The Call for a Constitutional Convention
Historical Stalemate
Legal evolution is slow because the worker-slaves are too busy working to focus or fight to change the system. Their position as worker-slaves highlights their inability to challenge the system. The seeds of revolt, ironically, are often planted by the wealthiest. Most revolutionaries come from the middle and upper classes. They are the ones with the time resources and self-confidence and education to challenge the status quo. The slave-masters are convinced their actions are just because society requires the goods and services they produce, but their children often see a world of indulgence. The first generation uses the system to be successful, but some of the following generations try to change the world. Buddha was among the first to resist the life of luxury. The bourgeois planted the seeds of the Russian Revolution. The Rockefeller’s, the Kennedy’s, and Osama bin Laden are all from families of great wealth. The easy life of tennis, lounging by the pool, and polishing expensive autos was as boring 4000 years ago as it is today. The inner voice of Hope that we all share speaks louder to some than it does to others, but not all revolutionary utopians are peace-loving and wise.
Despite our modern world and its preceding 4000 years of history, we are losing sight of our utopian vision. We now define ourselves based on numbers written on a piece of paper and filed in a drawer. If our bank balance shows $0 we are sad, if it shows $1,000,000 we are happy. When we go to a hospital, if we have the correct numbers written on the paper, all tests are given and special care and consideration to our ailments. If, however, we do not have the correct numbers written on a piece of paper, we are at best patched up and released. Future ailments, chronic problems, known but not immediate issues are ignored. The infrastructure to deliver healthcare waits ready and able, the investment in training and capital has all been made, but without the correct numbers on a sheet of paper, you do not get the best chance for a healthy and pleasant life. Without wealth, you are regarded as expendable, your pain less important, and your demise less sorrowful. In the slow march toward utopia, is this really the best that modern man can accomplish?
Free Enterprise
Modern medicine is the result of thousands of years of knowledge, trial and error, and a multitude of experiments. Many approaches have been tried and abandoned over the course of time. Some mistakes are repeated, but revolutionary approaches have also changed the course of its practice. We all benefit when vigorous attention and high standards are applied to the art of medicine, and when we are all allowed access. Our economic life should be no different.
The free enterprise theory that grips our country fails to address either the primary concerns of civilization or proscribe a healthful remedy for justice. In 1776, Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations” extolling the marketplace as a mediator of competing forces. The Founding Fathers set in motion a social revolution with the idea that all men are created equal. But the economic theory it was paired with has been proven to be completely wrong. The marketplace is a slave market, and what has changed over history is the way the slaveÕs laborers are bought and sold. The alleged free hand of capitalism is a theory that parallels the healthful effect of bloodletting by use of leeches. In the 18th century, Charles Darwin died as a result of this practice, despite his insight to scientific evolution. Free enterprise is a bloodletting of our moral soul, and America stands in the place of Charles Darwin.
Adam Smith stated:
Among the savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to work, is more or less employed in useful labor, and endeavors to provide, as well as he can, the necessaries and conveniences of life, for himself, or such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too infirm to go a hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor that, from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or, at least, think themselves reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts.Among civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do not labor at all, many of whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times more labor than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the whole labor of the society is so great that all are often abundantly supplied, and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniences of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire. [end quote]
What we have seen in our brief history is the opposite of his characterization. We have generated a hundred-fold increase in provisions, and some consume the provisions of thousands, if not of millions. Yet we are increasingly “abandoning … infants, … old people, and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish.” The difference is that rather than abandoning people in the wild, we warehouse them in neighborhoods of poverty and blight, and let them slowly expire by the lonely glow of a television light, addiction, crime, ill health and pollution. The so-called savage nations were a more utopian community than ours. They lived with a respect for Hope and Love, and acted from a sense of communal duty. The Native American society was more balanced than ours, but they were annihilated by the armed warriors of reason and claimed Christianity. A common refrain regarding free enterprise is that a rising tide of wealth floats all boats, but for those struggling without a vessel or a life jacket, it is sink or swim. We have created a new worldwide slave class, and it is growing in numbers every day.
Moral Virtues
The first moral choice of the American founders was the genocide of the native inhabitants. Our “civilized and thriving nation” followed a pattern as old as history. Our drive for property would not be checked by any adversary. Like the Egyptian Pharaoh, we considered ourselves god-like and superior. We have now used technology to cast a global shadow of slavery and self-adoration. As nations emulate the American economic success, they are bound to emulate our errors, too.
If mankind is on the long road towards utopia, and democracy provides the social framework for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, then changes need to be made to the free enterprise model to further advance our Hope. Since Hope is a shared consciousness, we all know the elements of utopian society. What are the goals of our willful evolution?
Since mankind cannot accomplish radical change without lethal force, another step toward utopia must be based on things which can be accomplished peacefully and which answer the most important of our basic needs. These things are two, both physical and spiritual: food and health, education and worship. Of course, in exchange for these gifts from society, the individual must work. In work, each must willingly provide these same gifts to others in society that he also accepts. The solution is a system of Mutual Responsibility regarding our most basic needs, and, it builds on our social experience in building government and worship communities.
The Four Cornerstones
America has all the cornerstones in place for advancing our utopian beginning. Our nation is abundant in its food supply, we have a network of quality medical care, research and teaching facilities, we have public education through high school and a myriad of colleges and universities, and a body of law that vigorously protects ones freedom to worship. The only thing that halts the progression to a more utopian society is the free enterprise model.
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