Ideas and the Coming Election

Polls measuring the political concerns of grassroots Americans consistently show that a majority is "extremely angry about government intrusion into personal lives." Despite that finding, a parochial, anti-conceptual view of politics predominates among political party officials, politicians and candidates.

For instance, as the Tea Party movement was born in March 2009 discussion groups proliferated around the nation. Grassroots Democrats, Republicans and Independents, candidates for political office, ranking political party officers attended the meetings. So did many activists, bloggers and Tea Party supporters. The discussions tended to revolve around political corruption, excessive spending, budget deficits, the bailouts, government take-overs, and so forth. Grassroots attendees seemed to be looking for something that would tie together all of their concerns.

But when one stated that the growing intrusion into American lives shows that "we must demand a restoration of individual rights," political party officials and political candidates declared that "Voters are turned off by that philosophical stuff." One candidate said, "The only way you can get elected is to talk about fiscal accountability and transparency. Talking about ideas is a waste of time. Philosophical ideas are too abstract. People don't understand them. What they understand is their pocketbook."

Such fatuous remarks reveal the magnitude of the speaker's ignorance. Bookstores are doing a booming business selling books that deal with ideas. For example, "Total sales of Ayn Rand's novels reached 1.1 million in 2009.
. . . Nearly half of those total sales were Atlas Shrugged," a novel that deals with philosophical ideas. During the first quarter of 2010, sales had not slowed. Her non-fiction work, such as the Virtue of Selfishness, is also reaching new highs in sales. Libraries have long wait lists for books that deal with ideas. Bloggers dealing with ideas have good-size followings. Articles posted on the net by columnists who deal with ideas generate hundreds of comments. Talk radio has grown large, with steady audiences. The questions phoned in are predominately thoughtful.

The majority of American voters characteristically have worked hard all their lives to improve themselves financially and intellectually. One does not improve oneself financially and intellectually by reading exclusively the comics, the society page or the tabloids. Americans are looking for ideas.

They know it is not right for government to confiscate their money and give it to those who have not earned it. What idea makes them know that such action is robbery? The right to property. They know that it is not right for government to set salaries. What idea gives substance to that knowledge? The right to life. They know it is not right for government to demand homeowners have a license to sell their home. What idea is behind that? The right to property and liberty.

Rights are the foundation of our Republic and of men's well being. Only the restoration of our rights can stop the descent into collectivism---and it does not matter if you call it socialism, progressivism, fascism or communism, all are expressions of collectivism, the fundamental political principle guiding the Obama government.

The opposite of collectivism is individualism. Morally, individualism is the doctrine that says man has the right to live for his own sake. Politically, it espouses the individual's right to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Economically, it results in the free-market. Under individualism, men are free to pursue the shape and meaning of their own happiness as long as they do not violate another's rights. Under individualism, men are free to choose the work that interests them, earning their own way, minding their own business, helping those they wish to help. These are some of the aspects of individual rights that need to be discussed, advocated and made the center of a political platform.

The political party that does, will be the winning party in 2010 and in 2012 will sweep the collectivists out of office. The candidates who do, will be statesmen returning this country to the land of freedom it once stood for.

Capitalism vs the Welfare State: The Next Vote

Let's sort out some things.

As a political and economic system, socialism is government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods, the control of money, and the abolition of profit and private property. These ideas also describe communism and progressivism.

Socialism originated at the end of the 18th century in several "social studies." The studies evaded the Enlightenment's giant strides in providing jobs and raising the standard of living of hundreds of thousands who had been far worse off before the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

In the 1840s, the term communism was coined to describe a militant form of socialism. Marx and Engels used the word in the title of their work, The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. Later both Marx and Engels referred to themselves as socialists, and Marx's work remains the basis of socialist thought.

In 1878, a schism split communists from socialists. The socialists advocated "gradualism," the idea that capitalist society could be changed by reform from within. The communists advocated the violent overthrow of government. It was only a matter of methodology. They remained glued together by their fundamental ideas.

Progressivism started sometime after the Civil War as an attempt to help poor people through self-help programs operated by private charities. Progressives usurped the effort. They, too, evaded the advances achieved by the Industrial Revolution.

