Counterpunch Topic: "Omnia Sunt Communia: May Day 2017" by Peter Linebaugh
The following is an excerpt from
"Omnia Sunt Communia: May Day 2017." Thank you, Mensch, for the suggestion.
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The states ratified this constitution over the next two years in no small part because of the tireless efforts of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison collected in The Federalist Papers. The tenth of these papers tells it all. There Madison expresses his fear of “theoretic politicians,” that is, those who advocated an “agrarian law” or equalization of land, those who favored “perfect equality,” those who were “equalized in their possessions.” In brief, the U.S.A. was to become a massive state against the commons.
This was an appeal to the men of property, the men of private property, the men who commanded property as capital. The problem as Madison saw it was that this ruling class failed to unite itself against the commons. It was divided in four parts, or “factions” as he called them – the landlords, the merchants, the manufacturers, and the bankers. These personify four moments of capitalism – agrarian, commercial, industrial, and financial.
In turn they exploit and organize to produce surplus value among enslaved workers on the plantation; sailors, dockers, teamsters, and porters of transportation; artisans, women, and children in the shops and factories; and servants to serve the tea, make the meals, and do the cleaning for the coupon-clippers, i.e. financiers.
The U.S.A. and the U.K. have done historical damage. They are political entities whose time is done. We must devise a replacement for suffering humanity and the earth’s sake. The constitutional republic of the U.S.A. was constituted by taking other people’s land, killing them, and turning the land into a commodity, or by taking other people from one land and enslaving them on another. The constitutional monarchy of the U.K. constituted itself by enclosing land belonging to common people, and by enclosing them in factories, or when they refused confining them in penitentiaries, organizing life by buying and selling, and expanding warfare upon ever more distant nations, Wales, Scotland, and then Ireland with India, Australia, Canada, not far behind.
"Omnia Sunt Communia: May Day 2017." Thank you, Mensch, for the suggestion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The states ratified this constitution over the next two years in no small part because of the tireless efforts of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison collected in The Federalist Papers. The tenth of these papers tells it all. There Madison expresses his fear of “theoretic politicians,” that is, those who advocated an “agrarian law” or equalization of land, those who favored “perfect equality,” those who were “equalized in their possessions.” In brief, the U.S.A. was to become a massive state against the commons.
This was an appeal to the men of property, the men of private property, the men who commanded property as capital. The problem as Madison saw it was that this ruling class failed to unite itself against the commons. It was divided in four parts, or “factions” as he called them – the landlords, the merchants, the manufacturers, and the bankers. These personify four moments of capitalism – agrarian, commercial, industrial, and financial.
In turn they exploit and organize to produce surplus value among enslaved workers on the plantation; sailors, dockers, teamsters, and porters of transportation; artisans, women, and children in the shops and factories; and servants to serve the tea, make the meals, and do the cleaning for the coupon-clippers, i.e. financiers.
The U.S.A. and the U.K. have done historical damage. They are political entities whose time is done. We must devise a replacement for suffering humanity and the earth’s sake. The constitutional republic of the U.S.A. was constituted by taking other people’s land, killing them, and turning the land into a commodity, or by taking other people from one land and enslaving them on another. The constitutional monarchy of the U.K. constituted itself by enclosing land belonging to common people, and by enclosing them in factories, or when they refused confining them in penitentiaries, organizing life by buying and selling, and expanding warfare upon ever more distant nations, Wales, Scotland, and then Ireland with India, Australia, Canada, not far behind.
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