July 10, 2017
America’s Long March toward a Secular Socialist Democracy
By Steve McCann
The United States is the only nation in the annals of mankind to be established on the basis of a political and social philosophy centered on natural, or God-given, rights. Yet, within 230 years of our founding, America has been essentially transformed into another secular socialist democracy. This metamorphosis is the end-product of a subtle but determined assault on that philosophical underpinning.
Property rights are the bedrock of the American political system; without that foundation, there is no freedom. The Founders held that property rights encompass not just physical property but also one’s life, labor and livelihood, as individuals own their own lives; therefore, they must own the products of that life that can be traded in free exchange with others. They further believed that the primary role of government is to guarantee and protect these property rights, and further, that these property rights are natural, or God given rights. Thus, the Declaration of Independence proclaims that Men “…are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights…That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”
However, over the past 150 years, the statists, including the current iteration of the American Left, have marched in lock step to what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels espoused in their Communist Manifesto “The Theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” They contended that one’s labor or livelihood (and by extension one’s life) is not private property and is thus subordinate to the common good as determined by the state.
Opposing views regarding the purpose of the state and individual property rights have been bandied about for 2,500 years. The Greek philosopher Plato (427 BC-347 BC) called for a communist social order in which property is held in common (the state) and that human nature can and should be molded and transformed to benefit the state. On the other hand, Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) argued that if property is held in common then there exists the potential for animosity and anger; further, man possess a human nature that cannot be molded or transformed to some ideal of a perfect state. The laws of nature and the rule of law demand that government should govern for the good of the people, not for the good of those in power. In Rome, Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) asserted that the “right of ownership is inalienable” His reasoning was rooted in natural law and the “laws of human society.”
While the conflict between communism and democracy has been the centerpiece of the history of the past 100 years, the underlying philosophical battle over the role of property rights was waged in 17th Century Britain between Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704).
Thomas Hobbes published his seminal work Leviathan in 1651. In it he described man’s essential nature as one of aggression, avarice, destruction and near constant war. Therefore, an all-powerful sovereign (or government) was a necessity in order to protect against and repel this base human nature. Hobbes believed this sovereign would by necessity have near limitless power to take and use any and all property (including one’s labor and livelihood) for the good of society. Individual rights did not exist and whatever rights an individual had were merely at the whim of the government and could be revoked at any time.
John Locke published his Second Treatise of Government in 1690. In contrast to Hobbes, Locke wrote:
…though the things of nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property; and that which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being…was perfectly his own and did not belong in common to others. Thus labour, in the beginning gave a right of property.
Since…preservation and the means of subsistence, are discovered by natural reason, they are ipso facto derived from natural law. [The origin of government is therefore] …to secure property and the translation into a constitutional right of a fully validated right based on natural law.
Continued below......
America’s Long March toward a Secular Socialist Democracy
By Steve McCann
The United States is the only nation in the annals of mankind to be established on the basis of a political and social philosophy centered on natural, or God-given, rights. Yet, within 230 years of our founding, America has been essentially transformed into another secular socialist democracy. This metamorphosis is the end-product of a subtle but determined assault on that philosophical underpinning.
Property rights are the bedrock of the American political system; without that foundation, there is no freedom. The Founders held that property rights encompass not just physical property but also one’s life, labor and livelihood, as individuals own their own lives; therefore, they must own the products of that life that can be traded in free exchange with others. They further believed that the primary role of government is to guarantee and protect these property rights, and further, that these property rights are natural, or God given rights. Thus, the Declaration of Independence proclaims that Men “…are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights…That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”
However, over the past 150 years, the statists, including the current iteration of the American Left, have marched in lock step to what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels espoused in their Communist Manifesto “The Theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” They contended that one’s labor or livelihood (and by extension one’s life) is not private property and is thus subordinate to the common good as determined by the state.
Opposing views regarding the purpose of the state and individual property rights have been bandied about for 2,500 years. The Greek philosopher Plato (427 BC-347 BC) called for a communist social order in which property is held in common (the state) and that human nature can and should be molded and transformed to benefit the state. On the other hand, Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) argued that if property is held in common then there exists the potential for animosity and anger; further, man possess a human nature that cannot be molded or transformed to some ideal of a perfect state. The laws of nature and the rule of law demand that government should govern for the good of the people, not for the good of those in power. In Rome, Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) asserted that the “right of ownership is inalienable” His reasoning was rooted in natural law and the “laws of human society.”
While the conflict between communism and democracy has been the centerpiece of the history of the past 100 years, the underlying philosophical battle over the role of property rights was waged in 17th Century Britain between Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704).
Thomas Hobbes published his seminal work Leviathan in 1651. In it he described man’s essential nature as one of aggression, avarice, destruction and near constant war. Therefore, an all-powerful sovereign (or government) was a necessity in order to protect against and repel this base human nature. Hobbes believed this sovereign would by necessity have near limitless power to take and use any and all property (including one’s labor and livelihood) for the good of society. Individual rights did not exist and whatever rights an individual had were merely at the whim of the government and could be revoked at any time.
John Locke published his Second Treatise of Government in 1690. In contrast to Hobbes, Locke wrote:
…though the things of nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property; and that which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being…was perfectly his own and did not belong in common to others. Thus labour, in the beginning gave a right of property.
Since…preservation and the means of subsistence, are discovered by natural reason, they are ipso facto derived from natural law. [The origin of government is therefore] …to secure property and the translation into a constitutional right of a fully validated right based on natural law.
Continued below......
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