III. COMMUNITY AND INVENTION

      Community has been the central timber of our national order since the Founding,  or perhaps rather a
sense of community aimed at developing community. In this sense, ' community ' must be understood as
much as a process as a static state of existence.  How ever early  in our history the term ' E Pluribus Unum'
was officially made use of,  the concept has been there from the inception. It was expressed in the  'new
race' Americans were to be in de Crevocour and in Franklin's warning that if we did not all hang together,
we would all hang separately. One of the rudimentary notions to be developed in this exercise is the
fleshing in of that conceptualization.

     The Declaration of Independence is a superb statement of this idea of community. In the course of its
relatively short verbiage, there are no less than seventy-five references to the community of people in the
colonies as a collective group. Most common are 'we' and 'us,' 'our,' 'they' or 'their,' sprinkled abundantly
amidst a total of barely  a thousand words. The entire tenor of the document is a collective statement, and
while a great deal has been made of individualism in our culture and thought, it is the community that is
speaking here. The 'station' which a 'people' is entitle to, the rights with which 'they ' are endowed, the
derivation of governmental authority from the 'governed,' the right of the 'people' to abolish government,
and enacted by the authority of 'them,' are but some of the more prominent  examples of this. And the
primary rationale behind the separation was the effort by the British to prevent the development of this
'people.' The population had been prevented from growing, a parasitic bureaucracy had  been imposed
which had functioned to 'eat out their substance,' 'their' trade had been cut off and taxed imposed without
'their' consent, 'they' had been plundered  and ravaged, and 'they' had, along with 'their' lives and honor,
pledged 'their'  fortunes to the cause. The collectivity is inferred even when it is not expressly stated. Thus,
as much as it was a political statement, it was  at least equally an economic manifesto. No less so was the
Constitution, as will be explored later in this examination. Most decidedly this is so in the enumeration of
powers. Indeed, if it is possible, the latter is even more a conscious effort to create the mechanisms for
community development by establishing the prerequisites for a national economy.
     And with the Establishment, the early efforts of government, both national as well as state and local,
was to set concretely in place the necessary conditions for such development. The most important of these
would probably be Hamilton's exercises in his trilogy of Reports as Secretary of  Treasury. But as much as
the institutionalization was an expression of an ideological  system, the institutionalization functioned to
foster a particular spirit of community in the nation. And it is not a misrepresentation  to view a large part
of the history of the Republic as a struggle to forward such objectives. That structure of institutions was
designed to cultivate and to permit and engender  the cultivation of that spirit and that actuality. To hold
it to be less, to treat it all in purely jacobin democratic terms, is to do violence to the exercise.

     The thesis here revolves around that mutually supportive theme of institutionalization cultivating the
spirit which would engender the development of the nation, and this is crucial to understanding the idea
of community in America. The husbandry of those institutionalizations and that spirit are essential -- they
were 'invented' for expressly that purpose. The examination of that invention, of that construct of the faith
of that community, of that civil religion, is what is undertaken here. And, recalling the repeated
intonations of the issue of civility expressed in the Declaration, it is precisely that spirit or faith that has
animated our national struggle. "Anything else would be uncivilized. We do not need to 'invent' or
'reinvent' community, although we might well be concerned regarding the potential for its disruption or
corruption. Far from rejecting 'the idea of community,'  our history has been about the fight to sustain it.
The misfounded assertion that it has been rejected in favor of the pursuit of individual goals, economic
and political, of this people, is, in reality, a failed refutation of not only our spirit, but of the classical
liberal and republican theory upon which it is premised. Our civil religion is the archetype of
Tocqueville's 'social invention,' and he, indeed, made just that point. The explanation of all of that will be
undertaken here, but something must be entered prior to that by way of consideration and elaboration and
commentary regarding these notions  of community and invention.

