Is government "a conspiracy of the rich"?

The following is a provocative bit of commentary:

Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful, that is so prodigal of its favors to those that are called gentlemen, or goldsmiths, or such others who are idle, or live either by flattery, or by contriving the arts of vain pleasure; and on the other hand, takes no care of those of a meaner sort, such as ploughmen, colliers, and smiths, without whom it could not subsist? But after the public has reaped all the advantage of their service, and they come to be oppressed with age, sickness, and want, all their labors and the good they have done is forgotten; and all the recompense given them is that they are left to die in great misery. The richer sort are often endeavoring to bring the hire of laborers lower, not only by their fraudulent practices, but by the laws which they procure to be made to that effect; so that though it is a thing most unjust in itself, to give such small rewards to those who deserve so well of the public, yet they have given those hardships the name and color of justice, by procuring laws to be made for regulating them.

Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who on pretence of managing the public only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill acquired, and then that they may engage the poor to toil and labor for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please. And if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws.

Thoughts?

(Extra bonus points to anyone who can tell me who wrote this commentary and when.)

My guess would be Thomas Paine.

Jared Diamond explores similar ideas, in calling governments kleptocracies.

Dickens.

I would say that government evolved into something that could be hijacked by the rich, as opposed to a feudal state, say.

. . . and as I find myself doing so often, I remind the congregation that philosophers have explained the world, but it is up to us to change it.

>3 RickHarsch:: Rick, I'm not sure I understand your distinction -- if anything, a feudal state was simply more transparent about the wealth qualifications needed to be a part of the government.

> 5 True it was far more transparent--it didn't require C. Wright Mills to trace the power elite, but I believe that the drive for accumulating wealth also drives technology and that makes society more complex and fluid and so feudalism was doomed. It is far more difficult to keep people down these days. I believe the 'agile and dangerous' capitalism of the US is up to now the most ingenious imperium to date, and will prove to be the longest lasting.

(I guess it wasn't Dickens, huh?)

Dammit, Harry, I need HELP!

>6 RickHarsch:: Dickens is at least the right nationality, but a little too...new...

In rebus 3 atque 5. More to the point, "the state" in high-feudal times was decentralized, and thus, very difficult to be taken-over, either from within or without, as there wasn;t much to take over. In Europe, anyway, this continued in some areas (like Poland, with it curious "Free Veto" system) centuries after other nation-states (most notably France) had begun to coalesce and establish mechanisms of power like taxation, standing armies, diplomacy, etc which operated quite independently of baronial authority and even despite the various recurrent spasms of dynasticism. The States of the Church, from, say Sixtus IV through Urban VIII are a curious variant on this, and even in the long downhill slide to 1870, maintained more saecular power than some of the states like Portugal, Hungary, Lithuania, and -- o the rest of you fill in the blanks. This antiquarian stuff is driving me to a hot bath and a cold ale. But joy to you all even so. -- Goddard

Gilbert Burnet

6> no a feudal state was based on land not money. you owned the land you formed the government, and the government controlled those that merely owned money.

Feudalism ended as land and money became interchangeable.

>11 SimonW11:: You're making too great a distinction between "land" and "money". Until the rise of the merchant class in the 13th and 14th centuries, most wealth was held as real estate, i.e. you were rich because you received the rents from the folks farming the lands you owned (often paid, not in coin, but in the actual produce, together with other forms of manual service).

But Harry is much better on this type of socio-economic history than I am...

"Government" was minuscule in feudalism.

I admit to being too brief and skipping far too much. Of course nations, changes in size and, sort of, concept, and, good point, land and money becoming interchangeable, but as well the multiplying of competing large entities...At any rate, I stick with my last two sentences.

The salient point in the land/money business is mobility, isn't it? And Harry has left to drink ale, reminding me that I have a German wheat beer in the freezer.

bitte ein Bit.

Y'all are making me jealous -- I'm currently on meds that won't let me drink!

(And a follow-up recommendation on theoria's point about the lack of government -- see Thomas Bisson's recent The Crisis of the Twelfth Century and my review thereof.)

And as a hint...you need to go further back than Paine but not so far back as feudalism...

Nate, first off, good one giving us a riddle to solve. Second, look, the bear is a cheap German wheat beer, .75 euro per half liter. It's two-third gone and I will go back to it, and Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers, and awake to poverty by the sea.

Oops. Looks like Bishop Burnet actually translated conspiratio divitum as “a conspiracy of the richer sort.” It was Thomas Williamson (“a Gentleman of Oxford”) whose revision gave that modern form.

Seriously, people, it's the 21st century. Google Books tells us it's Sir Thomas More's Utopia in a second's searching.

#20: Whether or not that's cheating, I don't think "bonus points" are meant to go out to just anyone who can do a simple google search.

MMcM deserves the points, anyway; it is Burnet (or Williamson?), not More. (More wrote in Latin)

its not that I am saying that what we now see as wealth did not have control. im saying it was not transparent. land and wealth were not seen as interchangable.

Land/money interchangability lead to mobility but what drove it was tax avoidance. People chopped up and sold their land to avoid feudal obligations. If you turn your castle into a condo suddenly there is no feudal lord obligated to provide B&B and a100 archer to the court.