As early as the 1890s, progressives elected politicians who promised to take over utilities, improve city services and tenement housing codes. Other states joined in. By 1903 a wide range of progressive political and economic ideas were adopted to regulate railroads and utilities. They pressured government to raise corporate taxes. They advocated workmen's compensation---paid for by businesses---and child labor laws, which denied income to the very poor.

In 1906 progressives passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1913 progressives established the Federal Reserve. In 1914, they established the Federal Trade Commission and the Anti-Trust Act, extending government regulation of business. In 1916, they again raised corporate taxes, organized a railroad commission to set rates and established a conservation commission.

World War I interrupted the progressive's juggernaut lumbering toward total government control of the economy. However, it was resumed with the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, although now referred to as the welfare state. Another name, the same ideas.

The sameness of these doctrines, which many people believe represent different points of view, arises from a single source.

There are only two ways to regard man's relationship to society: either he has the right to live for his own sake, or he must live for others. Whichever principle you espouse places you in one or the other of opposing camps.

If you accept the principle that man has the right to live for his own sake, you are an individualist. If you believe that man must live for others, you are a collectivist.

If man has the right to live for his own sake, then that right must be protected and so, the initiation of physical force must be outlawed. In such a society no one's rights may be violated with impunity; so, government has only one job: to protect individual rights domestically by means of the courts and the police, and by means of the military in matters of foreign aggression. Individualism limits government.

In a society in which rights are protected and from which the initiation of physical force is banned, men are free to trade value for value as they choose, working at what they choose, disposing of their earnings and property as they see fit, enjoying their life as they like. This is capitalism, the economic system in which all property is privately owned.

Our constitution explicitly states the individual's right to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Enumerated, too, are freedoms that follow from individual rights---such as, for example, the freedom to peaceably assemble, the freedom to petition the government to redress wrongs, the freedom to keep and bear arms, and so forth.

If you believe that man must live for others, government becomes your ruler. There is no alternative. A large group seeking to plan and execute some plan requires by its nature a leader, or leadership. In a nation of people who believe man should live for others, the government becomes that leader simply by claiming that it represents everyone in the group.

But the government is a group of men. If you believe you must live for others, it is that group of men that will tell you what to do, how to do it and when to do it. It is that group of men that will regulate and control every aspect of your life, from hopscotch to hospital.

Progressivism, socialism, communism are all expressions of collectivism. But collectivism as repeatedly shown in countless examples throughout history cannot work. So, necessarily, the collectivist seeks an accommodation. He is willing to allow vestiges of capitalism, not too much but enough to keep the leaders in shoes and jets to fly to their vacation spots. All else is controlled and regulated by government, which is what we have today: A "mixed economy."

No matter how you describe him politically, Mr. Obama is a collectivist. It doesn't matter whether you say he's a socialist, a progressive or a communist. It all adds up to collectivism. It all adds up to---like it or not, accept it or not---everyone being forced to live for others.

The question is: why should men live for others when they can better live their own life? They "should," according to collectivists, because it gives collectivists power over men's actions, which is what all forms of collectivism are about.

So, if you wonder about those who seek power over other men, it's instructive to recognize that all collectivist doctrines depend on the values that the able create.

Consider, for instance, the slogans of both socialism and communism. Socialists declare, "From each according to his ability; to each according to work performed." Communists declare, "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need."

Notice "from each." Who are they? They are the men of ability. If you're one, you might want to think about whether you want to be an individualist or a collectivist when you cast your next vote.

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Suggested Reading:
Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels

The Bumpy Road to Individualism - Conclusion

By the end of the Italian Renaissance the battle remained horrifically one-sided. Collectivism is the political expression of altruism, i.e., that each man should live for others. Altruism is a known and widely accepted moral code. It has been the foundation of the world's religions for over two thousand years.

Individualism had no explicit moral base. Those who attempted to ground it in the self, or the ego, corrupted the meaning of the self, the ego and individualism. Nietzsche's view, for instance, of the egoist as a destructive brute determined to achieve his own ends without regard for means and indifferent to human misery is the widely accepted view of selfishness, of egoism and of individualism. To change that view, certain crucial questions had to be raised and answered to establish the factual base of the science of ethics, which would give substance to egoism and to individualism. But for over 400 years no one knew the right questions to ask. Meanwhile the battle between implicit individualism and collectivist raged.

