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roachboy · 06-29-2004, 06:34 PM

a bit disconnected, one point from the other, so i'll use numbers to seperate them....

1. the founders dreamed about a country not founded on class and inherited privilege, and that was a nice dream--but as people of their times, not prophets, they had no way of knowing that capitalism would come and would sweep their world aside--which is has in its entirety--there is no point in refering to them as guides for understanding contemporary realities.

btw tocqueville (sorry but he keeps coming to mind these days)---who saw this happening already in the 1830s---argued in democracy in america that the single most important bit of law that prevented an economic aristocracy from forming was inheritance tax--he has a quite extended demonstration of this argument in the book, which i find interesting not only in itself buyt also in that lts of conservatives throw cliffnotes version of tocqueville around these day, clearly without having read him.
note that the right has been agitating for the repeal of inheritance tax for nigh some time now. i wonder if they understand the implications of their acts.

tocqueville also said something like the problem with talking to americans is that you have to flatter them in a manner worse than what you would have to indulge in with the worst kind of courtier, talking up the virtues us to the skies before you can say anything of substance. in that too, he seems to have been prescient.

2. it is not a foregone conclusion that revolution breeds more revolution, that revolutionary violence breeds only more--that is a myth constructed to reassure those who benefit from the existing order of things---what seem fundamental are the political views that would influence any such action, what kind of vision of the future was shaped it, and how the actors themselves, hopefully using that vision of the future to check themselves, dealt with violence once it came.

06-29-2004, 06:34 PM	#69 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	a bit disconnected, one point from the other, so i'll use numbers to seperate them.... 1. the founders dreamed about a country not founded on class and inherited privilege, and that was a nice dream--but as people of their times, not prophets, they had no way of knowing that capitalism would come and would sweep their world aside--which is has in its entirety--there is no point in refering to them as guides for understanding contemporary realities. btw tocqueville (sorry but he keeps coming to mind these days)---who saw this happening already in the 1830s---argued in democracy in america that the single most important bit of law that prevented an economic aristocracy from forming was inheritance tax--he has a quite extended demonstration of this argument in the book, which i find interesting not only in itself buyt also in that lts of conservatives throw cliffnotes version of tocqueville around these day, clearly without having read him. note that the right has been agitating for the repeal of inheritance tax for nigh some time now. i wonder if they understand the implications of their acts. tocqueville also said something like the problem with talking to americans is that you have to flatter them in a manner worse than what you would have to indulge in with the worst kind of courtier, talking up the virtues us to the skies before you can say anything of substance. in that too, he seems to have been prescient. 2. it is not a foregone conclusion that revolution breeds more revolution, that revolutionary violence breeds only more--that is a myth constructed to reassure those who benefit from the existing order of things---what seem fundamental are the political views that would influence any such action, what kind of vision of the future was shaped it, and how the actors themselves, hopefully using that vision of the future to check themselves, dealt with violence once it came. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite