We the People
‘We the People’ is the foundation stone of the United States Constitution. It is this thought, this preamble, this populous, that decides our collective future.
But how the tearm ‘the People’ is understood changes the meaning of the document, because it’s through this understanding that we can find out why the document was ordained.
The constitution rejected the idea of a monarchy in favor of a self-governing system by the people and for the people. The document sought to assure that no President could be an elected king. In a constitutional democracy, the people hold the power — everyone is a servant to the people. The constitution and its understanding of ‘the People’ was a guarentee to not repeat the mistakes of the colonialists.
“Our President is not a King, nor is our Senate a house of Lords. They do not claim an independent hereditary authority. But the whole is elective; all are dependent upon the people. The President, the Senate, the Representatives, are all creatures of the people.” — Samuel Huntington — Founding Father and First President of the United States in Congress Assembled
Monarchists believed ‘The People’ to be subjects. A subject is a person who owes allegiance to the monarch. The term subject describes the legal and personal relationship between a subject and their sovereign. Feudalism separated monarchs, land owners, and subjects, most people were subjects of their feudal lords, who were in turn subjects of the monarch. The people owned no land and were only granted rights by the monarch. Land ownership, wealth, and nobility are more valued than the people
Oligarchs similarly see ‘The People’ as peasants. In some nightmare revival of feudalism, Neofeudalists believe that leadership and power should only be for those with the intellect and breeding to wield it. Like the monarchists, Oligarchs see the people as beneath their pure ideological vision because they introduce grubby subcultural deviance that rejects their ideals. To oligarchs, the people are labor, a commodity. The tools of power, money, military might, and infrastructure are more valued than the people.
The socialists and communists see ‘The People’ as a uniform fabric. Woven together to build strength. To socialists, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. To Communists, the people own the means of production with free access to consumption within a classless, stateless, and moneyless society — in an end of the exploitation of labour. Both reject the idea of the individual; no part of the fabric can deviate, or else the integral uniformity of the fabric becomes compromised. Individualistic needs give way to the integral power of the fabric. A collective uniform belief is valued more than individual people.
Religious leaders see ‘The People’ as a flock. A herd guarded from straying by doctrine and wisdom passed down by an unseen hand. All people have a responsibility to live according to the religious teachings, and everyone has a role to play in upholding universally accepted moral values. The teachings and wisdom passed down by the unseen hand are protected and revered more than the people.
Technocrats see ‘The People’ as food. The people create the data that can inform, train, and grow intelligent systems. Intelligent system serve the intelligent people. Technocrats believe that these experts should control their respective ministries because they comprehend their subject better than a generalist, creating a kind of aristocracy that marginalizes the opinions and viewpoints of the general public. Expertise is valued more than the opinions of the people.
Environmentalists see ‘The People’ as a plague. Where abject consumption and industrialisation have destroyed the delicate balance between human needs and environmental protection. The People are part of nature and need to live in harmony with the natural laws — reducing human activity which is detrimental to the planet in paramount. Even reducing the human population is a necessary step for environmental sustainability. The balance of Nature is valued more than the People.
Interestingly, Unions believe in ‘The People’ as an ideal. The power of the individual and the collective come together, building leverage to control the reward for building commercial power. Unions protect the liberty of the individual through the power of the collective. At scale, Unions are self-governing, the worker owns the business — a cooperative where collective power is disburded in individual reward. Profit-sharing.
A union is closest to a modern day understanding of the People in our constitution.
“Each cooperator exists in a double capacity. He is a unit in an incorporated body standing in the place of employer; and he is a worker employed by the incorporated body. Manifestly, when, instead of an employing master, alien to the workers, there is an employing master compounded of the workers, the mischiefs ordinarily caused by piece-work can no longer be caused.” — Herbert Spencer
None of the views of ‘the People’ above are wrong, even if they are dissonant — I only present them as an example of the inexactitude of our collective ideal. If our great country is to be formed around the will of ‘The People’, then we must be clear about that idea. Because too many of our people are suffering for anyone to believe that our recent administrations are aware that they are subjects of our will. To get to ‘a more perfect Union’ we must come together with a unified voice to agree on what we collectively believe.
I, for one, firmly believe in the deregulation of government and the scaling back of authority, but only to free the People. We should never replace self-governance with some neofeudal architecture that pushes the people to be peasants because this is the antithesis of our founding idea.
If our government wants to deregulate, then they should return their ownwealth to the people. Return all control to the people. And if a President wants to lead, then they must become a servant to our better collective future. They must become one of the people.