In art history, the baroque period (1550 to 1750) follows the Italian Renaissance. In many ways baroque art reflects the same conflicts that troubled the Renaissance. In the visual arts---the swirling drapery and disturbed poses in sculpture, the sometimes overly ornate curving forms in architecture, the clash between so-called "Romanticism" and Classicism in painting---indicated the fermenting undercurrents, which continued to swell without resolution. The same powerful stirrings were also taking place in music and literature.

Given the two hundred years attributed to the baroque, its expression in Italian art was understandably much different from its expression in, say, the art of England or Holland at a later date. Yet a common thread linked them. The philosophical underpinning of the times was in flux and men's actions showed it. It's not surprising, therefore, that the characteristic that defines the essential meaning of the period was agitation---agitation in thought, agitation in action, agitation in values and goals.

Agitation was evident in the long-brewing controversies preceding the Protestant Reformation. But it had nothing to do with individual men's personal relation to their religion. Rather, it was like a family squabble over methodology, a conflict among mystic tribalists who shared the same basic view of man. The individual continued to be viewed as merely an undifferentiated part of a group. Agitation preceded the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603) much of which she inherited and resolved to the benefit and glory of England. Nonetheless, the essence of the individual's relationship to the state did not change. He remained a subject, servant to the state.

Agitation colored the exploration and settlement of the New World. Thousands of men were leaving the Old World to make a new life on an uncharted continent. While Church and state forced collectivism upon the New World, agitation continued between the individual and the group in the Old as Dutch financial establishments worked to seed numerous business enterprises struggling to disentangle themselves from the guild system.

Amidst this turmoil John Locke (1632-1704) completed his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was published in 1690. In the same year his Two Treatises on Civil Government was also published. This, Locke's political philosophy, is among the most crucial works in man's history. Locke argued that all men were equal before the law, that each man had inalienable rights of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that possession of these rights obligated a man to not violate the rights of others. His work heralded in the Enlightenment in England, which then spread to the continent and across the Atlantic to the New World. There, Locke's ideas were the rock upon which the United States was born. His views comprised the first explicit identification of individual rights. And it turned the collective view of man on its ear.

Politically, the concept of individualism is the doctrine that government exists for the individual and that government's only role is to protect individual rights. Economically, individualism is expressed by laissez-faire capitalism, which entails limited government. Socially, individualism is the recognition that the individual is the primary unit of action. He may choose to cooperate with others, but it is understood that no man can think for another as no man can digest another's food. A man may persuade other men to work for him, to help him realize an idea. But in all cases, each man is an autonomous, sovereign unit of thought and action. Therefore, a particular form of government is required to protect and defend individual rights.

Locke's brilliant achievement and America's Founding Fathers' valiant implementation of his ideas combined to form a government for the people and by the people: a government to serve the individual, to insure individual freedom by protecting individual rights. For the first time in history---for a dazzling but all too brief period---the individual was recognized as the proper center of government. The see-saw between individualism and collectivism began a shaky back and forth teeter with individualism on a slow upswing although still badly weighted by mistaken perceptions.

The upswing was the torrent of productive energy that Locke's ideas unleashed. The United States entered into one of the most extraordinary periods in man's history. For about one hundred years individual rights were protected with little government interference. The result was increasing productivity and prosperity as Americans created the richest nation in history and the most generous people on earth. The benevolence that is the result of freedom achieved through the protection of individual rights vindicated Locke's deep conviction that man by nature was good.

But the Constitution included some grave errors. The errors led to a steady erosion of individual rights. Through those errors individualism was in continual jeopardy.

Although the preamble to the Constitution has no political power, two phrases in it allowed collectivists to gain unjustified power over American citizens. Those two phrases are "We the people" and "promote the general welfare." The first has been interpreted to augment Federal government power, draining state power. The second has been interpreted to justify welfare programs and the Federal government's authority over same.

