Michael Coe on Joseph Smith the Shaman

Link to the Amazon page for “No Man Knows My History: the life of Joseph Smith,” by Fawn M. Brodie

Link to the Amazon page for “No Man Knows My History: the life of Joseph Smith,” by Fawn M. Brodie

Link to the “Mormon Stories” podcast page shown just aboveLink to the Wikipedia article “Michael D. Coe”

Link to the “Mormon Stories” podcast page shown just above

Link to the Wikipedia article “Michael D. Coe”

As a nonsupernaturalist, I can’t believe the official Mormon account of its founder, Joseph Smith. (See “What Do You Mean by 'Supernatural'? and “The Message of Jesus for Non-Supernaturalists.”) But on the whole, I think he has had a benign and interesting effect on the world—at a minimum opening up additional possible perspectives on many things that are clearly nonsupernatural. And for the most part, I think Joseph Smith has had a benign and interesting effect on my own life, through my 40 years as a Mormon. So I am inclined toward a view of Joseph Smith as positive as my nonsupernaturalism and the documentary evidence of his life can support. That attracts me to the renowned (and now sadly deceased) archaeologist Michael Coe’s view of Joseph Smith as a very talented shaman. (Michael Coe seems to be just as much of a nonsupernaturalist as I am, so when he says shaman it doesn’t mean what it might to, say, a supernaturalist New Age believer.)

In addition to his interest in Angkor Wat, Michael Coe is an expert on the Maya and ancient Mesoamerica. This makes him an expert on what is by far the most plausible historical milieu for the events recounted by The Book of Mormon—the book taken down from Joseph Smith’s dictation that launched his career as a religious leader. The triple “Mormon Stories” podcast flagged at the top of this post and its sequel flagged on that “Mormon Stories” webpage will give you all the detail you are likely to want about evidence on whether The Book of Mormon could possibly be an accurate historical record. The basic answer is no. Indeed, the evidence against The Book of Mormon being an accurate historical record is persuasive enough that some Mormon Church leaders have begun playing down The Book of Mormon as history, saying it wasn’t intended as history but as a religious record. I’ll give you just one tidbit that is interesting to me: coinage as recounted in The Book of Mormon. the BYU Studies website gives this rundown of coinage at a particular period in The Book of Mormon:


Link to the BYU Studies webpage shown above. The Book of Mormon passage cited, Alma 11:1-19 includes these words: “Now these are the names of the different pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value.”

Link to the BYU Studies webpage shown above. The Book of Mormon passage cited, Alma 11:1-19 includes these words: “Now these are the names of the different pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value.”

This Book of Mormon account of the coinage system, together with the difficulty admitted by Mormon apologists of situating the bulk of the events in The Book of Mormon anywhere other than Mesoamerica amounts to a claim that metal coins were in use in Mesoamerica in ancient times. But according to Michael Coe, archaeologists have not found ancient Mesoamerican metal coins. (Michael Coe says that what they actually used as small change was dried cocoa beans.) Metal coinage, by its nature, tends to be widely used, and therefore tends to show up in archeological digs of sites where it was used in olden times. So not finding ancient Mesoamerican metal coins is important evidence against The Book of Mormon. Indeed, with all the Mesoamerican archeological digs, archeologists should have found many, many of ancient Mesoamerican coins if even a few cities for half a century made wide use of coinage.

At least for the sake of argument, suppose that Joseph Smith did not produce an accurate history of the ancient Americas by supernatural means. If he had no supernatural help whatsoever in producing The Book of Mormon, then he deserves an honored place in the history of the fictional genre of Fantasy. In particular, his works of fantasy with a religious method are up their with, say, C. S. Lewis’s religious-tinged fantasies. (Of course, C. S. Lewis, to his great credit, clearly labeled his fantasies as fiction. Joseph Smith, to his discredit, failed to do this.) Even among believers in Joseph Smith’s supernatural calling, Joseph Smith’s eminence as a fantasy author is, I believe, an important part of the reason for Utah being a hotbed for the flourishing of fantasy and science-fiction authors.

In a PBS interview, Michael Coe gives this take on Joseph Smith as a shaman:

I'm a totally irreligious person, even though I was born and raised a perfectly good Episcopalian Christian. Yet figures like Joseph Smith fascinate me as an anthropologist, and I suppose as an American, too. When I read Fawn Brodie's wonderful book, No Man Knows My History, I couldn't put it down. I mean, it's the most exciting biography I've ever read.

When I did read it for the first time, I realized what kind of a person this Joseph Smith was. In my opinion, he was not just a great religious leader; he was a really great American, and I think he was one of the greatest people who ever lived. This extraordinary man, who put together a religion -- probably with many falsities in it, falsehoods, so forth, to begin with -- eventually came to believe in it so much that he really bought his own story and made it believable to other people. In this respect, he's a lot like a shaman in anthropology: these extraordinary religious practitioners in places like Siberia, North America among the Eskimo, the Inuit, who start out probably in their profession as almost like magicians doing magic. ...

I really think that Joseph Smith, like shamans everywhere, started out faking it. I have to believe this -- that he didn't believe this at all, that he was out to impress, but he got caught up in the mythology that he created. This is what happens to shamans: They begin to believe they can do these things. It becomes a revelation: They're speaking to God. And I don't think they start out that way; I really do not. ...

… Joseph Smith had a sense of destiny -- and most fakers don't have this -- and this is how he transformed something that, I think, was clearly made up into something that was absolutely convincing, convincing to him and to a lot of people, and he never could have convinced a lot of people if he hadn't been convinced himself.

In the Mormon Stories interview I flag at the top of this post, Michael Coe expands on this view. I don’t have a transcript to work from with the Mormon Stories interview, but at close to the 30-minute mark of the third installment, he says something close to this:

Michael Coe: … Joseph Smith knew the Old Testament very, very well. …

John Dehlin (interviewer): How Dr. Coe, in the world, can you explain, what many people think is a miraculous book [The Book of Mormon]? …

Michael Coe: [Joseph Smith] was one of the greatest people who ever lived. … He was an incredible leader. …

Very bright kid—interested in old things, Tom-Sawyer-like guy. … This guy had an incredible brain. I really do think so.

Michael Coe goes on to talk in some detail about his view that Joseph Smith fully assimilated the Old Testament and creatively transformed what he had assimilated into an amazing book: The Book of Mormon. (Someone once called The Book of Mormon “a book-length midrash on the Old Testament.”)

Not everything in The Book of Mormon is admirable. It is tinged with the racism against Native Americans common in upstate New York in the 1820s. And in its first few pages, it has a story that seems to recommend unquestioning obedience. (See “A Book of Mormon Story Every Mormon Boy and Girl Knows.”) But it also includes beautiful ethical principles that, to me at least, came home in a way that the closest counterpart passage in the Bible did not manage. (I hope to return to that theme in a future post.)

Even now, as a nonsupernaturalist, I still look back with amazement at the exquisite warm feeling I felt in my heart when I prayed as a teenager to know if The Book of Mormon was true. Evidently, that exquisite warm feeling in my heart did not mean The Book of Mormon is an accurate historical record. But that exquisite warm feeling in my heart meant something.

The Federalist Papers #12: Union Makes it Much Easier to Get Tariff Revenue—Alexander Hamilton

image sourceLink to the full text of the Federalist Papers #11-#20

image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #11-#20

For a nation whose formation was propelled by a tax rebellion, the question of which taxes were most acceptable and manageable was a crucial one. In the Federalist Papers #12, Alexander Hamilton argued that tariffs were likely to be more politically acceptable and manageable than taxes on land or personal property.

One reason taxes on land or personal property could be difficult is that some farmers whose farms produced quite a bit might still not have much currency because they consumed much of what they produced and used barter for much of the rest. Trade would have been monetized to a much greater extent.

Alexander Hamilton goes on to argue that the states united could enforce a tariff relatively easily because most trade had to come in through the Atlantic coast. By contrast, divided states would have a hard time enforcing a tariff because smuggling from other states—including smuggling of transshipped goods from abroad—would be quite easy. He points to France as an example of how much effort it requires to enforce tariffs when many different land and river routes are available for smuggling.

As another advantage of tariffs over other taxes, Alexander Hamilton points to the importance in imports of one particular luxury: liquor. He views any reduction in the consumption of imported liquor as a good thing.

It is easy to read between the lines Alexander Hamilton’s keen awareness of the political power of American farmers in the 18th century. In addition to speaking ill of taxes on land, he makes a point at the beginning of the Federalist Papers #12 to argue, apart from his main theme of tax revenue, that union will yield a great deal of commerce—not only foreign trade, but also trade between the states—and that that commerce will raise land prices.

One of Alexander Hamilton’s great strengths was his ability to combine considerations of political philosophy, political expediency, public economics and monetary economics. The Federalist Papers #12 is a good example of that strength.

Below is the full text of the Federalist Papers #12:


FEDERALIST NO. 12

The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue

From the New York Packet
Tuesday, November 27, 1787.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THE effects of Union upon the commercial prosperity of the States have been sufficiently delineated. Its tendency to promote the interests of revenue will be the subject of our present inquiry.

The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares. By multipying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness. The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer,--all orders of men, look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils. The often-agitated question between agriculture and commerce has, from indubitable experience, received a decision which has silenced the rivalship that once subsisted between them, and has proved, to the satisfaction of their friends, that their interests are intimately blended and interwoven. It has been found in various countries that, in proportion as commerce has flourished, land has risen in value. And how could it have happened otherwise? Could that which procures a freer vent for the products of the earth, which furnishes new incitements to the cultivation of land, which is the most powerful instrument in increasing the quantity of money in a state--could that, in fine, which is the faithful handmaid of labor and industry, in every shape, fail to augment that article, which is the prolific parent of far the greatest part of the objects upon which they are exerted? It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary; and it is one, among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement, is to lead men astray from the plainest truths of reason and conviction.

The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury. The hereditary dominions of the Emperor of Germany contain a great extent of fertile, cultivated, and populous territory, a large proportion of which is situated in mild and luxuriant climates. In some parts of this territory are to be found the best gold and silver mines in Europe. And yet, from the want of the fostering influence of commerce, that monarch can boast but slender revenues. He has several times been compelled to owe obligations to the pecuniary succors of other nations for the preservation of his essential interests, and is unable, upon the strength of his own resources, to sustain a long or continued war.

But it is not in this aspect of the subject alone that Union will be seen to conduce to the purpose of revenue. There are other points of view, in which its influence will appear more immediate and decisive. It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation. Tax laws have in vain been multiplied; new methods to enforce the collection have in vain been tried; the public expectation has been uniformly disappointed, and the treasuries of the States have remained empty. The popular system of administration inherent in the nature of popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity of money incident to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto defeated every experiment for extensive collections, and has at length taught the different legislatures the folly of attempting them.

No person acquainted with what happens in other countries will be surprised at this circumstance. In so opulent a nation as that of Britain, where direct taxes from superior wealth must be much more tolerable, and, from the vigor of the government, much more practicable, than in America, far the greatest part of the national revenue is derived from taxes of the indirect kind, from imposts, and from excises. Duties on imported articles form a large branch of this latter description.

In America, it is evident that we must a long time depend for the means of revenue chiefly on such duties. In most parts of it, excises must be confined within a narrow compass. The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws. The pockets of the farmers, on the other hand, will reluctantly yield but scanty supplies, in the unwelcome shape of impositions on their houses and lands; and personal property is too precarious and invisible a fund to be laid hold of in any other way than by the inperceptible agency of taxes on consumption.

If these remarks have any foundation, that state of things which will best enable us to improve and extend so valuable a resource must be best adapted to our political welfare. And it cannot admit of a serious doubt, that this state of things must rest on the basis of a general Union. As far as this would be conducive to the interests of commerce, so far it must tend to the extension of the revenue to be drawn from that source. As far as it would contribute to rendering regulations for the collection of the duties more simple and efficacious, so far it must serve to answer the purposes of making the same rate of duties more productive, and of putting it into the power of the government to increase the rate without prejudice to trade.

The relative situation of these States; the number of rivers with which they are intersected, and of bays that wash there shores; the facility of communication in every direction; the affinity of language and manners; the familiar habits of intercourse; --all these are circumstances that would conspire to render an illicit trade between them a matter of little difficulty, and would insure frequent evasions of the commercial regulations of each other. The separate States or confederacies would be necessitated by mutual jealousy to avoid the temptations to that kind of trade by the lowness of their duties. The temper of our governments, for a long time to come, would not permit those rigorous precautions by which the European nations guard the avenues into their respective countries, as well by land as by water; and which, even there, are found insufficient obstacles to the adventurous stratagems of avarice.

In France, there is an army of patrols (as they are called) constantly employed to secure their fiscal regulations against the inroads of the dealers in contraband trade. Mr. Neckar computes the number of these patrols at upwards of twenty thousand. This shows the immense difficulty in preventing that species of traffic, where there is an inland communication, and places in a strong light the disadvantages with which the collection of duties in this country would be encumbered, if by disunion the States should be placed in a situation, with respect to each other, resembling that of France with respect to her neighbors. The arbitrary and vexatious powers with which the patrols are necessarily armed, would be intolerable in a free country.

If, on the contrary, there be but one government pervading all the States, there will be, as to the principal part of our commerce, but ONE SIDE to guard--the ATLANTIC COAST. Vessels arriving directly from foreign countries, laden with valuable cargoes, would rarely choose to hazard themselves to the complicated and critical perils which would attend attempts to unlade prior to their coming into port. They would have to dread both the dangers of the coast, and of detection, as well after as before their arrival at the places of their final destination. An ordinary degree of vigilance would be competent to the prevention of any material infractions upon the rights of the revenue. A few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our ports, might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of the laws. And the government having the same interest to provide against violations everywhere, the co-operation of its measures in each State would have a powerful tendency to render them effectual. Here also we should preserve by Union, an advantage which nature holds out to us, and which would be relinquished by separation. The United States lie at a great distance from Europe, and at a considerable distance from all other places with which they would have extensive connections of foreign trade. The passage from them to us, in a few hours, or in a single night, as between the coasts of France and Britain, and of other neighboring nations, would be impracticable. This is a prodigious security against a direct contraband with foreign countries; but a circuitous contraband to one State, through the medium of another, would be both easy and safe. The difference between a direct importation from abroad, and an indirect importation through the channel of a neighboring State, in small parcels, according to time and opportunity, with the additional facilities of inland communication, must be palpable to every man of discernment.

It is therefore evident, that one national government would be able, at much less expense, to extend the duties on imports, beyond comparison, further than would be practicable to the States separately, or to any partial confederacies. Hitherto, I believe, it may safely be asserted, that these duties have not upon an average exceeded in any State three per cent. In France they are estimated to be about fifteen per cent., and in Britain they exceed this proportion.[If my memory be right they amount to twenty per cent.] There seems to be nothing to hinder their being increased in this country to at least treble their present amount. The single article of ardent spirits, under federal regulation, might be made to furnish a considerable revenue. Upon a ratio to the importation into this State, the whole quantity imported into the United States may be estimated at four millions of gallons; which, at a shilling per gallon, would produce two hundred thousand pounds. That article would well bear this rate of duty; and if it should tend to diminish the consumption of it, such an effect would be equally favorable to the agriculture, to the economy, to the morals, and to the health of the society. There is, perhaps, nothing so much a subject of national extravagance as these spirits.

What will be the consequence, if we are not able to avail ourselves of the resource in question in its full extent? A nation cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn from commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land. It has been already intimated that excises, in their true signification, are too little in unison with the feelings of the people, to admit of great use being made of that mode of taxation; nor, indeed, in the States where almost the sole employment is agriculture, are the objects proper for excise sufficiently numerous to permit very ample collections in that way. Personal estate (as has been before remarked), from the difficulty in tracing it, cannot be subjected to large contributions, by any other means than by taxes on consumption. In populous cities, it may be enough the subject of conjecture, to occasion the oppression of individuals, without much aggregate benefit to the State; but beyond these circles, it must, in a great measure, escape the eye and the hand of the tax-gatherer. As the necessities of the State, nevertheless, must be satisfied in some mode or other, the defect of other resources must throw the principal weight of public burdens on the possessors of land. And as, on the other hand, the wants of the government can never obtain an adequate supply, unless all the sources of revenue are open to its demands, the finances of the community, under such embarrassments, cannot be put into a situation consistent with its respectability or its security. Thus we shall not even have the consolations of a full treasury, to atone for the oppression of that valuable class of the citizens who are employed in the cultivation of the soil. But public and private distress will keep pace with each other in gloomy concert; and unite in deploring the infatuation of those counsels which led to disunion.

PUBLIUS.

Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

Interstellar Travel and Uploaded Humans

Link to the article shown above

Link to the article shown above

Many difficulties of space travel go away when human consciousnesses have already been translated into software. For example,

  • “Suspended animation” is a simple matter of not running the software program and sticking with a copy

  • Even if the stored human consciousnesses are physically traveling on a spaceship, the danger from radiation can be taken care of by having many backup copies and doing periodic error correct. Other dangers such as muscle wasting from zero gravity are absent.

  • Even if the stored human consciousness are physically traveling on a spaceship, the total weight needed is likely to be much, much smaller than the weight of humans.

  • There is no need to worry about food and oxygen for the journey. And power needs should be relatively low if for most of the human consciousnesses on the journey error correction is the only operation being performed.

This should make even interstellar travel realistically possible without any space travel technology beyond what we can already foresee. Michio Kaku raises the additional possibility of transmitting a human consciousness on a laser beam. Here is a summary of that idea plus a little background from Adam Kirsch’s June 20, 2020 Wall Street Journal article “Looking Forward to the End of Humanity”:

Ultimately, however, the hope is that we won’t just use computers—we’ll become them. Today, cognitive scientists often compare the brain to hardware and the mind to the software that runs on it. But a software program is just information, and in principle there’s no reason why the information of consciousness has to be encoded in neurons.

The Human Connectome Project, launched in 2009 by the National Institutes of Health, describes itself as “an ambitious effort to map the neural pathways that underlie human brain function.” If those pathways could be completely mapped and translated into digital 0s and 1s, the data could be uploaded to a computer, where it could survive indefinitely. The physicist Michio Kaku has theorized that this is how humanity will overcome the logistical challenges of deep-space travel: “We’re going to put the connectome on a laser beam and shoot it to the moon. In one second, our consciousness is on the moon. In 20 minutes we’re on Mars, in eight hours we’re on Pluto, in four years our consciousness has reached the nearest star.”

However, Robin Hanson’s book The Age of Em, which I feature in “On Being a Copy of Someone's Mind,” gives economic arguments for why interstellar travel of software humans, while it is likely to happen, wouldn’t be central to early historical developments after technology to upload human consciousness’s becomes available. Basically, there are a lot of economic reasons why human beings, whether flesh and blood or software humans, want things done fast. And by the time we have the technology to upload human consciousness at all, it is likely that software humans can operate at a much faster pace than flesh-and-blood humans: a thousand or a million times faster.

What would a trip to Pluto look like if the typical software human is operating at 1000 times flesh-and-blood speed? Traveling at the speed of light on a laser beam, it then takes 16000 subjective hours of the software humans back home to go to Pluto and return, which is 22 months. That would seem like a long time to be gone. On the other hand, one copy of you could go while the other stays behind to keep working. So that could be quite attractive.

But even if a receiver station was in orbit around Alpha Centauri at the beginning of the age of software humans, a roundtrip of 8.6 years of flesh-and-blood human time would be 8,600 years of software human time. That would make it seem like a one-way trip. The one-way trip could be quite attractive if copies of all one’s family and friends and many other potential friends took the trip too, but anyone who went to the Alpha Centauri system wouldn’t have any influence on software human civilization for a period of 8,600 subjective years (of the average working software human).

Thus, interstellar travel, while a lot easier when there human consciousness can be uploaded, and likely quite consequential for the galaxy, would have very little effect on human history on earth for what will seem like a long, long time for many software humans.

In closing, let me several background points about the predicted scenario.

First, flesh-and-blood humans would not be central to this future simply because the ease of copying software humans would mean that there could easily—and profitably would be—trillions and trillions of software humans, while the number of flesh-and-blood humans would be measured in billions. Flesh-and-blood humans willing to be uploaded would be important as the source of real variety among software humans. Also, from the perspective of flesh-and-blood humans, the subsistence cost for a software human would be tiny compared to the subsistence cost for a flesh-and-blood human. That means that from the perspective of a software human, a flesh-and-blood human would seem incredibly rich. (The only alternative to a flesh-and-blood human seeming incredibly rich to a software human would be for the flesh-and-blood human to be at below a subsistence level for a flesh-and-blood human and therefore to die. Big, hulking things such as flesh-and-blood humans are expensive.)

Second, one should not think of software humans as being incorporeal. It would be very easy for a software human to move back and forth between being embedded in some kind of physical android form (though that physical form need not be human-shaped) and being embedded in a virtual world—that is, being purely electronic in form. A software human might specialize in one role or another, but fundamentally doesn’t need to choose. It is an easy transition back and forth. Generally speaking, a physical form not needed for work purposes is likely to seem relatively expensive to a software human, so most wouldn’t have a physical form outside of work hours. And as Robin Hanson writes, a large share of software humans, like most flesh-and-blood humans in advanced countries now, are likely to do office work, which leaves them without much reason to incur the expense of a physical form.

A scene from “Upload”

A scene from “Upload”

I have started in on the fun TV series “Upload.” It is interesting to compare what happens in the series with Robin Hanson’s predictions (conditional on plausible future technology):

  • The idea in “Upload” that there might be a period of time when the only connectome scanning technology available destroys the brain that is scanned is plausible enough. Probably at some later period, non-destructive scanning of the connectome will become possible.

  • “Upload” raises the issue of software humans working, but assumes a law prohibiting it. The commercial advantages of letting software humans work are likely to make such a law difficult to maintain politically in all jurisdictions. And the jurisdictions that allow software humans to work will get much richer than jurisdictions that don’t. As Robin Hanson points out, giving flesh-and-blood humans a small share of the gains from software humans working—even through something as simple as an income tax on software humans—is likely to make the flesh-and-blood humans to not only acquiesce in allowing software humans to work but to actively encourage it.

  • One of the plot-driving challenges in “Upload” is low-quality virtual reality for software humans. This is quite unlikely for one simple reason: human-brain-emulating software will be vastly more complex— and therefore vastly more expensive to run—than quite high-quality virtual reality software. Some kinds of virtual reality will have an expense that is a substantial fraction of the cost of running a software human—for example, running a scanned cat or dog as opposed to a simplified virtual-reality cat or dog—but many, many high-quality virtual reality features will cost a tiny fraction of running software needed to create human experience for that software.

  • Finally, “Upload” shows zero recognition in the first few episodes that software humans can operate at a different speed than flesh-and-blood humans—either faster or slower. This possibility would change so many decision points in the first few episodes that it will be hard for the writers to introduce this possibility later on without creating many retrospective plot holes in the first few episodes. As it is, they can hope viewers simply don’t think of this possibility. But technologically, once you have software, it is easy to rig it to run at different speeds. For example, I am now running Peter Attia’s podcasts at 1.2 speed. No problem. One important consequence of the different speeds of software humans and flesh-and-blood humans is that while interactions between these two groups will be easy, ordinary relationships might well be difficult: running at a speed that allows a software human to have a deep relationship with a flesh-and-blood human would mean sacrificing ease of having relationships with the bulk of other software humans. (And even among software humans, there would be divisions based on different operating speeds—perhaps driven by occupational differences in economically optimal speed. But with trillions of software humans likely in existence, there would be many software humans in each speed category to form relationships with.)

I find thinking about the future that Robin Hanson has conditionally predicted fascinating. It is a good topic to return to again and again. And as should already be clear, I highly recommend The Age of Em.

Related Posts:

The Federalist Papers #11 B: Union Will Make Possible a Strong Navy, Allowing America to Chart Its Own Destiny—Alexander Hamilton

Link to the Wikipedia article “History of the United States Navy,” from which this painting of the 1799 battle between the Constellation and L’Insurgente is taken. That battle resulted in the capture of L’InsurgentLink to the full text of the Federa…

Link to the Wikipedia article “History of the United States Navy,” from which this painting of the 1799 battle between the Constellation and L’Insurgente is taken. That battle resulted in the capture of L’Insurgent

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #11

In the second half of the Federalist Papers #11, Alexander Hamilton makes the case that union is crucial for keeping the states from falling under European domination, because union is crucial for creating a strong American navy. Let me intersperse in bold my interpretation of the points of his argument between passages in the second half of the Federalist Papers #11:

The United States could have a navy powerful enough to make a real difference:

A further resource for influencing the conduct of European nations toward us, in this respect, would arise from the establishment of a federal navy. There can be no doubt that the continuance of the Union under an efficient government would put it in our power, at a period not very distant, to create a navy which, if it could not vie with those of the great maritime powers, would at least be of respectable weight if thrown into the scale of either of two contending parties. This would be more peculiarly the case in relation to operations in the West Indies. A few ships of the line, sent opportunely to the reinforcement of either side, would often be sufficient to decide the fate of a campaign, on the event of which interests of the greatest magnitude were suspended. Our position is, in this respect, a most commanding one. And if to this consideration we add that of the usefulness of supplies from this country, in the prosecution of military operations in the West Indies, it will readily be perceived that a situation so favorable would enable us to bargain with great advantage for commercial privileges. A price would be set not only upon our friendship, but upon our neutrality. By a steady adherence to the Union we may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate.

Divided, the effective naval strength of the American states would be so low they couldn’t even maintain the rights of neutrality:

But in the reverse of this eligible situation, we shall discover that the rivalships of the parts would make them checks upon each other, and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.

A strong navy of the states united would enable maritime flourishing:

Under a vigorous national government, the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible and unchangeable course of nature.

Divided, the states would be weak enough that foreign powers could take most of the gains from trade:

But in a state of disunion, these combinations might exist and might operate with success. It would be in the power of the maritime nations, availing themselves of our universal impotence, to prescribe the conditions of our political existence; and as they have a common interest in being our carriers, and still more in preventing our becoming theirs, they would in all probability combine to embarrass our navigation in such a manner as would in effect destroy it, and confine us to a PASSIVE COMMERCE. We should then be compelled to content ourselves with the first price of our commodities, and to see the profits of our trade snatched from us to enrich our enemies and p rsecutors. That unequaled spirit of enterprise, which signalizes the genius of the American merchants and navigators, and which is in itself an inexhaustible mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost, and poverty and disgrace would overspread a country which, with wisdom, might make herself the admiration and envy of the world.

Union is also important for American power over offshore fisheries and key inland waterways:

There are rights of great moment to the trade of America which are rights of the Union--I allude to the fisheries, to the navigation of the Western lakes, and to that of the Mississippi. The dissolution of the Confederacy would give room for delicate questions concerning the future existence of these rights; which the interest of more powerful partners would hardly fail to solve to our disadvantage. The disposition of Spain with regard to the Mississippi needs no comment. France and Britain are concerned with us in the fisheries, and view them as of the utmost moment to their navigation. They, of course, would hardly remain long indifferent to that decided mastery, of which experience has shown us to be possessed in this valuable branch of traffic, and by which we are able to undersell those nations in their own markets. What more natural than that they should be disposed to exclude from the lists such dangerous competitors?

This branch of trade ought not to be considered as a partial benefit. All the navigating States may, in different degrees, advantageously participate in it, and under circumstances of a greater extension of mercantile capital, would not be unlikely to do it. As a nursery of seamen, it now is, or when time shall have more nearly assimilated the principles of navigation in the several States, will become, a universal resource. To the establishment of a navy, it must be indispensable.

