Georgia and Georgia: Aspiring and Settled States

While one Georgia was secure as a member-state in the U.S., another Georgia was finding itself being frozen out of not only accession talks with the E.U., but also being invited as a “NATO partner” to attend the NATO meeting in June, 2026. It is ironic that whereas the first Georgia had delegated some of its sovereignty to the U.S. in 1789, the second Georgia was unhappy remaining fully sovereign outside of the E.U. rather than as one of the semi-sovereign E.U. states. Giving up some governmental sovereignty can be a “step up,” and, with that comes certain requirements in terms of good governance.

The full essay is at "Georgia and Georgia." 

Statehood for Canada: Hardly a Merger

The U.S. Constitution includes an open invitation for the accession of Canada into the U.S. as a state. The invitation was made before Canada spread across from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. So, were Canadians to seek statehood in the American union of states (i.e., the U.S.A.), they would have a good argument for Canada being split in to a few states rather than just one. This is qualitatively different than a “merger” between the two countries; the latter ideological conjecture is predicated on a category mistake. Such a mistake would say, for example, that Singapore and China are of the same genus politically even though the former is a city-state and the latter is on the (early modern) empire-scale. Just because both Singapore and China have foreign policies and are member-countries of the UN does not mean that a city-state is to be treated more generally as if it were the same as an empire. By “empire,” I am referring to China itself, rather than any territories it might have beyond mainland China. The Qing emperor Kangzi expanded mainland China to include some central Asian kingdoms, thus making China an empire (of kingdom-level/scale subunits). Similarly, the U.S., as well as the E.U., are empire-scale/level polities of (kingdom-level) polities, whereas Canada does not have enough such polities to qualify as being on the empire-scale, for an empire contains many kingdom-level polities.

The full essay is at "Statehood for Canada."

On the European Commission Boycotting Hungary’s Presidency of the Council of the E.U.

Whereas just one presidency applies to the U.S. at the federal level, the E.U. has several. There is a president of the European Commission, a president of the European Parliament, a president of the European Council, and a president of the Council of the E.U., the latter being held by a state government on a six-month rotating basis. On July 1, 2024, the E.U. state of Hungary assumed that role. Because that state’s government had recently been found guilty by the E.U.’s top court, the E.C.J., of blocking federal law within the state, the matter of Hungary taking its turn in chairing the Council of the E.U. was controversial at the time. Because Viktor Orbán, governor of Hungary, used the insignia of the presidency of the Council in making unauthorized diplomatic trips to Russia and China on the war in Ukraine, the European Commission, the E.U. government’s executive branch, took the unusual decision to boycott Hungary’s presidency. Shortly thereafter, the E.U.'s parliament followed suit with a resolution condemning Orbán's diplomatic trip to Moscow. I contend that Orbán’s foray into diplomatic relations even as he was taking on a major role at the federal level presents good evidence for why foreign policy should be federalized in the E.U. as it has been in the U.S., and for the same reason.

The full essay is at "On the E.U. Commission's Boycott of Hungary."

We the People: Invigorating Popular Sovereignty by Referendi

A republic is characterized by the citizenry electing representatives, who in turn legislate (i.e., make law). As an alternative, the citizenry itself could vote directly on legislative proposals. The latter is called direct democracy. Ancient Athens, for example, practiced it. In the United States, the republic form is the prevalent form of government.  In spite of Wilson’s comment made in the constitutional convention that representation “is made necessary only because it is impossible for the people to act collectively,”[1] direct democracy has typically limited to an occasional “referendum” question even though more vital questions could be put to the body politic directly. 

The full essay is at "Invigorating Popular Sovereignty."

1,  James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987, p. 74.