Yes, but you took the fun out of it. (20)

>22 PaulFoley:: Has it become standard practice to credit the translator over the author?

good point, 25, though now we are in awe of PF's veritably renaissance range of knowledge

In rebus 22, 25, 26. Wow -- it's getting crowded in here, all that knowldge! Lucky you, Rick, having the sea nearby. Can't believe I am wasting bandwidth with a post like the one I am writing. The unkind can attribute it to advancing senility. I prefer attribute it to the dull thud in my consciousness from dealing with a new LTer in another thread who has the grizzly lack of cool to adopt as nom-de-LT the early head of the Cheka. Good God, what's next on LT? Are we to have a Heinrich Himmler, a "Bull Connor", a Torquemada? O well, it's just electrical impulses wafting through bits of super-refined sand. . . .

An non haec iniqua est & ingrata respublica, quae generosis ut uocant & aurificibus, & id genus reliquis, aut ociosis, aut tantum adulatoribus, & inanium uoluptatum artificibus, tanta munera prodigit. agricolis contra, carbonarijs, mediastinis, aurigis & fabris, sine quibus nulla omnino Respublica esset, nihil benigne prospicit.

Sed eorum florentis aetatis abusa laboribus, annis tandem ac morbo graues, omnium rerum indigos, tot uigiliarum immemor, tot ac tantorum oblita beneficiorum miserrima morte repensat ingratissima.

Quid quod ex diurno pauperum demenso diuites cotidie aliquid, non modo priuata fraude, sed publicis etiam legibus abradunt, ita quod ante uidebatur iniustum, optime de Republica meritis pessimam referre gratiam, hoc isti deprauatum etiam fecerunt, tum prouulgata lege iustitiam.

Itaque omnes has quae hodie usquam florent Respublicas animo intuenti ac uersanti mihi, nihil sic me amet deus, occurrit aliud quam quaedam conspiratio diuitum, de suis commodis Reipublicae nomine, tituloque tractantium. comminiscunturque & excogitant omnes modos atque artes quibus, quae malis artibus ipsi congesserunt, ea primum ut absque perdendi metu retineant, post hoc ut pauperum omnium opera, ac laboribus quam minimo sibi redimant, eisque abutantur. Haec machinamenta, ubi semel diuites publico nomine hoc est etiam pauperum, decreuerunt obseruari, iam leges fiunt.

(Source: http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Liber:Utopia,_More,_1518.djvu )

28> no, haven't been drinking today...pauperum hic fartus...

And for those who can't read Latin, here's my own translation, lest we lay the passage at the feet of older men:

Isn't that government (respublica) wicked and ungracious, which lavishes such rewards upon those so-called "gentlemen" and on goldsmiths, and on whatever type of the rest, whether lazy or flattering or purveyors of empty pleasures? While to farmers, on the other hand, and to colliers (charcoal-burners), day-workers, cab-drivers, smiths, and other workmen, without whom the republic would not even exist, it provides no care at all?

But after that republic has exploited the labors of their prime, it forgets their long hours of watchful service and closes its eyes against the many benefits they gave it, and it ungratefully rewards them, burdened at last by age and illness, impoverished of any material goods, with a pitiful death.

What's more, every day the rich take a little bit more away from the daily wages of the poor, not only by under-the-table fraud, but even through above-board lawmaking, so that what once seemed unjust--the depravity of paying such meager thanks to those who really are the best citizens of the republic--they turn by legislation into a state of justice.

Thereofre, as I look around and examine all of what today flourish as republics--may God help me!--I am met by nothing other than a certain conspiracy of the rich (quaedam conspiratio diuitum), running it under the name and title of "republic" but for their own purposes (de suis commodis). They exploit and engineer every kind of artifice that they can, so that first they can keep all those things that they acquired by wicked means, without fear of loss, and after that, to reward the works of all the poor as little as possible for their labor, and to abuse and exploit them. When the rich, in the name of the public (which includes also the poor), declare that these machinations are to be observed, they then become law.

From Thomas More, Utopia, Book II, pp. 158-159 of the 1518 edition digitized at WikiSource.

No wonder our kids come home from college sounding like commies.

Actually they come home from college now sounding like libertarians, a step down from commies but a step up from Republicans...

In Slovenia, they stay home when they go to college if they can, and they stay in college as long as possible.

So they ALWAYS sound like commies?...

They sound like anarchists--the extended family governs. They eat and drink well.

In re #35. Mazel tov! Where do I sign-up? Can I get any extras in consequence of my high mileage? I have thoughts of tucking myself inside my book when I ship it to you, in the manner of Flat Stanley. Please warn whatever il postino is called in Slovenia: it may be a tough trip from the PO. But I tip well (one of my few remaining bourgeois habits).

Welcome any time, flat or not, even flat broke.

I tip too much myself. In Slovene Istria they use the Italian word, mancia, for a tip. Anthony Burgess' narrator in Earthly Powers makes a joke when he is chided in Sardinia for overtipping, calling himself Don Quixote della mancia. No one laughed. He said they never do.

the postal system is great to here by now. no more packages coming via Chile.

sounding like commies

Back in the days of the Cold War, some energy was spent trying to prove that, contra Kautsky, Saint Thomas More obviously didn't mean what his Hythloday said.

the postal system is great to here by now. no more packages coming via Chile.

Ten years ago I had a close friend living in Austria. She never received a package that hadn't been sent via Australia.

Never send marsupials to Austria.

Thomas More's Utopia.....