Union would contribute to a strong navy through a greater variety of resources as well as a greater quantity:

To this great national object, a NAVY, union will contribute in various ways. Every institution will grow and flourish in proportion to the quantity and extent of the means concentred towards its formation and support. A navy of the United States, as it would embrace the resources of all, is an object far less remote than a navy of any single State or partial confederacy, which would only embrace the resources of a single part. It happens, indeed, that different portions of confederated America possess each some peculiar advantage for this essential establishment. The more southern States furnish in greater abundance certain kinds of naval stores--tar, pitch, and turpentine. Their wood for the construction of ships is also of a more solid and lasting texture. The difference in the duration of the ships of which the navy might be composed, if chiefly constructed of Southern wood, would be of signal importance, either in the view of naval strength or of national economy. Some of the Southern and of the Middle States yield a greater plenty of iron, and of better quality. Seamen must chiefly be drawn from the Northern hive. The necessity of naval protection to external or maritime commerce does not require a particular elucidation, no more than the conduciveness of that species of commerce to the prosperity of a navy.

Free trade among the states will increase the gains not only from trade among the states but also the gains from foreign trade:

An unrestrained intercourse between the States themselves will advance the trade of each by an interchange of their respective productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal wants at home, but for exportation to foreign markets. The veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, and will acquire additional motion and vigor from a free circulation of the commodities of every part. Commercial enterprise will have much greater scope, from the diversity in the productions of different States. When the staple of one fails from a bad harvest or unproductive crop, it can call to its aid the staple of another. The variety, not less than the value, of products for exportation contributes to the activity of foreign commerce. It can be conducted upon much better terms with a large number of materials of a given value than with a small number of materials of the same value; arising from the competitions of trade and from the fluctations of markets. Particular articles may be in great demand at certain periods, and unsalable at others; but if there be a variety of articles, it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of the merchant would be less liable to any considerable obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at once perceive the force of these observations, and will acknowledge that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the United States would bid fair to be much more favorable than that of the thirteen States without union or with partial unions.

If the states are divided, free trade among them won’t last long:

It may perhaps be replied to this, that whether the States are united or disunited, there would still be an intimate intercourse between them which would answer the same ends; this intercourse would be fettered, interrupted, and narrowed by a multiplicity of causes, which in the course of these papers have been amply detailed. A unity of commercial, as well as political, interests, can only result from a unity of government.

Europeans are into domination. We need countervailing power:

There are other points of view in which this subject might be placed, of a striking and animating kind. But they would lead us too far into the regions of futurity, and would involve topics not proper for a newspaper discussion. I shall briefly observe, that our situation invites and our interests prompt us to aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs. The world may politically, as well as geographically, be divided into four parts, each having a distinct set of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe, by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America, have successively felt her domination. The superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority, and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America--that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere[“Recherches philosophiques sur les Americains”]. Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!

PUBLIUS.

Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

How Even Liberal Whites Make Themselves Out as Victims in Discussions of Racism

Link to the Amazon page for White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

Link to the Amazon page for White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

In reading White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo (from which I take all the quotations in this post except when noted otherwise), one of the things I found most fascinating was her accounts of her experiences it leading discussions about racism as part of her job as a diversity trainer. Below are some of her descriptions of her experience in that role. (Unless noted otherwise all the quotations in this post are from White Fragility.)

… if and when an educational program does directly address racism and the privileging of whites, common white responses include anger, withdrawal, emotional incapacitation, guilt, argumentation, and cognitive dissonance (all of which reinforce the pressure on facilitators to avoid directly addressing racism). So-called progressive whites may not respond with anger but still insulate themselves via claims that they are beyond the need for engaging with the content because they “already had a class on this” or “already know this.” All these responses constitute white fragility—the result of the reduced psychosocial stamina that racial insulation inculcates.

… intense emotional reactions are common. I have discussed several reasons why whites are so defensive about the suggestion that we benefit from, and are complicit in, a racist system:

  • Social taboos against talking openly about race

  • The racist = bad / not racist = good binary

  • Fear and resentment toward people of color

  • Our delusion that we are objective individuals

  • Our guilty knowledge that there is more going on than we can or will admit to

  • Deep investment in a system that benefits us and that we have been conditioned to see as fair

  • Internalized superiority and sense of a right to rule

  • A deep cultural legacy of anti-black sentiment

It is hard to grow up in our society as a white person without ingesting some of the pro-white, anti-black attitudes floating around in our culture.

To me, the most remarkable part of Robin DiAngelo’s accounts of her work as a diversity trainer is the way white people she is talking to try to turn themselves into victims:

One way that whites protect their positions when challenged on race is to invoke the discourse of self-defense. Through this discourse, whites characterize themselves as victimized, slammed, blamed, and attacked. Whites who describe the interactions in this way are responding to the articulation of counternarratives alone; no physical violence has ever occurred in any interracial discussion or training that I am aware of. These self-defense claims work on multiple levels. They identify the speakers as morally superior while obscuring the true power of their social positions. The claims blame others with less social power for their discomfort and falsely describe that discomfort as dangerous. The self-defense approach also reinscribes racist imagery. By positioning themselves as the victim of antiracist efforts, they cannot be the beneficiaries of whiteness. Claiming that it is they who have been unfairly treated—through a challenge to their position or an expectation that they listen to the perspectives and experiences of people of color—they can demand that more social resources (such as time and attention) be channeled in their direction to help them cope with this mistreatment.

When I consult with organizations that want me to help them recruit and retain a more diverse workforce, I am consistently warned that past efforts to address the lack of diversity have resulted in trauma for white employees. This is literally the term used to describe the impact of a brief and isolated workshop: trauma. This trauma has required years of avoiding the topic altogether, and although the business leaders feel they are ready to begin again, I am cautioned to proceed slowly and be careful. Of course, this white racial trauma in response to equity efforts has also ensured that the organization has remained overwhelmingly white.

The language of violence that many whites use to describe antiracist endeavors is not without significance, as it is another example of how white fragility distorts reality. By employing terms that connote physical abuse, whites tap into the classic story that people of color (particularly African Americans) are dangerous and violent. In so doing, whites distort the real direction of danger between whites and others. This history becomes profoundly minimized when whites claim they don’t feel safe or are under attack when they find themselves in the rare situation of merely talking about race with people of color. The use of this language of violence illustrates how fragile and ill-equipped most white people are to confront racial tensions, and their subsequent projection of this tension onto people of color.

Here, I am reminded of Shirzad Chamine’s description of the “Victim” defense mechanism:

Characteristics

  • If criticized or misunderstood, tend to withdraw, pout, and sulk.

  • Fairly dramatic and temperamental.

  • When things get tough, want to crumble and give up.

  • …

Thoughts

  • No one understands me.

  • Poor me.

  • Terrible things always happen to me.

  • …

I discuss Shirzad’s book Positive Intelligence in “On Human Potential.” Because of the damage defense mechanisms often do to the one using them, Shirzad calls them “saboteurs.” This is the Victim saboteur in action.

Though there is a lot of additional subtlety to what Robin DiAngelo is saying, one thing I find intriguing is the “tough love” attitude Robin DiAngelo has toward antiracism. We have to buck up and take the feedback that points out structures and attitudes that advantage whites.

Making oneself out out to be a victim is not the only way whites try to avoid confronting their role in perpetuating white privilege. Intellectualizing can be used to insulate one’s heart from seeing one’s own role in the system and one’s own pro-white, anti-black attitudes. For those of us to whom intellectualizing is a reflex, a key question from Robin can help separate out defensive intellectualization from productive intellectual inquiry. She writes:

In my work to unravel the dynamics of racism, I have found a question that never fails me. This question is not “Is this claim true, or is it false?”; we will never come to an agreement on a question that sets up an either/or dichotomy on something as sensitive as racism. Instead I ask, “How does this claim function in the conversation?”

Robin does a good job of pointing to evidence of our pro-white, anti-black attitudes and the various rationalizations through which we avoid feeling bad about our roles in perpetuating white privilege.

One good example of our either devaluing or not thinking about people of color is when we talk about “the good old days.” Robin:

As a white person, I can openly and unabashedly reminisce about “the good old days.” Romanticized recollections of the past and calls for a return to former ways are a function of white privilege, which manifests itself in the ability to remain oblivious to our racial history. Claiming that the past was socially better than the present is also a hallmark of white supremacy. Consider any period in the past from the perspective of people of color: 246 years of brutal enslavement; the rape of black women for the pleasure of white men and to produce more enslaved workers; the selling off of black children; the attempted genocide of Indigenous people, Indian removal acts, and reservations; indentured servitude, lynching, and mob violence; sharecropping; Chinese exclusion laws; Japanese American internment; Jim Crow laws of mandatory segregation; black codes; bans on black jury service; bans on voting; imprisoning people for unpaid work; medical sterilization and experimentation; employment discrimination; educational discrimination; inferior schools; biased laws and policing practices; redlining and subprime mortgages; mass incarceration; racist media representations; cultural erasures, attacks, and mockery; and untold and perverted historical accounts, and you can see how a romanticized past is strictly a white construct. But it is a powerful construct because it calls out to a deeply internalized sense of superiority and entitlement and the sense that any advancement for people of color is an encroachment on this entitlement.

The past was great for white people (and white men in particular) because their positions went largely unchallenged. In understanding the power of white fragility, we have to notice that the mere questioning of those positions triggered the white fragility that Trump capitalized on. There has been no actual loss of power for the white elite, who have always controlled our institutions and continue to do so by a very wide margin.

We are also often ignorant about things going on in the present. For me, and I hope for many others, the protests in the last few weeks have been a wake-up call.

To mention something minor compared to some of my other dimensions of ignorance, I say to my shame that I didn’t know what Juneteenth was until I googled it one day this past week. Let’s make sure that from now on all Americans know that there is a holiday to celebrate one of the best things that has happened in our history: the end of slavery.

In the last few weeks, my wife Gail and I have watched “13th,” “I Am Not Your Negro” (about James Baldwin) and “Selma.” Of those three movies, the documentary “13th” hit me the hardest. I had known abstractly about the rise of the “carceral state” that imprisons a hugely greater fraction of Americans than the fraction imprisoned in other liberal democracies. But the racist origins of the carceral state had not come home to me until I saw “13th.” To put bluntly a key moment in that documentary, Bill Clinton, to win reelection, felt he needed to campaign on law and order, which in our country, sadly, means a lot more than the dictionary definition of “law and order.” Rather, as a politician, if you want to promise in code to lock up a lot of African-Americans, you talk about “law and order.” If you wanted to talk about law and order in the dictionary sense, in a non-racist way, you would want to use another set of words. Bill Clinton then went on to preside over a huge expansion of the number of Americans in prison. Other presidents also presided over a rise, but numerically, the big expansion happened under Bill Clinton.

Robin DiAngelo reminds of some of the racial disparities in policing in 2020:

It has been well documented that blacks and Latinos are stopped by police more often than whites are for the same activities and that they receive harsher sentences than whites do for the same crimes. Research has also shown that a major reason for this racial disparity can be attributed to the beliefs held by judges and others about the cause of the criminal behavior. For example, the criminal behavior of white juveniles is often seen as caused by external factors—the youth comes from a single-parent home, is having a hard time right now, just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, or was bullied at school. Attributing the cause of the action to external factors lessens the person’s responsibility and classifies the person as a victim him or herself. But black and Latinx youth are not afforded this same compassion. When black and Latinx youth go before a judge, the cause of the crime is more often attributed to something internal to the person—the youth is naturally more prone to crime, is more animalistic, and has less capacity for remorse (similarly, a 2016 study found that half of a sample of medical students and residents believe that blacks feel less pain). Whites continually receive the benefit of the doubt not granted to people of color—our race alone helps establish our innocence.

Robin also points to how we perpetuate racism in ordinary social interactions. One way we perpetuate racism is by misrepresenting racism as less of an issue than it really is:

Today we have a cultural norm that insists we hide our racism from people of color and deny it among ourselves, but not that we actually challenge it. In fact, we are socially penalized for challenging racism.

I am often asked if I think the younger generation is less racist. No, I don’t. In some ways, racism’s adaptations over time are more sinister than concrete rules such as Jim Crow. The adaptations produce the same outcome (people of color are blocked from moving forward) but have been put in place by a dominant white society that won’t or can’t admit to its beliefs. This intransigence results in another pillar of white fragility: the refusal to know.

Another way we perpetuate racism is by being too cowardly to challenge overt racism when it appears. Robin gives the example of a racist joke told in an all-white group:

The very real consequences of breaking white solidarity play a fundamental role in maintaining white supremacy. We do indeed risk censure and other penalties from our fellow whites. We might be accused of being politically correct or might be perceived as angry, humorless, combative, and not suited to go far in an organization. In my own life, these penalties have worked as a form of social coercion. Seeking to avoid conflict and wanting to be liked, I have chosen silence all too often.

Conversely, when I kept quiet about racism, I was rewarded with social capital such as being seen as fun, cooperative, and a team player. Notice that within a white supremacist society, I am rewarded for not interrupting racism and punished in a range of ways—big and small—when I do. I can justify my silence by telling myself that at least I am not the one who made the joke and that therefore I am not at fault. But my silence is not benign because it protects and maintains the racial hierarchy and my place within it. Each uninterrupted joke furthers the circulation of racism through the culture, and the ability for the joke to circulate depends on my complicity.

People of color certainly experience white solidarity as a form of racism, wherein we fail to hold each other accountable, to challenge racism when we see it, or to support people of color in the struggle for racial justice.

