#Occupy Whatever and the politics of envy and theft.

Through out the history of mankind the question of private property looms large. It begins with the problem of slavery, do I own myself? In the early hydraulic empires the answer was no. You are the property of the god/king. Your labor, and the fruits of it, whether agricultural or some form of corvee, is the property of the ruler. Any surplus was not yours to control, but the sanctions were religious, so argument was impossible.

Even in the earliest polities of what we now call the West this question was central. Slaves were necessary to the economies of the Greek city states, and the Roman Republic and Empire. In Athens only male Athenians could be citizens and have a say in the government, only they could participate in the Demos. Of course this came with certain responsibilities, one of which was service in war. Athenian citizens had to take their place in the Phalanx, Socrates the mason for example, fought at the battle of Delium. On the wall of every Athenian farm house hung the battle dress of the master of the house and his grown sons, his helmet, shield, cuirass, greaves, sword, and spear. The wealthy fought in the cavalry, the poor manned the naval galleys. In classical antiquity there were no slave armies; war was the job of the few free men who existed. The army of the Roman Republic fought in defense of Rome, as against Carthage, but in the main they went out every year to conquer new territory and to gather slaves for the greater glory of Rome. I’m sure this influx of slave labor constantly degraded the position of local skilled and unskilled free labor in the growing republic and probably led to the civil wars that lasted for about half a century resulting in Cesarism and the founding of the Augustan Imperium, but I digress.

The great power of Christianity is that this religion finally placed the worshiper in a direct relation to God, as such it worked as an acid on the Imperial hierarchy, and the slavery inherent  in Roman and Greek polytheism. And so in the West the concept of personal autonomy expanded, as the “Religion of Slaves” spread through the Empire.

So what has this to do with #Occupy Whatever? Everything! I’ll start with a quote from John Locke:

The great and chief end therefore, of Mens [sic] uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property

               Therefore the property of any man starts with his body and extends to the labor and time that results in his physical goods. No one can take that away from him on a whim, otherwise he is not free, he is a slave.

               The #Occupy movement makes the dangerous assumption that an autonomous person can walk through the world naked with an emerald in each hand. All Anarchist movements work from this assumption, even the violent ones. That’s why they make such good cannon fodder for communists. The segregation of Zucotti Park into the new “races” of Fems, Queers, Trans, and other “minorities” that must be defended shows the continuing collapse of this “Movement”, not its success. As they break into factions we can see the wisdom of Publius in Federalist Ten.

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.

               Publius not only speaks to the many causes of faction but to the ones most important to the #Occupiers.

 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.

               Thus more than two hundred years ago Publius proposed solutions to the “new” problems that so vex our park dwellers.

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.

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.

               In the NYT of this past Sunday there was a sympathetic article about the #Occupiers, as if there could be any other, in which a few professors, our present day “theoretic politicians”, were consulted on the politics of Anarchy. Of course they could only talk theory rather than history, as no polity abiding by these principles has lasted long enough to produce any history, except for that written in blood.

               Publius goes on to explain how a Constitutional, representative government with its separation of powers will channel and control these desires for a politics of envy and theft. If History was still taught in our universities, maybe this nonsense could be avoided. But isn’t that the point?


JimG33