The Electoral College Electing the U.S. President: A Check on Excess Democracy at the Empire Level

As a delegate in the U.S. constitutional convention, Governeur Morris stated on July 19, 1787 that the proposed National Executive (i.e. the U.S. President) should be “a firm guardian of the people and of the public interest.” (1)  Given this role, Morris maintained that it “cannot be possible that a man shall have sufficiently distinguished himself to merit this high trust without having his character proclaimed by fame throughout the Empire.” (2)   In other words, presiding requires a requisite credibility or stature that may be difficult to find in a territory on the scale of an empire.

The full essay is at "The Electoral College."

On the Virtue of a Constitutional Moment: Reassessing the American System of Government

A constitutional moment engaging the citizenry is urgently needed with respect to the system of government in the United States. In short, the citizenry should decide, as a people, whether to revert back to a federal system or to make the political consolidation that has ensued official. If the latter, Alexander Hamilton's suggestion that the states be districts of the US Government, whose energy he thought could not directly extend to the outer reaches of the empire (i.e., into the wilderness of states distant from the seat of the U.S. Government). This was Hamilton's view in the U.S. Constitutional Convention; his writings eventually published in The Federalist Papers were meant to sell the proposed constitution rather than to give his own proposal. His own view may have come to pass, though through incremental Congressional encroachment on the turf of the governments of the several states and concurring U.S. Supreme Court assuaging (or enabling) doctrines.  I submit that this process of change over many years has eventuated in a gap between the system of governance as it is and as it is to be constitutionally.  Whereas some people argue that we must revert back to the constitution following a "strict" construction, I believe we the people, as a people, should commence a constitutional moment of heightened attention and debate concerning whether we want centralized consolidation (i.e., no states), decentralized consolidation (i.e., states as districts), or federalism (which entails dual sovereignty and a balance of power between the general government and the governments of the states).  I believe the latter is the best suited for an inherently diverse empire-scale political union, but that the people reach a decision is the important point now.  For otherwise, we will continue to live a lie--to claim to be a federal system while actually being consolidated: essentially flying with  bad instruments. 

The full essay is at "Reassessing American Government."

On Educated Representatives and Large Districts: A Critique of Democracy

Democrat Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson said during an Armed Services Committee hearing in late March, 2010 that Guam would be in danger were more US troops sent there. “My fear that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” he said in all seriousness. “We don’t anticipate that,” responded Adm. Robert Willard. Did Hank Johnson's constituents want their representative in the U.S. House of Representatives to be at least nominally educated?  Lest one replies with "of course," it could also be that people may want their representatives to be like them, or at least to reflect what they value. 

The full essay is at "Educated Representatives and Large Districts."

Federalizing the Criminal Code: Racial Opportunity Costs

On December 13, 2011, a bipartisan group of legal experts told a panel of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives that the federal criminal code had grown so large that U.S. citizens could not possibly keep up with it. “We ought to get rid of the old myth that you’re presumed to know the law,” Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said. About 4,500 criminal statutes exist, according to Ed Meese, a former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan. “This is in addition to over 300,000 other regulations that don’t appear in the federal code but nevertheless carry essentially criminal penalties including prison,” he said. “So the vast array of traps for the unwary that lurks out there in federal criminal law is more extensive than most people realize.” The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts figures some 80,000 defendants are sentenced in federal court each year.

The full essay is at "Federalizing Everything."

Morsi as Partisan in Constitution-Building: Lessons from Washington

Appealing for unity after the controversial ratification of a draft constitution in December 2012, President Morsi of Egypt pledged in a televised address to respect the one-third of the electorate that had voted against the proposed constitution. He claimed that “active patriotic opposition” should not annoy the president or the people in a democracy. I contend that the office of president should not be of the sort that would have partisan opposition, ideally at least. That is to say, presiding means safeguarding the process itself, as well as the good of the whole, rather than pushing a partisan agenda. That Morsi was on record in support of the partisan-drafted proposal undercut his role as presider in chief. Given the innate instability of a nascent democracy, the role for a presider “above the fray” was particularly valuable in Egypt at the time. Morsi fell short in this regard, and thus put the fragile democracy at risk.

