Discussion

Discourse on Equality and Developing a Constitution Suitable to the People

The following Discourse on Equality and Developing a Constitution Suitable to the People is provided to shed light on the developments in the United States at this time. What we see taking place in that country is a great moment of reckoning as a result of the striving of the people for arrangements which put an end to racism and police brutality once and for all and provide equality of all before the law and in the experience of life itself.

Anxiety over the outcome of the November 3 U.S. presidential election is at an all-time high. Most people are wishing for a peaceful democratic transfer of power, no matter who wins. What constitutes power, who wields it and how and what constitutes democracy are less well understood.

When looking into democracy, it is important to look at how power is acquired, including the human relations underlying that power and the machinery in place to keep and expand it. The machinery of force, including military and policing agencies, is well known. What is often ignored is that part of how power is acquired and maintained is by depriving the people of a way of looking at existing problems and the need to cognize the existing ensemble of human relations. Given the burden of the past, its experience and imprint, there is difficulty trying to explain the New. Not only does the historical trap of the Old hamper our inquiry but so too do the images and vocabulary pushed on us from the past. This means that in making arguments for the New there is a marked tendency to miss the relevant points and react to the Old.

Finding the arguments for a modern definition of democracy, why it is needed, is important. We are not talking about having two sides, pro and con. Argument means giving the proofs, the reasons, for the stand being taken. Argument is what a discussion is about. Specifically in terms of the democracy in the U.S., talks now are being given about whether the Constitution is a viable instrument to deal with the present or it is out of date. For example, New York University Law School held a symposium reported on in Harper's Magazine[1] at which Constitutional scholars debated whether the Constitution is out of date and needs to be updated; or there should be no constitutions at all as they trap people into undemocratic practices; or the Constitution is fine, there have just been bad personalities running the ship of state. Some call for a Constitutional Convention and a public debate. Those called the most eminent scholars in the U.S. are debating the fundamental values on which the U.S. Constitution is based, especially its conception of inalienable rights and equality.[2]

As a rule, no one discusses the actual historical experience which led to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution or life-itself under this Constitution. Instead, all sorts of things get mixed up. This includes the debate about whether what we have today is creeping fascism, authoritarianism, and so on, or an aberration of an otherwise sound democracy. What is not raised are the problems concerning the Constitution in the context of solving the problem of equality. Instead, proposals are raised to expand social equality and tackle issues of injustice in the context of liberal and social democracy. For instance, it is said the Constitution needs to be more inclusive rather than exclusive; it needs to provide more rights within the existing civil society.

Such battles are needed, but they are not the ones we are addressing in this Discourse on Equality and Developing a Constitution Suitable to the People.

When we address the issue of equality we are saying that equality is the same as membership. We are talking about being an equal member of the polity -- or any other collective -- belonging to something, having membership in something and being an equal member with equal rights and duties within it. Instead of focusing on equality as membership in something, the relation of that equality to identity leads to a big mix-up and confusion. Of course, how one talks about these things depends on outlook and the issue of one's stand toward politics and membership in a political body and the identity of that political body.

The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known as the Civil War/Reconstruction Amendments, are said to deal with equality and the fight against slavery, including due process, equality before the law, citizenship and voting rights.[3] Even though the 13th amendment was supposed to end slavery for African Americans, it has a clause that allows for unpaid chain gangs and slavery by due process of law -- imprisonment for crimes and forced work for little or no payment. This is a problem prisoners across the United States are organizing against by going on hunger strikes, etc.

Citizenship is also a part of the discussion, as the 14th Amendment includes the following: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Today there are proposals, including from Trump, to eliminate birthright citizenship.

The general trend evident in the discourse on the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. democracy, equality, values and so forth, is that there is a line of progress from the past to the future according to which the fight involves constantly expanding the rights of the people and contending with the pressure of counterrevolution.

The argument for a modern definition of democracy is not, however, that it is an improvement on past definitions of democracy, or an improvement on the Constitution.

Since ancient times there have been democratic revolutions and democratic constitutions.

Democracy is how the people are constituted, what they can do by right and duty. Any democracy at any time offers proofs for that form of governance given by a constitution.

Democracy then is the giving of proofs, or arguments, of any constitution, written or not.

We are not arguing for improvements on what has been constituted in the past. We are arguing for a modern definition of democracy, for a democracy suitable to the material conditions in the present.

What rules one follows -- the rule of the people -- are actually the arguments for a democratic constitution. Is it suitable for the people? If yes, then an argument is given as to why. If not, an argument is given as to why. Many are talking about how close or how far democracy is from fascism or totalitarianism but they are not giving arguments as to whether the U.S. Constitution, the rule it establishes, is suitable to the people.

The Interconnection of International and National

On writing about the Civil War and Reconstruction, W.E.B. DuBois allows for a distinction between a democratic revolution and a democratic constitution and whether a constitution serves to further democracy or block it. In dealing with democratic revolution, he brings forward that there were two labour systems that came into conflict: the slave labour system and the free labour system. He says the two could no longer coexist. He did not attach this to conceptions of black vs. white, because the whole labour system of the Confederacy broke down; it was not just an issue of those enslaved.

The other reason for recognizing democratic revolution and democratic constitution which is forgotten by everyone is that the Civil War was a rebellion against the people by the slave power, as opposed to being between the Union and the Confederacy, black vs. white, etc. There was an act of aggression by the slave power -- the firing on Fort Sumter.[4] And the slave power included New York and Boston merchants who owned shipping lines and transported the cotton produced in the south to the world market.

For DuBois, the Civil War was always an international struggle. It took place on the world stage and was of the significance of the Paris Commune. It was a general strike of all the enslaved. DuBois recognizes the interrelations of national and international -- that one cannot deal with the Civil War simply as a local occurrence. And in pointing to the international connection, Dubois paid particular attention to the fact that what happened in the U.S. was connected with Africa, a reality that remains today.

We can say that whatever happens within local boundaries is related to what is happening globally. Civil war and imperialist war are always connected. The way to look at these issues is that there is an ongoing interconnection of international and national. It is not just a matter of a particular war solving a particular problem. It is broader.

Equality Is a Structure Involving Membership in a Polity

Looking at what is a modern democracy and a constitution for it, we are arguing that equality is a structure involving membership in a polity or other collective. It is commonly not put forward as a structure, but rather as a social issue, a problem of double standards; more for some and less for others. Terms used include "equality under the law," "respect" and the like. But they are part of how things are constituted, not how democracy works and how it is defined. Saying the constitution, or the state, define democracy is an inversion; the cart gets put before the horse. It diverts from something more fundamental: are you equal members of that society?

We are looking at the conception of a constitution. We are interested in what are the proofs. A proof given by democracy is whether the rule established is suitable for the people. What structures are provided for being equal members of society? And, if what is proven are structures of inequality, why not look into writing our own new constitution instead of debating or fixing the old one?

Harmonizing Interests

For us, at the heart of the matter, are relates, relations, a motion going towards something with a purpose. That is our relates. "I" is a relate. We want to transcend all limits. If you are told the constitution, written or not, defines democracy, you come up with justifications such as the ones which talk about balancing security and liberty -- how much of each? This is especially common now with the broad resistance taking place and the police violence against it. There is a big effort to divert people from advancing the struggle for the rights of all, including for their own empowerment and looking into a constitution suitable for that.

A people, minimally, has to be made up of all individuals and all collectives. And minimally, they are bearing the relations that exist in society and the relations with other relations. If I am looking at one lateral of a triangle, there are two other sides that are different; there are multiples of relates left out. The name given to those relations among all beings, is "interests." Interests and harmonizing them is what you are not allowed to talk about when looking into democracy and constitutions.

Individuals are perceived as abstract persons, not as individual and collective. Each person carries individual and collective and general interest. Interest is inter esse (among beings). Put another way, it is "social beings." The ensemble of human relations is the basis of interest -- social beings. Individual interest is defined by the ensemble of relations, as are collective interests. It is a higher order than the way we are often looking at persons -- that you add them up and get collectives.

In arguing for a modern definition we are arguing for the proofs of how a constitution sorts out these interests of individual, collective, general and all humanity. It is not a matter of collecting people all together and adding them up or carving them into identity-based groups. We are arguing that interests come from society, the ensemble of human relations, and should define constitutions.

These inversions about the state determining society and the constitution determining democracy are promoted to hide the relations between humans and humans and humans and nature. They promote that things start from the state, which is used to define the society -- is it fascist, democratic, capitalist, socialist -- as opposed to saying society is the basis for the state. The inversion takes place mentally and is a block to cognition of the relations. The state appears as something independent of, external to, superior to, the people and exists as an independent entity unto itself. It has its own intelligence, ethics, way of thinking, what you can and cannot do, as Trump's speeches and actions often indicate. But this way of looking at democracy hides that the state is a relation based on the human relations of society.

There is an actual inversion that takes place objectively, which is the direct relations people have to producing their way of life, their relations with nature, with all humans. That is where the inversion takes place. Dealing with changing those relations is how problems of democracy can be sorted out.

An argument for a modern definition of democracy is to recognize the people, which is a historical category, not something out of time and space like a constitution which is super-imposed on us. We are saying, the reality is that the productive powers already created the inversion and divisions in society and our actions are based on what the human relations reveal.

Notes

1. "Constitution in Crisis: Has America's founding document become the nation's undoing?" by Donna Edwards, Mary Anne Franks, David Law, Lawrence Lessig, Louis Michael Seidman, Harpers, October 2019.

2. See Commission on Unalienable Rights, National Constitution Center, Philadephia, July 16, 2020.

3. Text for 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to U.S. Constitution:

AMENDMENT 13 -- Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.

Note: A portion of Article IV, section 2, of the Constitution was superseded by the 13th amendment.

Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT 14 -- Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Note: Article I, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 2 of the 14th amendment.

Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

*Changed by section 1 of the 26th amendment.

AMENDMENT 15 -- Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870.

Section 1

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2

The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

4. The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12-13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia (the Confederate Army did not yet exist), and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army. This battle is given as the start of the American Civil War.

(Article based on a lecture delivered by the Ideological Studies Centre to a Seminar on the State and its Role)