The traditional cause for revolution is no longer needed as the American government has created democracy for its citizens. But once a society becomes democratized in its political system and more egalitarian in its social institutions, it is unlikely that it will ever undergo the type of revolutionary upheavals experienced by France in 1789 and England in the 164os. In a speech to the British Parliament, Ronald Reagan announced that the United States was about to throw its prestige and resources behind a program launched to strengthen “democracy throughout the world,” but he made no reference to the idea of democratic citizenship or any suggestion that democracy might need strengthening at home.
A democratic conception of citizenship, if it means anything at all, means that the citizen is supposed to exercise his rights to advance or protect the kind of polity that depends on his being involved in its common concerns. The liberal view was that citizenship is democratic in the United States because every citizen, regardless of cultural, social, economic, and biological differences, can equally claim the right to vote, speak, worship, acquire property and have it protected, and be assured of the elements of a fair trial. Unfortunately, the liberal civic culture never supplied any content to rights. The Constitution was not designed to encourage citizen action but to prevent arbitrary power, especially the form of power represented by the will of the majority. Among several of the states, the majority principle was being actively tested in the period from the outbreak of the Revolution in 1776 to the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. The Constitution was intended to shatter the majoritarian experiment at the national level by incorporating several devices that were supposed to frustrate the natural form of democratic action: separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, the Supreme Court, indirect election of the president and Senate, and brief tenure for representatives.
At almost the exact moment when the liberal theory of rights was about to be given the material form of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, James Madison, who was the prime mover of that effort, also produced what came to be the classical formulation of the liberal theory of politics. In Letter 10 of the Federalist papers, he argued that one of the sternest tests for the proposed Constitution would be whether it could control “factions,” the distinctive form of politics in a society founded on freedom. Instead of playing the role of defender of rights, the government assumed a function more consistent with the politics of interest groups, that of “balancing” rights against certain overriding matters of state. Thus when wider latitude was given to the CIA and FBI to conduct surveillance, or when First Amendment rights of the press were limited by the prohibition against disclosing the names of CIA agents, the government’s justification was that there had to be a balancing of national security needs with civil liberties, as though the setting were simply another instance of having to weigh the demands of conflicting groups.
Throughout the nineteenth century and down to the New Deal, property rights, rather than civil or political rights, dominated American politics-even the issue of slavery was formulated as a matter of rights of ownership. But in the twentieth century, especially after World War II, it has been the civil rights of citizens that have been contested, not only in the courts and before administrative tribunals, but in the arena of interest-group politics. Rights to abortion, sexual freedom, freedom from censorship, public education free of religious influences, rights of privacy against sophisticated surveillance, affirmative action quotas-these and a multitude of other issues are an indication of how profoundly politicized rights have become, how unassured their status is. Beginning with the New Deal, liberals argued that political rights were formal and ineffective if citizens did not have jobs, social security, unemployment compensation, the right to organize unions and bargain collectively, access to higher education, and, in general, a decent standard of living. or more than three decades the thinking behind as well as the substance of public policies dealing with the poor, the unemployed, and racial minorities, have treated them as having a pariah status quite unlike other interests.
The tacit assumption of interest-group politics has always been that there was one common element among farmers, workers, employers, and teachers, etc.: they were all productive in one way or another. Those who are poor, unemployed and members of racial minorities can be treated differently, in ways that are divisive, that render them incapable of sustained political action. They are “targeted” by specialized programs that, in effect, fragment their lives.
The practical task is to nurture existing movements that can provide constructive forms for rejectionism and make it genuinely political. The most important of these are the grassroots movements that have become epidemic throughout the country. While it is of the utmost importance that Democrats support and encourage political activity at the grassroots level, it is equally necessary that the political limitations of such activity be recognized.
– A.S
