An Essay on Citizenship

Edward J. Dodson

[A paper written for the course, National Public Policy, Temple University, Spring 1987, taught by Prof. Douglas Bennett]


In the United States a large number of people do not enjoy rights of citizenship. They do not because our system of laws infringes on true political liberty and eliminates the potential for widespread economic well-being. Constitutional and legislative law as presently fashioned suppresses the most fundamental birthright we have as human beings, that of equal access to nature.[1] This has been accomplished by force and fraud, in total disregard for moral constraints. Claims to exclusive ownership of nature cannot be justified when we as individuals are beneficiaries of a bounty we had no part in producing. Even the value free analyses of the economist recognizes that nature has a zero production cost, its economic price having nothing to do with the expenditure of human labor. And yet, the law sustains claims to nature, in effect allowing title holders to extract wealth from others in return for access.[2] Political power thus possessed translates into economic power, and through some convoluted logic, titles to nature are grouped with the fruits of productive labor as "private property." The end result is a society in which citizenship based on equality of opportunity is impossible and a large, impoverished class of people is inevitable.

France in the 18th century, Ireland in the 19th and Russia in the 20th provide the historical experiences of upheaval against landed aristocracies. Marx himself finally recognized that landed monopoly power was at the root of monopoly capital; and, as one should expect, it was the landless peasantry of Russia -- and not the worker proletariat - who brought Marxist-Leninism to that society. Only when denied access to nature did the landless resort to laboring, if they could, for money wages -- a narrowing of options that increased their vulnerability to the peaks and troughs of the new plague, "business cycles," as well as the oppression of robber baron greed. Political citizenship under such circumstances is an empty promise. And compared to the injustice of denying each his birthright, all other obstacles to citizenship pale in significance.

Framing this issue in terms modern Americans can appreciate has been made very difficult because the concentrated control of nature has been fused with a similar degree of control over industry and finance as well. Despite this fact, the majority of Americans continue to believe there is plenty of opportunity for almost anyone to rise to the top. Those who have benefited from the ongoing arrangements do not themselves understand what is, at bottom, the cause of their sustained advantage. The wealthy, even those who have struggled from poverty to get there, quickly forget their past and join those who herald the status quo. In fighting off any real attempts at reform, they have used wealth to gain political power and, when their interests are threatened, rally the population to support anti-democratic and anti-republican policies in both the domestic and international arenas. Alongside "nationalism" we have as a consequence experienced "nativism," "racism," "knee-jerk anti-communism," and, currently, "protectionism." For both the privileged and the politically powerful, the idea that the earth is the birthright of all mankind is an extremely dangerous one. If accepted, one must also conclude that the sovereign state itself has no moral basis for legitimacy.

In terms related to our class discussions on immigration policy, justice requires that the very concept of immigration be discarded. All territorial movements by people must be recognized as mere migrations. Thus, any restrictions imposed (other than for health or safety reasons) infringe upon the fundamental right of access to nature. Modern political economies have evolved as they have because force has been used to institutionalize monopolistic and morally~bankrupt claims to the earth's natural bounty. A good deal of political theory in support of this arrangement has been little more than a rationalization of privilege. Justice requires that an equitable system be implemented to equally share the value of nature. Sovereign states, if they are to have moral and just systems of law, must end privilege and protect the right of all people to freely interact; that is, let the competitive bidding processes of the market determine which individuals are granted access. Governments would act as agents for collection of this revenue for deposit into a global fund, earmarked for periodic, equal distribution to all.[3] What we now have is a system that imposes marginal existence as a penalty for having been born to the wrong parents in the wrong places. Which raises the parallel issue of just what our responsibilities are toward one another in society, and in the larger community of man.

Here again, justice must be the objective. My actions must not infringe upon the liberty of any other person. Taking legitimately acquired property from others obviously exceeds the moral bounds of my liberty. And yet this moral prohibition is inconsistently reinforced by our laws.[4] Liberalism has, in fact, taken us beyond the primary role of government to prevent criminal infringements on liberty; the Liberal agenda has included a wide range of policy initiatives that specifically create privilege by licensing what can be done and by whom. It should be self-evident that such licenses are inherently monopolistic; and, as day follows night, command prices in the market place because of their monopolistic character. In the same fashion, titles to nature are inherently monopolistic and titleholders benefit in the same way. No individual can create these economic values; aggregate needs generate an economic price in licenses just as they do for nature We see this most clearly when artificial limits are placed on the number of licenses issued (as for taxi medallions or liquor stores), so that those who have political influence or, more rarely, get there first, secure a tremendous advantage in the marketplace -- an advantage the quality of their labor did nothing to create. If justice is to be served, then, my responsibility to others in society must be to not infringe upon their liberty and to compensate them for any privileges or licenses by which I benefit.

