With the notion of calling qualified in the devotion to labor there may be a degree of regulation and
restraint of human activity too much tied to physical labor, labor intensive activity, inferred. And this may
rebound on the matter of accumulation to work toward precluding the potential for necessary capital
intensive investment.

Even the categorization of a Puritan religious foundation of worldly asceticism poses problems for the
civil religion examined in the present investigation:

"That great historic process is the development of religion, the elimination
of magic from the world which had begun with the old Hebrew prophets and,
in conjunction with Hellenistic scientific thought, had repudiated all magical
means to salvation as superstition and sin, came here to its logical conclusion.
The genuine Puritan even rejected all signs of religious ceremony at the grave
and buried his nearest and dearest without song or ritual in order that no
superstition, not trust in the effects of magical and sacramental forces on
salvation, should creep in."(36)

Transcending such corruptions of the flesh taken to such extreme in that system not only is premised
on possibly flawed notions of 'magic' and ritual as magic, but run headlong into any connection of that to
the complex of ritual and related phenomenon which not only characterize American culture, even if as
Oden says we always preface references to such as 'mere' ritual, but form the body of much of at least the
physical underpinnings of our civil religion. As Weber quotes Cromwell's message to the Long Parliament
after the battle of Dunbar:

"Be pleased to reform the abuses of all professions: and if there be any that
makes many poor to make a few rich, that suits not a Commonwealth;"(37)

he should not preclude the accumulation of wealth or wealth creation as effectively lessening poverty.
Indeed, that is precisely its impact -- the reduction of poverty -- unless one assumes, as Malthus, wealth to
be fixed and not created. One of the more precise articulations of the basic ethos portrayed by Weber has it
that:

"A specifically bourgeois economic ethic had grown up. With the consciousness
of standing in the fullness of God's graces and being visibly blessed by Him, the
bourgeois business man, as long as he remained within the bounds of formal
correctness, as long as his moral conduct was spotless an the use to which
he put his wealth was not objectionable, could follow his pecuniary interests as
he would and feel that he was fulfilling a duty in doing so. The power of religious
asceticism provided him in addition with sober, conscientious, and unusually
industrious workmen, who clung to their work as to a life of purpose willed by God."(38)

But the very notion might be in fundamental conflict with Adam Smith. For anyone to interdict their
own self-interest as a rule would be fundamentally irrational or even madness. It is further reflected near
the end of the discourse in his apparent disparagement of the development in America of patterns of
unbridled pursuit of wealth as sport(39). It certainly conflicts with the categorical imperative and moral
imperative of capitalism outlined here. The well-healed Calvinism in Weber may, on that theory, be
fundamentally irrational, and to the extent that it might be, there would be a fundamental antinomy
between Weber's capitalist spirit and that of Adam Smith, for example. Predestination taken as a basis for
any Protestant Ethic on Weber as undergirding capitalism is especially problematic in other ways, as well.
If we are to understand it as precluding will, and that is by no means a certainty as indicated earlier, it
runs in sharp contradiction to the capitalist idea that assumes that it is possible for anyone to achieve
anything, especially in America, for that assumes will. The doctrine of Predestination may also lead to an
acceptance of a group of individuals in society who are less than rational (by definition not by will). It
would also follow from such an assessment that such persons would require care by governance, hardly an
American or capitalist conceptualization, although it might well be in either Bellah's or Clinton's new
covenant. The argument that there developed a rigorous correlation between democratic institutions and
the Reformation can pose problems, too. Furthermore, it is not the case that capitalism follows on
democracy, that it rested on it as a crucial test. Capitalist development probably is a prerequisite for
successful democracy, jacobin actions to the contrary notwithstanding. Weber's argument falters, too, on
the apparent exclusion from Catholicism of the concept of vocation or calling. Whether it possesses such a
notion in secular areas or not, the idea of the filoque is essential -- man, active in the world, carrying out
God's way on earth, through the exercise of the logos or reason, even if it has been saddled by the problem
of 'smells and bells' on Luther or Calvin. This actually may approach Smith's conceptualization and also
connect to the Idea of Progress and the Renaissance as intimated earlier. He purports to demonstrate in
quotation from Milton and Dante taken from their respective COMEDIES, a fundamental distinction
illustrative of his theory, but, whether read on his selection or more completely, just the opposite is
obvious. In both, paradise would be 'regained' or 'realized' through the filoque or logos. It is not the case,
in any event, as Weber suggests that this literature was 'motivated purely by religious factors' or that at:

