Utopia Talk / Politics / Democracy and diversity, US colonies

Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 01 05:54:32 Abstract The migration out of Europe and the establishment of North American colonies presents us with a great puzzle: Why did the colonists establish democratic forms of governance? Considering that early democratic colonies appeared even before philosophical works such as those of Locke and Montesquieu were written, it is difficult to make the case that ideology was the driving factor. We show that the calculus of consent model proposed by Buchanan & Tullock (1962) offers a simple but subtle solution this puzzle. Because migrants formed homogeneous communities, and because, thanks to the large geographical expanse, the inter-jurisdictional externalities were small, the efficient level of consensus within each colony was much greater than in Europe, and the scope of efficient centralized decision-making was much smaller. Hence, a structure of decentralized democratic communities emerged as the efficient outcome. http://www...can-colonies-to-be-democratic/
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 06:38:07 Nim: Does the article consider that there were a lot more radical democratic treatises put forward in the English Civil war which were major influences on English political thought - particularly from the religious groups that formed the major wave of immigration that founded the English colonies? E.g. Levellers, Diggers, etc. which advocated things that would not be out of place in communist or socialist thought, and radical (for the time) ideas like universal suffrage to include women! Locke may have put philosophical underpinnings to the ideals, but he did not originate them - the 1689 revolution re-hashed may of the ideas and arguments used by the New Model Army to justify the civil war against Charles I. Granted this is only the abstract, but it seems really flimsy to dismiss the idea that ideology could be a driving factor when: 1. Much of the ideology of Locke predated Locke's writings. 2. Locke's writings were bound up in justifying a "revolution" (the etymology, to revolve, being more important and meaningful than we perhaps see it now) that quite self consciously constructed in a way to re-asserted ancient rights as coming from the state of nature in a way that build upon the arguments asserted by the Parliamentarians and New Model Army 50 years previously. 3. The political radicals were one and the same the religious radicals who advocated deeply democratic structures like universal suffrage, the abolition of monarchy, land and wealth redistribution etc. then left to found those self same colonies *precisely* because the capture of the Commonwealth by the landed gentry and subsequent gutting of the more radical agenda of the New Model Army meant they could not live under their preferred radical religious and political systems in England.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 06:52:55 For anyone interested, a list of some of the weird and wonderful factions active during the civil war period. http://bcw...state/sects-and-factions/index Another article drawing parallels between the levellers political beliefs as stated in their charters etc. before the movement was stamped out by the commonwealth and then restoration - and the wording used in the declaration of independence and bill of rights (e.g. right to silence vs 5th amendment). The go-to place for religious and political non-conformists and radicals when they lost out in England was always the American colonies since the Pilgrim Fathers fled Scrooby for the Netherlands then the new world. If this paper is really built on dismissing the idea that ideological origins explain American democratic tradition simply because it predates Locke and Paine, I would say that argument along holds little water, and in fact the contrary is not only possible, there is in fact a host of textual evidence to support the idea that it very much was informed by religious and political beliefs. I also wonder if the paper has considered the reverse argument and addressed it: that democratic structures were actively needed to sustain a polity in the face of widely differing diversity of thought in the colonies which, in Europe under monarchical or aristocratic systems led to unsustainable tensions when one faction ruled absolutely over the other. After all, is not the defining feature of Europe at the period a series of bitter wars over religious and ethnic diversity? And did not many of those factions emigrate to America, leaving America with a mix of various different religious and national groups which in Europe were busy slaughtering each other? How does one square that with this idea that America lacked diversity? I suspect perhaps - again - not having read the full article as it refuses to download for me - it is excluding differentiating factors as being unimportant, while the control population in Europe might show to be very important. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/benn_levellers_01.shtml
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 01 09:52:00 I think you are misunderstanding some of this. The question is why democracy was established in the colonies not what transpired after that. And homogeneity is cultural/religious not necessarily ethnic/genetic, even though it may be ancilliary. Generically the argument makes sense, if we all already think more or less the same, agreement on democratic principles, rights, what is and isn’t justice, and giving everyone the same rights and vote, will never really be tested or challenged. Making it easier to agree to such terms. I see the same mechanism but the reverse sort of, in Sweden.
Dukhat Member	Wed Aug 01 10:21:50 It's the economy stupid. If only the colonies south of Virginia had revolted; you would've seen an oligarchial banana republic form based on the ruling class of slaveholders. And America would've been incredibly similar to all the other banana republics across the Caribbean and Latin America. But the economy up north was flatter though as always still favoring white males. But farms were more or less the same size and did not depend on slave labor. And there were large industries like ship-building where America was competitive. In this light and the light that they derived their ideas from Britain; "democracy" sprung up. Or rather the kind of democracy that denied minorities (black and German) the right to vote along with women. That denying women the right to vote probably makes Nimatzo really happy though.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 01 10:46:06 I have not read the study utself yet, but I thought the conclusions made an interesting topic for discussion. Will read later when son is not running wild. Don’t really have a dog in this specifc one, but I do believe homogeneity is vital for group unity. It is a double edge sword of course. But seeing the many recent political crisis in relativly diverse western democracies one after another, often connected to diversity itself. The thought has struck me, what if they are not compatible? At least in the open and liberal way.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 11:24:42 Nim: I think your timelines are confused. The American revolution is in 1776. We are talking about the period 1607 to say, around 1690. The first lasting colony founded in the America's by England was in 1607 (by the Pilgrim fathers which were the same type of religious radicals that 30 years later led to the revolt against Charles I). The English civil war / war of the three kingdoms was in the 1640's - and the fallout from that again sees a surge in emigration from England to the US of the religious radicals with strongly democratic principles. Locke's treatise was published in 1690 and the abstract appears to be arguing that the democratic traditions and practices of the American colonies (1607 - 1690) cannot be explained as motivated by ideology because Locke and Montesquieu represent the earliest possible point for democratic ideology to be broadcast (around 1690). I am saying if that genuinely is the articles argument, that seems unsound. Political and religious radicalism (the two being fused) are well established with huge amounts of documentary evidence as being the primary motivations for English people to migrate to the New World from 1607 on-wards. Indeed there was a huge wage of avowedly republican and radically democratic sects and factions around 1640-1650 whose emigration to the US was specifically motivated by a desire to pursue democratic practices that Cromwell would not tolerate in England but did not have sufficient control over the colonies to enforce. Further, if one does take the ultimate expression of the American Democratic tradition being the declaration of independence in 1776 there is further evidence of continuity of ideological thought from the levellers and other pre/civil war era ideologues. Certainly much of the American Revolutionary philosophy owes a debt to Locke's work on the constitution of Pennsylvania and the second treatise on civil government. However if one looks at the declaration of independence (as does the US Bill of Rights), you certainly see elements of locke. But you also see concepts that are present in the Leveller movement but NOT present in Locke's theory or practice but which are present in American democratic tradition: things like the right to silence and elected judiciary. And these down to even specific forms of words from things like "An Agreement Of The Free People Of England" (1649) produced by the Leveller movement. It is clear then that these ideas are not appearing in 1776 and onwards through the vector of Locke et al from the 1690s. One needs to remember why the revolutionaries of the 18th c cited Locke and others: it was to consciously frame the conflict not as a tax revolt by landed gentry but to hark back to the Glorious Revolution and the "natural born rights of the Englishmen" just as Locke and others in the Glorious revolution, and indeed the Parlimentarian's of the 1640's asserted ancient and traditional rights; and thus engender a degree of sympathy both in the colonies and in England for their political movement. But some of these ideas are NOT things that were accepted at the time as being part of the natural rights of Englishmen (elected judiciary, right to silence, a few other things too I forget). Indeed, these ideas were stamped out by Cromwell, the restoration, and not re-established in the Glorious revolution; and there would be no good reason for someone in 1776 to be exhuming them. These concepts are there because they were ALREADY part of American democratic tradition, yet not only the concepts but specific forms of words are found not in Locke, but in texts produced by the Leveller movement in the 1649. The obvious route would be that they are part of the democratic tradition brought by the Levellers to America when they emigrated in the 1650s. These were not imported at the time of the revolution 1776 from Locke in 1690, but predate it. Further and separately, you can see some of this ideological tensions after the restoration - particularly in New England "the good old cause" and "the norman yoke" being entrenched in Puritan philosophy around that time that ceased to exist in England - these are ideologies directly imported from England in the 1640's, 30-40 years after the first lasting English colony in America was founded - and retained there in American democratic tradition. This seems to me to suggest that there is in fact a very strong case that the American democratic tradition is indeed explicitly routed in ideology, specifically the religious and political radicalism that ran throughout the 1600s. It seems almost absurd to rule out ideology as being a primary motivator here. And it seems rather absurd to claim that the colonists were homogenous or lacking diversity - the religious split between the northern colonies and others saw both sides of the Civil war represented in the American colonies - and there was plenty of open conflict between the same sects in Europe. Plus we are ignoring the non English emigrants. I find it highly questionable to claim that the colonies were not diverse. I would argue that it is far more likely that the pluralistic democratic traditions of the US were: 1. ideological in root given so many of the English emigrants between 1607 and 1690 were specifically organised in their emigration on ideological lines and motivated to leave England specifically to practice such ideology. 