In my post “Enablers of White Supremacy,” I used the intentionally shocking phrase “white supremacy” both to emphasize the gravity of the state our society is in and to make the idea of institutional racism clear. Robin DiAngelo has a trenchant list of some of the more personal ways in which we become enablers of white supremacy:

In summary, our socialization engenders a common set of racial patterns. These patterns are the foundation of white fragility:

  • Preference for racial segregation, and a lack of a sense of loss about segregation

  • Lack of understanding about what racism is

  • Seeing ourselves as individuals, exempt from the forces of racial socialization

  • Failure to understand that we bring our group’s history with us, that history matters • Assuming everyone is having or can have our experience

  • Lack of racial humility, and unwillingness to listen

  • Dismissing what we don’t understand

  • Lack of authentic interest in the perspectives of people of color

  • Wanting to jump over the hard, personal work and get to “solutions”

  • Confusing disagreement with not understanding

  • Need to maintain white solidarity, to save face, to look good

  • Guilt that paralyzes or allows inaction

  • Defensiveness about any suggestion that we are connected to racism

  • A focus on intentions over impact

Conclusion

It is time for all of us to heed the wake-up call of how far we still are from racial equality in America.

If you want one more sign of racism and other bad attitudes that resemble racism, see “‘Keep the Riffraff Out!’” In particular, almost always, when people talk about “preserving the character of their neighborhood” by blocking the construction of apartment buildings and multifamily homes, or homes on small lots, there is a racist effect, whatever you think about whether or not there is an out-and-out racist motivation. And what are, by any standard, out-and-out racist motivations are not at all uncommon when people talk about “preserving the character of their neighborhood.” Being in favor of more residential construction—a lot more, so the supply reaches to people of even modest means—wherever people want to live is one of the more powerful ways of being antiracist.

Finally, let me say that there is more than one way to be effective as an antiracist. What we need now is to get wide agreement on the gravity of the continuing problem of racism and to have a critical mass of people working to fight racism in different ways. Some of those ways of fighting racism have increasing returns to scale, so it can often be useful to join with others and follow antiracist leaders. But there are other ways of fighting racism that may work well even on a small scale. Find your own métier in this fight. But don’t stand on the sidelines.

Don’t miss these other posts touching on racism and antiracism:

The Federalist Papers #11 A: United, the States Can Get a Better Trade Deal—Alexander Hamilton

Amazon page for The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, with Tony Schwartz Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #11

Amazon page for The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, with Tony Schwartz

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #11

Donald Trump is, famously, that author of The Art of the Deal. He would not be President of the United States if many people had not believed him when he claimed he could negotiate better deals with other countries on a wide range of issues. In office as President, he has been very interested in trade policy and eagerly set aside or upset old trade deals in order to negotiate new trade deals. Thus, I find it entertaining that Alexander Hamilton, arguing for the proposed Constitution in the first have of the Federalist Papers #11, gave as one point in favor of the Constitution that durable union among the 13 States would allow them to negotiate better trade deals. Here is how he laid out that point:

FEDERALIST NO. 11

The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy

For the Independent Journal.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THE importance of the Union, in a commercial light, is one of those points about which there is least room to entertain a difference of opinion, and which has, in fact, commanded the most general assent of men who have any acquaintance with the subject. This applies as well to our intercourse with foreign countries as with each other.

There are appearances to authorize a supposition that the adventurous spirit, which distinguishes the commercial character of America, has already excited uneasy sensations in several of the maritime powers of Europe. They seem to be apprehensive of our too great interference in that carrying trade, which is the support of their navigation and the foundation of their naval strength. Those of them which have colonies in America look forward to what this country is capable of becoming, with painful solicitude. They foresee the dangers that may threaten their American dominions from the neighborhood of States, which have all the dispositions, and would possess all the means, requisite to the creation of a powerful marine. Impressions of this kind will naturally indicate the policy of fostering divisions among us, and of depriving us, as far as possible, of an ACTIVE COMMERCE in our own bottoms. This would answer the threefold purpose of preventing our interference in their navigation, of monopolizing the profits of our trade, and of clipping the wings by which we might soar to a dangerous greatness. Did not prudence forbid the detail, it would not be difficult to trace, by facts, the workings of this policy to the cabinets of ministers.

If we continue united, we may counteract a policy so unfriendly to our prosperity in a variety of ways. By prohibitory regulations, extending, at the same time, throughout the States, we may oblige foreign countries to bid against each other, for the privileges of our markets. This assertion will not appear chimerical to those who are able to appreciate the importance of the markets of three millions of people--increasing in rapid progression, for the most part exclusively addicted to agriculture, and likely from local circumstances to remain so--to any manufacturing nation; and the immense difference there would be to the trade and navigation of such a nation, between a direct communication in its own ships, and an indirect conveyance of its products and returns, to and from America, in the ships of another country. Suppose, for instance, we had a government in America, capable of excluding Great Britain (with whom we have at present no treaty of commerce) from all our ports; what would be the probable operation of this step upon her politics? Would it not enable us to negotiate, with the fairest prospect of success, for commercial privileges of the most valuable and extensive kind, in the dominions of that kingdom? When these questions have been asked, upon other occasions, they have received a plausible, but not a solid or satisfactory answer. It has been said that prohibitions on our part would produce no change in the system of Britain, because she could prosecute her trade with us through the medium of the Dutch, who would be her immediate customers and paymasters for those articles which were wanted for the supply of our markets. But would not her navigation be materially injured by the loss of the important advantage of being her own carrier in that trade? Would not the principal part of its profits be intercepted by the Dutch, as a compensation for their agency and risk? Would not the mere circumstance of freight occasion a considerable deduction? Would not so circuitous an intercourse facilitate the competitions of other nations, by enhancing the price of British commodities in our markets, and by transferring to other hands the management of this interesting branch of the British commerce?

A mature consideration of the objects suggested by these questions will justify a belief that the real disadvantages to Britain from such a state of things, conspiring with the pre-possessions of a great part of the nation in favor of the American trade, and with the importunities of the West India islands, would produce a relaxation in her present system, and would let us into the enjoyment of privileges in the markets of those islands elsewhere, from which our trade would derive the most substantial benefits. Such a point gained from the British government, and which could not be expected without an equivalent in exemptions and immunities in our markets, would be likely to have a correspondent effect on the conduct of other nations, who would not be inclined to see themselves altogether supplanted in our trade.

Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

Enablers of White Supremacy

Link to the Amazon page for White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

Link to the Amazon page for White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

I have some hope that the current protests will be a watershed for race in America. It is far from certain, but it seems reasonable to hope for a change of the same magnitude as has happened as a result of the #metoo movement in the domain of sexual depredations.

One of the books that many people are reading right now—including me—is White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism, by Robin DiAngelo. (See Jeff Trachtenberg’s June 5, 2020 Wall Street Journal article “Readers Flock to Books About Race Relations.”) Robin DiAngelo’s answer to the implicit question in the subtitle is this:

Prejudice is foundational to understanding white fragility because suggesting that white people have racial prejudice is perceived as saying that we are bad and should be ashamed. We then feel the need to defend our character rather than explore the inevitable racial prejudices we have absorbed so that we might change them. In this way, our misunderstanding about what prejudice is protects it.

In other words, it is hard for white people to talk about racism because, for most white people, the only alternative they can see to being innocent of racism is that they are a “racist” like the racists who commit hate crimes killing black people or other people of color. This dichotomy doesn’t leave much room for recognizing whatever racism we not-obviously-horrible white people have inside us and trying to reduce its effects on us—and more importantly, reducing its effects on the world.

As a book that draws on academic ideas, White Fragility comes from the perspective of sociology, so it takes some translation to draw out of it the lessons for economists without too much distraction from side-issues related to the different perspectives of sociology and economics. Let me discuss two particular passages from White Fragility (bullets added):

  • When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color. People of color do not have this power and privilege over white people.

  • People of color may also hold prejudices and discriminate against white people, but they lack the social and institutional power that transforms their prejudice and discrimination into racism; the impact of their prejudice on whites is temporary and contextual.

I find the phrase “only whites can be racist” needlessly confusing. “Racism” is too well established as having a default common usage focusing on individual traits to clearly mean “systemic racism” without the addition of the adjective “systemic,” or some other modifier that does the same job. On the other hand, I understand the need for a powerful—even shocking—word in order to get people to take it seriously. So, let me use the phrase “white supremacy” to refer to systemic racism. Here are some proposed definitions:

  • white supremacy (noun): a set of social structures that advantage whites and disadvantage non-whites that are durable, including the capacity to adapt to a changing situation in a way that leads to another set of social structures in the same category of white supremacy. (This notion of adaptation as one of the defining features of white supremacy is influenced by the impressive documentary “13th.”)

  • white supremacist (noun): someone who advocates white supremacy as desirable.

  • white supremacism (noun): the activities of white supremacists

  • white supremacy (adjective): having to do with white supremacy

  • white supremacist (adjective): having to do with white supremacists

Let me introduce one more concept: enabling white supremacy. Few of us are white supremacists, but almost all white people are enablers of white supremacy in the same sense that someone who makes excuses for an alcoholic and makes it easier for them to continue in their alcoholism is an enabler of that alcoholic’s alcoholism.

To make clear what I am saying, I need to discuss a concept that, to an economist, is the elephant in the room for Robin DiAngelo’s book: statistical discrimination. (Statistical discrimination is treating a group differently only because, given the way the world is, they are in fact different on average—at least in superficial, but practically important ways.) A world in which there were only statistical discrimination and no other form of discrimination would be one in which disadvantaging of people of color resulted from people pursuing their private interests with no racist preferences. Given those non-racist preferences, if the world started in a steady state of racial equality it would stay in that steady state of racial equality. However, if the current social situation in not in that steady state of racial equality, convergence toward that steady state of racial equality could be very slow, if there is any natural tendency toward convergence at all.

To make this more vivid, remember that in a very literal sense, our society was designed over centuries by powerful men who in every sense of the word were white supremacists. This is pretty obvious in the historical documents. It is only since the 1960s that being a white supremacist has been considered a bad enough thing that relatively few people openly advocate white supremacy as a desirable state of affairs. There are very long-lasting effects of past white supremacy (which in turn gained a lot in power because of past white supremacism). For example, the health of parents can easily affect the health of a child.

Although one might hope that racial equality would entail large benefits for everyone (important figures have argued that white supremacy is damaging enough to the souls of white people that there is a Pareto improvement to be had), it is logically possible that a transition from where we are now to a steady state of racial equality could entail non-withes becoming better off and whites becoming worse off than staying in the current situation of white supremacy. A claim that doing only statistical discrimination is not really white supremacy is setting the standard that while we should expect people to give up their racist preferences—or duplicate what would happen if they didn’t have racist preferences, we shouldn’t expect people to sacrifice anything else in order to move toward a situation of greater racial equality. I think that is ethically wrong. It is reasonable to expect people who are now advantaged to sacrifice something beyond just racist preferences in order to get a situation of greater racial equality.

I expect to do more posts based on my reading of White Fragility, but today I will end with that idea even if no one had racist preferences, and people had a very high level of understanding of the racial situation, that those unwilling to pay their fair share of the costs of transition to a steady state of greater racial equality can appropriately be called “enablers of white supremacy.” They might have words to defend their choice to be enablers of white supremacy, but that would be an accurate description of their position.

There are many other ways to be an enabler of white supremacy.

Postscript: Let me attempt a translation using the definitions I have made of this passage I quoted above:

When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color. People of color do not have this power and privilege over white people.

My translation is simply that no one can be an “enabler of black supremacy” because black supremacy is not a real thing in the world for anyone to enable. Anyone who was trying (without success) to bring black supremacy into existence would be more than an enabler. By contrast, being an “enabler of white supremacy” in one of the many ways it is possible to be an enabler of white supremacy is a real and present danger for most of us.

I also have a discussion of racism and anti-racism in:

Glennon Doyle on Wild Humanity

Link to the Amazon page for Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Link to the Amazon page for Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Since I was born in 1960, I have been watching Feminism for a long time. Glennon Doyle’s recent book Untamed is an impressive addition to the Feminist canon. She addresses many issues with chapters that are, in effect, a tightly integrated set of personal essays. In addition to feminism, Glennon writes about her own gay awakening and about racism, but the biggest overarching theme is human liberation—how all of us can gain from “burning memos” we have received from our culture that are inappropriate. Through all of this, Glennon’s skill as a writer helps bring her message home.

Glennon begins Untamed with a true story about a tame cheetah. Her metaphor is that there is something off about a tame cheetah. Just so, there is something off about an overly tame human being. (It is good that over evolutionary time we have domesticated ourselves genetically, but have we gone too far in cultural taming beyond that?)

Untamed is an excellent source for powerful quotations and vivid stories. Let me share some of my favorites. In doing so, I am inevitably selecting those that speak to me, a straight, white man. There are many, many other passages that I suspect might be even more striking to women reading the book than the passages I have selected. I’ll organize things by topic area. A substantial vertical gap indicates a separate passage. My words are the unindented ones.

The Effect of Sexism on Men:

I opened the shower curtain and noticed the twelve empty bottles littering the tub’s edge. All the bottles on the right side were red, white, and blue. All the bottles on the left side were pink and purple. I picked up a red bottle from what was clearly my son’s side. It was tall, rectangular, bulky. It yelled at me in bold red, white, and blue letters:

3X BIGGER, DOESN’T ROB YOU OF YOUR DIGNITY, ARMOR UP IN MAN SCENT, DROP-KICK DIRT, THEN SLAM ODOR WITH A FOLDING CHAIR.

I thought: What the hell? Is my son taking a shower or preparing for war in here?

I picked up one of the girls’ slim, metallic, pink bottles. Instead of barking marching orders at me, that bottle, in cursive, flowy font, whispered disconnected adjectives: alluring, radiant, gentle, pure, illuminating, enticing, touchable, light, creamy. Not a verb to be found. Nothing to do here, just a list of things to be.


