American Government

1
American Government

• Introductory Lecture

2
Three Fundamental Concepts

• Liberalism
• Representation
• Democracy

3
What is Liberalism?

• Liberalism as classically defined differs
  significantly from the modern American usage
• It is a philosophy of social order that emerged
  in 17th and 18th century Europe
• Fundamentally it means
• a toleration of diversity
• a recognition of the primacy of individual rights
• a social agreement establishing a zone of
  individual privacy

4
Key Assumptions of Liberalism

• Assumes individuals are best situated to
  determine what is best for themselves
• Assumes that a variety of behaviors, even
  conflicting ones, are legitimate
• Assumes that strong government interferes with
  the ability of individuals to engage in those
  behaviors
• And thus concludes government should be limited

5
What is Representation?

• Representation is a type of government premised
  on liberalism
• Diverse elements are represented in society
• Representation is the form of government for the
  United States
• The U.S. government is made up of representatives
  distinguished from a direct democracy where the
  government is made up of all citizens

6
What is Democracy?

• Democracy, unlike liberalism and representation,
  is an old word
• Greek Roots
• Demos The People
• Kratia Rule
• Ancient Greeks used term as early as 400 B.C.
• IMPORTANT in a democracy, the people rule as
  the government and thus the government embodies
  the people

7
Representation vs. Democracy

• Representation is a relatively young word
• Differs from democracy as the Greeks defined in
  significant ways
• Citizens do not make laws directly
• A representative does not embody the people but
  rather re-presents their preferences in
  government
• Hinges on the assumption that there are a
  diversity of legitimate interests in society

8
Rep v. Demo 2

• The Greeks would not have accepted representation
  as a good form of government
• It is based in selfishness the desire to further
  individual interests
• Government, according to the Greeks, was to
  benefit the whole
• See Aristotle, Plato and Spock from Star Trek

9
Path from Greek Democracy to Liberal
Representative Government

• How did the Greek concept of democracy evolve
  into the modern concept of representation?
• The story begins with Athens, Greece circa
  400B.C.
• Fundamentally, Greeks believe in a natural order
  to the world
• This is a highly normative assessment how it
  should be rather than how it is

10
The Path Continued

• The Greeks believed that
• Man was fundamentally a political animal
  (politikon zoon)
• As such, his natural habitat is the city not as
  a noble savage in the wilderness but a
  functioning citizen of a civil society
• The basic political question for the Greeks how
  ought man order his life in the city to be fully
  human (self-actualized, in modern terminology)
• Answer unselfish participatory government where
  all work for the common good of society as a
  whole.

11
Philosophers on Good Government

• Aristotle - a good citizen can exist only as part
  of the state/society.
• He who is unable to live in society, or who has
  no need because he is sufficient for himself,
  must be either a beast or a god.
• Aristotle good government is best accomplished
  when rule is by the middle (golden mean)
• The most perfect political community is one in
  which the middle class is in control, and
  outnumbers both of the other classes.

12
Philosophers Continued

• Plato a good political order produces good
  natures and these useful natures, who are in
  turn well educated, grow up even better than
  their predecessors
• Plato human morality is closely linked with the
  good society
• Man and city are alike Humans without souls
  are hollow. Cities without virtue are rotten.
• Spock The needs of the many outweigh the needs
  of the few or the one.

13
Philosophers Continued

• Ideally, for Plato government involved a form of
  communism (with property communally-owned) and
  for Aristotle a government by the enlightened and
  moderate middle class.
• In practice, both called for a government of
  active citizens who shared the responsibility for
  governing.

14
Distinguishing Representation from Democracy

• Important In Greek democracy, there is no
  explicit representation of interests.
• Both Plato and Aristotle advocated moderation,
  virtuousness, and justice as ideals for best
  government. One good citizen. One good
  government.
• Government embodied the people purpose to
  protect and promote the common interest
• Factions were considered bad -- selfish

15
Did Democracy Work?

• Yes it did. Why?
• Small city-states with relatively homogenous
  populations
• In Athens, citizens were
• Free
• Native born
• Property-owning
• Qualified males
• As such, the citizenry was even more uniform than
  the general population

16
On to Europe

• The Greek concept of good government prevailed in
  Europe through much of the Middle Ages
• Why? It was supported by
• Divine Right of Kings
• Solidarity of the Catholic Church
• Large Armies
• Largely Ignorant and Uneducated Population

17
The Winds of Change

• The consensus on good government begins to break
  down as the Dark Ages lifted around 1500 A.D.
• Why? The foundations of the Greek consensus were
  crumbling
• Society was becoming more diversified
• Economic order shifting as a result of the
  collapse of feudalism and the adoption of a
  nascent capitalist system
• Primacy of the Catholic Church challenged by the
  emergence of Protestantism
• The Knight is displaced as the Medieval weapon
  of mass destruction as gun powder changes the
  nature of warfare
• The printing press improves the education of the
  masses as well as promoting the free flow of
  information

