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In the constitutional convention of the United States in 1787, the property-interests were well-represented. Even so, a fear of a plutocracy was voiced by those property-protectors as well. While one might conclude at first glance that the wealthy delegates were duplicitous, their position is not self-contradictory, even if the bias toward wealth is discomforting for those of us who value representative democracy.

Governeur Morris, on July 5, asserted that property is “the main object of Society.” (1) Rutlidge, on July 5, concurred, maintaining, “Property was certainly the principal object of Society.” (2) Hamilton, on June 26, argued that the “inequality of property constituted the great & fundamental distinction in Society.” (3) King, on July 6 averred that “property was the primary object of Society.” (4) In Morris’ view, property is thus “the main object of [Government].” (5) Hamilton articulated this view in the Federalist by writing that the adoption of the Constitution will afford additional security “to the preservation of [republican] government, to liberty and to property.” (6) “I am convinced,” he writes, “that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity and your happiness.” (7) So his statement that “the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty” can be read as a plea for a General Government primarily to protect property interests. (8) Butler, on July 11, claimed likewise that government is “instituted principally for the protection of property.” (9) At the very least, these remarks evince a reductionism wherein society and government were viewed in terms of wealth. Shouldering a minority view on this point, Wilson, on July 13 in the convention, “could not agree that property was the sole or the primary object of [Government] & society. The cultivation & improvement of the human mind was the most noble object.” (10) This object, he suggested, is a personal right. (11) As much as this object is laudatory, it is not the object of government, which I contend is to provide and ensure order, which goes beyond the protection of property. If there is a higher purpose, government can express and operationalize societal ideals, which can thus orient whatever order government provides.

The primary result of the delegates’ property-centric view was the formation of a General Government of the U. States to counter the risk that State legislatures would act democractically at odds with the interests of the wealthy. Just a year before the convention, the Massachusetts legislature had attempted to act in the interest of debtors (i.e., unpaid soldiers who were still expected to pay on their farm debts; the representatives sought to stop this injustice at the expense of the creditors). Shays’ Rebellion was the unhappy result. Govereur Morris, on July 2, alluded to this affront on property interests in stating, “Every man of observation had seen in the democratic branches of the State Legislatures, precipitation—in Congress changeableness, in every department excesses [against] personal liberty [,] private property & personal safety.” (12) However, what if private property is acquired unjustly at the expense of another’s liberty? In other words, liberty may run counter to the interests of the rich.

Madison, on June 26 in the convention, remarked that “we had not among us those hereditary distinctions, … nor those extremes of wealth or poverty which characterize [the modern States in Europe]… . An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings… . a leveling spirit… the future danger.” (13) Leveling would actually be in line with liberty if wealth has been acquired unjustly, as for example, under duress. Moreover, too great an inequality of wealth can threaten the viability of a republic. For example, in 1985, the top five percent in the U.S. held $8 trillion in wealth. By 2007, they had $40 trillion. Besides being in part from the dot.com and housing bubbles wherein asset values were overvalued, the concentration of wealth cannot but undermine representative democracy wherein each person has one vote. Interestingly, even as they sought to protect their wealth from being leveled via representative democracy, the delegates also feared that the U. States would end up as a plutocracy (i.e., ruled by the wealthy who would be our aristocracy). Governeur Morris, on July 2, expressed the following. “Let the rich mix with the poor and in a Commercial Country, they will establish an oligarchy. Take away commerce, and the democracy will triumph. Thus it has been all the world over. So it will be among us.” (14) Madison reports that Morris feared “the influence of the rich.” (15) That the U.S. was even then an extended republic on the scale of an empire was thought, at least by Morris, to strength the ability of the rich to rule.  “The schemes of the Rich,” he maintained, “will be favored by the extent of the Country. The people in such distant parts can not communicate & act in concert. They will be the dupes of those who have more knowledge & intercourse.” (16) Govereur Morris, on July 2, maintained that “The Rich will take advantage of their passions & make these the instruments for oppressing them. The Result of the Contest will be a violent aristocracy, or a more violent despotism.” (17)

Madison reports that Morris’ “creed was that there never was, nor ever will be a civilized Society without an aristocracy. His endeavor was to keep it as much as possible from doing mischief.” (18) To contain such mischief (and to protect property-rights), the delegates wanted the proposed U.S. Senate to represent the interests of the wealthy (as well as wisdom and the state governments—a combination they problematically assumed would play well together in the Senate). Govereur Morris, on July 2, claimed that “The Rich will strive to establish their dominion & enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security [against] them is to form them into a separate interest.” (19) Accordingly, Davy, on July 6, urged that “wealth or property ought to be represented in the [second] branch.” (20)

The Senate was to be a conservative institution, wherein the vested property interests must sign off on any reform.  This could partially explain why passing health-insurance reform in 2010 was so arduous (and why extant health-insurance companies were able to kill off a competing public option). It could also explain why the wealthy could insist that their tax cuts be extended even as the U.S. Government was facing another deficit over $1 trillion also in 2010.