Being an American boy is a setup. We train boys to believe that the way to become a man is to objectify and conquer women, value wealth and power above all, and suppress any emotions other than competitiveness and rage. Then we are stunned when our boys become exactly what we have trained them to be. Our boys cannot follow our directions, but they are cheating and dying and killing as they try to. Everything that makes a boy human is a “real man’s” dirty secret. Our men are caged, too. The parts of themselves they must hide to fit into those cages are the slices of their humanity that our culture has labeled “feminine”—traits like mercy, tenderness, softness, quietness, kindness, humility, uncertainty, empathy, connection. We tell them, “Don’t be these things, because these are feminine things to be. Be anything but feminine.” The problem is that the parts of themselves that our boys have been banished from are not feminine traits; they are human traits. There is no such thing as a feminine quality, because there is no such thing as masculinity or femininity. “Femininity” is just a set of human characteristics a culture pours into a bucket and slaps with the label “feminine.”


I don’t want my son to be tamed into loneliness. So when I get stuck carpooling Chase and his friends all over God’s green Earth, I turn down the radio and say:

What was your most embarrassing moment this week?

What’s your favorite thing about Jeff? Juan? Chase?

Hey, guys: Who do you imagine is the loneliest kid in your class?

How do you feel during those active-shooter drills when you’re hiding in the closet with your friends?

In the rearview mirror, I catch them rolling their eyes at each other. Then they start talking, and I marvel at how interesting their inner thoughts, feelings, and ideas are.

My friend Jason told me that for the entirety of his childhood, he had cried only in the bathroom because his tears would bother his father and mother. “Man up,” they’d say.

He told me that he and his wife, Natasha, were trying to raise their son differently. They want Tyler to be able to express all of his emotions safely, so Jason has been modeling vulnerability by expressing himself more openly in front of his son and his wife. After he told me that he said, “This might be in my head, but I feel like when I try to get vulnerable, Natasha gets uncomfortable. She says she wants me to be sensitive, but the two times I’ve cried in front of her or admitted that I was afraid, I’ve felt her pull back.”

Natasha is my dear friend, so I asked her about that. When I told her what Jason had said, she looked surprised: “I can’t believe he noticed that, but he’s right. When he cries, I feel weird. I am embarrassed to say that what I feel is kind of like disgust. Last month he admitted that he was afraid about money. I told him we would get through it together, but, on the inside, I felt myself thinking: Man up, dude. MAN UP? I’m a feminist, for God’s sake. It’s terrible. It doesn’t make any sense.”

It’s not terrible, and it makes perfect sense. Since women are equally poisoned by our culture’s standards of manhood, we panic when men venture out of their cages. Our panic shames them right back in. So we must decide whether we want our partners, our brothers, our sons to be strong and alone or free and held.

I am proud of even my limited athletic career of little-league football and high school wrestling, with a little cross-country thrown in. But I have to admit that a key motivation for doing that athletics was the fear that as a bookworm I wouldn’t be seen as masculine enough and so would be teased. Moreover, I leaned toward fairly hard-edged intellectual debate because it seemed masculine—one more way to try to avoid being teased for not being masculine enough.


Cell Phones for Kids:

I was once talking to a Silicon Valley executive who had played an integral role in the creation and proliferation of cell phones. I asked how old her kids had been when she’d bought them phones. She laughed and said, “Oh, my kids don’t have phones.” “Ah,” I said. Don’t get your kids high on your own supply. Those who made the phones are creative people, and they want their children to become people who create, not just consume. They don’t want their children searching for themselves out there; they want them discovering themselves in here. They know that phones were designed to keep us addicted to exterior life and that if we never dive inward, we never become who we were meant to be.

The dangers of social media in particular for young minds is one of the themes of The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Based on timing, they tie the rise in depression and anxiety among college freshwoman to having a “Like” button in service during the impressionable middle-school years. (Males were somewhat protected by leaning toward video games more than social media.) The recommendation is to not let children have fully-enabled cell phone until high school at the earliest.

Racism and Antiracism:

I imagined myself to be the kind of white person who would have stood with Dr. King because I respect him now. Close to 90 percent of white Americans approve of Dr. King today. Yet while he was alive and demanding change, only about 30 percent approved of him—the same rate of white Americans who approve of Colin Kaepernick today. So, if I want to know how I’d have felt about Dr. King back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about him now; instead I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Kaepernick now? If I want to know how I’d have felt about the Freedom Riders back then, I can’t ask myself how I feel about them now; instead, I have to ask myself: How do I feel about Black Lives Matter now? If I want to know how I’d have shown up in the last civil rights era, I have to ask myself: How am I showing up today, in this civil rights era?

So I will commit to showing up with deep humility and doing the best I can. I will keep getting it wrong, which is the closest I can come to getting it right. When I am corrected, I will stay open and keep learning. Not because I want to be the wokest woke who ever woked. But because people’s children are dying of racism, and there is no such thing as other people’s children. Hidden racism is destroying and ending lives.

What I didn’t know back then is that there are several valid and contradictory schools of thought about how white women should show up in the racial justice movement. One view: White women—when accountable to and led by women of color—should use our voices and platforms to call other white women into anti-racism work. Another view: White women should only use their voices to point to people of color already doing the work. Those who subscribed to the latter philosophy were furious with me about this webinar. Why would you try to teach instead of pointing toward women of color who are already doing this work?

Why would you take up space in this movement when so many women of color have been doing this work forever? You offering a free course is taking money out of black educators’ pockets. Offering a “safe space” for white women to talk about race is wrong—white women don’t need to be safe; they need to be educated. You are canceled. You are a racist. You are a racist, Glennon. You are nothing but a racist. Everywhere, the word racist.

I talk to women all the time about how the misogyny pumped into the air by our culture affects us deeply. How it corrupts our ideas about ourselves and pits women against each other. How that programmed poison makes us sick and mean. How we all have to work hard to detox from it so that we don’t keep hurting ourselves and other women. Women cry and nod and say, “Yes, yes, me, too. I’ve got misogyny in me, and I want it out.” No one is terrified to admit she has internalized misogyny, because there is no morality attached to the admission. No one decides that being affected by misogyny makes her a bad person. When a woman says she wants to work to detox herself of misogyny, she is not labeled a misogynist. It is understood that there is a difference between a misogynist and a person affected by misogyny who is actively working to detox. They both have misogyny in them, programmed by the system, but the former is using it to wield power to hurt people and the latter is working to untangle herself from its power so she can stop hurting people

But then when I bring up racism, the same women say, “But I’m not racist. I am not prejudiced. I was raised better than that.”

We are not going to get the racism out of us until we start thinking about racism like we think about misogyny. Until we consider racism as not just a personal moral failing but as the air we’ve been breathing. How many images of black bodies being thrown to the ground have I ingested? How many photographs of jails filled with black bodies have I seen? How many racist jokes have I swallowed? We have been deluged by stories and images meant to convince us that black men are dangerous, black women are dispensable, and black bodies are worth less than white bodies. These messages are in the air and we’ve just been breathing. We must decide that admitting to being poisoned by racism is not a moral failing—but denying we have poison in us certainly is.

In America, there are not two kinds of people, racists and nonracists. There are three kinds of people: those poisoned by racism and actively choosing to spread it; those poisoned by racism and actively trying to detox; and those poisoned by racism who deny its very existence inside them.

In the last week, I have been thinking a lot about racism and antiracism. Some thoughts:

  • For at least half a century, a large fraction of the people in our culture have been working on antiracism. Clearly, these efforts have not been entirely effective. It is totally legitimate to question whether doubling down on the antiracism methods in common use is the best way to go.

  • Field experiments and associated analysis examining the effects of antiracism interventions is an important way that economists can contribute to antiracism. (As one example, I have heard that standard corporate diversity training has been examined in this way and found wanting.)

  • To me, limiting antiracism efforts or even antiracism leadership to only those of particular races or particular ethnicities seems like a mistake. Obviously, those who have not directly experienced racist denigration directed at them should approach this area with great humility and eagerness to hear about the experiences of those who have. But the value of competition in ideas should extend to encouraging even white people who feel so inspired to try to innovate in the difficult area of antiracism.

  • I hate the idea of people being told to shut up. This is a visceral thing for me. I think that in particular, people vulnerably sharing their own experiences is quite valuable. The vulnerable sharing of the experiences of those who have been racially denigrated is probably relatively more important for antiracism, but there is likely to be some value in white people vulnerably sharing their own experiences. (On vulnerability, don’t miss these two TED talks by the academician Brene Brown: “The power of vulnerability” and “Listening to shame.”)

  • In line with the last two passages from Untamed I have above, I find a “mindfulness” approach to antiracism inspiring. Let’s acknowledge and shine a light on even buried, unconscious racism and institutional racism wherever we find it. But just as those being trained to meditate are told not to make themselves wrong for their “monkey mind” but rather gently bring themselves back to the meditation practice when their mind wanders, let us be gentle with those who try to fight their own racism but have (unsurprisingly) failed to fully eradicate it from their minds and hearts. (We can be much tougher on those who either glory in their own racism or refuse to acknowledge and fight the racism that they carry.)

  • “Extremists” tend to be an important ingredient in social change because it is only the existence of extremists who make “moderates” look moderate. But note that this principle only applies to extremists of a type for which a moderate version of that view has some appeal. (Relatedly, see my discussion of “hippie-punching” in “Will Women Ever Get the Mormon Priesthood?”)

Gay Rights Shouldn’t Depend on Whether Being Gay is Genetic

What I want to say is: What if I wasn’t born this way at all? What if I married Abby not just because I’m gay but because I’m smart? What if I did choose my sexuality and my marriage and they are simply the truest, wisest, most beautiful, most faithful, most divine decisions I’ve ever made in my entire life? What if I have come to see same-gender love as a really solid choice—just a brilliant idea? Something I would highly recommend?

And what if I demand freedom not because I was “born this way” and “can’t help it” but because I can do whatever I choose to do with my love and my body from year to year, moment to moment—because I’m a grown woman who does not need any excuse to live however I want to live and love whomever I want to love?

What if I don’t need your permission slip because I’m already free?

I addressed some of this issue in “New Evidence on the Genetics of Homosexuality.” But Glennon has a much more powerful statement of human liberation in this passage:

What if I don’t need your permission slip because I’m already free?

The History of the Anti-Abortion and Anti-Gay Movements

I did my research. Turns out, the memo he was trying to pass me—“A good Christian bases her faith on disapproving of gays and abortion”—started being issued only forty years ago. In the 1970s, a few rich, powerful, white, (outwardly) straight men got worried about losing their right to continue racially segregating their private Christian schools and maintaining their tax-exempt status. Those men began to feel their money and power being threatened by the civil rights movement. In order to regain control, they needed to identify an issue that would be emotional and galvanizing enough to unite and politically activate their evangelical followers for the first time.

They decided to focus on abortion. Before then—a full six years after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision—the prevailing evangelical position was that life began with the baby’s first breath, at birth. Most evangelical leaders had been indifferent to the Court’s decision in Roe, and some were cited as supporting the ruling. Not anymore. They wrote a new memo using freshly feigned outrage and rhetoric calling for “a holy war…to lead the nation back to the moral stance that made America great.” They sponsored a meeting of 15,000 pastors—called The Religious Roundtable—to train pastors on how to convince their congregations to vote for antichoice, antigay candidates. This is how they disseminated the memo down to evangelical ministers, who passed it down to pews across America. The memo read, To be aligned with Jesus, to have family values, to be moral, one must be against abortion and gay people and vote for the candidate that is antiabortion and antigay.

Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan—who, as governor of California had signed into law one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country—began using the language from the new memo. Evangelicals threw their weight behind him, and voted in a bloc for the first time to elect President Reagan. The Religious Right was born. The face of the movement was the “pro-life and pro-family values” stance of millions, but the blood running through the movement’s veins was the racism and greed of a few.

I find this fascinating. I wish I knew how accurate this historical account is. It sounds like something that might well be contested. But if true, this provides an important perspective.

Being Inspired Instead of Envious

When I see a joyful, confident woman moving through the world with swagger, I’m going to forgive myself for my first reaction because it’s not my fault, it’s just my conditioning.

First reaction: Who the hell does she think she is?

Second reaction: She knows she’s a goddamn cheetah.

The same principle applies to human liberation more generally. Other things that other people have may be harder to get. But if you seem someone who has an attitude you envy, there is a good chance that with some work, tou can get that attitude too.

Glennon Doyle (right) and her wife Abby Wambach (left). Image source.

Glennon Doyle (right) and her wife Abby Wambach (left). Image source.

The Federalist Papers #10 B: The Larger the Republic, the Easier It is to Find Thoughtful Legislators and the Harder It is to Put Together a Majority to do Unjust Things—James Madison

Link to the Wikipedia article “Solon”Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #10

Link to the Wikipedia article “Solon”

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #10

In the first half of the Federalist Papers #10, James Madison argues that “Conflicts Arising from Differences of Opinion Are an Inevitable Accompaniment of Liberty.” In the second half, James Madison is interested in how to avoid those differences of opinion leading to oppression of the minority by the majority. He argues that large republics have two advantages for avoiding such oppression: in a large republic,

  1. there are more people to choose from as elected representatives, while the number of elected representative doesn’t need to go up proportionately, so the electorate can be choosier, and

  2. the bad things people want to legislate are more diverse, so it is harder to get together a majority for something truly bad—and harder to get together a critical mass for succeeding in an unconstitutional conspiracy.

These two points are closely related to the two ways James Madison sees for avoiding oppression of a political minority by the majority. With my notes added in brackets, here is what he says on that:

Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented [diversity of bad things people want to do helps], or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression [representatives instead of direct democracy helps if some legislators are public-spirited, and it is harder to organize a successful unconstitutional action in a large nation].

Let me back up James Madison on these points.

First, I do think our national politicians are, on average, smarter and more competent than our state and local politicians, while the state and local politicians are more corrupt than our national politicians. It might not seem that way, because a greater share of the corruption of national politicians is revealed by the more numerous press covering them than the share of corruption revealed of state and local politicians. But actively recalling stories of corruption by state and local politicians can give a more balanced perspective. (I’d love to see some comparable statistics on corruption by national politicians as compared to corruption to state and local politicians.)