The full essay is at "Morsi as Partisan."

China’s Strategy: Divide the Vulnerable E.U.

During the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787, delegates from the sovereign states feared that foreign states would seek to divide their American counterparts to the extent that the United States could split apart. So the delegates voted to move foreign policy from the state to the federal level. Unlike this case, government officials of the E.U. states held foreign policy closely rather than ceding it to the federal level. Whereas in the American case the delegates could adopt a federal perspective as distinguished from the immediate interests of the respective state governments, the state officials in the European Council can be taken even as personifications of their respective state interests. Foreign powers can take advantage of the state officials’ conflict of interest to the extent that the very functioning of the European Union is compromised.

China provides a case in point.

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The full essay is at "China Carving Up the E.U."

The U.S. House of Representatives: An Aristocratic or People’s House?

“Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House rose by more than 2 ¹/₂ times, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home ­equity. Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.” This comparison excludes home equity because it was not included in congressional reporting.

The full essay is at "An Aristocratic or People's House?"

The Veto Power of the U.S. President

On September 12, 1787, in the U.S. Constitutional Convention, Gerry claimed that the "primary object of the revisionary check on the President is not to protect the general interest, but to defend his own department" (Madison, Notes, p. 628). Gerry was stressing the value of maintaining the separation of power that was to exist between the three branches of the U.S. (General, or federal) Government. I believe he was inordinately fixated on his point--missing the presiding function of the U.S. President. Also on September 12, Madison averred that the "object of the revisionary power is twofold. 1. to defend the Executive Rights 2. to prevent popular or factious injustice" (Madison, Notes, p. 629). In addition to be an advocate of the separation of power within the U.S. Government, Madison was concerned that a large faction in the majority might oppress a minority faction and he viewed the expanded republic of the union as a means to minimize such tyranny. He too was slighting the presiding role of the president.

The full essay is at "The Veto Power of the U.S. President."

Source: James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787 (New York: Norton, 1987).

The U.S. Senate as Protector of the Interests of the Rich

In the U.S. Constitutional Convention, Governeur Morris said on July 2, 1787, that the “Rich will strive to establish their dominion & enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security [against] them is to form them into a separate interest.” By this he meant the U.S. Senate. The democratic principle in the U.S. House and the aristocratic spirit in the U.S. Senate “will then controul each other.” (Madison, p. 233) Having the State Legislatures appoint their U.S. Senators—as was the case until 1913—would defeat the independence of the Senate, and hence its function as a check on the excesses of democracy in the U.S. House.  Such excesses had just been evinced in Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, wherein the legislature there had sided with the former soldiers who had not been paid for their service but were still to make payments on their debts. In other words, one of the purposes of the U.S. Senate as originally envisioned was to protect property (including creditor interests). 

The full essay is at "The U.S. Senate as Protector of the Rich."

When the Cameras Are Off: Who Are the Politicians?

In Game Change, a journalist account of the 2008 U.S. Presidential race, the two political reporters conducted hundreds of interviews and had unusually close access to the campaigns. As a result, the reporters present some pretty interesting political morsels. For example, Hillary Clinton considered Bill’s administration to have been “a tactical and operational disaster” (p. 43). ouch! She would never have said such a thing in front of a microphone. This raises the question: do we, the voters, know candidates as well as we think we do? I contend that we do not, and, moreover, that this partially explains why we are so surprised when our elected representatives behave less than with maturity while in office.

The full essay is at "When the Cameras Are Off."

Source:

John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (New York: Harper Collins, 2010).

The Basis of American Aristocracy: Wealth & Property

In the constitutional convention of the United States in 1787, the property-interests were well-represented. Even so, a fear of a plutocracy was voiced by those property-protectors as well. While one might conclude at first glance that the wealthy delegates were duplicitous, their position was not self-contradictory, even if the bias toward wealth is discomforting for those of us who value representative democracy.

The full essay is at "Basis of American Aristocracy."