     Even though the examples employed by Phillip Abbott are of a somewhat different order than that
under perusal here ( i.e. , telephones,  penitentiaries, quilting bees, motels, and revival camps ), much of
what he says , and particularly his typology of inventions, is of interest in understanding this species of
mechanism. There are in Professor Abbott's  SEEKING MANY INVENTIONS three kinds of inventions,
and the distinctions he draws among them are applicable at whatever scope or calibre of device is being
analyzed, from engineering and technological creations to those of social or political or economic
institutions.  The three nonmutually exclusive general categories he had delineated are generative,
supporting, and transitional. (1)  

     The first type of invention he describes as effecting 'momentous' change in our lives by the manner in
which 

	" ... they radically refashion our everyday existence; because they 'generate' whole 
	systems of supporting institutions, and because they reorient systems of thought." (2 )

As at one level, the telephone invention he develops as an exemplar in the work represents such
'generative' inventions, "the basic institutions of human culture" may also be so identified at a more
advanced level. The depiction of this variety specifically mentions religions in this category, and.,
acknowledging that one "need not accept Freud's account of the family as a generative institution " (3) to
hold the family as representative, such systems have "spawned new institutions themselves  and became
the major units into which successive generations would organize their lives." (4) His characterization
extends to examples including those two, but also legislatures. The social exchange which they engender,
while it is not sufficient for community, is certainly necessary as a precondition. The telephone example,
however, must be also looked to in regard to the 'transforming' function its usage, even as it possesses a
'supporting' role, too, undergirding existing communities and transforming them in the creation of a 'web'
which operates as a 'psychological neighborhood,' (5) but such devices are relatively rare in their
appearance. 'Supporting' inventions are described as 'common' in occurrence and as having been "thrown
off, so to speak, by generative inventions," (6) appearing as a 'constellation' surrounding a 'parent
invention.' These new inventions generate additional support groups upon which they may prove
'dependent' and be 'transformed' en route. Abbott suggests the motel as exemplary of this phenomenon.
For the third form, he argues that they both produce new social forms and are sustained by yet others. The
revival camp phenomenon is representative, but so. too, would be presidential nominating conventions.
They 'celebrate contagion' whether they are political rallies or religious gatherings or festivals. (7)

     The consequences of such varieties of inventions may not always be easily traced, but can have
substantive impact on society, and the non-mutual exclusivity of the categories, for Abbott, "reveal certain
basic features in their development,"(8) an interrelationship and interconnectedness which leads him to
the formulation of an  'invention matrix:'

	"An invention is part of a complex set of elements, each feeding upon the others ...
	[in] ... what seem to be the essential parts of the invention matrix: problem construction
	and a solution apparatus, a use community, a replication procedure, promotion groups, 
	and invention linkages."(9)

     Arising from efforts at resolution of the perception of a problem, during which some "structures are
seen as inadequate," a new invention is created, much in the manner of Thomas Kuhn's construction of
scientific revolutions operates. In Kuhn, an anomaly is perceived as an existing theory fails at explanation,
and a new theory must be developed either on the old or by way of an entirely new paradigm, although
"unlike Kuhn's scientist ... the inventor ... embraces novelty."(10)







     "An avenue of public access" to any new invention, if a 'democratizing' characteristic, is nevertheless
one which renders the issue moot were it not possible and probably present  and active.(11) This is not
crass commercialism in any sense, but rather the harsh realty of existence where some form of the
generalized Darwinian axiom does operate. And, as with Abbott's first part of the matrix, this one, too, is
eminently applicable to each of his exemplars. New inventions also require sponsors if a use community is
to develop. The junto of Franklin is an ideallic type of this, taken from his AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  The
form really amounts to a 'cadre' organization. Abbott asserts that

	"A history of invention in America is in large part a looting of the activity 
	of promotion groups in the marketplace and in social and political 
	communities." (12)

Modern advertising probably tries to hone this into an art form, but is must create, or there must be "an
attitude of concern and common interest" (13) if the construct is to get very far along.

     And without 'replicative procedures,' the construction will probably be more that a curiosity or the
existence of one which would soon become extinguished. (14) The author at this point makes what for this
particular project is very important:
	"I have noted that our contemporary focus on technological invention shapes our 
	approach to all invention. Sometimes that preoccupation is advantageous. One of
	the major breakthroughs of the industrial revolution was the invention and perfection
	of interchangeable parts. By creating a system in which component parts could be made
	in massive numbers and could be reliably uniform, the manufacturing process could be
	made vastly quicker and cheaper. Interchangeable parts, along with the factory system 
	itself and the assembly  line were inventions that created a new replication procedure 
	for any technological invention. The existence of an economy based upon  capital 
	expansion was also an essential element of modern technological invention."(15)