Both interpretations commit the fallacy of dropping the context of man's rights. If one holds individual rights sovereign "We the people" simply refers to the voluntary agreement of individuals to cooperate for a specific purpose. It is merely a re-statement of the fact that "the people" is composed of individuals. It is not a license to subordinate the individual to the collective.

In a similar way, only by dropping the context can the phrase "promote the general welfare" be used to justify destruction of individual rights. It is precisely the protection of individual rights that promotes the general welfare. "Promoting the general welfare" is merely a re-stating that the government's job is to protect individual rights, not usurp them.

The third error is the so-called commerce clause, Article 1, Section 8, in particular point 3: "The Congress shall have the power . . . to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes . . ." Although many other points in Section 8 permit government intervention in the economy, it was point 3 that allowed collectivists to legislate laws that hamper free enterprise and expand Federal power. Article 1, Section 8 became the battleground for and against increased regulation of business.

Aided by the errors in the U.S. Constitution, European rulers also inspired collectivists' goals. Between 1883 and 1887 Bismark inaugurated the welfare state as a weapon against his enemies. Less than thirty years later, the Federal Reserve in the United States (1913) was established. It was a powerful blow against the rights of bankers and all who dealt with bankers, which meant of course every individual who had an account with a bank, invested in stock or dealt with those who did. Legislating how banks should operate was the collectivists means of controlling the life-blood of the nation.

By 1917 collectivists took over the government of Russia. Over two million peasants were slaughtered to force agrarian collectives. In the cities, the life's work of countless individuals was taken over in the name of the re-distribution of wealth. As Russians were herded together to march in celebration of collectivism's triumph, they were starving---like hundreds of thousands more throughout the Soviet Union.

The collectivist tsunami swept across the European continent. Money was printed by the truckload to fund welfare programs. By 1923 a widespread, exceptionally severe inflationary depression crushed the German people, setting the stage for the rise of German fascism.

In 1929, the United States entered what has become known as the Great Depression, an economic disaster caused by the Federal Reserve's "easy money policies." The manipulation of the money supply without goods and/or services to back the printed dollars resulted in expansion of credit without any backing, installment buying without any concern for repayment and wild speculation in the stock market. Nothing could contain the empty dollars. And nothing did. The economy collapsed.

During the 1930s the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt sunk America deeper into the welfare state. The government interfered more often and more deeply in more businesses and more markets. Collectivism was on a binge, flying high, its praises sung almost everywhere while people suffered and prosperity declined. Nothing seemed able to stop it.

One individual alone rose to challenge collectivism. One individual alone saw the fundamental cause for the continual victories of collectivism and of the inability of individualism to combat it. One individual without allies, without great wealth, without social or political connections saw the missing ingredient that individualism desperately needed to sustain itself and forge a proper foundation for a free society.

In 1934, a book entitled We the Living was published for the first time. It was the work of a young woman who had emigrated from the Soviet Union to become an American citizen. It was published in Italian and Mussolini thought it was an attack on his enemies; so, he permitted its circulation. When someone in his gang observed that the novel was stirring individuals against his regime, he ordered it taken out of circulation. We the Living is a novel showing the destructiveness of all forms of totalitarianism.

In 1943, in the midst of the Second World War, Ayn Rand, the author of We the Living, finally found a publisher for her second novel The Fountainhead. The beginning of a significant turnaround toward individualism was launched. It was a slow beginning. Advertising for The Fountainhead was modest and restrained. Only one critic saw its monumental importance. The novel, dramatizing the value of individualism and the source of creative thought, was made into a movie. It was not highly promoted. Nonetheless, sales of the novel continued and remained steady. In 1958, Miss Rand's masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, was published. Left and right, liberals and conservatives alike, all attacked the book. Altruists/collectivists at root, they saw the threat of Atlas Shrugged.

Nonetheless, the novel found a receptive audience. The audience was comprised largely of those who were NOT politicians, media, or college professors. Interest in Miss Rand's work grew yearly. Today Atlas Shrugged is at the top of the literary marketplace.