States Move Beyond Congress on Gun Control

On April 4, 2013, the government of Connecticut passed “a sweeping new set of gun control reforms.” Colorado and New York had already passed their respective versions of “sweeping gun legislation,” all in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut the previous December. 

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

Averting the "Fiscal Cliff": A Solution Overlooked

With just days to avert the beginning of automatic, across-the-board cuts in the U.S. federal budget and the end of the Bush tax cuts and payroll tax reductions, President Obama met with Congressional leaders at the White House following a brief respite over Christmas. The discussion was doubtless on what could pass Congress in time. The U.S. Secretary of the Treasury was also attending, so the upcoming debt-limit could also have been part of the discussion. It could be argued that the perspective itself at the meeting must have been too narrow—too small—even though the crisis demanded leadership.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, which is available at Amazon. 

Economic Inequality in the U.S.: A Conflagration of Accumulated Dead Wood

According to the Congressional Research Service, the share of total net worth held by the less affluent half of American households dropped from 3.6% in 1995 to 1.1% in 2010. Meanwhile, the share held by the top 10 percent increased from 67.2% to 74.5 percent. That is to say, ten percent of the American population holds three-quarters of all of the wealth. The top 1 percent went from holding 30.1% to 34.5% of the wealth. According to the report, "Inequality is the term commonly applied to the concentration of total net worth among the relatively few households at the top of the wealth distribution." The study shows that inequality increased in the U.S. during the 1990s and 2000s.

Perhaps of all the statistics listed in the report, the one that leaps off the page as a harbinger of future problems in terms of democracy concerns the fact that half of the American population holds only one percent of the wealth in the United States. This means that half of the population has little at stake and therefore little to lose. It is a feat of the sheer breadth and depth of propaganda from the top one percent via the corporate media companies that the bottom fifty percent continue to buy into the system, figuratively speaking, rather than revolt. At the very least, to have half of a population excluded is dangerous, even if only potentially at the moment. In terms of quality of life, society itself would have a much better feel to it were the wealth not confined to 50 percent of the population (with the top ten percent of the population owning 75% of the wealth).

No one likes to have one’s property taken, even if one would not be inconvenienced by the removal.  Hence the dreaded term of “redistribution” is excoriated. However, trends such as those described above can come from systemic biases rather than by outright taking from the poor; similarly, a design could “lean” in the direction of economic equality without overtly taking from the rich. To be sure, the super-rich, or multi-billionaires, could legitimately be subject to direct redistribution because after a certain point a person’s additional wealth exceeds that which can be spent. To play investment games with wealth while half of a population goes without (including many without healthcare) can be subjected to critique as evincing a rather warped sense of priorities in terms of values.

Therefore, both the design of the American political economy and the assumption that no amount of wealth can ever be too much from the standpoint of societal values could be subjected to critique. Raising such basic questions after the twenty-year trend of increasing inequality could in turn be part of a wider societal awakening in the context of not only a new century underway by a decade, but also a new millennium. Even back in 2000, the recognition could have been that a new status quo should at least be attempted in a “spring cleaning” of sorts during the first decade of the new millennium. It was not already too late even in the second decade for a wholesale re-consideration by society at large of that which had been taken for granted in the status quo.

In addition to subjecting the corporate capitalist system and the related amount of economic inequality to a fundamental debate, a constitutional convention in each of the fifty republics, and one for the U.S. constitution itself could be called on the basis that a new millennium calls for fundamental re-examination of the status quo, which is no longer rightfully the default. For example, the long trend of declining federalism could finally be subject to a decision either to restore that system or make the de facto near-consolidation de jure too, constitutionally.

Admittedly, my suggestion is a pretty tall order, and therefore very unlikely to see the light of day. Instead, the unquestioned hegemony of the antiquated default is likely to go on, unthreatened by any societal awakening, especially from the half of society with a vested interest in upsetting the apple cart. Indeed, human nature itself my strongly favor tomorrow being rather like today, instead of being rid of all the dead wood (which can easily catch fire).