Second, although we have quite a bit of polarization of our national politics, and for substantial fractions of our national history, there were majorities for racial and gender and sexual injustice, there are types of injustice for which there are likely majorities at the state level but not at the national level. James Madison gives the example of the oppression of religious minorities with laws that suit the religious majority:

A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source.

And even in our polarized time, it is clear that the extreme left wing and the extreme right wing have an easier time putting together a majority in an individual state than in the United States as a whole. Just think of the states that are dominated by these two extremes.

It must be admitted that the problem of the majority enacting unjust laws remains with us. But I think James Madison is right that the problem would be worse if each state were a separate nation. Just look at the European Union: some of the nations within it have gone significantly away from respect for the rights of political minorities. If the European Union were a nation rather than a group of nations, fair treatment of political minorities might prevail somewhat more uniformly.

FEDERALIST NO. 10

The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection

From the New York Packet
Friday, November 23, 1787.

Author: James Madison

To the People of the State of New York:

…
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.

By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations:

In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.

In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.

It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures.

The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought within the compass of republican than of democratic government; and it is this circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.

Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic,--is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage.

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.

In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.


Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

Christian Kimball: Doubting Thomas

Link to the Wikipedia article for this painting: “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,” by Caravaggio

Link to the Wikipedia article for this painting: “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,” by Caravaggio

I am pleased to have another guest post on religion from my brother Chris. You can see other guest posts by Chris listed at the bottom of this post.

Doubting Thomas

The Octave Day of Easter or Sunday after Easter is variously called White Sunday, Renewal Sunday, Low Sunday (Anglican; 20th century Roman Catholic), Divine Mercy Sunday (21st century Roman Catholic), Antipascha (Orthodox), or Thomas Sunday (especially among Byzantine Rite Christians). By any name, the traditional gospel reading for this day is the story of Doubting Thomas.

In John 20 (but not the other Gospels) we read about Thomas who said

Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. (John 20:25 KJV) 

The phrase “doubting Thomas” has come to be a negative term. Just check out Wikipedia: “A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience.” It’s the “refuses” that signals moral judgment. They will say "if only you would choose to believe, all would be well. Just choose."

I am a self-confessed doubting Thomas. As I have written elsewhere:

I am a skeptic, an empiricist, a Bayesian. . . . A skeptic questions the possibility of certainty or knowledge about anything (even knowledge about knowing). An empiricist recognizes experience derived from the senses. A Bayesian views knowledge as constantly updating degrees of belief. In a functional sense, in the way it works in my life, I only know anything as a product of neurochemicals and hormones in the present.

Isn’t it possible that Thomas’ “I will not believe” is a simple statement of fact? As opposed to the childish playground taunt “prove it!”, maybe he was just saying “Guys, it won’t happen. Sorry about that but it’s how I’m built.”

What is important to me is that Jesus came. What modern criticism of doubters and skeptics would hint at is an alternate ending where Jesus went away, shunning Thomas the unbeliever. But what we’re taught is that Jesus came. Jesus came and said, “Peace be unto you. Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side.” And Thomas replied “My Lord and my God.”

Yes, maybe there is a message that skepticism is second best, second to believing without seeing. If that is so, I’ll accept second place. Because I have no choice, because I cannot do otherwise. For me, the important message is that Jesus came to Thomas. And Thomas saw and knew.

My “testimony” to fellow unbelievers is to be a doubting Thomas if that is how you are built. Jesus Himself proved it's OK. And maybe somewhere, someday, maybe on the road, maybe not in the middle of a church, Jesus will come to you. Too.

Chris circulated this essay among a small group of people before its appearance here. So it comes with an instant comment section:

>I think this is a perennial topic. I like the idea that there are people naturally constituted as skeptics who still need to be ministered to. 

>I don't think Thomas was chastised for his skepticism. After all, it is difficult to believe that a dead person is no longer dead. I think he was chastised because he refused to believe the testimonies of many honorable men that he knew. To clearly understand what they are testifying of, to be able to question them thoroughly, and yet to doubt what they are saying, is to put yourself in the prideful position of being a superior potential witness: "I would not have been so easily fooled had I been there."

>I read D&C 46:11-14 as instructive:

For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God. To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby. To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful.

To my way of thinking, if it was not Thomas’ gift to believe on their words, then he is not “accountable” for rejecting the testimony of witnesses and desiring to see for himself. 

>But for the skeptic, "believing on their words" is hard. 

>Agreed but I wouldn't use "But." All have not every gift is to say some--i.e., skeptics--do not have the "gift" to believe on their words. Quoting scripture is a way to say it is not a fault or failing (for an audience that gives credence to scripture), but simply part of the human condition. 

>The testimony that the Holy Ghost can deliver to people is not the same kind of truth that a court of law seeks to establish. The testimony that Thomas' fellow apostles offered to him was the former type.

>The various kinds of testimony—of the Holy Ghost, of a trusted friend, of an otherwise anonymous neighbor—does make sense to me. People do make distinctions and weight them differently and take multiple factors into account in assessing the strength and reliability. I place more weight on the words of a trusted friend. That’s almost tautological—that’s what “trusted” means to me. Many religious people argue that the testimony of the Holy Ghost is of a different class, a different kind of testimony or knowledge. Like a direct line to knowledge or the ultimate source. It doesn’t work that way for me. Certainly, some evidence and some testimony is better or more persuasive than others, but I remain a skeptic throughout. Others have told me they are like me, so I don’t feel alone or an isolated instance of a skeptic. Although I cannot know, in my imagination Thomas was like me.

>If someone claims that the Holy Ghost told them something, that is for their benefit only, unless the message is from a church leader. Then I will follow it because that's my duty as a member, not that I necessarily believe it. I still need evidence that appeals to my sense of reason.

>Is it the words of the church leader you have a duty to follow? Or is it the testimony of the Holy Ghost to you about those words that you have a duty to follow?

>Prophets, priests, and ministers, have a tendency to communicate that (a) they know, and (b) listeners have an obligation to believe on their words. A skeptic says it doesn't work that way for me, as a statement of fact. In effect, this discussion is about the conflict between the attempt to impose an obligation and the observed fact that it doesn't happen.

>I remember reading the account in the New Testament for the first time myself and thinking Thomas's response to the others' statement as most reasonable. I had heard negative comments about Thomas and his supposed unbelief as though it were denial. The sort of short-hand comments people throw around when describing others. But when I read the account for myself, it read naturally, that Thomas didn't doubt the others' belief in their belief or their reality of their experience. I'm glad Thomas was not there that first day Christ returned. That gives me hope there will come a time when I too will know.

>Is knowing better than having faith? Maybe “knowing” will never be my gift and maybe “having faith” is the greater gift, or the gift for me.

Don’t miss these other guest posts by Chris:

In addition, Chris is my coauthor for

Don't miss these posts on Mormonism:

Also see the links in "Hal Boyd: The Ignorance of Mocking Mormonism."

Don’t miss these Unitarian-Universalist sermons by Miles:

By self-identification, I left Mormonism for Unitarian Universalism in 2000, at the age of 40. I have had the good fortune to be a lay preacher in Unitarian Universalism. I have posted many of my Unitarian-Universalist sermons on this blog.

The Federalist Papers #10 A: Conflicts Arising from Differences of Opinion Are an Inevitable Accompaniment of Liberty—James Madison

image sourceLink to the full text of the Federalist Papers #10

image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #10

Partisanship is an inevitable accompaniment to democracy. Partisanship can be more or less unpleasant, and more or less destructive of friendly relationships, but it will be there. In the Federalist Papers #10, James Madison argues that we can’t get rid of what he calls “faction (which we might define as energetic differences of opinion that affect politics) but that we can mitigate the baleful effects of faction.

The beginning of the Federalist Paper #10 details some of the baleful effects of faction:

  • violence

  • instability

  • injustice

  • confusion

  • disregard of the public good

  • violation of the rights of those in the minority

  • overbearing laws

  • distrust of government

To see how James Madison says this, take a look at the first paragraph of #10:

|| Federalist No. 10 || 

The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection
From the New York Packet.
Friday, November 23, 1787.

Author: James Madison

To the People of the State of New York:

AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.

Above, I defined faction as “energetic differences of opinion that affect politics.” James Madison’s definition is next in #10:

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

James Madison’s main theme in #10 is about controlling the effect of faction. But he must first argue that the causes of faction cannot be eliminated.

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

For James Madison’s readers, arguing that we shouldn’t eliminate faction by eliminating liberty is easy:

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

Then he needs to argue that differences of opinion are inevitable. Here he argues based both on human nature and on differences of self-interest.

James Madison says this about human nature giving rise to differences of opinion:

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

With no paragraph break, James Madison goes on to discuss differences of self-interest giving rise to differences of opinion:

But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

Next, James Madison refers to a principle enunciated by John Locke: “People Must Not Be Judges in Their Own Cases.” His intended audience is familiar enough with John Locke’s principle that he doesn’t even mention the name “John Locke.” James Madison says that when broad groups of people have similar interests, it can be difficult for legislation not to involve a group of people effectively being judge in their own collective case. This opens up the way for injustice and the other evils mentioned above. Here is how James Madison argues this point:

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.

It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

The bottom line is that partisanship or “faction” is going to be a problem for any democracy beyond a tiny number of people. So ways are needed to manage it. James Madison sums up this part of his argument thus:

The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.

Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far:

The Wisdom of Jerome Powell

For the video above: YouTube link; Brookings link; link to full text on the Federal Reserve Board website

Crises often reveal the strengths and weaknesses of leaders. Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell’s April 9, 2020 speech on COVID-19 and the economy impressed me. Let me highlight some passages in his speech that struck me as especially wise. First:

None of us has the luxury of choosing our challenges; fate and history provide them for us. Our job is to meet the tests we are presented.

According to Rod Dreher, this echoes Gandalf:

A young man once confided to a religious elder his anxiety over the hard times in which he was living. This is natural, said the elder, but such things are beyond our control: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

In fact, the anxious youngster was no man, but a hobbit, Frodo Baggins; the religious elder was the wizard Gandalf, to whom Frodo disclosed his fear on the road to the evil realm of Mordor. 

(From the April 30, 2020 Wall Street Journal op-ed “Courage in the Darkness,” by Rod Dreher.)

Second, both because social-distancing and shutdowns are mandated by the government and because being poor makes every dollar count more, Jerome Powell says we should be conscious of those of low or moderate income who are taking on great burdens as a result of our COVID-19-fighting strategy:

All of us are affected, but the burdens are falling most heavily on those least able to carry them. It is worth remembering that the measures we are taking to contain the virus represent an essential investment in our individual and collective health. As a society, we should do everything we can to provide relief to those who are suffering for the public good.

Third, he emphasizes that the Fed is engaged in lending programs, not spending programs.

Many of the programs we are undertaking to support the flow of credit rely on emergency lending powers that are available only in very unusual circumstances—such as those we find ourselves in today—and only with the consent of the Secretary of the Treasury. We are deploying these lending powers to an unprecedented extent, enabled in large part by the financial backing from Congress and the Treasury. We will continue to use these powers forcefully, proactively, and aggressively until we are confident that we are solidly on the road to recovery.

I would stress that these are lending powers, not spending powers. The Fed is not authorized to grant money to particular beneficiaries. The Fed can only make secured loans to solvent entities with the expectation that the loans will be fully repaid. 

Of course, some of the lending is to lending entities from which the Fed expects repayment only because the US Treasury and Congress are backstopping the solvency of the entity.

[Update, May 17, 2020: Fourth, he both recognizes how hard the pandemic has been on people economically as well as medically, but remains optimistic for the medium- and long-run:

This is a time of great suffering and difficulty and it’s come on so quickly and with such force that you really can’t put into words the pain people are feeling and the uncertainty they’re realizing. But I would just say this: In the long run, and even in the medium run, you wouldn’t want to bet against the American economy.]

There is only one part of Jerome Powell’s speech that to me strikes a false note. He writes of cutting interest rates to zero as if that were a dramatic action. But there is nothing special about zero. The Fed’s target rate could easily go lower. Here is what he says:

The Fed can also contribute in important ways: by providing a measure of relief and stability during this period of constrained economic activity, and by using our tools to ensure that the eventual recovery is as vigorous as possible.

To those ends, we have lowered interest rates to near zero in order to bring down borrowing costs.

Compare that discussion of zero as if zero were special to the discussion the importance of negative interest rates in these two recent posts:

History may judge Jerome Powell in important measure on whether he is willing to use negative interest rates to get us out of the hole our economy is in some months from now. The “how” of negative interest rates is now well-worked out, the President of the United States is supportive of negative rates, and there is a clear legal path to negative rates in the United States. So there is no excuse not to use them if they are needed, as they are likely to be.

But I’ll let Jerome Powell have the last words:

I want to close by thanking the millions on the front lines: those working in health care, sanitation, transportation, grocery stores, warehouses, deliveries, security—including our own team at the Federal Reserve—and countless others. Day after day, you have put yourselves in harm's way for others: to care for us, to ensure we have access to the things we need, and to help us through this difficult time.

The Federalist Papers #9 B: A Large Confederation May Be More Politically Stable Than a Small Nation—Alexander Hamilton Cites Montesquieu

image sourceLink to the full text of the Federalist Papers #9

image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #9

Alexander Hamilton considered Montesquieu to be in such high regard among his readers that in the Federalist Paper #9, he takes pains

  1. to parry Montesquieu’s praise of small nations

  2. to trumpet Montesquieu’s praise of confederations

  3. to argue that it is OK to have the federal government interject itself into state governments to a considerable extent

  4. to argue that it is OK to have more populous states have more votes in the federal government.