     If the implications of that for the American civil religion do not appear obvious they should as this is
revisited here. There have been those who have, as example, called, with Henry Ford, the factory the
'temple' of capitalism. But Dr.. Abbott's discussion makes another important observation here. The camp
meeting religious revival made a profound change in Calvinist/Protestant doctrine as it swept the country
side, and this was effectively a democratic crushing of an elitist tendency. He calls it the  "doctrine of
universal salvation."(16)  And Abbott comments on the difference this made in society and its belief
structure:

	" ... it is worth noting here that the camp meeting as an institution  owed 
	a portion of its success to the fact that it was a religious replication of the 
	democratic norms, " (17)

such that, 

	" The camp meeting promised immediate conversion and salvation and, 
	as such, represented a cultural adaptation of Protestantism to democratic
	trends in American society." (18)

     The impact of the camp meeting invention on the American society was to make religion 
'a matter of individual choice.' The institutionalized ideology of the culture had altered the substance of
the society. Terry Telfer, writing in Dickinson Studies (19) makes essentially this same point in reference
to the development in Dickinson's poetry which is indicative of her movement away from more Puritanical
attitudes as a result of the influence of  revivalism, Transcendentalism, and Unitarianism such that an
image of man as his own arbitrar through the development of the capacity for reason, a general trend
which increased levels of civic concern, education and learning  emerged..

     As to the construct of our faith, Abbott is even more definitive.  He argues that the inventions he has
identified and the typology he built operating through the matrix he portrayed "are themselves the creation
of more complex and larger sets of institutions" (20) which he has termed 'inventive communities' and
which are, in his mind, the fundamental source of change of American society. He goes so far as "to
suggest that it is in the context of the market that Americans invent and reinvent social institutions" and
that it is "often in imitation of market mores and structures" that this is accomplished (although
sometimes it is done by opposing them). That capitalism's history has been one of being an exceptionally
productive inventive system, there seems little argument. Through most of our past, that it was the
necessary foundation in economics of society has been widely accepted. George Gilden is sighted for his
comment on the capitalist 'faith,' and while Gilden suggests that they are not motivated by greed but
'involvement' which is "impelled by their imagination, optimism, and faith,"(21) Adam Smith is not
similarly convinced. Abbott would combine Gilden and Marx's view of the transforming character of
capitalist society -- as illustrative of this invention community characteristic. He sees the inventions he has
discussed as evidence of the actual 'liberating' capacity  of the capitalist system. As we proceed through
this argument, the idea of the institutional impact on society will be quite important. It is the 'inventive
reorganization of society' (22)  that marks capitalism in America in Abbott's study.

     'Fordism,' though, takes the brunt of a good deal of criticism in the pages that ensue this analysis in
Abbott, and it is somewhat disappointing. That is not to suggest that there isn't some validity to some of
his critique; that some of the problems of alienation or subjugation of the workforce have created some
bad conditions, but in general, it simply does not fit reality very well. The author longs for 'instant
communities' (23) that are more human, even utilizing the AT & T slogan to typify them: Reach out and
touch someone.(24) It's almost as if the thinking has 'slipped gears.' While capitalism does work, this
argument does not so well. It works -- no apology necessary. The rising tide has lifted all the ships. In
order to lift them further, the tide must rise further. It is as logical as it is allegorical, as this project
endeavors to demonstrate.

     It is imperative in making such assessments that we do not put the cart before the horse. The very
effort at redistribution toward 'fairness,' by siphoning off social surplus, slows the engines of economic
activity, growth, and development, and leads to heightened disparity. That is not simply a dualism of
allegory or a case of dueling metaphor, it is the essence of capitalism and economics. It was also
somewhat understood in Marx, and was the major contribution of Rosa Luxemburg in her
ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL and DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN POLAND.