" ... the end of the Divine Comedy, ... the poet in Paradise stands speechless
in his passive contemplation of the secrets of God ..."(40)

What Dante saw was the inner light of Milton's 'paradise within thee' (and perhaps the inner light of
the Quakers and Franklin?).And yet, in spite of some serious problems in the text, Weber can serve as a
bridge of reconciliation between that fundamental antinomy referred to above, even though it would seem
that as he may provide or bring us to the bridge, he does not cross it.

We would do well to ponder carefully such critical philosophical issues as the role of government in
the economy. It has unceasingly been a central part of debate through our heritage and history. The
greater performance efficiency of the private sector as against the public sector well situated to claim
hegemony in the debate at the close of the 20th century. That leaves in limbo that portion of activities
which can be sensibly kept under the auspices of state mechanism. There are some obvious few, but huge
blocks of what have increasingly come under the purview of governance need not be so definitively so. A
great deal of this rests on a rising potential out of the development of technology, but much else may face
the meat-cutter's ax as well. And this should not really startle anyone familiar with our history. Even
much which can be considered appropriate magisterial function need not be necessarily governmental in
implementation even where it were to remain so on the broader policy level. This is a central point of the
supply-side approach, but it is really not new. It is how we built the railroads (from which modern tort
law developed) and the interstate highway system, to call up but two important examples. It is also at the
root of how we won the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War. Thus, even though infrastructure
provision and maintenance may be crucially laid at the feet of government, that does not fix as
prerequisite that it be the a function of the state from start to finish. The nature of government as
compared to the private sector makes the latter a much better mechanism for this. Driven by the profit
motive, it is more efficient and more productive of better results. The fact that the public sector need not,
and clearly does not, in virtually all instances, produce wealth, coupled with the reality that public sector
growth does even more than 'crowd out' the private sector as well as trend in the direction of
codependency in its attempts at implementation, given the argument that the most critical objective of
community must be wealth enhancement underscores that. And while it might be suggested that it is only
the most developed societies which have the luxury of such option in choice, with a solid base for
economic activity and development already in place, whereas in developing societies which lack even the
rudiments of that which is necessary to commence proper infrastructure placement, let alone meaningful
economic activity resting upon it, it does not necessarily follow that supply-side type formulizations where
the state operates only or primarily as the catalyst cannot achieve at least as much, and probably more.

In a recent publication, THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE, Andrew Bard Schmoker contends that:

"The market economy attends well to some dimensions of human life and does not
even see others. It is sensitive to those values pertaining to what can be bought
and sold but is blind to others that cannot be turned into commodities, such as the
integrity of the natural world and the quality of human relationships. The market
registers the costs and benefits to transactions acting as social atoms but is impervious
to the costs of tearing apart the larger wholes -- familiar, communities, the biosphere --
that are vital to our lives."

This attempt to demonstrate just how markets operate by a logic of their own to mold the shape of all
within their domain but in actuality are serving only their own inherent purposes intends to show that they
must be made tools for us to use to master our own destinies, falls considerably short of its mark. James
Madison would undoubtedly rise simultaneously with Adam Smith in objection. If, on Bellah, there has
been a broken covenant, the transgression is not the one he portrays. The constitution of our faith runs in
quite the opposing direction. Indeed, in developed and developing sectors alike, where market
mechanisms have seemed to demonstrate flawed performance, it is nearly always because they were
fettered by unnecessary and counter-productive intervention. On this score, Thomas Sowell has the better
of the argument. (see, for example, CONFLICT OF VISIONS )

XIII ASSOCIATION AND GEIST

It has been suggested that the guillotine is the perfect instrument of Cartesian philosophy because it
separates the mind and the body so completely. That sort of dichotomy is essentially problematic for those
such as Edmund Burke who view the notion of unfettered rationalism as extremely dangerous and
destructive. Much of the intractability which we see in the Framers seems informed by such musings. In
their defense, one need not look back to Thucidydes for any foundation for such fears. The men who wrote
the Constitution may have given thought of the expedition against Syracuse. This was a popular campaign
which brought about the demise of the Athenian culture in great measure. But even as the work of
Philadelphia was being brought into operation, events across the ocean were graphically demonstrating
the validity of their misgivings.