18
Out with the Old

• As the Greek consensus collapses with an
  increasing rejection of the divine rights of the
  aristocracy and Church leadership, so to the
  justification for states themselves is lost.
• A new intellectual basis for the foundation and
  rationale of civil society was needed

19
Liberalism The New Foundation

• Liberalism provided the new argument for social
  order and civilized society within an organized
  political structure
• One of liberalisms earliest and most important
  advocates was Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• Hobbes was an Englishman and critic of Aristotle
  and his notions of the virtuous citizen

20
Hobbes

• Hobbes had three important characteristics that
  informed his political theory
• He was a materialist he liked his property and
  wanted to keep it
• He was a pessimist he believed most men were
  fundamentally evil
• The condition of man . . . is a condition of war
  of everyone against everyone.
• He was a coward he spent much of his life on
  the run from his enemies

21
Hobbes Continued

• Hobbes most famous work is Leviathan
• In it he attempts to accomplish his primary
  theoretical goal to justify the existence of an
  authoritarian state as a guarantor of life and
  property
• Thus a quandary for Hobbes, who viewed human
  nature with great skepticism man was
  animalistic and driven by lusts and desires
• there is a general inclination of all
  mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power
  that ceaseth only in death

22
Hobbes Continued

• Hobbes Solution The very evil nature of man
  was the justification for an authoritarian state
• Hobbes argued humans first existed in a state of
  nature outside the bounds of civil society

23
Hobbesian State of Nature

• In the State of Nature
• mans lusts and desires are unchecked
• there is no right to life or property
• there are no laws or rules life is a state of
  perpetual war of all against all
• As such, life in the state of nature was as bad
  as it gets.
• No arts no letters no society and which is
  worst of all, continual fear and danger of
  violent death and the life of man, solitary,
  poor, nasty, brutish, and short

24
Leviathan

• The horrors of the state of nature necessitated a
  strong authoritarian government to check its
  inherent anarchy and provide a mechanism for
  justice where by life and property could be
  protected
• Any government, no matter how despotic, was
  better than the anarchy of the state of nature
• Governments role
• Maintain peace and order
• Protect property
• Allow for the pursuit of desire within the bounds
  of law

25
Leviathan continued

• Problem how do you get people in the state of
  nature to agree to be ruled by this authoritarian
  Leviathan?
• Answer People had an incentive to leave the
  state of nature fear of death
• Mechanism social contract

26
The Social Contract

• Independent individuals voluntarily contract to
  leave the state of nature and form a civil
  society
• As such, they give up some of their natural
  rights (to dispense personal justice, for
  example)
• But they gain the protection of Leviathan as to
  their rights to life, liberty, and property.
• Hence the Greek concept of a natural government
  is displaced with a government founded on the
  consent of the governed.
• This introduces the concept of representation-
  the government represents the authority of the
  people.

27
From Hobbes to Locke

• John Locke (1632-1704) provided the intellectual
  bridge from Hobbes to the American Revolution
• Lockes political theory is similar to Hobbes
• places man in state of nature
• life in the state of nature isnt good
• man contracts his way out of the state of nature
  and into civil society

28
Locke vs. Hobbes

• There is a critical difference between Lockeian
  and Hobbesian philosophy.
• In the Lockeian State of Nature, man has some
  rights that are respected (life, liberty, and
  property).
• For Hobbes, there were no natural rights. Rights
  were conferred by Leviathan. For Locke, natural
  rights exist ex ante.

29
Limited Government

• Since the state of nature, while lacking a
  mechanism for justice, is not the worst of all
  possible worlds, Locke is not compelled to
  justify any form of government.
• Locke thus argues for a limited government
• Strong enough to protect natural rights
• But not so strong that it can abuse them

30
An Umpire

• For Locke, government is an umpire adjudicating
  disputes and dispensing justice.
• It does not represent the authority of the
  people, as with Hobbes (the people retain their
  authority in the Lockeian social contract), but
  rather it represents their diverse interests and
  protects their natural rights.

31
Revolution

• Thus Locke provides an intellectual basis for
  revolution.
• If a government abuses natural rights such as
  life, liberty, and property then it forfeits its
  right to exist. The state of nature becomes
  preferable to that government.
• Thus revolution is justified in order to nulify
  the social contract and reinstitute the natural
  order.

32
Jeffersons Declaration

• Jefferson was clearly inspired by Lockes
  argument
• "We hold these truths to be self-evident That
  all men are created equal that they are endowed
  by their Creator with certain inalienable rights
  that among these are life, liberty, and the
  pursuit of happiness that, to secure these
  rights, governments are instituted among men,
  deriving their just powers from the consent of
  the governed that whenever any form of
  government becomes destructive of these ends, it
  is the right of the people to alter or to abolish
  it...."