DJ: You begin the book with a quote from Edmund Randolph, General Washington’s aide-de-camp and the country’s first Attorney General, speaking to the Constitutional Convention: “Our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our [state] constitutions.” It should be no surprise to those well-read in American history that our founders were critics of democracy. But you argue that “democracy” in that context means something much more than what we commonly understand. What did Randolph mean by that statement?
WH: When we note, as you just did quite rightly, that the founding fathers were wary of the excesses of democracy, we take it to mean something that’s only partially true—it’s not a full description of what they feared. We think they worried that too much input from too many people might lead to a sort of general instability, possibly mob rule, and so forth. The part we tend to leave out, I think, is the financial and economic dimension. When Randolph was calling the convention to order and saying that what we need to do is form a national government, he was speaking in a specific context of economic and financial turmoil, and everyone else in the room would have known what he was talking about. He meant that the state governments were too weak in resisting the onslaught of democratic approaches to finance, in which the lending classes’ investments would be devalued, laws would be passed by state legislatures to provide what the founders would have seen as excessive debt relief to ordinary people, and a host of other democratic financial policies that the elites of the time, for perfectly cogent reasons, felt would destabilize all good policy. Most people don’t discuss Randolph’s remarks at the constitutional convention, because those remarks are distressing to those who believe in democracy today and wish to connect democratic ideals to the founders.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
The Supreme court has already ruled that corporations are people with the right to free speech i.e. the right to put unlimited money into election ads so what’s the next step? Allow them to vote of course and a newly introduced Montana bill, HB 486, does just that.
“Provision for vote by corporate property owner. (1) Subject to subsection (2), if a firm, partnership, company, or corporation owns real property within the municipality, the president, vice president, secretary, or other designee of the entity is eligible to vote in a municipal election as provided in [section 1].
(2) The individual who is designated to vote by the entity is subject to the provisions of [section 1] and shall also provide to the election administrator documentation of the entity’s registration with the secretary of state under 35-1-217 and proof of the individual’s designation to vote on behalf of the entity.”
http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2013/billhtml/HB0486.htm
I guess that one corporation – one vote wouldn’t be a big deal like one CEO having one vote but, of course, shouldn’t a corporation have enough votes relative to its size so its influence would be proportional to its size and impact on the community just as one corporation has an undue influence on election campaigning due to the voulume of money? I expected my favorite crazy red state, Arizona, to lead the way but here comes this western upstart to head the pack. Can’t have “too much input from too many people might lead to a sort of general instability, possibly mob rule.”
I have been looking lately at a couple of other books on the US; it seems that we lost out to the corporations already in the 1770s and 80s!
“I have been looking lately at a couple of other books on the US; it seems that we lost out to the corporations already in the 1770s and 80s!”
The interesting thing about this bill is that it came from the populist (or as they say today, the commie, union loving) stronghold of Montana which had passed the strongest campaign finances legislation in the nation, the Corrupt Practices Act of 1912 which decreed that a “corporation may not make…an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political party that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.” This was enacted in response to the excesses of the Gilded Age copper kings who bought and paid for the state legislation with their wealth generated from the ownership of the copper deposits near Butte, Montana.
In 2009, the Supreme Court ruled on the Citizens United case in favor of corporate financial campaign contributions using a first amendment argument that corporations were “persons” and therefore had freedom of speech but the Montana Supreme Court argued that the “distinct history of corruption, and nature of political discourse, in Montana” required a different analysis than the one for federal elections presented in Citizens United. Montana’s lawyers further asserted that Montana is not bound by Citizens United because the Montana law at issue “imposes far different obligations, and therefore affects corporate speech in a far different manner, than the federal law at issue in Citizens United.” This led to the American Traditions Partnership,Inc. v. Bullock case on this issue which was granted a petition of certiorari (review of a lower court ruling by the Supreme Court.) The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the lower court without hearing arguments (summarily) on June 25, 2012.
“Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, decided in January 2010, struck down federal limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions as violations of the First Amendment. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing on behalf of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, reached the bold conclusion that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” and therefore “[n]o sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.” (Wikipedia)
As Justice Stephen Breyer opined in his dissent in American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, “Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so.”
Now that Montana has been slapped down by the federal judicial system it has returned like the prodigal son to the corporate fold after one hundred years of disobedience and has decided to demonstrate its renewed fealty to the “masters of the universe” by leading the nation in pro corporate legislation.
More on democracy in America. Young people are more apt to vote Democrat so how do Republicans skew the results in their favour? Answer: Keep’em dumb.
“DES MOINES, IOWA — Yesterday State Representative Pat Grassley, grandson of Senator Chuck Grassley, introduced House File 423, which would eliminate the high school social studies requirement to teach voting procedures, and instead require teaching “the principles of American citizenship.”
HF423 would specifically remove the requirement to teach “voting statutes and procedures, voter registration requirements, the use of paper ballots and voting systems in the election process, and the method of acquiring and casting an absentee ballot.”
http://www.blogforiowa.com/2013/03/07/what-does-grassley-have-against-voting/
…so this will be replaced with some “principles” … ay.