The 1988 fire in Yellowstone spread “like wildfire” in large part because of the years of Interior Department policy against allowing contained fires to incrementally consume the accumulating dead wood. Similarly, the dead wood of economic inequality (and political consolidation) renders the American empire extremely vulnerable. One indication of this sort of unthinking build-up is the $16 trillion imbalance represented by the debt being held by the U.S. Government as of 2012. The less tangible dead wood may be even more dangerous.

Once a fire starts (e.g., higher interest rates or small riots), it could quickly get out of control before anyone has any idea that the ship called America will founder as if by some mathematical certainty. Fifty-one percent on one end of a balancing scale is by definition a majority. To put it another way, what goes around comes around. Lack of concern for the other half is likely to have its own consequences, even if only for one’s posterity.

Source:

Dan Froomkin, “Half of American Households Hold 1 Percent of Wealth,” The Huffington Post, July 19, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/households-wealth-american-1-percent_n_1687015.html#slide=more217997

Pressuring E.U. States: The Debt Crisis as Leverage

By mid 2012, the verdict was in on the German-led recipe for restoring states overwhelmed by public- or private-sector debt: Austerity is counter-productive in reducing government deficits. On June 6, 2012, the media reported: “Prolonged austerity is making it harder, not easier, for governments like Greece to become self-reliant again.”[1] Salaries and pensions in the private and the public sectors in the state had been cut by up to 50 percent, leaving Greece 495 million euros short of its revenue targets in the four months ending the previous April, according to the Greek Finance Ministry.[2] With less cash, consumers had to reduce spending, leading thousands of taxpaying businesses to fail. Income expected from a higher, 23 percent value-added tax required by the bailout agreement fell short by around 800 million euros in the first four months of 2012. That is partly because cash-short businesses that were once law-abiding started hiding money to stay afloat, tax officials said.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

1, Liz Alderman, “Greece Warns of Going Broke as Tax Proceeds Dry Up,” The New York Times, June 6, 2012.

2. Ibid.

Leadership in Europe: A Recipe for Reducing Legal Uncertainty

Concerning the legal environment of business, the lawyers who teach as full-time instructors in American business schools affirm that managers would rather have a challenging environment that they know than one that is characterized by headlines such as, “Legal Uncertainty Imperils EU Agreement.” At the E.U.’s parliament, which represents the E.U.’s citizens, the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, said in the wake of the agreement, “An intergovernmental treaty was not my first preference, nor that of . . . most of the member states . . . It will not be easy, also legally speaking. I count on everybody to be constructive, bearing in mind what is at stake.”[1] Investors were “largely dismissive” of the Council meeting  at which the extra-E.U. agreement on strengthening the enforcement mechanism of state deficit and debt limits had been reached at the end of the previous week. Alan Brown, chief investment officer at Schroders Investment Management, which had at the time almost $300 billion under management, said of the results of the Council meeting, “Yes, it was what I expected, and yes, I was disappointed.”[2] Schroders was backing up this view with a modest bet against the euro. Relatedly, Barclays was forecasting the currency to fall from $1.30 on December 13, 2011 to $1.25 by June 2012. Besides the pessimism on the “intergovernmental treaty” as well as a possible increase of funds from the $500 billion cap on the agenda at a Council meeting in March 2012, the sheer uncertainty described by Van Rompuy lowers the value of the announced agreement and the outlook concerning the viability of the euro as well as the E.U. itself.

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

1. Steven Erlanger and Stephen Castle, “Europe United, Minus One: A Firm German Imprint on an E.U. Transformed,” International Herald Tribune, December 10-11, 2011. 

2. Matina Stevis, Frances Robinson, and Marcin Sobczyk, “Legal Uncertainty Imperils EU Agreement,” The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2011; Tom Lauricella, “Euro at 11-Month Low,” The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2011.