Extending these principles of citizenship to the family requires a gentle hand on the part of government, for the family is a less resilient microcosm of larger social, political and economic units. The state must take a very cautious approach in its intrusion on family life or risk further damaging a survival-directed equilibrium that injustice has already nearly destroyed. The appropriate level of government responsibility is most difficult to establish where the interests of children (and other "incompetents") are involved. I would suggest that those unable to provide for themselves through no fault of their own must receive greater protections under law than is necessary for normal, healthy adults. Acknowledging the need for a "normal" degree of disciplining of children by parents, for example, adults (and to a somewhat lesser extent, incompetents) must be held accountable for physical and mental abuse of others. In saying this, I also suggest that our experience demonstrates that centrally-planned and administered programs infringe on liberty. A reasoned response is to establish a needs-based voucher system (funded by revenues from the above-mentioned "global fund" but carried out to the greatest extent Possible by private agencies). In my opinion, this would be the most efficient and most equitable method of providing societal support to people in need.

We are also struggling to deal with the problem of children having children. There has been almost no attempt made to reconcile teenage pregnancies with the moral, legal and financial responsibilities logically attached to fathering a child. We are in the midst of a human tragedy, not only for the individuals directly involved but because our humanness is at risk. It has been our concern with the future, our attention to planning and contemplation of that which is beyond our grasp that contributed most to human progress. Not only are fewer and fewer cultural and intellectual skills being passed to the newest generation, the sense of responsibility people have had toward one another through family association and, by extension, the same community is disappearing. The social costs associated with these, and other financially-dictated changes in family life, have not been fully assessed. I see a strong connection between the rising incidences of crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, and violence -- and the concurrent breakdown of family and community. In terms of what can be done, we must concentrate on the structural injustice I have identified. The societally-produced value of nature must be collected and distributed in equal shares to each citizen (directly to competents, and in trust for incompetents). First and foremost, this would provide considerable additional family income to help parents devote more time to the nurturing of family and participation in community, while eliminating the advantages long enjoyed by the privileged who have -- by their control over nature -- stolen the heart and soul of citizenship from most others.

FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES

[1] A May 1983 report by TOWN & COUNTRY (p.176) indicates: "about 3 percent of the population, or 7 to 8 million people, own 55 percent of the total land, and a full 95 percent of the 1.3 billion acres of privately owned land in this country." Our reaction to similar statistics in "third world" societies is to call for land reform, while most of ua are unable to see any connection here between the concentrated control over nature and the large numbers of unemployed.

[2] The coat of acquisition of territory has come with a tremendous cost in human lives and the destruction of produced property. History (our own history, in fact) is a story of land grabbing through three primary means -- force, fraud and theft. By what right did the monarchies of Spain, France or England issue grants of land occupied for thousands of years by another race of people? The native tribes, for their part, had no concept of selling titles in the earth; theirs was a collective (if exclusive) form of control at least with equal access provided to all tribal members.

[3] The right of all people to share in the bounty of the earth is the basis for the so-called "Law of the Sea" developed to harvest the sea bottoms. The United States has thus far refused to sign the treaty because private interests are opposed to paying leasing fees to the United Nations (which would then be distributed internationally according to population, according to one version of the treaty).

[4] I would propose banishment to a distant and isolated island of marginal use as the punishment most likely to produce changed behavior. Life would be subsistence level and require personal efforts to grow one's own food, build shelter and provide other minimal necessities. what bothers me a great deal about long-term imprisonment is the cost imposed on productive and moral individuals to provide for those who have demonstrated no returned sense of responsibility for their actions.

[Professor Bennett: A thoughtful essay. What you say about immigration, I think, ties in with your overarching framework than what you say about the family.]