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The Revolution of 1776 was big by any estimate. The Revolution
of 1776 ushered in something new in human history . . . a whole new epoch of
political revolution under the banner of national liberation. National
liberation meant more than "me and my country" being liberated from "you and
your country" because it happened in a very distinct economic and social
context.
1776 was big. 1776 birthed what would be called the national
liberation movement and this process of national liberation went on for another
two hundred years. It reached its peak with the tidal waves of national
liberation uprisings between 1940s through 1970s.
It should come as no surprise than many Americans have always
supported national liberation throughout the world as a lofty and noble goal and
this included American resistance to the reckless and criminal war against
the Vietnamese. More complicated reasons are involved in why a section of our
bourgeoisie has always fought against the closed colonial system that prevented
their investment of finance into all areas of the world.
Nevertheless, 1776 inspired a vision because it was a new
thing in history. The French bourgeoisie and the British bourgeoisie had a
revolution to free themselves from the feudal estate system and its political
restraints that were based on serf and master and a system of privilege when you
did not have to proceed anything . . . but rather has force and connections with
owners of landed property.
America was different. America was founded as a capitalist
colony. This meant that it was owned by England and its supreme purpose in life
was to ship goods and resources back to the mother country - the Crown. For the
first time in history a revolutionary colonial revolt was bound up with the
revolution against feudalism, because the American bourgeoisie wanted freedom
from feudal England.
The United States is perhaps the only country in the world,
most certainly in the Western Hemisphere, that was never tainted with feudal
economic relations. Canada was, Mexico was and everything else south of the
border was tainted.
To say the revolution of 1776 was a national democratic
revolution is not enough. To say there was not feudal economic relations is not
enough. 1776 was an agrarian bourgeois democratic revolution and all the
agrarian classes more than less are destined to disintegrate in the face of the
advance of modern industrial. The vision of 1776 could only be advanced when the
foundation for the industrial bourgeoisie had been laid and they assumed power.
People fight for ideas. People fight for their vision even
when they cannot achieve their vision. Each time they gain a little bit more as
society develops the economic legs to make a noble vision attainable. As
technology develops and the mighty forces of production expands a new generation
recast the old vision in their image based on what they conceive as possible.
The clearest thinking people in 1776 understood that unless
national liberation emancipated the slaves they would have to fight the
revolution over again to achieve the vision put forth. George Washington was the
largest slave holder at the time and Jefferson ... well we know his history and
the difference between his vision and real life as a slave master. In this
sense, the Civil War was a continuation of 1776.
In the same sense we can see in the growing revolution today
that the subjective side of the social process - how people actually think
things out, is inexplicably connected to the vision proclaimed by the Civil War
or the "Second Edition" of the American revolution. This vision could not and
was not achieved. The vision was mass democracy or a nation - not a union of
people or distinct ethnic groups, conceived in liberty and justice for all.
What is democracy? Democracy is the rule of the people and
such rule must rest upon the ability of the people to choice freely. That, in
turn means independence or individual freedom. Independence and individual
freedom rests upon a person's secure access and control over the necessities of
life. If I depend on someone else for food, shelter and clothing, then I am a
person's slave. If I am compelled to do that person's bidding to secure the
necessities of life, then I am that person slave no matter how democratic and
subtle the command is.
The ideas of Jefferson democracy rest on this understanding.
Hence, the demand for independence provided by the small family farm and land
ownership. The Revolution did not achieve Jeffersonian democracy, nor did the
Civil War. History seems to keep repeating itself on a higher and spiraling
level and the social movements keep demanding the same thing under changing
conditions and each time the demands of the vision of 1776 advances the
revolutionary process. In this sense there is a chain of demands from one
revolution to the next, culminating in the outbreak of warfare.
The specific feature of the unfolding social revolution in the
American Union and how people are compelled by their own history to think things
out, can be traced back to the vision of 1776 . . . and this is the modern
theory of the American social revolution.
Marxism has never faired well in the American Union for a
complex of reasons grounded in our country as a country of immigrants. Our
history is extremely violent and revolutionary. Where else on earth has a
section of the bourgeoisie gone into Civil War with another section? The
agrarian bourgeois fought the industrial bourgeoisie in the bloody conflict.
This was markedly different from the colonial revolts of the Second World
Imperial War era or the time of Lenin.
In shaping the theory of the American Revolution - Third
Edition, old concepts and ideology of the past is useless. No one in their right
mind advocates for a Soviet America because Sovietism was an industrial form of
democracy no matter what its hardships and harshness. Democratic circles of
industrial workers as owners of production is something connected to the
ascendancy of the industrial system.
The diverse peoples of America do not think in such concepts
and an important reason is that we have left the ascendancy of the industrial
system a couple of decades ago. The vision of 1776 and Lincoln . . . and
then the decades of the Civil Rights Movement and its aftermath drives the
vision of individual freedom and give meaning to liberty and justice for all.
I remember an early slogan from the late 1950 and early 1960s
of the Civil Rights activists - "Ain't I A Man?" Does his not hearken to the
vision of 1776 and the declaration that all men are created equal and endowed
with certain inalienable rights by their creator?
The vision of one revolution becomes the cause of the next and
society fights out the social questions to achieve the vision.
What stands before us is something different and new in human
history. To limit our vision to overthrowing the power of capital and investing
the state with the title of property holder does not conform to American history
and our distinct stage of development of the material power of production. The
property relation itself can be abolished.
Liberty and justice - freedom for the individual, rests
exclusively on their ability to access the system to meet their basic needs,
uninhibited by the demand to sell ones labor power as the precondition. The
exact features of a new system and what is possible will come into focus as the
revolution in the technological regime intensifies.
The vision on July 4th is a nation - not union, conceived in
liberty and justice for the individual.
Melvin P.
P.S. Bring on Mr. Sowell . . . and let him be eaten
alive. My big brother would absolutely wreck his guy in a public forum of
working people.
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