On Sat, 16 Jun 2001, Dan Minette wrote:
> From: "Gautam Mukunda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Part of what makes the Founders so special is precisely that they were
> theoreticians, >not just politicians.
>
> Actually, I would argue that a Marxist concept would be useful here. I
> didn't use it in my first post because it is a bit technical. It is pratix:
> the concept of reducing theory to practical applications.
I'm sort of familiar with the concept. But there's the addition step of
actually inventing the theory which is quite dazzling.
> >When they wrote the American Constitution they
> > created a government more similar to that of the Roman Republic than any
> > other government in the world since the time of Augustus, but it wasn't
> > terribly similar to that of Rome either - it was a largely original
> > creation, and remains, in Harvey Mansfield's words, "the foremost creation
> > of political science."
> >
> Well, I think our main disagreement here is the importance of theory vs. the
> ability to actually craft something that works. IMHO, the amazing thing is
> that they actually got the government to work. Indeed, I'd argue that their
> main skill was experimental instead of theoretical. But, as an
> experimentalist, I have a different bias than a theorist would. :-)
>
> Dan M.
I don't think you can separate the two, though. The Founders didn't just
have to go put a system into practice - they had to invent a new system
first. That was a dazzling work of political theory. Once they had it,
they had to put it into practice. That was a remarkable feat of political
skill. Saying one is more important than the other is like saying that a
mother is more important than a father in trying to have a baby. You sort
of need both :-) The synthesis might well be unique. The theoretical
achievements are impressive, to my mind, in part because they stand in
such contrast to modern politics. Pat Moynihan once said that he had been
in politics for 30 years and never once had a serious discussion about
ideas. The Founders had a great deal of political skill, but I think
you'd find a handful of figures in politics today who could equal them in
that - Bill Clinton springs to mind. But you couldn't find a politician
anywhere in the US, and probably anywhere in the world, who could also
claim to have made serious and profound contributions to political
philosophy. The real achievement of the Founders, to my mind, wasn't just
initially creating the US government. Think of the talent they had to
work with. _Any_ system will be effective and good when George Washington
is running it, with Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Adams,
Franklin, and others assisting. You couldn't throw a brick without
hitting someone who should make every person in modern politics ashamed of
themselves. The truly impressive feat was designing (and implementing) a
system that worked when your government wasn't littered with geniuses -
when you don't have any, in fact. And their success in that, I would
argue, stemmed from their theoretical and philosophical abilities, which
were what gave them the insight that made it possible for practical
politicians to shape a system that would last - that is now, in fact, one
of the oldest governments in the world - something that they themselves
would probably never have expected, in fact.
Gautam Mukunda