The subject to which Alexander Hamilton applies this treatment of Montesquieu is the “enlargement of the orbit” of the type of republican systems that existed within each of the states:

To this catalogue of circumstances that tend to the amelioration of popular systems of civil government, I shall venture, however novel it may appear to some, to add one more, on a principle which has been made the foundation of an objection to the new Constitution; I mean the ENLARGEMENT of the ORBIT within which such systems are to revolve, either in respect to the dimensions of a single State or to the consolidation of several smaller States into one great Confederacy. The latter is that which immediately concerns the object under consideration. It will, however, be of use to examine the principle in its application to a single State, which shall be attended to in another place.

Alexander Hamilton parries Montesquieu’s praise of small nations by pointing out that following this opinion of Montesquieu would require breaking up some of the larger of the thirteen states, then depending on his readers to think that would be a ridiculous thing to do:

The utility of a Confederacy, as well to suppress faction and to guard the internal tranquillity of States, as to increase their external force and security, is in reality not a new idea. It has been practiced upon in different countries and ages, and has received the sanction of the most approved writers on the subject of politics. The opponents of the plan proposed have, with great assiduity, cited and circulated the observations of Montesquieu on the necessity of a contracted territory for a republican government. But they seem not to have been apprised of the sentiments of that great man expressed in another part of his work, nor to have adverted to the consequences of the principle to which they subscribe with such ready acquiescence.

When Montesquieu recommends a small extent for republics, the standards he had in view were of dimensions far short of the limits of almost every one of these States. Neither Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, nor Georgia can by any means be compared with the models from which he reasoned and to which the terms of his description apply. If we therefore take his ideas on this point as the criterion of truth, we shall be driven to the alternative either of taking refuge at once in the arms of monarchy, or of splitting ourselves into an infinity of little, jealous, clashing, tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord, and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt. Some of the writers who have come forward on the other side of the question seem to have been aware of the dilemma; and have even been bold enough to hint at the division of the larger States as a desirable thing. Such an infatuated policy, such a desperate expedient, might, by the multiplication of petty offices, answer the views of men who possess not qualifications to extend their influence beyond the narrow circles of personal intrigue, but it could never promote the greatness or happiness of the people of America.

Then Alexander Hamilton cites Montequieu as seeing great virtues in a confederation. (I am trying to use forms of the word that do not conjure up the Civil War Confederacy.) Montesquieu’s main arguments in favor of what he calls a “confederate republic” are:

  • A large enough confederation has enough military power to provide security against external threats.

  • It is harder for a tyrant to gain power in a large confederation than in a small nation.

  • It is harder for a popular insurrection to succeed in a large confederation than in a small nation.

Here is how Alexander Hamilton cites Montesquieu in these regards (I tried to make one footnote easier to understand):

Referring the examination of the principle itself to another place, as has been already mentioned, it will be sufficient to remark here that, in the sense of the author who has been most emphatically quoted upon the occasion, it would only dictate a reduction of the SIZE of the more considerable MEMBERS of the Union, but would not militate against their being all comprehended in one confederate government. And this is the true question, in the discussion of which we are at present interested.

So far are the suggestions of Montesquieu from standing in opposition to a general Union of the States, that he explicitly treats of a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC as the expedient for extending the sphere of popular government, and reconciling the advantages of monarchy with those of republicanism.

"It is very probable,'' (says he [“The Spirit of the Laws,'' vol. i., book ix., chap. i.] ) "that mankind would have been obliged at length to live constantly under the government of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of constitution that has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the external force of a monarchical government. I mean a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC.

"This form of government is a convention by which several smaller STATES agree to become members of a larger ONE, which they intend to form. It is a kind of assemblage of societies that constitute a new one, capable of increasing, by means of new associations, till they arrive to such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of the united body.

"A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may support itself without any internal corruptions. The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.

"If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme authority, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and credit in all the confederate states. Were he to have too great influence over one, this would alarm the rest. Were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of those which he had usurped and overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation.

"Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate states the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The state may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the confederacy may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve their sovereignty.

"As this government is composed of small republics, it enjoys the internal happiness of each; and with respect to its external situation, it is possessed, by means of the association, of all the advantages of large monarchies.''

I have thought it proper to quote at length these interesting passages, because they contain a luminous abridgment of the principal arguments in favor of the Union, and must effectually remove the false impressions which a misapplication of other parts of the work was calculated to make. They have, at the same time, an intimate connection with the more immediate design of this paper; which is, to illustrate the tendency of the Union to repress domestic faction and insurrection.

Alexander Hamilton was a proponent of a strong federal government. He was also a proponent of more populous states having more votes within the federal government. He is alert to set out arguments in favor of both of these. He begins by simply saying the case for a weak federal government or equal voting power by each state is not clear and asserts without providing evidence that equal voting power in a confederation regardless of population “has been the cause of incurable disorder and imbecility in the government:

A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised between a CONFEDERACY and a CONSOLIDATION of the States. The essential characteristic of the first is said to be, the restriction of its authority to the members in their collective capacities, without reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. It is contended that the national council ought to have no concern with any object of internal administration. An exact equality of suffrage between the members has also been insisted upon as a leading feature of a confederate government. These positions are, in the main, arbitrary; they are supported neither by principle nor precedent. It has indeed happened, that governments of this kind have generally operated in the manner which the distinction taken notice of, supposes to be inherent in their nature; but there have been in most of them extensive exceptions to the practice, which serve to prove, as far as example will go, that there is no absolute rule on the subject. And it will be clearly shown in the course of this investigation that as far as the principle contended for has prevailed, it has been the cause of incurable disorder and imbecility in the government.

Alexander Hamilton then argues that the proposed Constitution doesn’t take away too much power from the states:

The definition of a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC seems simply to be "an assemblage of societies,'' or an association of two or more states into one state. The extent, modifications, and objects of the federal authority are mere matters of discretion. So long as the separate organization of the members be not abolished; so long as it exists, by a constitutional necessity, for local purposes; though it should be in perfect subordination to the general authority of the union, it would still be, in fact and in theory, an association of states, or a confederacy. The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

Finally, Alexander Hamilton cites Montesquieu to argue it is OK for a federal government to interject itself into state government affairs in an important way and that voting rights in the federal government that depend on population are OK:

In the Lycian confederacy, which consisted of twenty-three CITIES or republics, the largest were entitled to THREE votes in the COMMON COUNCIL, those of the middle class to TWO, and the smallest to ONE. The COMMON COUNCIL had the appointment of all the judges and magistrates of the respective CITIES. This was certainly the most, delicate species of interference in their internal administration; for if there be any thing that seems exclusively appropriated to the local jurisdictions, it is the appointment of their own officers. Yet Montesquieu, speaking of this association, says: "Were I to give a model of an excellent Confederate Republic, it would be that of Lycia.'' Thus we perceive that the distinctions insisted upon were not within the contemplation of this enlightened civilian; and we shall be led to conclude, that they are the novel refinements of an erroneous theory.

PUBLIUS.

Bex's Rules for Life

image source

image source

Bex Bassin is one of my “tribe” members from the Co-Active Training Institute Leadership Program that I am in. (See “Vicky Biggs Pradhan: How Crises Make Us Rethink Our Lives.) She had a wonderful analogy between her approach to making mosaics and an approach to life, so I asked her to do this guest post. Here are Bex’s words:

Rules to live by. (As lifted from mosaic principles)

To begin, start with a sketch. Actually, the very beginning starts with inspiration. I’ll see a tree in the moonlight and imagine how it could look made from shards of glass. I'll feel a sense of curiosity and power as I imagine my own enchanted interpretation of this tree.  Light filtering through colored glass creates a hypnotic sensory delight. I don’t know how long I stare at the tree.  Maybe it’s only a minute or maybe it turns into an awkward and uncomfortable few minutes for whoever is standing with me. As I stare, I’m translating my view into the specs and prep for a new project. How will I reflect the light from the moon?  How dark should I make the tree? What is the color scheme? I’m imprinting this moment of the silhouetted tree. The anticipation spurs my desire to play and create. 

Commitment is key; glue from the beginning. It’s a waste of time to lay out each piece without glue. I think this is where passion becomes relevant. Like in life, when I hold myself back from fulling committing to hedge my bets, in case it doesn’t work out  or something better comes along, the world responds in kind. I still feel the loss if it doesn’t work out, so I didn’t save myself any heartache by not going all in. If I really don’t like an aspect of the mosaic, I can always take up the pieces that aren’t working when it’s clear there’s a mistake. But my commitment must be sincere here as well because it take effort to undo what I created. 

It’s really about breaking things. The most fun I have with glass mosaics is when it comes to the breaking of the glass. The tactile nature of making my own puzzle pieces and I only know where the belong. There is so much satisfaction in mistreating fragility. I imagine my feminist predecessors felt the same way as they broke through ceilings. I find solace in the unconventionality of breaking a piece of glass and mixing it with other pieces according to my own version of beauty. And it’s a necessary step in the creation of a mosaic. Without breaking glass into shards of various sizes and shapes, there is no material to work with. And leveraging the tools to amplify my strength reminds me that sometimes I need help along the way.

Don’t force the fit, the right piece always lands into the right space. I suspect most humans have some level of anxiety underlying their actions. Since it’s part of our physiology, it must have provided value throughout select points in history. Although, in my own experience of partaking in the hamster wheel of achievement for two decades of my career, it’s hard to see the value of anxiety. The grind, ‘the she who suffers the most’ award, are no longer concepts I aspire to. After I managed to jump off the wheel, I recognized the value of ease and the magic of flow. It’s not random, flow can be cultivated by giving your mind some time off and dropping into your heart. It’s disconcerting at first, but my mind makes poor decisions, if it ever reaches one, when it comes to mosaic play.  This relates to plans as well.  If a piece doesn’t end up in the mosaic, then I didn’t need it. 

Do what you love. I didn’t realize how much I pay attention to color until I started playing with mosaics. Color pops at me from every direction with the vibrancy of a mountain sunrise etches into my mind. I moved to California from the east coast nearly ten years ago. Shortly after moving, I commented to my mother that the sunrises and sunsets are just spectacular on the west coast and I couldn’t even recall seeing anything barely as beautiful on the east coast. She chuckled, and replied, “that’s because you weren’t looking”. 

I enjoy every minute of creating. This continues to take me by surprise. I truly love this play and for a long time, I refused to call myself an artist.   As one would expect, I had the usual doubt that I was any good and didn’t feel like I deserved to use the same label as someone who actually creates beautiful art. And then at some point, It didn’t matter to me. My pieces were for me to create.  Each one felt like a part of me and I was content to keep them all forever. I would adorn every space on every wall, which when I imagine it, would be pure bliss. Each time I look at one of my pieces I’m taken in by it.  The color, the shapes the absolute joy that they emit.  Or maybe the joy is coming from me and its just echoing off the glass back at me. 

The fine print: I recently received a new piece of counsel that I intend to add to my repertoire. *If I’m not having fun; change the rules.

Like me, Bex is a Co-Active Coach. (See “Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life.”) She supports individuals looking to discover and realize their answer to the question: what would you like? Here is her coaching contact information:

email address: bex@coachbex.com 

phone number: (805) 410-3838

Bex Bassin

Bex Bassin

Bex’s most recent mosaic

Bex’s most recent mosaic


The Federalist Papers #9 A: There Has Been Technological Progress in Practical Principles of Republican Government—Alexander Hamilton

image sourceLink to the full text of the Federalist Papers #9

image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #9

In his introduction to the 9th number of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton boldly claims that there has been technological progress in the principles of Republican government. He first reminds readers of how bad things used to be even for cities and nations that had periods of considerable freedom and democracy. Then he very explicitly claims that there has been progress:

The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients.

Finally he lists key principles of republican government that had been discovered. Leaving for a future post his next theme of how larger republic may be more stable, here is his list, with my added bullets:

  • The regular distribution of power into distinct departments;

  • the introduction of legislative balances and checks;

  • the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior;

  • the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election:

He then again, in this specific context, asserts that there has been progress in understanding of the principles of stable republican government:

… these are wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.

Below is all of this in context:

|| Federalist No. 9 || 

The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection
For the Independent Journal.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrast to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open to view, we behold them with a mixture of regret, arising from the reflection that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction and tarnish the lustre of those bright talents and exalted endowments for which the favored soils that produced them have been so justly celebrated.

From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free government as inconsistent with the order of society, and have indulged themselves in malicious exultation over its friends and partisans. Happily for mankind, stupendous fabrics reared on the basis of liberty, which have flourished for ages, have, in a few glorious instances, refuted their gloomy sophisms. And, I trust, America will be the broad and solid foundation of other edifices, not less magnificent, which will be equally permanent monuments of their errors.

But it is not to be denied that the portraits they have sketched of republican government were too just copies of the originals from which they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends to liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of government as indefensible. The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election: these are wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.

'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz (with Janet Mills) and `The Fifth Agreement' by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz (with Janet Mills)

Link to the Amazon page for The Four Agreements

Link to the Amazon page for The Four Agreements

Link to the Amazon page for The Fifth Agreement

Link to the Amazon page for The Fifth Agreement

Easter is a time to think about the Resurrection of Jesus. I write about that in “What If Jesus Was Really Resurrected?” This time, let me stick closer to my nonsupernaturalist commitment by thinking of Jesus as a great wisdom teacher. I wish I were in possession of videos of the historical Jesus to see the powerful presence that I expect he must have been to have the historical impact he had.

In order to help picture what Jesus might have been like as a wisdom teacher, let me consider a currently living wisdom teacher: Don Miguel Ruiz. I assume that if we did have videos of the historical Jesus, Jesus would be an order of magnitude more impressive. But perhaps they could be considered as in the same category.