However, lest there be misunderstanding, the reservations they may have harbored as to the ill effects
of such rationalist dualism, as the pursued a more Burkean practical course, their efforts were not
grounded in any absolute rejection of the possibility of human rationality. But even where the perfectibility
of rationality existed as a belief, there was no certainty that it would be manifest. Indeed, emersed in the
'mob,' there was little chance of its survival, as a society in revolutionary ferment devolved into the state of
nature of the war of everyone on everyone, for which the Thermidore of the Terror would soon afford
concrete evidence.

Hence, we might understand the fear of faction expressed by Madison in THE FEDERALIST not as a
rejection of Burkean praxis, but as the kernel of the concern over such social disruption. If they were
frightened of political 'parties,' their incipient character was never very far beneath the surface, and the
institutionalizations they formulated seem designed to formalize a Burkean chord of opposition, and not
simply to constrain it, but to channel such energy in constructive, or at least not destructive ways. Much as
the subsequent American System programmatic advances from Hamilton to Clay and beyond were
structured to unite disparate forces, so, too, was the Constitution itself, both in its character, and in the
process that produced it.

It is fortunate, indeed, that the Framers were 'practical' politicians in the spirit of Burke. And yet, they
were also possessed of a vision which would permit perhaps the circumvention of the inhibition to positive
change which Burke's empirical conservative prudence might restrict. For, if they were able to transcend
the dualisms of Descartes and the noumenal/phenomenal dichotomy of Kant, they recognized what was
for them a universal algorithm. Viewing the human species as possessed of the obligation to cultivate an
inherent capacity for rational thought, they endeavored the structuring of formulizations of a process for
welding that into rational action. This 'elevating' categorical imperative of moral conduct, in Kant perhaps
a 'Golden Rule' updated to fit into the Copernican and Newtonian revolutions, would be a central timber
of the constitutional order they were structuring. (They may not have been saddled by Weber's apparent
reluctance to meld intent and action, but others have been critical of that inadequacy in Weber, much as
Poe might have viewed the impotence rendered by Aristotle's viva activa vs viva passiva trap).

If this ran in contravention of Hume's relativist ontological naturalism, it might not be so much of an
antinomy to Rousseau's as might be expected. If man could be rational -- it he at least possessed that
potentiality -- their faith in the capacity of the species might be more expressive of a view of man as much
more 'noble' than Hobbesian pre-contractural vision. And, where they would diverge from Rousseau's
seeming rejection of the idea of progress -- which it is suggested here was not only a major tenet of their
epistemology but was the essential aim of their institutional formulations -- their intent was to preserve
truth and virtue where 'reason' might emerge as their enemy, much as it seemed to in Thucydides and the
Terror. The checks and balances, the limitations of the process they engendered, were intended to inhibit
the decadence and depravity which besets man in the 'artificial' society, thereby freeing him for a more
natural existence.

There is much in Rousseau that may be problematic from the perspective taken here. There is a
counter-communitarian strain which may be inferred from his writings and yet, it is important to see that
much of his analysis focuses on the theme of man living in harmony with his 'environment,' and that
might logically be construed as extending to his 'community.' Indeed, those aspects of his philosophy
which can be read as running counter to it, can also be interpreted as complementary or even rudimentary
to a functional society and citizenry. For example, he may prefer the lot of the noble savage, but his
system aims at reconstituting some degree of that savage's harmony and may thus be seen in another light
altogether. The division of labor he sees as contributing to the one dilemna is also a mandatory
characteristic of extending the existing society -- at even a more accelerated rate of specialization so that it
may be extended. The discussion may be reminiscent of that entered into by Publius (Madison) regarding
the scale of a successful republic. In both situations, however, there is clearly an aspect of 'getting along.'
In that sense, the 'general will' may assure a high level of commensurability with 'republican virtue,' and
Rousseau's civil religion can be argued to be an essential construct in support of that general will. Indeed,
for Rousseau, since we have 'fallen' and we cannot 'go back,' these constructs allow us to reach toward our
'species-nature' -- the best approximation men may hope for, if only by degree. Still, it is certain that the
human species does not find itself locked into a situation where it has fallen and cannot get up. Although
there may be those who find in Rousseau a basis for what has come to be termed 'counter-culture'
phenomenon, his system was intent upon finding the way through the maize of the depravation heaped
upon man by his society that he might begin to emerge from the zoo into more 'noble' environs.
This conception of man is a key component of the philosophical basis for the institutionalizations
created with the Framing. And it fundamentally subsumes the existence of a natural law. Thus did
Alexander Hamilton suggest:

"... the Deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has
constituted an eternal and immutable law ... Upon this depends the natural
rights of mankind ..."(1)
and that "Civil liberty is only natural liberty modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society "(2) and
it is in this that his fear of the 'ill winds of democracy' can only properly be understood.

If with the Framers there is not strict coherence to Rousseau's 'noble savage,' there would seem to be a
sense of formulating a process which might engender some degree of reparation, through setting in place
a governmental structure, the nature of which could produce a citizenry which would from the 'general'
rather than the 'particular' will. The real and moral citizens of such a society would be able to minimize
human depravity and maximize their original human nature. Indeed, the construct would cultivate the
General Will.

Needless to say, there is a tension between the 'republican virtue' to be cultivated among such a
citizenry and that which would arise from Rousseau's educational designs. In his Farewell Address,
Washington called for education that included both science and religion, either somewhat distasteful to
Jean Jacques. But the educational aspect remains central. For their part, while the Framers might have
been able to admire with Rousseau Robinson Crusoe's resourcefulness and creativity, there might be some
question about some of the more covert messages Defoe transmits. Even Jefferson, who had severe
reservations about those who were not aristocrats and white males, would probably wonder how the
shipwrecked English gentleman could be so innately superior to his darker native cohabitor. And, in that
spirit, it is not a tremendous leap from republican virtue to the notions in Rousseau of a civil religion as a
vital component of the General Will, even where they diverge on such critical elements as property and
division of labor. But the Framers also had the ideas of Adam Smith, John Locke, and Montesquieu to
enlighten their vision, that they need not remain eternally locked in Rousseau's zoo.

The problem in Rousseau is the problem he identified: "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in
chains." Man in his natural state was good, but he has been corrupted by the society he lives in. But the
other end of the continuum is not more acceptable. Man is a 'fallen' creature, now corrupt by his very
nature, which can and must be constrained by society. In reality, neither of the cases is accurate. Nor for
that matter is the Burkean notion that a few select individuals are good, and at odds with the swinish
unwashed multitudes. Humankind is neither inherently good or evil, but chooses freely which he shall be.
In fact, human beings, for all their flaws, tend to be much more good than evil. Were we innately evil,
there would not be a 'mere' 700 murders annually in Detroit -- no one could turn their back on anyone for
even an instant. Few people commit heinous acts at all, let alone routinely. And, in reality, various social
mechanisms serve to both corrupt and constrain us.
This question as to the actual nature of man poses problems for the Lockean system, as well. We do not
know the reality of the world beyond our experiences of it. The same is essentially the case with regard
even to the essence of our mind, which is a blank slate which experiences transcribe upon. But the 'tabula
rosa' is but one aspect of Locke. From the standpoint of this examination, the emphasis in Locke on laws
of political culture and institutions mediates that perspective in important ways. Central to his system is
the hammering out of the sort of polity which will make it possible to achieve freedom under law. There is
a clear rejection of the view, as in Hobbes and others, that the remedy to the crisis of man due to his
nature is the leviathan, a powerful if not omnipotent governance. That would produce only despotism. The
most important thing is the need man has for liberty under law and respect for institutions. His original
state of nature was a perfect freedom which constitutes our natural impulses. Society is seen as an
expression of these inherent attitudes of goodness, and he distinguishes here between government, the task
of which is not to change the fundamental situation, but to contain it, and that society. Thus, he comes to
his social contract, which, while it does end the problematic aspects of the state of nature, is a compact
based upon a mutuality primarily centered on the moral fabric of the society and a limited government to
minister inconveniences. This sounds strikingly similar to the notion of Association articulated by Adam
Smith but carried to a higher level of conceptualization in Peshine Smith and Henry Carey.

