The broken system is the reason there are so many bad faith actors in the first place. People are shaped by the systems around them. A well designed system wouldnt drive so many people to that point in the first place or incentivize actions on the part of the powerful that do so.
Liberalism was an improvement over monarchy for a specific class of merchant. The system has continued success for said class.
Using 1776 seems like a “life begins at conception” argument. The currently constituted system began closer to 1787. Declaration of Independence was issued in 1776. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781. The Constitution was ratified in 1787.
No one is placing blame on the authors. It’s just a statement of fact. They created a system that had intrinsic flaws they were not aware of, due to the mechanisms that exposed some of the flaws not yet existing. Remember, the fundamental basis of this system we exist under was devised long before industrialization changed our economic and political landscapes. No one is faulted for their ignorance, you cannot account for things you do not know, but that doesn’t change the fact those systemic flaws still exist and have had far reaching consequences which have shaped society as we now know it.
If anyone is to “blame”, if you so need to assign it, it would be those who came after who saw the flaws manifest and, instead of correcting them, saw that they were exploitable for personal gain; so, endeavored to obfuscate those flaws as it served to entrench their own power of authority by exploiting them.
I think you could certainly argue they’d have been abolitionists if they weren’t mostly rich hypocrites but they quite literally took the next step on the ideological evolution that led to socialism.
The rise of liberalism was radical in a world of absolute monarchies. The rise of capitalism was radical in a world of merchantilism and protectionism.
Demanding that people who lived in that world just invent socialist thought is about as reasonable as me demanding that you personally make the final breakthrough on fusion reactors.
Even if you were capable of being a part of it, at this point in time you are working on the technology that will enable those future discoveries.
Later thinkers will build on your work. Marx both criticised and built on the thoughts of Smith and Locke.
There is not a continuum of political progress. Looking back at historical records, it is easy to create a narrative that political progress, like time, is linear and progressing toward some goal.
Systems without heirarchy continue to be an option. Prefiguring such a system without a monopoly on violence is the tricky bit.
The broken system is the reason there are so many bad faith actors in the first place. People are shaped by the systems around them. A well designed system wouldnt drive so many people to that point in the first place or incentivize actions on the part of the powerful that do so.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame the authors for not inventing socialism in 1776, but sure.
Liberalism was an improvement over monarchy for a specific class of merchant. The system has continued success for said class.
Using 1776 seems like a “life begins at conception” argument. The currently constituted system began closer to 1787. Declaration of Independence was issued in 1776. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781. The Constitution was ratified in 1787.
No one is placing blame on the authors. It’s just a statement of fact. They created a system that had intrinsic flaws they were not aware of, due to the mechanisms that exposed some of the flaws not yet existing. Remember, the fundamental basis of this system we exist under was devised long before industrialization changed our economic and political landscapes. No one is faulted for their ignorance, you cannot account for things you do not know, but that doesn’t change the fact those systemic flaws still exist and have had far reaching consequences which have shaped society as we now know it.
If anyone is to “blame”, if you so need to assign it, it would be those who came after who saw the flaws manifest and, instead of correcting them, saw that they were exploitable for personal gain; so, endeavored to obfuscate those flaws as it served to entrench their own power of authority by exploiting them.
Had they been true to the “land of the free” motto, they would have.
I think you could certainly argue they’d have been abolitionists if they weren’t mostly rich hypocrites but they quite literally took the next step on the ideological evolution that led to socialism.
The rise of liberalism was radical in a world of absolute monarchies. The rise of capitalism was radical in a world of merchantilism and protectionism.
Demanding that people who lived in that world just invent socialist thought is about as reasonable as me demanding that you personally make the final breakthrough on fusion reactors.
Even if you were capable of being a part of it, at this point in time you are working on the technology that will enable those future discoveries.
Later thinkers will build on your work. Marx both criticised and built on the thoughts of Smith and Locke.
That’s just how fucking time works.
There is not a continuum of political progress. Looking back at historical records, it is easy to create a narrative that political progress, like time, is linear and progressing toward some goal.
Systems without heirarchy continue to be an option. Prefiguring such a system without a monopoly on violence is the tricky bit.