UNCOMMON DENOMINATORS of 1776

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

In all probability, had you just finished conquering your revolutionary foe, you would have hastened to set up a stabilizing organization of governance. For the sake of convenience and familiarity, that government would have looked a lot like the one with which you had been so familiar before all the revolutionary ruckus had begun. You, no doubt, would have lined up several essential common denominators in a row and filled the familiar governmental slots of polity and policy with trustworthy men of the revolution. As soon as the smoke and dust of the final battles had settled, everyone could have taken a deep breath and enjoyed the fresh fruits of the long rebellious conquest. You could then have comfortably taken on the activities of your new nation and set about on a serious development plan for the future.

Had that been the scenario of the rag-tag militia men of the American colonies, a stalwart fellow by the name of Washington would have been crowned as King George. Noble names would have been pinned on the faithful military men, and the valuable property would have been whittled up into pieces of dignified dirt and royal real estate.

All the players of the 1776 victory were former inhabitants of either the isle of England or someplace in Europe. Just why wouldn't they simply rely on the traditions, institutions, and government models of their parents and homelands? Wasn’t this whole idea of colonies, after all, a business model of new trade routes, new markets, new products, and additional revenues? Why wouldn’t the motivation simply be to establish domestic security as quickly as possible and get on with the activities of building the new business model in that part of the world?

The reason for those uncommon denominators was because the revolutionary war had not been fought over stealing away a business model and securing the opportunities to procure new revenues. The revolutionary war had been a slug fest over economic and philosophical ideals. Some of those ideals had been brewing in the hearts and minds of the revolutionary dreamers for a long time. Some of those ideals included vociferous beliefs in property rights, personal liberty, and representative government.

The majority of the victors had earlier exposure to the underpinnings of the English Common Law. That was not necessarily a common denominator across Europe. But the revolutionaries were determined to stake their lives in order to see that the rule of law would not be based on some willy-nilly government- of- the- day getting to set the rules. Their respect for the law was center stage and designed for perpetuity. The concept of the rule of law was based on a higher plane with a constitution determined by a body of independent magistrates and a stalwart balance of governing power. The law was not an instrument of state control or manipulation, but a mechanism open to any individual seeking redress. That was a new and uncommon denominator for that part of the world.

I have come to the conclusion that the successful likelihood of the 1776 experiment would have been very slim to none at any other time or in any other venue of the contemporary world. Colonialism did not prove to be successful because it was a business model not open to the equal participation of all the residents.

In 336 B.C., twenty-one- year- old Alexander of Macedonia, who had been trained at the feet of Aristotle, had been placed on the Greek throne. With cunning intuition he conquered the known world by the time he was thirty-three years old. He had brought to the world security, protection, fairness, a common currency, low taxes, and unlimited opportunities of international trade. But Alexander the Great’s brilliant experiment only lasted until his early death at age thirty-three.

When Alexander was no longer there to be the entrepreneur and protector, his generals greedily torpedoed the good work and sent the experiment to the bottom until Julius Caesar resurrected the concept two hundred seventy-one years later. Caesar’s Pax Romana, with the mild taxation and alluring opportunities for commerce, was dependent on a model of military boots on the ground Occupationism. But occupying conquered lands, whether by the British, the Romans, or the Israelis only lasts until it becomes more bother than it’s worth.

But the 1776 economic and cultural experiment seemed to find a perfect niche in history even though the denominators were mostly uncommon. Let’s look at some of those denominators:

• No entrenched economic or cultural system had to be kicked out or purged from the country. When the British were defeated they simply went home
• New citizens were open to system change
• Many residents had already been reading and studying writings of freedom thinkers like John Locke, and economic thinkers like Adam Smith
• Agreed that new government should answer to the people and not the people to the established government
• Geographically private; no aggressive neighboring countries ready to attack and steal choice land parcels or ports
• No state church to fight or demand tax payments
• Positive inheritance and experience with Runny Meade and King John’s Magna Carta as model for a new Bill of Rights
• Background and understanding of British Common Law
• Agreement on idea of elected term leaders and civil transfer of power
• No monarchical, social caste system of inherited titles and properties
•  Healthy work ethic in order to exist on shores of north Atlantic
• Existing citizens already possessed qualities of morality, honesty, industriousness, and God- fearing religious faith
• Unity of language
• Plenty of space for growth and new immigrants
• Rough land; tough people
• Huge blue water buffer between England and America
• Citizens were forced to become independent from the outside, but dependent on those inside the experiment
• Citizens never entertained demand for equality of outcomes . . . just equality of opportunity and dignity

The common denominators one might have anticipated seeing implemented in the new nation of 1776 could have been strong personalities grabbing positions of power and leadership and injecting rules that would have been massaged and twisted for their own and their personal family’s favor and advantage in the future. That is generally the rule of the day I observe in the developing countries where I have traveled and worked.