In Locke, too, a theory of property beginning with the labor theory of value (often inaccurately
attributed to Marx) is developed, but Adam Smith extends this toward developing the productive capacity
of society to the maximum. The division of labor, so abhorrent to Rousseau, has led to an increased
productivity which is only limited by the extent of the market, a limit put in place importantly for this
discussion by nature and convention. Inherent in that conceptualization is a theory of labor power.
Implicit in both natural science and modern society is the age of machines and the rise of technology
which has unleashed tremendous productive powers. His analysis of governmental finance, so critical of
mercantilism, would reach to public utility as a grounds for justification of governmental expenditure. For
Adam Smith, those conventional causes which inhibit markets and increased labor power include
government, as he concludes that the maximization of wealth creation flows of minimal political
interference, thus laying some of the foundation in theory for the modern liberal state (although certainly
not the contemporary 'liberal' model). But there are critical convergences of Smith with Humean
heteronomy. Rational utility maximization is not always a characteristic of people or society, such that
ethical theory derives of emotion devoid of rational foundations, and reason becomes "the slave of our
passions." Hence, wealth is a necessary but not sufficient requisite of happiness. But as referenced above,
the Framers seemed explicitly interested and concerned with that dilemna.

A clear and obvious tension is emergent here, or rather, a series of tensions involving human nature,
economies of scale, and the character of governance, among others, and whether or not Montesquieu has
succeeded in structuring a social science modeled on natural science, he does go part of the way toward
the development of a resolution of the tension, with important lapses, however. Two of his three types of
government, monarchy and despotism, would be for the likes of Milton if not Locke of rather
inconsequential differentiation, both being inevitably tyrannical. However, the third type, Republics,
represent a crucial distinction.

He actually identifies two kinds of Republics, the democracy and the aristocracy, but much of the
discussion to this point can be encompassed in that argument. Of great importance to him was the
methodology of imposing limitations on government which would not simultaneously destroy the
foundations of any possibility of any political authority whatsoever. And there would seem to be a strain of
a somewhat Calvinistic view of man as selfish with clearly defined limitations on human potential. The
concrete practical propositions he presented, most important of which must be seen to be the concept of
division of power that would function to prevent tyranny and disorder, were approximated by the Framers,
and most especially Madison and Hamilton in their argumentation for the new American constitution, in a
manner which resolved, at least theoretically, the attenuation referred to above, and indeed those present
in the Baron's own theory, at least as applicable to the American context, and in a manner which
transcended the seeming dichotomy Montesquieu was describing. A defining characteristic of his
Aristocracy was a degree of moderation in the spirit of the laws in their representation of a privileged
element of society. The Framers perhaps expanded at least the prevalent notion of aristocratic circles with
the concept of a 'natural aristocracy,' built upon the American idea as expressed in de Crevocour of
accomplishment as the basis for stature.

The actuating spirit of his democracy was virtue, but where Montesquieu felt the form quite
constrained in applicability to situations characterized by 'smallness,' the FEDERALIST trumps the
concept of division of power as the means to overcome this constraining principle that it be applicable to
the American situation where such a characteristic was not to be found. The actualization of such a
limited government would unleash the free spirit of the people to rather unfettered pursuit of wealth
creation and division of labor and economies and markets of scale, etc., such that the general will could
flourish. Partial reparation of our nature might be attained with such minimalized artificial constraints.
'Education' would be a key component of the republican virtue which would be the basis for the
development of a natural aristocracy, once again trumping Montesquieu's formulizations, as well as
Rousseau's vision of the 'noble.' And human beings, given all their frailties, might obtain to a willful
fruition of their potentiality, the inhibitions of their vices of passion and selfishness and faction dissolved
in this association. Further, the guillotine had been defeated with the rejoining of the mind and body.
Philosophically, at least, the puzzle had been solved by the process created. A rational or rationalized
general will cultivated as republican virtue would engender emense property and wealth creation
possibilities, thus obtaining to both the necessary and sufficient requisites of the pursuit of happiness -- a
categorical imperative, indeed.

Continue