Our Socialist Founding Fathers(?)

Our Socialist Founding Fathers

JURIST Guest Columnist Mark Brown, holder of the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University School of Law, says that in the midst of the current furor over health care reform legislation we should remember that America's own revered Founding Fathers authorized, and sometimes embraced, governmental programs that offered essential services to the masses at low or no cost...

The ongoing debate over health-care reform has generated renewed interest in "socialism." Some claim that governmental competition in the health insurance industry is socialism; others insist it is not. For many on both sides of this divide, it seems, whether a “public option” is legitimate depends on how this definitional question is answered. After all, everyone knows that socialism is unconstitutional. It clearly contradicts the ideals of our Founding Fathers.

Actually, it doesn’t. Here’s a shock. Many of our Founding Fathers were socialists. They believed that “essential” services should be provided by government to the public at large for little or no remuneration. The costs of these services would be shared by the whole. This, by most modern accounts, is socialism.

The Constitution of the United States, drafted in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia by some of the smartest men on this side of the Pond, proves this to be true. In that cherished document, the Founding Fathers demanded socialism. Section 8 of Article I, for example, empowers Congress “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” That same Section also authorizes Congress “To raise and support Armies,” and even “To provide and maintain a Navy.” Although the text does not preclude privatization of these public institutions — indeed, they continue to include entrepreneurial elements to this day — the Framers understood that they would certainly have public, social elements as well. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams — among others — all signed this document. They agreed that the new national government would facilitate communication and defense through taxation. They agreed that these essential services would not have to be purchased on the open market. They agreed that these services would not be limited to those who could pay fair market value.

The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (who skipped the Constitutional Convention in favor of traipsing off to Paris during that hot summer in 1787), also supported the fledgling Nation’s foray into socialism. Perhaps the greatest of all of America’s socialized institutions, the Nation’s modern highway system, was begun in 1806 by then-President Jefferson’s authorization of the Cumberland (National) Road. Transportation, too, was deemed to be one of the Nation’s essential services that could not be relegated to private industry.

The Congress did President Jefferson one better. It socialized the great bulk of America’s navigable waterways in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The founding generation recognized early on that the national government needed the power regulate interstate commerce—this was written into Article I of the 1787 Constitution—and waterways provided the most important channel of commerce. The national government, using this authority, opened America’s internal waterways to commerce. These immense “social” highways proved a boon to entrepreneurial activities (and perhaps saved the Nation).

Communication, transportation and mutual defense provide only the most obvious examples of the Founding Father’s interests in socialized institutions. Contrary to some popular reports, many in the founding generation had “republican,” communitarian leanings. Our forefathers were not devout disciples of Adam Smith, let alone Herbert Spencer (who in the mid-nineteenth century infamously coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest”). They were pragmatists, capitalists and socialists, willing to try whatever was necessary to insure that the American experiment did not fail.

Of course, the Founding generation did not believe that every human endeavor benefited from governmental competition. The founding generation’s socialism only went so far. The Founders believed in private enterprise.

But it was not long before the Founders’ sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, discovered the benefits of extending socialism beyond communication, transportation and national defense. Libraries, fire protection, police protection and education were all socialized to some extent in the nineteenth century. None of these developments replaced private enterprise—they merely insured that more Americans reaped the benefits.

Would the Founders have objected to these modern developments? No clear answer exists. Private educational institutions were known to the founding generation, and it obviously did not make any concerted effort to extend this benefit to the masses. But formal education was relatively unimportant in the late eighteenth century. I cannot believe that those Founders who favored a socialized communication network — the Post Office — would have necessarily frowned on an additional public institution designed to convey information. Nothing in the document signed in Philadelphia in 1787, at least, prohibits governments from opening public schools.

What about medicine? Would the Framers have objected to governmental competition in the health care context? At the turn of the eighteenth century, of course, the medical profession bordered on witchcraft; few Founders would have wished it on anyone. (George Washington, remember, was bled to death by his doctors. Dr. Benjamin Rush, another important Founder, routinely prescribed mercury for anything and everything.) Assuming that they thought the medical profession could do any good—which is doubtful—no one can say with any certainty whether the Founding Fathers would have rejected measures that made it more accessible. All we know is they wrote nothing into the Constitution to prohibit socialized medicine.

History teaches us that the Framers were not averse to socialism. They authorized, and sometimes embraced, governmental programs that offered essential services to the masses at low or no cost. Communication, transportation, and defense were what the Founders deemed essential at the end of the eighteenth century. That was their time. They did not call it socialism. They called it good government.

jurist.law.pitt.edu...