Military power, hereditary status, and the systematic looting of natural and human resources by the newly installed ruling caste are the characteristics and denominators that I see as the universal norms even today.

The dreams and ideals of the 1776 incorporators were like a breath of fresh air into the world of political and cultural governance. How refreshing to think that the executive would be controlled by a board of legislators and the lawmakers would be directly accountable through the ballot box. Taxes should neither be levied nor laws passed without the consent of the populace. Issues that required decisions should be taken as closely as possible to those people that were most directly affected. The individual citizen should be free from knee-jerk and capricious punishment and protected from having his goods and property confiscated on a whim. Power should be spread out, and no one including the leader or his family would be considered above the rule of law. Property rights should be absolutely secure, and disagreements should be heard and arbitrated by ad hoc magistrates. There would be freedom of assembly as well as freedom of speech and freedom of religion guaranteed by the very governance.

The more I research and study the improbable experiment of 1776, and the uncommon denominators upon which the experiment was established, the more I marvel that the incorporators were able to even articulate the ideals, to say nothing about getting the experiment off the ground and into the air to fly. And fly it did. And it has achieved the most singularly significant political and cultural environment for enabling human achievement, creativity, and productivity that the world has yet to provide.

The question was asked in a prior article, “but is this what we have in America today?” The simple and unflinching answer to that question is “no.” There has never been a time in the history of the United States when there has not somewhere been a pocket of problem-makers who were determined to dash the experiment and reassemble the American value system into a model of European Leftism where the created welfare state is the alternative.

But in spite of all the intrusions and modifications of the original thrust of the 1776 experiment, I choose to throw my lot with President Abraham Lincoln, who declared in his message to Congress in 1862 that America is “the best last hope of earth.” I am so terribly grateful that even though the dreamer’s experiment proved improbable based on all the uncommon denominators upon which it was built, yet it still stands today as the best last hope of earth.

Next Week: Unintended Consequences of 1776

            (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.drjameswjackson.com  

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

 

THE IMPROBABLE EXPERIMENT of 1776

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

I was asked recently why, as a cultural economist, an entrepreneur, and humanitarian, I would be so interested in researching and writing on the brief history of the free enterprise system in America. My answer was pretty close to the surface. Over the past nearly forty years I have been privileged to travel around the world a lot of times. I have returned numerous times to many of the over 150 countries where I have worked.

As I observed and studied the cultures and economies, I became curious as to why some of those countries were wealthy, and why some were devastated by poverty. I began to perceive a pattern. The poverty had placed many of the residents in positions of sickness and helplessness. Poverty always develops dependence. It seemed logical that a country cannot build a strong economy on sick people, so helping the people get well should be a great starting point for a healthy economy in the future. That was when we began shipping donated medical goods into those countries. In the past nearly thirty years Project C.U.R.E. has carefully donated over one billion dollars’ worth of medical goods into more than 130 countries. The results have been spectacular.

I have observed, however, that even with the improvement in the health care delivery systems of those countries it is almost impossible for them to alter the reasons why they had gotten bogged down in the poverty in the beginning. It is extremely difficult to change the traditions, institutions, family structures, and the individual thinking of a citizenry when it comes to the basic economic components of land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurs.

I then began to do a little comparative research on the differences between the ways their countries’ economies worked and the basis of our U.S. economic system. After a lot of years of observation and research, I must admit that I still don’t have the mystery totally solved or the success formula perfected. But I have come to some conclusions of which I am rock-solid confident. If we were just dealing with a sterile set of graphs, charts, and matrices, we could pretty easily come up with what ought to be. But when we are dealing with human nature, traditions, ancient institutions, greed, the desires to control and manipulate one another, things get muddied quite quickly.

I learned early on that the economic and cultural difference between countries does not pivot on the tattered and benign phrase democracy. We have somehow allowed that word to be mercilessly mugged and relegated to the list of descriptors to cover nearly anything. As an example, “we will stay here in your country and support you until you are able to establish a democracy as evidenced by your first one-over-fifty-percent vote.” That is not the old criterion of a democracy.

My eight trips into North Korea (DPRK) resulted in friendships that allowed for robust discussions regarding economics and the free market. The North Korean government officials would inquire as to ways to get their people incentivized to work harder and produce more. They would joke with me and remind me that they were far more democratic than the United States: “We have more elections in our country than you do, and even our name declares that we are a democracy . . . DPRK is Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” I have discovered that many countries include the word Democratic in their name, but remain far from agreeing to anything that would resemble a Magna Carta or Bill of Rights, where the leadership agreed to be limited by the powers of a constitution of the people, by the people, and for the people!

