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On Alexander Hamilton/James Madison's Federalist Papers (1, 10-12, 14-17, 39, 47-51), published as newspaper editorials 1787-8, plus Letters III and IV from Brutus, an Anti-Federalist.
This is a short preview of our full-length, vintage episode, which you can purchase by itself, or get our whole catalog free, beamed to your mobile device, by becoming a PEL supporter: see partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
What constitutes good government? These founding fathers argued that the proposed Constitution, with its newly centralized--yet also separated-by-branch--powers would be a significant improvement on the Articles of Confederation, which had left states as the ultimate sovereigns.
Hear Dylan, Mark, and Seth here rap about factions: Does our current system prevent the abuse of power by interest groups in the way Madison predicted it would? (Hint: no.) If we want to argue for change, we have to diagnose what went wrong in this and other instances: is it that Madison's/Hamilton's predictions were simply wrong in some areas, or have the contextual facts (e.g. education and technology levels) changed the situation, and/or do we simply have different central concerns now than we did then? For instance, their fresh-from-the-revolution audience was worried about kingly tyranny, and European powers were skeptical of any democracy, while we face new challenges like the rise of corporations that apparently have personhood according to our Supreme Court. Learn more about the topic and get the readings.
End song: "Feeling Time" by Mark Lint (2002).
Ry Jones says
October 31, 2012 at 4:19 pmWith regard to your comment on Texans and their pig-headed allegiance to Texas, here’s a short bit from 99% Invisible on the police and firefighters of Chicago choosing to have the flag of Chicago on caskets instead of other alternatives: http://www.prx.org/pieces/54224-99-invisible-06-99-symbolic
It’s refreshing to hear such unabashed blue state hating on red states coming from you guys; people usually choose language to obscure how they feel, but not so PEL.
dmf says
November 1, 2012 at 10:30 amhttp://newbooksinphilosophy.com/2012/10/31/jamie-kelly-framing-democracy-a-behavioral-approach-to-democratic-theory-princeton-up-2012/
Mike F says
November 2, 2012 at 1:43 pmIt’s funny that there is a link to the Mitt Romney official site on this page. Mitt Romney… the philosopher’s choice.
Mark Linsenmayer says
November 2, 2012 at 2:46 pmLet’s just look at it as us and Google suckering Romney out of some cash without delivering him any votes in return. Ha!
Bill Burgess says
November 2, 2012 at 3:36 pmJust wanted to let everyone know that those Romney ads are pay per click. This means that Mark is making money every time someone clicks through and sends the Romney campaign money.
Lets see…how much shall I send….?
(just kidding!! calm down guys)
Smitherman says
November 2, 2012 at 2:30 pmYou guys are the shit. I just read this, hopped on the site and boom!
Also I probably would not have passed my course in Modern American Politics last year if it weren’t for the stuff on Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau (to help along the way). It also drew me to a change in Major. Thanks and keep going!
Mike F says
November 3, 2012 at 10:10 pmGiven what has happened in Europe over the last 100 years, and what continues there despite their best efforts, I think the Federal Constitution has held up pretty well as a model to bring diverse interests into a single common nation. Obviously, the US had the giant Civil War hump to get over before it was really done, but factions in the US did not cause WW I or WW II. That required a bunch of closely grouped sovereigns without a federal system. Sure, we have issues with factions and special interests, but they have been much more manageable in a federal national system than they would have been if the Confederacy had won the Civil War.
Frank Callo says
November 6, 2012 at 4:29 pmFederalism..well… it gives you things like the civil rights act but it also gives you things like the defense of marriage act, it means you can’t sell raw milk or marijuana even if the people in your state think they should be able too.
I’m not sure the argument that you need a strong military presence around the world in order to protect trade routes or that you need an educated polity to increase buying power have much meaning in the age of wal-mart (China can protect its own trade routes to bring us all their crap and you can be stupid as a rock and still afford to buy it.
Then there is the problem of cultural diversity. In some parts of the country people will hate the idea of same sex marriage so much that they will hate any federal government that woln’t make a stand AGAINST it while in other places people will hate any federal government that stands in the way of it (side note: what fucking business of the government who marries who anyway?). What works in Alabama doesn’t necessarily work in San Francisco.
It seems to me that the federalist agenda was too narrow since their major concern seemed to be with commerce. There is a lot more to being “a people” than commerce. Federalism doesn’t allow enough flexibility to embrace the level of cultural diversity we find here.
It seems that there is more to say here but I’d be interested in other people’s thoughts here.