This is not to say they were pure Socialists as Socialism at the time never existed. What I believe he is thinking of is more Social liberalism and even Social democracy, not pure Socialism. I believe the Founding Fathers were not Libertarian or Conservative, I believe they were Secularists who were skeptical of government due to the British Monarchial Empire, which they believed was tyrannical. But many of them believed government had an obligation to protect, defend and assist the citizens and that is the key part of Social liberalism.

[edit on 7/4/2010 by Misoir]

No Replies???? Just giving this thread a bump.
(Second line)

reply to post by Misoir


Claiming Jefferson was a socialist is the most retarded thing I've ever read on the internet to-date.

Hamilton on the other hand was definitely a democrat. He wanted central banking, fiat money, corporatist handouts, government contracts, basically he was a fascist.

He was all about big business partnering up with government to provide "essential" services to the public.

Basically they were all looking out for number one, except for Jefferson. Jefferson was a man of character, like Ron Paul.

Franklin was also a fascist. He was against fiat money until he figured out a way to get the printing contract for it.

Washington also was a fascist. He was against central banking until he was promised a fat chunk of land to vote in favor of it.




[edit on 4-7-2010 by mnemeth1]

If you are interested in real American history, look here:
fascistsoup.com...

Thomas Jefferson thought of you Americans as Subjects.

So much for Cult Personality worshiping , the crude reality hurts.

reply to post by WXBackdoor


American's were subjects under the Crown until we seceded.

reply to post by WXBackdoor


Huh? Maybe because he was a PRODUCT of the British 'establishment'...but he re-considered:

Thomas Jefferson thought of you Americans as Subjects.

Read this, from yesterday's (3rd July) Washington Post:

www.washingtonpost.com...

Jesus , what am i doing ??

This site is full of right-wingers with Founding Father fetishes , trying to put some sense into you lot would be like trying to explain life to a wallpaper.

reply to post by WXBackdoor


Well I have to agree that most of the founding fathers were indeed fascists.

Jefferson was the exception.

If you listen to DiLorenzo's speech, you'll learn a lot about what Hamilton and the other fascists were up to with the "public works" projects.

They were basically looking for a system of fascist handouts and corporatist favors with the building of docks, naval yards, and postal roads.



[edit on 4-7-2010 by mnemeth1]

reply to post by weedwhacker


But...seeing how this is the "US Political Madness" forum, and it IS Independence Day here in the States...maybe time to share a little levity I stumbled upon two days ago?

06.10.10 ESCONDIDO, CA—Spurred by an administration he believes to be guilty of numerous transgressions, self-described American patriot Kyle Mortensen, 47, is a vehement defender of ideas he seems to think are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and principles that brave men have fought and died for solely in his head.

It lampoons the so-called "Tea Party" folks to....well, to a 'T'!

He added:

"Right there in the preamble, the authors make their priorities clear: 'one nation under God,'" said Mortensen, attributing to the Constitution a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, which itself did not include any reference to a deity until 1954. "Well, there's a reason they put that right at the top."

Isn't that exquisite??

"Men like Madison and Jefferson were moved by the ideals of Christianity, and wanted the United States to reflect those values as a Christian nation," continued Mortensen, referring to the "Father of the Constitution," James Madison, considered by many historians to be an atheist, and Thomas Jefferson, an Enlightenment-era thinker who rejected the divinity of Christ and was in France at the time the document was written. "The words on the page speak for themselves."

Of course, it all comes from "the ONION"...with wagging tongues firmly in cheek.....

reply to post by Misoir


So you found some revisionist "Jurist Guest Columnist"...how exciting for you...

I think I'll walk to the store now...

Originally posted by nine-eyed-eel
reply to post by Misoir

 

So you found some revisionist "Jurist Guest Columnist"...how exciting for you...

I think I'll walk to the store now...

You act as if I said I agreed. Did I ever say that? I just said IMO I think that they were more closely related to Social liberalism.

reply to post by Misoir


social liberalism is a nice term for fascism.

reply to post by Misoir


I like that you know how I act...That's very impressive, you should definitely pursue that.

Usually I act like a pig...but I bet you knew that already, huh, didn't ya...

Since I am not American I don't worship the Founding Fathers but I have to agree that the notion being forward is retarded . For centuries rulers have undertaken infrastructure improvements often at the expense of there subjects it hardly has anything to do with socialism . Peter the Great undertook the building of Canals while fighting a war I doubt his subjects thought the high number of taxes and other side effects were great .

Cheers xpert11.