Most of the developing countries in which I have worked were state-run, centralized, and with economies controlled by redistribution politics. Ambitious leaders will form followings or factions. Throughout the pages of history insecure people have cried out for a king or a dictator to protect them and take care of them from cradle to grave. That power is then given over to a leader and his government. From that point on, the leader and appointed government have legitimate power to compel obedience. Sometimes we forget the fact that every law and regulation enacted ultimately has a gun behind it to enforce it. Punishment becomes the final incentivizing method to bring work habits up to envisioned expectations.

Also, throughout history we can observe that the power held by a leader and his appointed government has so much potential force and authority for advancing that leader’s own interests and ambitions that he will do practically anything to achieve and retain that power. It dawned on me while working in Cambodia and trying to learn about the history of Pol Pot that people living their own private lives have a propensity to be industrious, gentle, and civil. But people bent on factions and politics have a propensity to be equally industrious, but agitated, uncivil and dangerous. History is the recordation of all those individual events and personalities and stories of leaders and governments throughout the ages.

So, what happened in the case of North America and, specifically, that which became the United States of America? What made its economic and cultural history start out differently? What happened? I think I have faithfully done my due diligence in research, and admit that I have found no other setting in history that would have spawned such an economic and cultural experiment. The experiment was improbable and has no guarantee of perpetuity. There is no insurance policy protecting against the same historic demise brought on by dealing with tainted human nature, traditions, ancient institutions, greed, the desires to control and manipulate one another, and the feeling of being entitled to live comfortably off the efforts and labors of others.

But historical research also bears out that the improbable experiment was able to produce and achieve the most outstanding environment for enabling human achievement, creativity and productivity that the world has yet provided.

That is my answer to those who inquire why it is I would be so interested in researching and writing on the brief history of the free enterprise system in America. I was born before the U.S. began to fight in World War II. All of my life has been positively influenced by the improbable experiment of 1776. As I traveled to so many other countries, I became more conscious of the importance of freedom of economic and cultural choice. As I now research and write, I discover and more fully understand what a grand and anomalous experiment it was. I don’t want it to slip either by default or skullduggery into the cracks of time and be forgotten, swept over by tainted human nature, traditions, ancient institutions, greed, the desires to control and manipulate one another, or the feeling of being entitled to live comfortably off the efforts and labors of others.

Next Week: Uncommon Denominators of 1776

             (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.jameswjackson.com  

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

POLITICAL MEANS OF TRANSFERRING WEALTH

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

Transformation takes place at the intersection of culture and economics. Where any of the economic components, e.g., land, labor, capital, and the entrepreneur intersect with such components of culture, e.g., traditions, institutions, the family, or individuals, you will probably find transformation taking place. In fact, you can, no doubt, predict that transformation will take place at that intersection. The American farm policy example, between the 1930s and the present, fits the Cultural Economics matrix perfectly:

Land use was intersecting with traditions. Traditions were intersecting with labor. Components of capital were intersecting with institutions; families were intersecting with everything, etc. This transformation was taking place on no less than six million family farms in America and affecting twenty-five percent of the voting population of the country. By the 1990s, less than two percent of the families still lived on the farms. It seems appropriate to ask, why did they leave? Where did the people go?

Some of the farmers simply got sick and tired of the government’s interference and moved on. Another reason for leaving the farms was that the small family farms had been an easy and convenient entry threshold and starting point for newcomers to America. As other American resources began to be developed, new job opportunities opened up that lured folk away from the family farm.

At the same time agricultural land values began to increase. As soon as the government began offering to pay for crops that farmers didn’t plant, many farmers began offering to buy their neighbors’ acreage so that they could ‘not plant crops’ on their ground, also . It only made economic sense. Then investors began to formalize corporations and purchase lots of fertile ground to qualify for the strange program in a larger way. Competition to purchase the ground began to drive the land prices even higher, making it a good time for the small farmers to grab their chance to sell, take their proceeds, and find a place in town close to a good paying job.