Mike F says
November 7, 2012 at 9:27 amI don’t think Federalism imposes cultural rigidity. Federalism allows states to have their own criminal codes and diverse cultures. Gambling and prostitution have been legal in Las Vegas and illegal in most other places (until recently at least on the gambling.) It is the way that the national government has evolved to draw more and more revenue and power over time that drives whatever good and bad comes with delegating the financing of vices and virtues to 535 legislators and a very large executive branch and 9 Supreme Court justices. I’m sure they’re mostly very smart, but nobody is smart enough to direct 300 million+ people.
dmf says
November 12, 2012 at 10:09 amThe Invention of Air, on the “missing” founding father Joseph Priestly and the ecosystems of ideas, might make for a good reading group topic if not a whole podcast:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/283175-1
Tim says
November 16, 2012 at 1:04 pmI’ve mentioned this before, but all of Mark’s talk about political inertia, founding myths, and the potential of changing fundamental constitutional principles reminded me that I would love to hear you guys do an episode on political philosopher Carl Schmitt!
Schmitt’s main concern might be described as finding the extra-legal or pre-legel grounding for legal orders. He’s super relevant for thinking about how political orders are constituted (every system of law is founded through extra-legal acts of violence) and maintained (through exceptions to the legal system made in the face of existential threats to it). There’s also a lot of contemporary relevance — he offers a way of thinking about, for instance, the expansion of executive power in the US during the last two administrations; or the Arab Spring. Schmitt’s ideas presented a major challenge to my liberal conceptions when I read him, and made me think a lot harder about political ideas I took for granted or only thought about in a fuzzy way. I think he would also give Dylan some support for the pessimism he displayed in this episode.
You could probably read both “On Dictatorship” and “Political Theology” for an episode. The essays themselves are quite short and the books are padded out with long introductions.
Mark Linsenmayer says
November 16, 2012 at 9:36 pmYou should propose a Not School group on this…
Tim says
November 19, 2012 at 11:55 amI might!
UseNoHooks says
November 17, 2012 at 5:48 pmYour comment on power is beside the point. ‘Power’ is meaningless without the concept of legitimacy. Foucault tries to define a kind of power which underpins legitimacy and abuse but he fails. Foucualt = great social critic, terrible philosopher.
Mark Linsenmayer says
November 18, 2012 at 10:37 amInteresting take. So you don’t think, for example, a rapist is exerting power over his victim, or getting off on the victim’s powerlessness?
Having others recognize the exertion of power as legitimate is necessary for the power to become political.
Tim says
November 19, 2012 at 11:55 amI think the distinction being made here is between “power” and “authority.” Authority is power plus legitimacy. Though “legitimacy” itself is a tricky concept.
Adam Y says
November 19, 2012 at 3:26 pmSurely, then, power isn’t meaningless without the concept of legitimacy, right? Authority, maybe, but not power. Or am I misunderstanding something again?
Brian says
February 3, 2014 at 10:55 am“Having others recognize the exertion of power as legitimate is necessary for the power to become political.”
Are you saying tyranny isn’t a political phenomenon, or do you mean something else?
Gregory Baggett says
March 12, 2013 at 2:22 amYour possessive pronouns are so ahistorical; try to stop doing that; none of you were around in late 1780s, so “we” and “our” did nothing.
Brett says
October 20, 2014 at 3:15 pmDo political donations buy votes?
http://www.cfinst.org/pdf/papers/02_Powell_Influence.pdf
Scholars largely say no.
Also, Citizens United is more complex than the way you all make it out to be. It did not absolve all election laws concerning money. That is disingenuous. Secondly, the empirical research on campaign spending after the SC decision have shown little to no influence on who wins. Both parties are recipients of large sums of campaign money via corporations, labor unions, PACs, and Super PACS. Liberals largely act like the GOP only benefited from the decision, but most major fortune 500 corporations donate to both parties.
You all made some sweeping generalizations and partially incorrect ones as well throughout this podcast. It would have been beneficial if you would have invited a legal, history, or political science scholar to this podcast as well. Just my two cents.
Evan says
March 24, 2015 at 1:06 amWas there any discussion during the formation of the US as to whether there should be a president or not?
Currently in Australia, where I live we are a semi-ruled by the UK. The republican movement here want a president and I’d prefer that we were ruled by parliament not an elected monarch (president). So if there was any discussion about this I’d love to know.
Alan Cook says
March 24, 2015 at 9:45 amThe presidency is discussed in Federalist Papers 67 thru 79, with the most important theoretical discussions in 67 and 70. And yes, it was one of the most controversial aspects of the proposed new constitution. The Federalist authors spent a lot of ink spelling out why, in their view, the president wasn’t a monarch, which was one of the big fears people had.
Evan says
March 24, 2015 at 5:09 pmMany thanks Alan.