@HeavenlyPossum You're oversimplifying a lot by lumping all non-modern-democratic ideas into the same basket.

There is a distinction between the democracy of the landed gentry, with all of its flaws and inequities, and out and out oligarchy.

And it's right to point out that their acceptance of slavery and their exploitative attitude towards 'the mob' is in contradiction of their stated ideals.

The US founding fathers were hypocrites, not oligarchs (also worshipping them is weird, America).

@BoysenberryCider

If “landed and slave owning elites who monopolized political and economic power for themselves as a class” don’t constitute an oligarchy, I don’t know what would.

Aristocrats taking turns ruling over a subject population is not “democracy of the landed gentry” because it is not democracy at all.

@HeavenlyPossum Your definition of 'democracy' is unhistorically narrow, and 'aristocrat' too wide. Democracy is a system, not a synonym for 'equal, righteous goverment'.

'Demos' + 'kratia' = rule by the people. 'The people' meant 'our kind of people', and excluded many. The franchise has since expanded, which is good.

'Oligos' + 'arkia' = rule by the few, fossilised concentration of power in the hands of a group.

There can be overlap, but you're bending the words to make your point.

@BoysenberryCider

No, I am using these words carefully and precisely. The concept of “rule by the people” is incompatible with “rule by some of the people.”

And casting periodic ballots for aristocrats competing in a popularity contest can, in no way, be said to constitute *rule* by the community of ballot casters, regardless of how expansive the franchise is.

@HeavenlyPossum

@ahltorp said it exactly.

Wide franchise and social equality are good things, and we should want them. But they're not synonyms with democracy, except in US propaganda.

The main thrust of your argument, that the US has been compromised since economic dependence slavery, is correct. All of the US's racial ills flow from that wound, and its economic disparity is closely related.

That's not the consitution, it's the country (also see Britain and Europe & colonialism)

@HeavenlyPossum @ahltorp

See also the constant thirst for cheap labour to exploit, whether that be prisoners, illegal immigrants etc., it's all to retain a balance first calibrated in the days of slavery (or of Empire).

Every time that cheap labour gets taken away, capital thinks it's losing something, because they don't realise what the golden age they're harking back to was built on.

@ahltorp @BoysenberryCider

“US elites depended on slavery and were constantly thirsty for cheap labour to exploit but didn’t bother structuring their polity’s basic laws to promote their interests” sure is a take.

@HeavenlyPossum @ahltorp

Yes, humans are complex. They can profess virtue while not being virtuous, and that's exactly what they did. They should have been better people and lived up to what they wrote, but they didn't. Happens all the time.

@ahltorp @BoysenberryCider

What a strange response.

@ahltorp @BoysenberryCider

I mean “strange” as in “incoherent.” I don’t understand how it follows from the previous conversation, in which I had been arguing that early US elites wrote their class interests into the constitution. You objected to that argument, but your response reads as if you think *I* was suggesting early US elites were virtuous.

@HeavenlyPossum @ahltorp Quite the opposite.

You're suggesting the document is evil because the US elites were evil, more or less.

Does that capture your point fairly?

I'm suggesting the document they wrote was pretty good, but the country it was managing was complicit in evil things and the problem comes from the second part.

@ahltorp @BoysenberryCider

No. I am, again, unsure of why you are trying to divine some hidden meaning behind my plain words:

Early US elites wrote the constitution to ensure their perpetual class rule.

It turns out that’s precisely what happened!

I’m not sure how that could be considered “good” or how you could conclude that they were too stupid to take into consideration their class interests when writing the constitution, especially considering that they recorded their quite explicit intent to ensure their perpetual class rule.

@HeavenlyPossum @ahltorp Okay. Firstly, when did they define themselves as a priveleged class?

Secondly, where was the privelege that did exist in pre-20th century franchise limited to something that could be called an elite?

Thirdly, what part of the modern document continues to enforce that rule?

@BoysenberryCider @ahltorp

- Repeatedly throughout their works. Hamilton and Madison were the most explicit, and I’d point to Federalist #10 as among the clearest anti-democracy texts they published. If you’re interested in more, I’d recommend Michael Klarman’s “The Founders’ Coup,” which documents this far more exhaustively than I could in a toot.

- I never said the franchise was the problem—setting aside, of course, the fact that the national franchise was restricted to white adult male citizens and many state franchises were further restricted by property qualifications. If you’re unsure why I would identify early US elites—mostly hereditary slave and plantation owners—as *privileged,* we might have to do some remedial work on what privilege entails.

- All of it.

@HeavenlyPossum @ahltorp

1, thanks, I'll check it out!

2, okay. What's the link between your conception of their protection of class privelege and flaws in their idea of democracy?

Also, my point was 'how was that political privelege limited to an elite group in the law?' Does that phrasing clarify my point?

3. That's not how laws work. It's not a holy/unholy relic, it's a law that defines the rights and limitations of government. What's the particular issue with those rights/limitations?