Ayn Rand raised and answered basic questions regarding man's moral code. She identified the proper standard of the good and identified the moral code at the base of individualism. It is the ethics of rational self-interest---also known as rational egoism---or as she titled one of her non-fiction works, The Virtue of Selfishness. Miss Rand demonstrated that selfishness is concern with one's own interests, that according to man's nature as a rational, volitional being his interests are shaped by the fundamental values of reason, purpose and self-esteem and that his actions are guided by virtues in keeping with those fundamental values. Rational selfishness is the necessary and essential foundation of capitalism. Laissez-faire capitalism requires the free exercise of one's rights, which is individualism.

Individualism has been given a mighty leg up.

Yet the struggle continues. On the one hand, big government corruption and fiscal irresponsibility are causing many Americans to recognize that collectivism is an effort to enslave them. On the other hand, collectivists are exploiting Americans' present fears and anger by blaming individual businessmen for government's faults and calling for wider government powers.

Beneath this surface, a fundamental, long-range change is taking place. It is real. It is happening. It is seen in several clues. For instance, collectivists' ridicule and insult has replaced substantive argument, showing that their arguments have grown from thin to empty. The eminent collapse of Newsweek, a self-proclaimed socialist magazine, is another clue that collectivism is all but dead. What sustains it is only the moral code of altruism.

The best way to show the manipulative destructiveness of altruism is to advocate the positive benefits and importance of individual rights. The Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights are engaged in this education process. http://www.aynrand.com/ In addition, a number of informed activists are working in areas of their own interest to counter government's increasing disregard of individual rights.

It's likely that years from now when individualism is taken for granted many will wonder what was all the fuss about. "Of course," they will say in the future, "individualism is the only doctrine proper to man. It could not be otherwise." And they will be right.

Part III: The Bumpy Road toward Individualism

Individualism began as a doctrine implicit in the Ancient Greek view of man, best captured in their art and in Aristotelian philosophy. That view consisted essentially of reality being knowable and the base of all knowledge, and of man as a heroic being. Such a view reflected an individual's pride in his own capabilities, his self-reliance, and acceptance of responsibility for his own life and soul, i.e., his consciousness.

However, a doctrine left implicit is on wobbly footing. Consequently, when in 313 the Byzantine Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan making Christianity the official state religion, the implicit idea of individualism was buried under reams of Christian dogma.

Central to Christianity is the notion of altruism, meaning: self-sacrifice. Altruism is explicitly anti the self. Although why others' selves are to be held superior to one's own, was never made clear, altruism was widely accepted through the assiduous efforts of a number of Christian fanatics, principally Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430).

The wide acceptance of Christianity---forced upon men by the state's power of the gun---led to the Medieval Ages. And for a thousand years altruism, and its political expression collectivism, kept the population burdened with illiteracy and consequent disease and poverty. Church and state both admonished the individual to live for the group, to sacrifice himself to others. With altruism calling the moral shots, collectivism kept individualism tethered to oblivion.

The word 'group' refers to a number of individual things----either human or not. For example: a group of candy bars, or a group of trees. A group does not exist as a concrete object. It is an abstraction, a shorthand way of referring to a number of things together. It does not and cannot exist apart from the objects comprising it.

Only individual objects exist, including human beings. Why Christianity considered the group somehow superior to the individuals comprising it was not questioned. Why an individual should sacrifice himself to a group of other individuals, with each individual commanded to sacrifice himself to the other, and so forth around in a vicious circle, was never answered.

In such a quagmire, men had little chance to raise themselves out of a morality that claimed they should suffer and die for others and a society that said they should work for others. Individualism was nowhere in practice. Collectivism and its moral base, altruism, dominated men's lives.

Slowly over the centuries a little of Aristotle's thought seeped into Western Europe. Peter Abelard (1079-1142) taught some of his ideas at the University of Paris. Then between 1267 and 1273 the publication of Thomas Aquinas' more important works, raised a tiny node of implicit individualism. Aquinas argued that the domain of faith was separate from the domain of reason. This was an implicit indication that the individual counted for something.

Although it was not nearly enough to teach men the importance of individualism, it opened a door to it: the recognition that a certain kind of methodology is essential to man's successful life on earth---the methodology of thought, of reason, of conviction. Through that door, a number of artists and writers in their work implied the importance of the individual.

For instance, Dante's (1265-1321) Divine Comedy while a paean to Christian values, was focused on the travels of an individual man and his love for an individual woman. Dante's splendid oath of dedication to the highest best is usually regarded as his devotion to God. But one can legitimately understand his words, "for thee and nothing else I care," as a solemn commitment to one's own highest best. One can only speculate to what extent such a commitment entered men's minds as they read Dante.

In any case, the separation of the realm of reason from that of faith was an important beginning. Although that beginning was an inexact and incomplete view of the individual self, it led out of the Medieval Ages into a period of comparative euphoria, the Italian Renaissance.

Influenced by Aristotle, Aquinas' work made possible the Italian Renaissance by way of shaping in part men's understanding of their means of gaining knowledge. That understanding necessarily rides alongside of how men regard reality and their own nature.

If, for example, a person learns that he gains knowledge by looking out at reality and using his mind to identify what he sees, he will also form simultaneously the view that reality is knowable. And he'll feel pretty good about his own abilities to know and learn things.

On the other hand, if he believes that he must look to some higher authority to be told what's in a non-existent dimension, which he cannot of course see or know, he will form simultaneously the view that reality is unknowable and/or unimportant and that others know best. And he'll not feel very self-confident about his own abilities to know anything.

Morally, Renaissance man was still mired in medieval Christianity with its pernicious affect on the human spirit. The Christian view that the good was to sacrifice one's life to others, that the self was loathsome, that one's own individual life had no value and must be subordinated to others, that obedience to authority was one's duty---all this was oppressive. It made men sad.

Existentially, on the level of practical pursuits, the recognition of the value of reason had a mighty liberating affect. To some extent men came to understand that since only the individual has the capacity of reason, their own individual life was a value. The Aristotelian view that man was basically good and benevolent, that nature was open to his efforts, that friendship and love and justice among men were worth striving for is a view that encompasses values that can only be attributable to an individual, not to a group. These ideas made men happy.

As might be expected, and can easily be seen in its art, the Italian Renaissance was characterized by men's longing for the heroic grandeur that was Greece on the one hand, and on the other by men's befuddled entrapment in Christian values.

The tug-of-war between man's right to live for himself, and the state and church's dictates that he live for others began in earnest. The battle between incomplete individualism and collectivism as a moral ideal was mounted.

----------------- To Be Continued --------------------

LEST WE RETURN: The Rulers--Part I and II.

With the rise of the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt (between c. 5000 and 4000 BCE), men’s social groupings expanded.

Previously, the social groupings of prehistoric man had slowly developed from family to clan to tribe. The advent of the Neolithic Revolution---the invention of farming and animal husbandry---saw a different kind of grouping and a different kind of living arrangement. The building of the first city (Jericho c. 8000 BCE) indicates that the new way of producing and keeping food required closer proximity of men to their farms and animals. Tribes may have started to live together side by side.

In any case, by the time King Menes united the tribes of Egypt (around 3200 BCE) individuals in both Egypt and Mesopotamia were regarded as members of one of two classes: the rulers and the ruled.

Among rulers arose two distinct types that often vied for predominance: those who sought dominion over men’s physical being, the kings, and those who sought dominion over men’s spiritual being, the priests. (The concept "spiritual" is here used throughout as synonymous with "consciousness" unless otherwise noted.)

The kings were those who ruled by might. They were the men of muscle, the men who made others do their biding through cunning and brute physical strength, aided by men of like kind who were promised riches in exchange for their allegiance to the head muscle-man.

The priests, like priests today, were those who ruled through fear and ignorance of nature. They were the equivalent of what other tribal societies came to call witch doctor. But instead of involving themselves with attempting to heal the wounded, they devised cosmologies---myths and fantasies---purporting to explain various natural phenomena.

Among the ruled were all those who produced material goods. These were the thinkers , the producers: the farmers, weavers and builders, including the artist/artisan/craftsman. It was these who kept the rulers alive. They did not know it. They did not know the importance of their work---or its moral meaning .

Part II.

Rulers did not accumulate riches through trade, invention and improvements. They accumulated riches through plunder, annexation and war. Whereupon the ruler declared that he owned all the land under his purview, that his power was absolute, that it was divinely ordained and that therefore he was above the law (This is the source of the notion of today's "eminent domain"). He pronounced himself the final and unquestionable authority on all matters. In effect, he held the power of life and death over every individual within his reach.

Rulers of both church and state dressed in the finest of fabrics---woven and sewn by weavers and seamtresses, i.e. the producers. Their skin was rosy and glowing from much good food---raised and harvested by the producedrs, farmers and livestock folk. They drank from cups in-laid with precious metals and stones, fashioned by skilled artisans, the producers. They commanded and the producers built magnificent tombs, pyramids, ships, chariots, palaces, grand cathedrals and country retreats with artfully landscaped gardens and fountains. Their domiciles were furnished with the finest furniture, decorated with rich tapestries crafted by artisans, the producers. Paintings of exquisite beauty adorned ceilings and walls. Sculptures graced walkways and lined the edges of scented pools of pristine water.

Both kinds of rulers postured before the populace, powerful only by dint of his willingness to destroy and his entourage to obey his commands. He gripped tight a mass of workers who had no idea of individual rights or property, their ignorance held in stasis by means of force.

The money to pay for the materials and to keep the craftsmen/artists alive long enough to do the work is said to have come from the munificence of the princes of church and state. Did it?

In the tribal states of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia everything that was, belonged to the ruler---no matter where it was made, who made it or what effort it cost the maker.

This remained the practice up to around 500 BCE when during the Ancient Greece period an implicit understanding of individualism began to develop, which held sway through much of the rule of Ancient Rome's Republic. During the Medieval Ages, however, the idea of individualism was lost and ownership of everything reverted back once again to the ruler, with the church muscling in for a share of the loot.

In the feudal culture that dominated Europe from the ninth century AD to the middle of the seventeenth century, the king confiscated around thirty-eight percent of every peasant's crop and of every subject's product. On top of that, the church took one-tenth of every individual's annual income.

Centuries later it could be stated with certainty that the rulers needed the art and the craftsmanship---and the nature of that "need" was not simply material comfort. They needed it "to impress themselves and foreigners alike with illusions of power which had little basis in reality."1 Rulers were not merely keen to have fine architecture, paintings and sculpture. They were obsessed with having it. No matter what it cost the peasants they ruled.

"Is there not the story of how Nicomedes, King of Lycia, yearned for a statue of Praxiteles, and exhausted almost all the resources of his people in acquiring it? And did not Attalus believe in the same way being prepared to spend over six thousand sesterces for a painting of Bacchus by Aristides?"2

". . . I must also add that some time later in the year 1060 the circular church of San Giovanni was built on the very same square, opposite the cathedral. It is an amazing thing, and almost unbelievable, that it took two weeks and no more to erect and complete the columns, pilasters, and vaulting of this church, as is recorded in an ancient document in the cathedral's office of works. In the same record, which anyone may consult, it is written that a tax of a penny on every hearth was imposed to raise funds for building the church, although it does not say whether this means a gold or copper coin. And at that time, the record also tells us, there were thirty-four thousand hearths in Pisa."3

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The people who actually build a civilization yet accept the unquestioned authority of state and of church, find themselves the fodder of both. Previous to the Enlightenment, with one exception---that of Ancient Greece---the ruling idea that guided men's actions was the notion that the collective was superior to and more important than the individuals who comprised it. This idea was then and is now dependent upon faith and force.

Civilizations advance by discovering the importance of the individual and by implementing objective law to protect him and his property. Those that never discover the importance of the individual remain ruled by force---such as most of the nations of Africa and Asia. Those that knew it but lose it, revert to savagery---such as those western nations who are every day more tightly embracing collectivism/socialism, including the United States of America.
©2008-2009 Sylvia Bokor. All Rights Reserved.
----------------To be continued
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1. Haskell, Francis, Patrons and Painters, Yale University Press, New Haven/London:1980, p 384. (NB: Haskell refers specifically to the rulers of Baroque Italy but his words are applicable to rulers everywhere.
2. Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Artists, Vol. I, Tr: George Bull, Penquin Classics, England: 1965, p 29.
3. Ibid, Vasari, p 43.

End Part I and II
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