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Originally Posted by roachboy
tarl: what the founding fathers did not imagine as necessary in the late 1700s--in the context of a largely agrarian economy--makes no difference whatsoever in the 21st century. even during the period when tocqueville was researching "democracy in america"--the late 1830s--the agrarian model for the american economy was not really dominant--capitalism was taking shape in the cities--the civil war pretty much determined which general mode of economic activity would dominate in the states. so the world jefferson wrote about is long gone, tarl. it does not matter what they found horrifying--their was a different place.
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Well yes and no. It might be argued that America was a different place at that point in time, but Europe was well advanced into entering the industrial/capitalism age. In a letter Jefferson writes to Madison in 1785, Jefferson addresses the issue of inequality in European society, and while his primary concern is the unequal division of property (land) (keeping in mind Jefferson strongly believed that the best society was one based upon agrarian principles) it can be argued that in a world where capitalism rules the definition of property would not be limited only to land but would also include Marx’s “means of production” and the mass fortunes of people like Bill Gates. Well, I’ll let Jefferson do the talking:
Jefferson: to James Madison. Fontainebleau, Oct. 28, 1785
“As soon as I had got clear of the town I fell in with a poor woman walking at the same rate with myself and going the same course. Wishing to know the condition of the laboring poor I entered into conversation with her, which I began by enquiries for the path which would lead me into the mountain: and thence proceeded to enquiries into her vocation, condition and circumstances. She told me she was a day laborer at 8 sous or 4d. sterling the day: that she had two children to maintain, and to pay a rent of 30 livres for her house (which would consume the hire of 75 days), that often she could get no employment and of course was without bread. As we had walked together near a mile and she had so far served me as a guide, I gave her, on parting, 24 sous. She burst into tears of a gratitude which could perceive was unfeigned because she was unable to utter a word. She had probably never before received so great an aid. This little attendrissement, with the solitude of my walk, led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe ... The property of this country is absolutely concentered in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards. These employ the flower of the country as servants, some of them having as many as 200 domestics, not laboring. They employ also a great number of manufacturers and tradesmen, and lastly the class of laboring husbandmen. But after all there comes the most numerous of all classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands? ...
I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property ... another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right ...if for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation.”
