liberty and Democratic Infrastructures (August 2000)
Communicating the emerging philosophy of the Global Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
Vol. 8, Issue Number 04 (August 28, 2000)
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
American Liberty and Democratic Infrastructures
By Vigdor Schreibman
One must split apart the twin ideals of freedom and liberty,
which are the core tenets of America's promise to itself and the
world, according to the fictions of "free market" capitalism
spinning out of the Library of Congress in a companion book to its
bicentennial celebration now under way. This is the story told in
the text of Thomas Jefferson: Genius of Liberty published
last March by the Library of Congress under the questionable
leadership of Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress. An
explanation given in the book asserts that the ideals of freedom and
liberty are "logically incompatible" because the ideal of "freedom"
necessarily leads to "social and economic inequality."
Thomas Jefferson, which was edited by Joseph J. Ellis,
professor of history at Mount Holyoke College, is a book
packed with illustrations and reproductions of historical papers
(though many of these are quite illegible), published in full color
by the Library of Congress together with a private publisher who was
granted equal copyright upon this treasure trove of public documents.
At face value this publication has the superficial look and feel of
an impressive work by the venerable depository of the largest
collection of historical documents in the world about American
government. Nevertheless, carefully measured in a frame of social
systems sciences, those conclusions offered to the world about
Mr. Jefferson's contribution to the ideals of freedom and liberty,
are actually without a basis in logic, ethics, or esthetics.
This is a work written under the guise of historical
analysis and realism, which does violence to the genius of Thomas
Jefferson and the American charter documents -- the Declaration of
Independence, presumptive foundation for the republican form of
democratic government under the Constitution of the United States,
and inspiration for Lincoln at Gettysburg in 1863 and Martin Luther
King, Jr., a hundred years later. The rationale presented by the
Library of Congress for bringing Mr. Jefferson's genius into doubt is
that, "restoring a measure of equality means limiting freedom."
In short, it is asserted that the promise of America embodied
in the natural rights section of the Declaration of Independence,
of which Jefferson was the primal source, We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is essentially
meaningless because those words do no more than "articulate
irreconcilable human urges at a sufficiently abstract level to mask
their mutual exclusiveness."
There is also a personal attack upon the moral character of
Mr. Jefferson, in the bicentennial book, charging that the man was
inter alia, hypocritical with regard to the burning questions
of slavery, his ownership of slaves, his trading on slave labor for
his own pursuit of happiness, his having illicit sexual relations
and children by a slave women, Sally Hemings. The charges of illicit
sex by a public official are always sensationalized by the mass media
in this country because, quite simply, its an emotional topic that
sells, but the charges may not be true in this case.
A comprehensive research report on,
"The Jeffersonian Perspective," has been prepared by
Eyler Robert Coates, Sr., an experienced professional librarian
who has a special passion for better understanding of this topic.
The Coates Report digs deeply into the case and finds only the
most tenuous evidence to support the charges of illicit sex against
Mr. Jefferson.
Americans have a right to learn the truth of such charges but
even if they were proven to be accurate, a matter brought into
serious dispute by the Coates Report, any judgment upon the moral
character of Mr. Jefferson, as messenger, two centuries after he
lived, outside of the actual sociocultural context in which his life
was nurtured, is unrealistic. The Golden Age of Greek civilization
was also mired in the slavery question. Would we now trash their
contribution to the democratic form of government by a sensationalized
slave/sex scandal involving some leading Greek Statesman? Hardly!
There is a considerable history of human failings throughout the last
several millennium. What we can learn and try to emulate from the solid
achievements of human beings during that long period is, in my opinion,
of overriding importance to this generation of Americans.
Moreover, one must not confuse questions raised about the
messenger with an understanding of his message. The Jeffersonian
slave/sex scandal, is really not the issue of primary significance in
the bicentennial book published by the Library of Congress.
Mr. Jefferson's heroic message about the charter of the nation is!
The shocking challenge offered in the latter respect by the
bicentennial book is simply nonsense. The ideas that cast doubt on
Mr. Jefferson's vision of freedom and liberty are, rather, mere
capitalist fetish , without principled moral, systemic, or
scientific weight.
The capitalist morality of the marketplace, which is the
dominant alternative paradigm to the Jeffersonian pursuit of freedom
and liberty, has produced an ever widening gap in
income inequities in the United States, with admittedly rising
levels of
absolute poverty in the world, and these "afflictions of
inequality" lead to
unhealthy societies, which cannot be sustained. This condition is
caused by the driving forces of the philosophy of greed upon which the
capitalist marketplace is predicated, not by the intrinsic nature of
human society.
Money-driven politics has erected
"a great stone wall ... between the people and their representatives,"
as reported by former Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ). The rigged and
lopsided legislative process imposed by capitalist greed, has produced
an
Orwellian technological infrastructure,, as reported by Senator
John McCain (R-AZ). The idea of the market, as applied to pay, is an
analytical tyranny, which has produced a "catastrophic crisis of inequity," described in the book, Created Unequal
(1998), by James K. Galbraith, professor at the LBJ School of
Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin.
The practical efficiencies attributed to "free market" theory,
which are derived from capitalist greed, is a perception founded upon
ignorance. Individual market transactions, which disregard the goals
of social equity and ecological integrity, which are essential to
the well being of "the People" and survival of the biosphere of the
Planet Earth are, as I have previously described:
a formula for death. Indeed, except by the entirely discredited
19th-century economic theory of laissez faire capitalism,
which has no credible intellectual foundation, and is otherwise
without a mandate in the American Constitution as Mr. Justice Holmes
explained in his famous dissent in Lochner v. New York, 198 US 45, 74-76
(1904), there can be no freedom without liberty in any community,
certainly not in a community organized under the republican (i.e.,
democratic) form of government guaranteed by the American charter, see generally
City of Eastlake v. Forest City Enterprises, Inc., 426 US 668, 672 (1976),
citing The Federalist No. 39 (J. Madison). Citizens of
a democratic community cannot live together freely in a state of
bondage by the few over the many guided by no principle but the
"survival of the fittest," which capitalism imposes!
Practical actions in the market without normative ends, based
on a philosophy of greed, "could not produce anything but the most
dire consequences" according to the commentaries of Charles S. Peirce
(1839-1914), American philosopher and polymath, reviewed in V.G.
Potter, On Norms & Ideals 176 (1997). Peirce's treatise on
"Pragmatism and the Normative Sciences," and his analysis of the
evolutionary theory of "Social Darwinism" Id., at 52, 175-176,
for which he has earned internationally acclaim, was a devastating
repudiation of the capitalist philosophy. Indeed, capitalist "free
market" theory has been debunked by American sociologist James Coleman
(1990), as no more than
"a broadly perpetrated fiction".
What one is prompted to recognize by the challenge of the
bicentennial book produced by the Library of Congress, is not that
the ideals of freedom and liberty are "logically incompatible" but
that the fictions of savage capitalism weighed against the fundamental
promise of democracy in the America charter, are mutually exclusive.
For one to be free all must be equally free. These are not
"mutually exclusive" ideas, but rather, mutually interdependent
principles to be learned, and to encourage and facilitate such
knowledge a democratic infrastructure and educational system must be
designed and constructed by "government of the people, by the people,
for the people." It is predicated on just such pragmatic social ideals
that global citizens are now engaged in the design and development of
postcapitalist, democratic, value-driven infrastructures.
- One segment of this development has engaged the global people
in a positively revolutionary anti-capitalist, anti-globalization
political protest movement fostered by mushrooming
Independent Media Centers. IMCs have a vital role to play in
providing a channel of communications that can guarantee equal access,
uncensored by silence or distorted by a rigged and lopsided competition
of ideas imposed by major investor interests on the mass media. This
opportunity may be most significant in terms of serving
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who, it is now believed, "have
filled the information vacuum that exists due to low trust and
confidence in government and business, therefore giving NGOs greater
credibility," according to a June 2000 telephone survey of American,
European, and Asian
"opinion elites," reported by C. Gerald Fraser in
Earth Times News Service (Aug 1-31, 2000).
- Another segment is focused upon improvement of long-term
viability of civil infrastructures in communities: for transportation,
water supply, wastewater treatment, electric power, and
telecommunication systems. This development is being carried out
under the guidance of the recently established
Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS), which was
funded in 1998 by a 5-year grant from the National Science
Foundation. The Institute came to Washington, DC, Aug 14, 2000, and
held a workshop and panel on, "Social Dimensions of Innovative
Infrastructure Technology," to which I was invited by Professor Rae
Zimmerman, the director of ICIS. Professor Zimmerman and other panel
members confirmed that civil infrastructures around the country are
presently in bad condition, public trust and confidence in these
institutions is low, and public apathy high. Turning this situation
around is logically depend, in significant respects, upon the extent
to which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are trusted by the
public join these efforts and a vision is adopted for development of
the new civil infrastructures, with a viable strategy, derived not
from a philosophy of greed but from an ethic of public service rooted in
Jeffersonian freedom and liberty. For example, if revitalization of
civil infrastructures helped reverse the current trend of
"[b]eggar-your-neighbour globalization" guided by a philosophy of greed
and instead supported
"better-your-neighbour localization" guided by the pursuit of
Jeffersonian freedom and liberty this vision might have significant
appeal to NGOs and motivate their creative engagement in the program
to revitalize civil infrastructures.
- Deep systems learning is yet another important branch of this
ongoing democratic renaissance, modeled after the Agoras of the City
States of the Classical Greek Period, which were "public spheres"
where true Democracy was lived by citizens, who made collective
decisions about issues affecting their daily lives. Inspired by
their story, Bela Banathy, one of the leading systems scientists in
the world, informed FINS about plans to develop
New Agoras of the 21st Century. As reported in their new website,
"This idea is a metaphor for social action contexts in which people
can make collective decisions about their future."
The articulation of mutually interdependent principles for
guidance of the American civilization by the genius of Thomas
Jefferson, provided no mask of abstractions cloaking "irreconcilable
human urges." The principles of freedom and liberty for all
established the spiritual foundations of democracy in the new world,
which have fueled the everlasting aspirations of the American people,
and the global people, as well.
Jeffersonian abstractions are superbly consistent with the
moral, systemic, and scientific enlightenment of humankind. Where
capitalism and the pursuit of wealth and power are derived from a
narrow means-centered psychology without genuine human purpose,
advocates are largely blind to the value-driven psychology that is
the real basis of the ideals of freedom and liberty
See e.g. D. Yankelovich, New Rules (1981); A. Maslow,
Motivation and Personality (2d ed. 1970). It is this psychological
blindness that drives the deeply flawed bicentennial book.
The ideal of an
"orderly and coherent corpus of knowledge," as defined by Kenneth
Boulding, was predicated upon the ability made possible by systems
sciences (the discipline that Boulding pioneered) to integrate
increasingly fragmented disciplines at higher levels of abstraction.
Moreover, in the postmodern, postindustrial, postcapitalist era there
is growing awareness that improvement of the system of human society
and its environment must be predicated upon the ethics of whole
systems supported by democratic infrastructures. In practical terms,
these ideas bring into focus the fundamental human right of the people
"to take part directly in making decisions that affect their lives
and to guide their own destiny."
The exercise of citizenship and achievement of freedom and
liberty are dependent upon that human right of the people, which is the
basis of American democracy drawn from the Golden Age of Greek
civilization. In his remarks about the public interest in democratic
politics, Pericles (495-429 b.c.), the popular leader in Athens at the
zenith of Greek civilization, observed:
Here each individual is
interested not only in his own affairs, but in the affairs of the
state as well ... We do not say that a man who takes no interests in
politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no
business here at all ... Thucydides, from "Pericles' Funeral
Speech," The Peloponnesian War, (R. Warner trans. 1954): p. ii,
quoted in N. Davies, Europe, A History (Oxford 1996).
The process of creating such strong commitment to democratic existence
builds up the
psychic powers that integrate individuals by
harmonizing of differences through interpenetration of ideas, as
explained by Mary Parker Follett, the early 20th-century sage of
democracy now celebrated as a Prophet of Management (1996).
Social power is, thereby, also created. These are the spiritual conditions
of "guided evolution" for
New Agoras of the 21st Century, the postcapitalist revolution of
"conscious evolution," when it becomes our responsibility to enter
into the evolutionary design space and guide the evolutionary journey
of our species, see
B.H. Banathy, Guided Societal Evolution: A Systems View (2000).
Breaking away from the ancient patterns that limited individual
initiative and self-governance, the Jeffersonian ethic of freedom and
liberty, called for "popular control pushed to the maximum of its
practicable exercise." Breaking away from the tyranny of the strong
man, the corrupt party boss, and the arrogant technical expert -- all
seeking to exploit social chaos and assert unilateral power over the
democratic assembly -- "the People" now have the knowledge and
experience, and they are discovering the discipline to share social
power with each other facilitated by a
"technique for democracy".
These developments would place the individual citizen and the
groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) through which they
increasingly function,
"at the center of authority" over social change movements, allowing
"conscious evolution" to secure a desirable future for their families
and communities. With such adjustments in shared power, a fair
competition of ideas may be pursued concerning the forces of
localization and globalization. Critical balance of those forces
must be guided not by raw power and competitive advantage but by an
ethic of
democratic sustainability, "based on the advancement of ecological
integrity, social equity and economic prosperity as mutually
reinforcing goals." The well organized citizens' protests against
globalization have already opened the possibilities for such changes,
but genuine change must be more than a
new "free market" swan song called "sustainable development" used
merely "to dress up the failed market system."
Mr. Jefferson's genius is not stuck in a time warp irrelevant
to contemporary America, as suggested by the Library of Congress
bicentennial book. Rather, he was more than two centuries ahead of
his time. By pursuit of the abstractions of freedom and liberty as
a dynamic social aspiration of everyone, the whole global civilization
is called upon to bring their awesome creative efforts into
harmonious relations. Those who would supplant the pursuit of such a
democracy for a "free market" philosophy of greed, which, like
a cancer, would kill the host body that gives it life, have "no
business here at all."
--DEMOCRATIC SUSTAINABILITY AND CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE
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