     It is essential that the implications of  the rate of profit be clearly understood. Were all the world's
existing wealth to be redistributed equally among all hands, the material condition of the world's
population would hardly be improved. We would all daily exist on the edge of subsistence and starvation.
There simply is not enough wealth in the world. That does not support Malthus, however. It is not that
there are too many people. The world is not overpopulated, it is underdeveloped. People are wealth, or at
least they are the potential for wealth creation. Leaving aside the requisite that accumulated wealth is the
basis for wealth creation and that such redistribution would eliminate therefore that possibility, the rate of
social surplus is the key to understanding  political economy.  The representation of  the ratio of social
surplus to constant capital and variable capital does more than delineate the basis for expanded
reproduction and sustained development in its increase, anyway. Where the category d, identified as debt
service, socially nonproductive but generally necessary activity, taxation, and the like expands at the
expense of  social surplus from one phase of production to another, the basis for economic development is
eliminated. But where it expands at the expense of  the maintenance of existent plant and equipment
(constant capital), the capacity of the economy to reproduce itself or to continue operating at existing
levels is destroyed. This has been identified as autocannibalization. As it expands to take up wealth
previously available for the wage bill (variable capital), the ability of the economy to sustain itself is
likewise precluded. Such expansion of d is termed the primitive accumulation of capital. One need not
look to Luxemburg or Trotsky to identify the economic system which autocannibalization and primitive 

accumulation typify. It can be found in the political economy of Hjalmar Schacht, the Nazi Finance
Minister. Schachtian economics is what fascism is. Autocannibalization and primitive accumulation of
capital by government policy is fascism. The variant of it under Mussolini was called corporatism, in its
utilization of  ostensibly 'democratic' forms of tripartite institutional forms of decision-making organs with
representatives from business, labor, and government  to implement such policy. But that is precisely also
what Secretary of Labor Robert Reich calls his sundry schemes to reduce the ratio of social surplus,
increase the tax level to support his redistributive policies, and hamstring business to the edge of
profitability and beyond. When pressed on such matters, the retort is entered that what is  proposed is
'friendly fascism' or 'fascism with a human face.' Of course, one would have difficulty convincing the
Branch Davidians of that. As bizarre and even perverse perhaps as that cult may have been, it is hard to
defend what occurred. And yet, they were but a handful of people. The Third World, saddled with similar
economic destruction as described in forced reduction of the rate of profit under the nomenclature of
'development' is billions. As Detroit is turned into the Third World, it hardly seems 'friendly' or 'human.'
And when the appendix to Clinton's 1995 Budget projects tax rates for Americans at an average of 82%
not far into the next century , the implications of autocannibalization and primitive accumulation of an
enforced falling rate of profit becomes quite clear. Neither is it any wonder that Clinton must pose a New
Covenant as substitution for America's civil religion. The ideology of redistributive justice has itself
become a virtual religion for its advocates, and one dogmatic beyond falsification. Yet, the negation of the
categorical imperative this represents is far from an accomplished fact, and one good reason for that is
precisely the faith examined here. 

     A conclusion drawn by Professor Abbott for a "focusing upon ways in which the conditions for social
invention can be established" has some merit. (25) Probably "social space must be won" by having it
"wrested and torn away from economic and political institutions." But the real culprit in that scenario of is
the burgeoning public sector with its drain on capital and run-away bureaucracy and dependency. The
development of new invention will occur only to the extent that the albatross of governance can be thrown
off freeing the creativity to engender and cultivate them.  Corollary to this is the idea that   public sector
encroachment will also undermine existent forms. To the extent that other collectivist forms function to
shackle such creativity, it is primarily the result of the malfeasance of government that this takes place. 
That cannot be taken to suggest that governance serves no useful purpose in such matters. There is most
obviously the issue of public goods and infrastructure . The type of policy implemented in that pursuit is
critical, however. Their husbandry by privatization is more efficacious than is top-down control. A good
deal of the sterility that collectivist mentality breeds can only be overcome through development of human
capital. And it would be sheer folly to seek to depose economies of scale for its own sake. Our existence
rests not only on its continuance, but also upon its expansion. The excursion the author makes into the
status of the family in America suffers similarly. (26) It has been precisely the governance we have been
saddled with which has done it the most harm. Such policy, for example, has done to the black family
what not even the travesty of involuntary servitude did to it. Many of the initiatives posed in the
conclusion, such as structuring of  'borrowed time,' (27) face the same dilemna that the quest for family
maternity leave threatened. For marginal firms, it may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camels
back. If the driving force of development is decapitated, the resultant condition can hardly be expected to
improve. Undercutting the ability of business, small or large, to make normal profit is not a tenable
response. 