In short, the delegates to the constitutional convention were concerned that a “leveling danger” not be allowed to redistribute wealth even as they feared the advent of a plutocracy as essentially aristocratic governance. Government should protect wealth but not be run by it. In modern terms, this position might seem familiar as: CEO’s like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs should not run the government, but the latter should not be used by those without to take from the wealthy. Yet as the CEOs’ agents in government essentially operate in the interest of the corporations and the wealthy, does not the government’s orientation to property already evince a plutocracy by a moneyed aristocracy? If so, Jefferson and Adams, who were for a natural aristocracy of talent and virtue rather than money (the latter being an “artificial aristocracy,” which the two founders believed was taking hold in the U. States even in the early 1800s), would doubtless demur. It is telling for us that government protecting wealth is virtually taken for granted among the American people even as the fear of an impending plutocracy and moneyed aristocracy is nearly absent. Any balance from the delegates’ two fears has dissolved in favor of property. The bias is so engrained in American society and government that it has become invisible.

1. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 244
2. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 245
3. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 196
4. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 247
5. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 244
6. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1, in Jacob E. Cooke, The Federalist, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, p. 7
7. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1, in Jacob E. Cooke, The Federalist, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, p. 6
8. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #1, in Jacob E. Cooke, The Federalist, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, p. 5
9. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 268
10. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 287
11. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 287
12. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 233
13. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 194
14. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 233-34
15. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 235
16. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 235
17. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 235
18. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 251
19. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 233
20. James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, pp. 248

Despite the weak U.S. economy, 2010 could be the second most profitable for New York City's securities industry, and the average bonus may top last year's because so many bankers and brokers have been laid off. Wall Street earned $21.4 billion during the first three quarters of 2010. The prior year's record of $61.4 billion was fueled by the bailout by the U.S. Government. Wall Street paid out $20.3 billion in bonuses on the $61.4 billion in profits. According to New York City Comptroller John Liu, "The astounding recovery of financial firm profitability in 2009 has been followed by a mixed year in 2010, yet total compensation in the industry is expected to be up modestly once year-end bonuses are paid," Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs’ Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein and his top deputies will collect about $111.3 million in stock in January, 2011, in a delayed payoff from 2009 and their record-setting 2007 bonuses, according to a Bloomberg News report. Within a year after the bonuses were approved, Goldman Sachs took $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury, converted to a bank and was borrowing as much as $35.4 billion a day from Federal Reserve emergency programs, Bloomberg reported, adding that in 2010 the firm paid $550 million to settle U.S. regulators’ fraud charges related to a mortgage-security the company sold in 2007.

Analysis:
Three points come to mind from this report from MSNBC.  First, the disjunction between Wall Street and Main Street means that any recovery underway in 2010 was not uniform through the U.S. economy. In other words, the "jobless" recovery did not hurt bonuses in the financial sector.  Secondly, the dictum that the fraudulant must inevitably pay is effectively countered by the example of Goldman Sachs.  Blankfein testified before Sen. Levin's Investigations committee that Goldman Sachs had merely been a market-maker even as the bank had traded on its own books to short against the mortgage derivatives even as it was selling them to its clients. In other words, the bank was profiting both ways even as it was contributing to the financial crisis.  After an infusion of government cash, the bank has made off quite well. Lest I be accused of envy, it is the unfairness involved that has inspired this post. Lastly, the positive impact of the bank bailout on the industry (and its bonuses) can be distinguished from the lack of help from the U.S. Government to the millions of homeowners who have lost their homes.  I say "homes" rather than houses to extentuate the point that foreclosure extolls rather severe costs in addition to the financial kind. I distinguish the luxuriating bankers from the plight of the foreclosed in order to point to Barak Obama's priority. His chief economic advisor until the end of 2010, Larry Summers (whose high school economics teacher is one of my mother's cousins), had been involved in obstructing efforts to regulate derivatives in 1998 (Summers was one of Rubin's deputies in Treasury under Clinton at the time).  Furthermore, Tim Geitner, Obama's Treasury Secretary, had been appointed as President of the New York Federal Reserve by a board with the urging of Citibank).  In other words, Obama's leanings toward Wall Street can be understood both from the directionality of the bailout and whom he has appointed. We should not really be surprised that the big banks and their employees whom the banks have not let go came back to vigor so quickly while the general recovery has been jobless.  Those who have, get more, while those who don't have, remain stuck.  The impact on the viability of our republics can not be good. Increasing inequality exascerbated by government policy cannot but render us even more a plutocracy (i.e., rule by the wealthy). To reply that any effort to tamper with this increasing inequality threatens property rights and economic liberty ignores the disparate impact of government policy (e.g., the bank bailout) on the wealthy. Moreover, when economic inequality threatens the viability of representative democracy, that democracy has a right to correct that which threatens it. One might call the policy-driven inequality a systemic risk that cannot be allowed to continue to exist without threatening the viability of the system. To put it plainly, a person does not have the right to riches if they risk the entire system coming down or even being compromised.  An absolute right to property, like an absolutist conception of sovereignty, is simply irresponsible and ultimately selfish. The 2010 bonuses coming out of Wall Street so soon after the crisis of 2008 and the subsequent bailout suggest that the extent of economic inequality in the U.S. is neither an accident nor natural.

FYI: If any of this post is significant enough to be logged in memory and reflected on later, it might be that the bank bonuses occurred during a jobless "recovery." This juxtaposition is in itself indicative of something troubling going on.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40681578/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/%22%3Ehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40681578/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/%3C/a%3E%3C/p