The History of Human Fallibility Is a Case Against Socialism
Project Federalism: Paper 6: The Case for Our Constitutional Government Summarized With a Modern Perspective
“Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States” by Alexander Hamilton
If the States should be completely disunited or only bound by separate confederacies, there is no doubt that they would violently compete with each other as man’s nature is “ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.” History has shown us that peace between sovereignties in the same neighborhood would be incredible.
There are many causes for hostility between nations: love of power, jealousy of power, the desire for equality, or safety; rivalships or competitions of commerce; and from personal passions, “attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears” of powerful individuals in society.
Look at Pericles who’s personal passions took Athens into two destructive wars, Thomas Wolsey who “precipitated England into a war with France,” and, for a more modern example, Daniel Shays who might not have led Massachusetts into civil war had he not owed so much money.
In spite of historical experience, there are still some who claim that a commercial republic will defame personal passions and prevent conflict with mutual interest. However, don’t all societies have this broad, long-term interest, and yet all fall victim to momentary passions? Don’t republics go to war just as much as monarchies as both are governed by fallible men? Furthermore, is wealth not just as good a reason to go to war as power and glory? “Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.”
“Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they as often engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighboring monarchies of the same times.” And Britain, which has popular representatives in the legislature and is mostly concerned with commerce, has constantly been at war; many of which were popularly approved.
From these and other examples from history, it seems we should conclude that we, nor anyone else, is anywhere near the “happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue.” For that reason, French philosopher Gabriel Bonnot de Mably once wrote that “neighboring nations are naturally enemies of each other unless their common weakness forces them to league in a confederate Republic, and their constitution prevents the differences that neighborhood occasions.”
This one has a lot to say about human fallibility; Hamilton believes it stems from human nature which is ambitious, vengeful, and greedy. This perspective of human nature and fallibility Hamilton concludes from history.
The parts about why the states should come together under a Union is less relevant nowadays (apart from a small, weird push for California to secede, and anyone who supports that idea really should read Hamilton’s essay in full), but the way human nature and history are used in Hamilton’s argument are still very relevant to American politics.
Human nature tells us that, not only are people terrible at wielding power, that they’re always corrupted by it, but also that we’re terrible at judging this flaw of ours, and history provides us many examples of both conditions. For these reasons, the Founders designed a government that was subservient to higher ideals than the drives of personal passions, rights, and they implemented checks and balances to ensure that no one could try and take enough power to violate our rights.
I think it’s also very important that Hamilton calls history “the least fallible guide of human opinions.” By this definition, history should be what we base our political opinions off of; we should use it to see what worked and what didn’t. It’s the least fallible guide because history is experience, it’s where we already tested policy out. This is basically Conservatism by the way, and while clearly Hamilton wasn’t a pure Conservative, I think his argument demonstrates the necessity of pairing Conservatism with other political philosophies.
I’ll use the modern Socialist movement in America as an example. Not only is Socialism worrisome because of the increases in power it gives government, thus empowering destructive human nature and fallibility, but it has also been proven dangerous by history. Not to mention that history has shown us there are better alternatives; Conservatism tells us to hesitate to throw out tradition because we can’t know the future, and value tradition because we can know the past.
While Bernie Sanders, and others who support his policy, are perhaps motivated by good-meaning “interests, hopes, and fears,” Hamilton specifies these as personal passions that can destroy nations, and uses history to give examples. Let us heed Hamilton’s advice and be less cavalier with radical politics.