     Nor is the holodeck vision of Tom Hayden helpful in the least. (28) The struggle can neither be waged
nor won at the level it operates. Indeed, such struggle is functionally incorporated into a situation of
competing over diminishing returns, which are all the more diminished by the resort to 'corporate
liberalism.' Anarcho-syndicalism, whether in Gramsci or Hayden, has the same ultimate end point,
corporatism -- the corporatism of Mussolini, the Schachtian economics of Nazism. Such panacea as solar
power, corporate divestiture, community 'self-sufficiency,' all fit that model precisely. The call for
'democratizing' corporations demonstrates Hayden's blindness to business reality and economics. He
clearly does not comprehend that the real power in corporate America often lies with middle management
(see this thesis examined in Chandler's THE VISIBLE HAND).

     If it is true that Hayden has come to see progressivism as a key force toward his desired objectives, the
emperor is indeed caught in a very revealing attire. Not that localized administration (29) cannot be  a
fruitful prospect, although one need only turn to Justice Taney's record to recoil at its horrors.  The
'liberated zones' will quite lawfully more approximate medieval fiefdoms than anything else. Hayek's
ROAD TO SERFDOM exposes such fallacy most forcefully, but that does not necessarily mean that the
'conservative' agenda which Abbott (30) seems to assail for its late discovery of such things as an aversion
to bureaucratic plunder  and blunder has the panacea, either. It is the case, though, that such efforts at
social space can only be constructive of releasing creativity to the extent that they can push back the
leviathan. Nor do these latter possess the condescending racism that exudes from either of the former
pseudo-liberalisms, a condescension which is not, by the way, limited to that, but which extends to its
general view of humanity in a most paternalistic and illiberal manner.
     As promising and useful for  purposes of this project as Abbott's inventions and community
classifications may be, the book is perforated from its inception with dilemna of the form just articulated.
Most baffling may be the inclusion under the rubric ostensibly of liberalism of both the market system and
the welfare state. (31) And yet, on balance, the essay must be seen as providing   substantive foundation
for this examination. Most basically, this would involve the utilization of the term invention itself as more
than technological, reaching into the realms of politics, society, economics, and culture.
Professor Abbott early marks the importance of such invention, emphasizing that few have done so. (32) 
Robert Nesbit is one of those "who has applied the concept of invention to political and social  theory..."
(33) and his notion of  'social invention,' though perhaps too broad, is a theory which fundamentally
challenges determinist mind-sets.  Any number of theories can be seen as placing such change "beyond
human control." (34)  At various places, he comes close to repeating what almost appears to be a free will
argument. ( This is also an important aspect of the distinction which must be drawn between classical and
'contemporary' liberalisms).  As will be made clear, there is no assertion here intended to counter the
impact of willful actions. Regarding this differentiation, too, the structural functionalist concepts which
play a significant role in this analysis implicitly do  not preclude the role of individual exercise of their
will. 

     The contrast he posits between Rawls and Nozick demonstrates at least cognizance of the liberal
dilemna, but also the importance of social invention in the development of society. (35) Abbott echoes the
argument, nevertheless, for a mutually supportive causality between invention and ideology. (36) he also
expresses concern about discontinuity, for as social inventions are endlessly in need of reinvention, this
truncated picture would be devoid of much cross generational conduction of traditions. Abbott reminds the
reader of the admonition of Burke in reference to the French Revolution:

	" By this unprincipled facility of changing the state so often, and as much,
	and in as many ways as their floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain 
	and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation 
	could link with another.(37)

     The American civil religion conceptionalization under scrutiny here serves as a powerful web in
closing that gap in our society, and it also functions to bridge the abyss between invention and ideology. It
is a vital bind connecting institution and community. There is a necessity, especially in the nature of this
disparate group called the United States, for civil religion as, in fact, a 'community-builder.' Abbott views
the maintenance of such institutions or inventions as a key issue, acknowledging that the 'instant
communities' which we strive for "can never really fully meet our needs." (38) It is consequently no leap
at all from Abbott's community grounded in invention to a recognition of the role the 'faith' performs in
the American context.


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