2. Democracy on a larger level was a necessity to transcend the inability of those same ideologies to coexist peacefully in England and other parts of Europe under authoritarian systems where there was no easy mechanism for reconciling the differing interests of those factions. I.e. democracy seems more likely a consequence of both the need to manage diversity of thought, practice and nationality and as an ideological position flowing from the early 17th century. And even then, the primary motivation for that democratic ideology in the early 16th C Europe was to sustain and allow diversity of thought and religion in polities that could not tolerate it under monarchical systems of government.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 11:27:59 *restoration was 1660.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 01 13:18:55 The time period of concern is 17-18th century in the paper. You should read the paper because a lot of what you are saying is answered or invalid and wrong as far as the scope goes. It is as much about comparing the different colonies if not more as it is about comparing US and Europe. For instance: ”“Virginia’s 1621 constitution was written well before Hobbes, Locke, or Montesquieu put their pens to paper, and nearly two decades before the Levellers’ contract”. Similarly, “the West New Jersey Charter of 1681 [was] adopted a decade before Locke finished his influential treatise on government and several years before England’s Glorious Revolution” (Congleton 2011: 530).” It was worth reading.
Pillz Member	Wed Aug 01 14:19:45 Seb and Cuckhat's faces when they read this line must have been priceless: Because migrants formed homogeneous communities, and because, thanks to the large geographical expanse, the inter-jurisdictional externalities were small, the efficient level of consensus within each colony was much greater than in Europe
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 16:24:41 Nim: Well as I said it's refusing to download which is frustrating. Reading up on the 1621 Virginia constitution, it's not very democratic at all. It basically just creates a council of land owners to support the governor appointment by the king, to he joined by two burgesses for every town, and otherwise to ape the laws and judicial practices of England. Essentially it's identical to Simon de Montfort's parliament of 1265 which was the norm thereafter. Given this structural innovation (a good 300 years old by then) was explicitly adopted to manage and bring together diversity (class and nationality - landed normans and the mercantile Anglo saxon freemen and guilds in that case) and was the precise same structure that underpinned the decidedly hetrogenous English political scene, I don't see how it supports their point at all. Rather than being a product of homogeneity, it still looks very much like a social mechanism for managing diversity which when removed or impaired (by Charles I, Cromwell or perceived to be by James II) immediately resulted in conflict.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 16:38:07 "the West New Jersey Charter of 1681 [was] adopted a decade before Locke finished his influential treatise on government" And again, I'm not sure what this proves. Locke's work draws on and echoes the parliamentarian factions of 1640s and earlier, which we know were present and influential in the colonies from that time despite having died out. There's no reason that the West New Jersey constitution isn't ideologically driven by the beliefs of groups such as the levellers and diggers and others who we know emigrated to the new world in the 1640s and 50s. What im not seeing here is why any of this is evidence that democracy requires homogeneity. Rathe the overall pattern I see here is that Authoritarianism requires homogeneity, and attempts to construct an authoritarian governance structure in the context of religious or national identity are hugely unstable as the religion or nationality of the ruler is seen to make that faction dominant over the others; hence the need for democratic institutions to manage those tensions. I'd argue the strong democratic traditions and decentralised nature of colonial governance was a necessary response to the more pluralistic society in the colonies. Attempts to impose centralised governance failed on several occasions, but most catastrophically in 1770s, not because of the homogeneity of the colonies but because of their diversity. Even the revolution itself was motivated by three potentially contradictory drivers: the desire to engage in costly conflict and expansion against natives in the southern colonies, the desire in the north not to finance costly wars, and trade issues. Note that fundamental economic, religious and philosophical divergence ultimately gave rise to the US civil war.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 01 16:41:56 This is where the rest of the posters here can conclude that you have completely fucking lost it seb, when you are arguing with your own shadow and fragments of a study you have not read. You are broken.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 16:46:35 Ok, it downloads on my phone. Probably a VPN thing. Yay. Honestly, I'm reading it and it's like the authors have almost no appreciation of history. E.g. "It is easy to imagine how resettling a group of people from a society with an established institutional structure to build a new society elsewhere, would simply result in a copy of the original society" Which is a bizarre thing to say when we know so much emigration of that period to the US was explicitly motivated to create a new society due to intolerance in the countries of origin. Sure, this calculus may fit the historical record, but their claims that simple ideological development doesn't seem flat put wrong.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 16:48:45 Nim: If you post a point that says "the 1621 Virginian constitution ...", are you saying I can't go and look at the 1621 constitution Nd say "oh, look, it's not democratic really, it's the same framework as England for the previous 300 years". Good grief.
Pillz Member	Wed Aug 01 17:07:37 Stop tripping over yourself Seb. Most early colonization was not to escape religious or other discrimination. And when it did occur, it was primarily in the western territories (of the time) and German settlers like the Amish and other weird people. The US didn't see an influx of Catholics until the Irish, the majority of previous settlers were protestants.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 17:21:07 Pillz: Protestants as in Not Catholic. Bit I think you appear to be viewing this as an essentialy binary question of protestant vs catholic. However, that ignores a great deal of political and armed conflict in 17th c England was between protestant factions. The Quakers refused to accept an established church and viewed the CoE as an abomination. The revellers and digggers were suppressed by the established protestant puritan govt of Cromwell and emigrated. Both protestant*. *CoE/Anglicanism is arguably not protestant at some points in time, arguably from a protestant perspective, a Catholic church albeit one in schism from Rome.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 17:24:58 It is true that Catholic factions tended to flee to Europe not the Americas, but all sorts of religious radicals that either were radical in the wrong way (baptists,quakers) or too radical (diggers, levelers, ranters) for the contemporary English establishment had only America to go to. I'm crunching this simple consent calculus and I think it can equally work to prove my point too. It is, as they stress, a simple model.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Aug 01 17:25:08 seb Judging from the barrage of nonsense you wrote before you could read the study, you had already made up your mind. I lost interest in you.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 01 17:42:28 Nim: Laying out a positive line of argument in response to what was available at the time. And reading the article doesn't tend to suggest that the line of argument i set out is not applicable. What exactly do you think is nonsense? This is classic Nim. Post an article, walk away if deficiencies are pointed out because you are not interested in substantive inquiry or thought. It's just cargo cult academia.
Aeros Member	Wed Aug 01 18:04:43 Another thing that needs to be kept in mind is that there was no restriction of travso in North America like there was in Europe. If people decided they did not like the King or ruling nobility in their European nation it was tough to make changes. In America though, they could just sod off to somewhere else. This was in fact why Rhode Island is a thing. It was founded by political dissidents that did not like the way the Massachusettes bay colony was being run. The colonies had a survival incentive to insure everyone involves was invested in the success of the colony. Especially due to the not infrequent threat of attack by native American tribes, privateers and the French and Spanish. The model of the Greek city States is very much applicable here, in that it was necessary for the population to be ready to fight at the drop of a hat, and voting has always been a way to insure military loyalty in a citizen army.
Rugian Member	Wed Aug 01 18:09:39 Seb, I actually agree with what you're saying to a certain extent. The colonists that arrived in the Americas were drawing on English traditions that were widespread in their time even if they were not yet exemplified by the likes of Hobbes and Locke. This was especially true of Puritan colonies, who drew their philosophy from the same brand of men who prominently prosecuted the Civil War. Where I start to disagree is in your assertion that "Protestantism" isn't enough of an identity to consider its members to be homogeneous. While you point out the number of different sects that were immigrating to the Americas, they were all united by their zeal in the reformed cause. As you've out, English North America in the seventeenth century was arguably the home of the most hardcore Christian Protestants on the planet, with the majority of colonies having been founded based on some sort of vision of establishing a new community worthy of God's requirements. When mixed with a near-hysterical paranoia that Roman saboteurs were constantly attempting to destroy these communities, these were some powerful unifying forces at play that were capable of transcending petty intra-Protestant conflicts. In addition, although the colonies weren't always homogeneous ethnically, it did help that many communities came from the same cultural background, or were at least dominated by members of one such background. If a solid majority of the community was raised in those English traditions, it would make the democratic process within that community smoother than if they were not. This was of course a secondary consideration - the French Huguenots that fled to the New World after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, for example, were more than welcomed by more established settlers as fellow brothers in the Protestant struggle against Catholicism. It's also worth looking at the distribution of various communities in the colonial power structures. The initial batch of colonists to a particular location were usually of the same religious background and were often from the same place of origin, frequently having significant family ties as well. Once established in the colony, they tended to monopolize power (at least centrally), and even if they tolerated other communities to varying degrees they very much remained at the top of the social hierarchy. This concentration of power became more pronounced if there was no moderating influence present, such as a royally-appointed governor. Massachusetts Bay, for example, spent the first five decades of its existence as a de-facto Puritan theocracy, where Puritan churches were the only ones allowed to legally operate, Puritan church members were the only ones with suffrage rights, non-Puritan proselytizers were expelled or hanged, and the colonial government remained in the hands of a small oligarchy of Puritan families and ministers. It was only when the English government stepped in and insisted on appointing a royal governor that any sort of liberalization was made to the democratic and legal structure of the colony, and even then it took some time for Congregationalism to lose its most favored status within the province. Massachusetts Bay was of course an extreme example, borne out of the failure of the English government to place any constraints on the local structure of the colony whatsoever. But that's the point - when left purely to their own impulses, the founders tended to close ranks with their own kind. The power structure was democratic - but not diverse. Overall, it's fair to say that the colonies of North America were less diverse than the old country, and were, at least to a degree, more segregated. Diversification and liberalization only occurred over the course of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, by building on the narrowly democratic and lopsided communities that the founding colonists had established.
Seb Member	Thu Aug 02 02:12:48 Rugian: So, what makes Protestantism a unifying homogeneity in America, yet a point of differentiation that meant protestant puritan Cromwell violently suppress protestant Levellers and Diggers? Clearly their shared Protestant identity wasn't enough to enable democracy under the commonwealth in England, yet in the colonies, their Protestantism is unifying? And in fact the point of difference was Levellers radical democracy vs Cromwellian puritans authoritarianism. To me, that looks like an ideological rather than economic phenomenon.
Seb Member	Thu Aug 02 02:25:36 Btw, your argument that the power structures were democratic but not diverse also seems to challenge the papers authors arguments regarding consent calculus. Ultimately I think Aeros has the key point: where protestant practices differed, you could just fuck off to live with another community. So while local democracy worked, it did so in the context that authoritarianism would also likely have worked: tight knit communities with a dominant culture. And That also seems to borne put by the calculus. That makes it ideologically driven. On a larger scale, as the colonies developed that democratic tradition allowed these diverse groups that clashed under more centralised systems in Europe to integrate. I.e. democracy as an ideological choice, in turn enabled building a broader polity out of smaller differing cultures and practices. The papers arguments as I read them on the first pass make a reasonable case that the calculus fits historical fact, but very weak case that *only* it can explain the historical fact and that the historical fact is the only or most likely prediction of the calculus. So, overall, I find consent calculus and the idea that homogeneity is required for democracy is rather weak. It just boils down to "some shared identity is needed" but that shared identity can be pretty much anything.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Aug 02 03:54:07 ”but very weak case that *only* it can explain the historical fact and that the historical fact is the only or most likely prediction of the calculus.” And this what a person who is full of shit will do. I don’t know what they taught you in clown college, but even at the BSc level the scope and limitations of a study were basic stuff. Betrays an inner dumbass when you reading the scope of a paper (or a standard) since it is vital in understanding what the authors are trying to do, where their findings may be applicable aaaand drum roll, what they are NOT trying to do. It saves one a lot of butthurt and from saying and acting outside the scope. Do you want to find the specific part of the study where they clearly say the opposite of *only* be explained? Come to terms with your intellectual cancer.
Seb Member	Thu Aug 02 05:52:12 To quote simply from the abstract: "Considering that early democratic colonies appeared even before philosophical works such as those of Locke and Montesquieu were written, it is difficult to make the case that ideology was the driving factor." This is a necessary step to show that their model has predictive value - i.e. it predicts something that cannot be predicted by alternative means. It is also wrong. "We show that the calculus of consent model proposed by Buchanan & Tullock (1962) offers a simple but subtle solution this puzzle." To be a solution to the puzzle, you need to demonstrate: 1. That it fits with the facts 2. That it has predictive value (i.e. if it explains all or many directly contradictory outcomes, it has no predictive value) 3. That it is the only or best explanation for the facts. 1 and 3 are clear arguments in the paper. The failure to address 2 is absent in the paper, making it flawed in trying to assert the consent model is a good solution to a puzzle which doesn't really exist: ideology can and likely does explain the American democratic tradition quite well. And it is America's democratic tradition which explains the exceptionalism of Americas being a rather stable polity despite a broad range of ethnicities and religions which were unable to co-exist in Europe peacefully until they develop their own democratic institutional structures.
Seb Member	Thu Aug 02 05:52:42 You simply are not able to do critical appraisal.
	show deleted posts

Your Name:
Your Password:
Your Message: