An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Luke Pickrell contributes to the discussion about anti-imperialism and democracy.

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world and that is an idea whose time has come.” - Victor Hugo, The History of a Crime.

On a Saturday last November, I went to the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine rally in San Francisco. There, amidst a sea of banners outside the gold dome of City Hall, one unique message stood out: “60% of Americans want a ceasefire. Congress votes 412 to 10. No taxation without representation.” 

Flashforward several months: Abdullah F. and Oren Schweitzer of DSA’s Bread and Roses caucus have published Anti-imperialism and the Fight to Democratize the US Are Connected. Reading the article, I traveled back to that day in San Francisco and the intriguing slogan. In some small way, bit by bit, an idea is spreading: we might be able to do something about the government’s war machine if the United States were a democracy. Therefore, our best chance to stop Israel is to democratize the United States. 

In linking imperialism and the fight for democracy at home, Abdullah and Oren have taken a page out of the New Left and the Civil Rights Movement (my recent article goes into greater detail). C. Wright Mills, who influenced Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the largest organization at the time, wrote about the “domination of the military event,” in which a handful of unaccountable men can end human civilization with the push of a button. Then, as now, we live in an era of “big decisions” made without our knowledge or consent. SDS member Carl Oglesby criticized the “corporate liberals” who, unlike the “humanist liberals,” had thrown aside Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson and embraced the “menacing coalition of military and industrial power.” 

Left unanswered by Abdullah and Oren’s article and by the New Left and Civil Rights Movement is the reason for America’s uniquely undemocratic political institutions.

Politicos in North America have debated the ideal form of government since the days of Tom Paine and the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. The debate was over whether or not the sovereign will of the people was desirable, and the Framers concluded in the negative. The Constitution would be bicameral and based on restricted and unequal suffrage. It would be littered with minoritarian checks, the most powerful being the malapportioned Senate, the Executive veto, and (tacitly supported, soon-to-be actualized) Judicial review. 

The French Constitution of 1793 and the English People’s Charter of 1838 were later attempts to realize a truly democratic state. Chartism, Engels explained, “is the whole working class which arises against the bourgeoisie, and attacks, first of all, the political power, the legislative rampart with which the bourgeoisie has surrounded itself. Chartism has proceeded from the Democratic party, which arose between 1780 and 1790 with and in the proletariat, gained strength during the French Revolution, and came forth after the peace as the Radical party.” 

As good students of French and English history, both knew, as Engels wrote in 1847, that “[T]he fundamental condition for the introduction of community of property is the political liberation of the proletariat through a democratic constitution.”  Marx agreed: “[T]he first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.” Forty-five years later, Engels reiterated: “Marx and I, for forty years, repeated ad nauseam that for us, the democratic republic is the only political form in which the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class can first be universalized and then culminate in the decisive victory of the proletariat.” 

Abdullah and Oren are correct that democracy at home will end imperialism abroad. My contribution to this discussion is to point out that only a constitution that concentrates lawmaking power in a unicameral legislature elected by universal and equal suffrage will make the U.S. a democracy. The authors want to “build a political system that unleashes the power, bravery, and resolve of ordinary people.” Good. Let’s take a page from history and fight for a new constitution.