Land prices got a boost from another odd set of circumstances. Earl Butz was the Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976 under Nixon and Ford. It was his intent to drastically change America’s farm policies and reengineer some of FDR’s socialistic farm support plans. He soon abolished some of the programs that were paying the farmers to not raise crops or livestock. He was bent on expanding and increasing farm production and allowing the farmers to have a say in what crops they would plant. His exuberant theme to the agriculture business community was to “get big or get out.” He also beat the drum for the farmers to plant their crops “from fencerow to fencerow,” to increase their yield rather than cut back on production. (1)

That message was all that the corporations needed to hear. It sounded a lot like a policy shift back to the direction of a free enterprise agricultural model. It was a green flag to the land consolidators to increase in size and scope their involvement in the agriculture opportunities. Land prices surged and more small farmers grabbed the opportunity to make a profit by selling their land and leave the farm. Agriculture Secretary Butz proved to be a poor choice, however, to represent the Republicans’ attempt at farm policy reform. After two separate incidents of reprehensible verbal gaffes, Butz was pressured to resign his cabinet post in 1976. Later, he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion. But the big corporate farms were there to stay.

From that point, however, the progressive, centralized government folk unleashed tremendous pressure to stymie any such free enterprise encroachment in the agricultural administration. And as we learned last session, The Freedom to Farm Act was sufficiently gutted, and the Farm Act of 2002 reinstituted the direct-payment provisions, and the “automatic emergency aid” provisions of the law were guaranteed annually whether there were any emergencies or not. That which had started out to wean the farmers off unnecessary subsidies ended up entrenching the farm controls even deeper.

The government began to realize that having the corporations on the farm land could be far more politically advantageous than dealing with the individual farmers, especially where the individual farmers had been virtually marginalized by dwindling numbers. The government simply continued the subsidies and above-equilibrium price programs. The government and the new corporate farm operators became strange bedfellows. Together, they were able to utilize the rich fertile earth to produce big money for each institution, instead of just food crops for the nation. Hand in hand they walked together, reaping enough money to supply both the corporate institutions as well as the enormous agricultural bureaucracy. The land was now growing money, and not just food crops, through price controls and the ability to raise billions of dollars in tax revenues from the massive numbers of non-farm citizens.

To simplify this issue, let me tell you about what the economists call Public Choice Theory:

Farmers producing a particular crop (or, for that matter, this can be true for labor unions or any other group in an industry) can use political means to transfer income or wealth to itself at the expense of another group or of society as a whole. It is also possible for a small group to receive large benefits at the expense of a much larger group whose members individually suffer small losses without really ever realizing it.

For example, a group of grape growers or sugar beet farmers would organize and establish a powerful and wealthy political action committee (PAC).The purpose of the PAC would be to transfer income or wealth to the group through their efforts of promoting or soliciting government programs. One of their methods would be to aggressively lobby senators and representatives for their vote on price supports, tariffs, or quotas that affected the group’s products. Once the PAC secured the legislator’s vote, the PAC would reciprocate by doling out large political contributions to the participating politicians, who would otherwise have had nothing to do with the grape growing or sugar beet industries.

It is also possible for a special interest group to vigorously lobby and increase its own income at the expense of the ordinary citizens. Very large sums of money desired by the special interest groups can be collected from each individual citizen through collected taxes. Those citizens may never even become aware of being taxed. Busy taxpayers are not likely to be informed about the costs of government programs for the sugar beet industry if they have no formal connection with it. The taxpayer, subsequently, doesn’t even know enough to object about his legislators agreeing to support subsidy measures for a certain commodity. The special interest PAC group would receive little or no objection to their solicitations.

Let me quickly share one more political means of transferring wealth of a nation to groups that benefit at the expense of a much larger group, whose members individually suffer small loses. Trading of votes on governmental policies and programs is referred to by politicians as Political Logrolling. It is designed to perpetuate government programs and subsidies by special interest manipulation. For example, one senator agrees to vote for a subsidy program that benefits another senator’s voters. That senator then returns the favor by voting for a measure that benefits the first senator. One politician may vote for expanding the school lunch program and proffer his vote for a direct payment or subsidy for sugar beet growers, even though no sugar beets are grown in his state. The vote trade may not benefit his constituents, but have a lot to do with financing his next campaign to get reelected.

Companies that supply agrochemicals, farm machinery, farm insurance programs, and hundreds of other farm industry items are willing to support PACs as well as lobby for a generous menu of government subsidies and direct benefits to the farmers, be they individual or corporate. It furnishes them with more money to purchase farm related goods. Additionally, the tens of thousands of people who are employed by the government to service and administer the Department of Agriculture and its subsidiaries are highly supportive of political means of transferring wealth from the taxpayers to their monthly paychecks. Over sixty million dollars are spent for just agribusiness people to lobby our legislators each year. (2)

Those practices help to explain why farm subsidies are so entrenched and why the food stamp program, for example, expanded for so many years. But the simple fact remains that misappropriated natural resources and the loss of free cultural and economic choice make a nation poorer rather than wealthier.

Next Week: The Improbable Experiment

           (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.drjameswjackson.com  

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com