Jesus as represented in the Gospel of Thomas has the kind of elusive and allusive sayings that one finds in many of the pages of Don Miguel’s books The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement. (Both use the writing assistance of Janet Mills; The Fifth Agreement is coauthored with Don Miguel’s son Don Jose Ruiz. The translation of the Gospel of Thomas I am linking to is by my college Biblical Hebrew professor, Thomas Lambdin.) But even in the canonical gospels, Jesus has many sayings that try to heal our inner worlds as opposed to dealing with the outer world. For example,

  • Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? … Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:27,34)

  • The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22,23)

  •  Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:1-4)

Now, let’s turn to bestselling wisdom teacher Don Miguel Ruiz. (And let me be understood to include his coauthors, Don Jose Ruiz and Janet Miller, who join him in his teaching.) There is much in The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement that is hard to understand, perhaps reflecting the gnomic nature of the “Toltec” wisdom tradition Don Miguel draws from.

Most of what I do understand in The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement can be explained in terms of this wonderful metaphor from The Fifth Agreement:

Imagine that you are in a gigantic mall where there are hundreds of movie theaters. You look around to see what’s playing, and you notice a movie that has your name. Amazing! You go inside the theater, and it’s empty except for one person. Very quietly, trying not to interrupt, you sit behind that person, who doesn’t even notice you; all that person’s attention is on the movie.

You look at the screen, and what a big surprise! You recognize every character in the movie — your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, your beloved, your children, your friends. Then you see the main character of the movie, and it’s you! You are the star of the movie and it’s the story of you. And that person in front of you, well, it’s also you, watching yourself act in the movie. Of course, the main character is just the way you believe you are, and so are all the secondary characters because you know the story of you. After a while, you feel a little overwhelmed by everything you just witnessed, and you decide to go to another theater.

In this theater there is also just one person watching a movie, and she doesn’t even notice when you sit beside her. You start watching the movie, and you recognize all the characters, but now you’re just a secondary character. This is the story of your mother’s life, and she is the one who is watching the movie with all her attention. Then you realize that your mother is not the same person who was in your movie. The way she projects herself is completely different in her movie. It’s the way your mother wants everyone to perceive her. You know that it’s not authentic. She’s just acting. But then you begin to realize that it’s the way she perceives herself, and it’s kind of a shock.

Then you notice that the character who has your face is not the same person who was in your movie. You say to yourself, “Ah, this isn’t me,” but now you can see how your mother perceives you, what she believes about you, and it’s far from what you believe about yourself. Then you see the character of your father, the way your mother perceives him, and it’s not at all the way you perceive him. It’s completely distorted, and so is her perception of all the other characters. You see the way your mother perceives your beloved, and you even get a little upset with your mom. “How dare she!” You stand up and get out of there.

You go to the next theater, and it’s the story of your beloved. Now you can see the way your beloved perceives you, and the character is completely different from the one who was in your movie and the one who was in your mother’s movie. You can see the way your beloved perceives your children, your family, your friends. You can see the way your beloved wants to project him- or herself, and it’s not the way you perceive your beloved at all. Then you decide to leave that movie, and go to your children’s movie. You see the way your children see you, the way they see Grandpa, Grandma, and you can hardly believe it. Then you watch the movies of your brothers and sisters, of your friends, and you find out that everybody is distorting all the characters in their movie.

After seeing all these movies, you decide to return to the first theater to see your own movie once again. You look at yourself acting in your movie, but you no longer believe anything you’re watching; you no longer believe your own story because you can see that it’s just a story. Now you know that all the acting you did your whole life was really for nothing because nobody perceives you the way you want to be perceived. You can see that all the drama that happens in your movie isn’t really noticed by anybody around you. It’s obvious that everybody’s attention is focused on their own movie. They don’t even notice when you’re sitting right beside them in their theater! The actors have all their attention on their story, and that is the only reality they live in. Their attention is so hooked by their own creation that they don’t even notice their own presence — the one who is observing their movie.

Let me explain the five agreements according to my own understanding using this metaphor. One key feature of this metaphor that is clear in the rest of these two books is that each person is scriptwriter and director for her or his own movie. Here are the five agreements.

  1. Be Impeccable With Your Word. This sounds like it is about honesty, integrity and authenticity. I have no doubt Don Miguel is in favor of honesty, integrity and authenticity. But that is not what this agreement is about. Going back to the movie analogy, it is saying that if you are going to tell a story about your life, tell a nice story instead of a nasty one. Here is a key passage from The Fifth Agreement: “You’re telling yourself a story, but is it the truth? If you’re using the word to create a story with self-judgment and self-rejection, then you’re using the word against yourself, and you’re not being impeccable.”

  2. Don't Take Anything Personally. Other people’s movies are funhouse-mirror versions of reality (as is yours). The character in someone else’s movie that has your name typically bears little resemblance either to the character in your movie with your name or to the real you. So take with many grains of salt anything other people think or say about you. Don’t take it personally.

  3. Don't Make Assumptions. Don’t assume that your movie has a solid grasp on reality. Most people’s movies don’t. And don’t assume you know what is going on in someone else’s move: the real world differs from the metaphor above in that you can’t really go into someone else’s movie theater. The best you can do to avoid fooling yourself is to ask good questions of yourself and of other people to try to figure out the lay of the land.

  4. Always Do Your Best. Unlike some big-screen movie characters, you don’t have superhuman abilities. You will often fail. Be kind to yourself as you try to redirect your personal movie in a two-steps-forward-one-step-back pattern.

  5. Be Skeptical, But Learn to Listen. With few exceptions, everyone’s movie is a very distorted version of reality, including yours. So be skeptical. But as pieces of art, each individual’s movie reveals a lot about where they are coming from and what kind of mental box they have put themselves in. So it pays to listen in order to understand.

The Bottom Line: As I have learned from the experience of being a co-active life coach for a dozen people, most people have a lot of mental chatter that leans toward self-criticism. The typical volume of negative mental chatter is a recipe for an unpleasant—often even hellish—internal daily experience. Internal self-flagellation, while very common, is optional. I’ll write a future post about the book Positive Intelligence, by Shirzad Chamine (which is as clear as The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement are enigmatic) in explaining how to weaken your inner judge and make you internal world a little more like heaven than like hell.

Don’t miss these posts on co-active life coaching:

Also, don’t miss the Unitarian-Universalist sermons that I have posted:

The Federalist Papers #8: Without Union, the States Would Either Be Subject to Devastating Wars with Each Other or Would Have Liberty Endangered by their Own Standing Armies—Alexander Hamilton

image sourceLink to the full text of the Federalist Papers #8

image source

Link to the full text of the Federalist Papers #8

Faced with an argument that the proposed Constitution would allow a standing army, Alexander Hamilton parried with the argument that, without the Constitution, the states would end up with standing armies to defend against one another. Moreover, he argued that the transitional period to these standing armies,

War, therefore, would be desultory and predatory. PLUNDER and devastation ever march in the train of irregulars.

This also, is bad.

John Jay in Federalist Papers #5 and Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Papers #6 and #7 had prepared the stage by making the argument that, if not united, the states would be at each others throats. See:

I have to say that, reading his numbers among the Federalist Papers, I am in awe of Alexander Hamilton as a writer and a thinker. The Federalist Papers #8 is a good example of that. Here is Alexander Hamilton:

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

ASSUMING it therefore as an established truth that the several States, in case of disunion, or such combinations of them as might happen to be formed out of the wreck of the general Confederacy, would be subject to those vicissitudes of peace and war, of friendship and enmity, with each other, which have fallen to the lot of all neighboring nations not united under one government, let us enter into a concise detail of some of the consequences that would attend such a situation.

War between the States, in the first period of their separate existence, would be accompanied with much greater distresses than it commonly is in those countries where regular military establishments have long obtained. The disciplined armies always kept on foot on the continent of Europe, though they bear a malignant aspect to liberty and economy, have, notwithstanding, been productive of the signal advantage of rendering sudden conquests impracticable, and of preventing that rapid desolation which used to mark the progress of war prior to their introduction. The art of fortification has contributed to the same ends. The nations of Europe are encircled with chains of fortified places, which mutually obstruct invasion. Campaigns are wasted in reducing two or three frontier garrisons, to gain admittance into an enemy's country. Similar impediments occur at every step, to exhaust the strength and delay the progress of an invader. Formerly, an invading army would penetrate into the heart of a neighboring country almost as soon as intelligence of its approach could be received; but now a comparatively small force of disciplined troops, acting on the defensive, with the aid of posts, is able to impede, and finally to frustrate, the enterprises of one much more considerable. The history of war, in that quarter of the globe, is no longer a history of nations subdued and empires overturned, but of towns taken and retaken; of battles that decide nothing; of retreats more beneficial than victories; of much effort and little acquisition.

In this country the scene would be altogether reversed. The jealousy of military establishments would postpone them as long as possible. The want of fortifications, leaving the frontiers of one state open to another, would facilitate inroads. The populous States would, with little difficulty, overrun their less populous neighbors. Conquests would be as easy to be made as difficult to be retained. War, therefore, would be desultory and predatory. PLUNDER and devastation ever march in the train of irregulars. The calamities of individuals would make the principal figure in the events which would characterize our military exploits.

This picture is not too highly wrought; though, I confess, it would not long remain a just one. Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under it. [This objection will be fully examined in its proper place, and it will be shown that the only natural precaution which could have been taken on this subject has been taken; and a much better one than is to be found in any constitution that has been heretofore framed in America, most of which contain no guard at all on this subject.] Their existence, however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most, problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be replied, must inevitably result from a dissolution of the Confederacy. Frequent war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce them. The weaker States or confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.

The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the States or confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their neighbors. Small states, or states of less natural strength, under vigorous governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the pride nor the safety of the more important States or confederacies would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus, we should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country the same engines of despotism which have been the scourge of the Old World. This, at least, would be the natural course of things; and our reasonings will be the more likely to be just, in proportion as they are accommodated to this standard.

These are not vague inferences drawn from supposed or speculative defects in a Constitution, the whole power of which is lodged in the hands of a people, or their representatives and delegates, but they are solid conclusions, drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.

It may, perhaps, be asked, by way of objection to this, why did not standing armies spring up out of the contentions which so often distracted the ancient republics of Greece? Different answers, equally satisfactory, may be given to this question. The industrious habits of the people of the present day, absorbed in the pursuits of gain, and devoted to the improvements of agriculture and commerce, are incompatible with the condition of a nation of soldiers, which was the true condition of the people of those republics. The means of revenue, which have been so greatly multiplied by the increase of gold and silver and of the arts of industry, and the science of finance, which is the offspring of modern times, concurring with the habits of nations, have produced an entire revolution in the system of war, and have rendered disciplined armies, distinct from the body of the citizens, the inseparable companions of frequent hostility.

There is a wide difference, also, between military establishments in a country seldom exposed by its situation to internal invasions, and in one which is often subject to them, and always apprehensive of them. The rulers of the former can have a good pretext, if they are even so inclined, to keep on foot armies so numerous as must of necessity be maintained in the latter. These armies being, in the first case, rarely, if at all, called into activity for interior defense, the people are in no danger of being broken to military subordination. The laws are not accustomed to relaxations, in favor of military exigencies; the civil state remains in full vigor, neither corrupted, nor confounded with the principles or propensities of the other state. The smallness of the army renders the natural strength of the community an over-match for it; and the citizens, not habituated to look up to the military power for protection, or to submit to its oppressions, neither love nor fear the soldiery; they view them with a spirit of jealous acquiescence in a necessary evil, and stand ready to resist a power which they suppose may be exerted to the prejudice of their rights. The army under such circumstances may usefully aid the magistrate to suppress a small faction, or an occasional mob, or insurrection; but it will be unable to enforce encroachments against the united efforts of the great body of the people.

In a country in the predicament last described, the contrary of all this happens. The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors, but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them masters, is neither remote nor difficult; but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under such impressions, to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpations supported by the military power.

The kingdom of Great Britain falls within the first description. An insular situation, and a powerful marine, guarding it in a great measure against the possibility of foreign invasion, supersede the necessity of a numerous army within the kingdom. A sufficient force to make head against a sudden descent, till the militia could have time to rally and embody, is all that has been deemed requisite. No motive of national policy has demanded, nor would public opinion have tolerated, a larger number of troops upon its domestic establishment. There has been, for a long time past, little room for the operation of the other causes, which have been enumerated as the consequences of internal war. This peculiar felicity of situation has, in a great degree, contributed to preserve the liberty which that country to this day enjoys, in spite of the prevalent venality and corruption. If, on the contrary, Britain had been situated on the continent, and had been compelled, as she would have been, by that situation, to make her military establishments at home coextensive with those of the other great powers of Europe, she, like them, would in all probability be, at this day, a victim to the absolute power of a single man. 'T is possible, though not easy, that the people of that island may be enslaved from other causes; but it cannot be by the prowess of an army so inconsiderable as that which has been usually kept up within the kingdom.

If we are wise enough to preserve the Union we may for ages enjoy an advantage similar to that of an insulated situation. Europe is at a great distance from us. Her colonies in our vicinity will be likely to continue too much disproportioned in strength to be able to give us any dangerous annoyance. Extensive military establishments cannot, in this position, be necessary to our security. But if we should be disunited, and the integral parts should either remain separated, or, which is most probable, should be thrown together into two or three confederacies, we should be, in a short course of time, in the predicament of the continental powers of Europe --our liberties would be a prey to the means of defending ourselves against the ambition and jealousy of each other.

This is an idea not superficial or futile, but solid and weighty. It deserves the most serious and mature consideration of every prudent and honest man of whatever party. If such men will make a firm and solemn pause, and meditate dispassionately on the importance of this interesting idea; if they will contemplate it in all its attitudes, and trace it to all its consequences, they will not hesitate to part with trivial objections to a Constitution, the rejection of which would in all probability put a final period to the Union. The airy phantoms that flit before the distempered imaginations of some of its adversaries would quickly give place to the more substantial forms of dangers, real, certain, and formidable.

PUBLIUS


Here are links to my other posts on The Federalist Papers so far: