Joe The Plumber, Communism and Socialism...

Although I think "Joe the Plumber" is a joke, I nonetheless have to disagree a bit with this commentary by Doug Mataconis, echoed elsewhere, that "the constitution predated the ideas of communism and socialism," or that the "founders" were unaware of these ideas. As Roderick Long points out, correspondence between Jefferson and Adams addressed the ideas of communism vis a vis Plato's Republic. In "the Republic," the ideal political structure is more or less formed around the abolition of both private property and the private family unit.

Writes Adams to Jefferson:

I am very glad you have seriously read Plato, and still more rejoiced to find that your reflections upon him so perfectly harmonize with mine. Some thirty years ago, I took upon me the severe task of going through all his works. With the help of two Latin translations and one English and one French translation, and comparing some of the most remarkable passages with the Greek, I labored through the tedious toil. My disappointment was very great, my astonishment was greater, and my disgust was shocking...

Nothing can be conceived more destructive of human happiness, more infallibly contrived to transform men and women into brutes, yahoos, or demons, than a community of wives and property. Yet, in what are the writings of Rousseau and Hel- vetius wiser than those of Plato ? " The man who first fenced a tobacco yard, and said, ' this is mine,' ought instantly to have been put to death," says Rousseau. " The man who first pronounced the barbarous word Dieu, ought to have been immediately destroyed," says Diderot. In short, philosophers, ancient and modern, appear to me as mad as Hindoos, Mahometans, and Christians. No doubt they would all think me mad, and for any thing I know, this globe may be the Bedlam, le Bifetre of the universe.

After all, as long as property exists, it will accumulate in individuals and families. As long as marriage exists, knowledge, property, and influence will accumulate in families. Your and our equal partition of intestate estates, instead of preventing, will in time augment the evil, if it is one. The French revolutionists saw this, and were so far consistent. When they burned pedigrees and genealogical trees, they annihilated, as far as they could, marriages, knowing that marriage, among a thousand other tilings, was an infallible source of aristocracy. I repeat it, so sure as the idea and the existence of property is admitted and established in society, accumulations of it will be made, — the snowball will grow as it rolls. '

Ironically, Adam's son, John Quincy, didn't quite see eye to eye with his old man on this matter. It is well known that John Quincy Adams, along with the likes of President James Monroe, attended Roberts Owen's 1825 lectures for the communal utopian experiment in New Harmony, Indiana. Owens at the time had gained considerable international acclaim for his ideal social structure: essentially, mini Platonic Republics, consisting of no more than a couple of thousand of people on tracts of land of around 1000-2000 acres; the social structure characterized by the abolition of private property and communal raising of children, largely independent of the private family.

Interestingly, one of the participants in the New Harmony Society experiment, which of course, ultimately failed, was Josiah Warren, who would go on to later influence the rise of the American Individualist Anarchist movement--the original ideological source of American "libertarianism." Warren considered the failure of new Harmony the direct consequence of the "lack of individual sovereignty and private property."

But really, in the US, the debate has never been private property vs collective property. The debate has always been self-government vs Hierarchy, the Jefferson v Hamilton debate.

Writes Jefferson to Du Pont de Nemours:

"We both love the people, but you love them as infants, whom you are afraid to trust without nurses, and I as adults, whom I freely leave to self-government."

It's been a rout in favor of "The Hamiltonians," of which Joe the Plumber is a member, along with the overwhelming majority in both parties...

Joe the Plumber a Hamiltonian?

As reluctant as I am to encourage any further discussion about Joe the Plumber, I must ask if someone can explain.

The Hamiltonian vs Jeffersonian talk is basically a short-form of whether someone believes society works best when power is dispersed or when it's concentrated. It comes from Hamilton & Jefferson's disagreements on things like trade, taxation & federalism/states-rights.

Though Joe Wurzelbacher makes a lot of pseudo-populist noise, the only coherent policy point I can recall him making that actually leaned that way was opposition to the bank bailouts -- which isn't exactly a difficult position to take. He ended up endorsing someone that supported them anyway though, preferring to focus on lame right-wing talking points on foreign policy (he's agreed with people claiming Obama winning would result in the destruction of Israel...) & welfare (buying into the lie that benefits to poor people make up a substantial chunk of the budget).

This isn't to say Joe knows WTF "Hamiltonian" means, though.

Joe the Plumber ascribes to American Empire and American exceptionalism; his recent populist rantings against "bank bailouts" or the "federal reserve" only serves to reinforce the perception of conservative populism as "idiocy."

Here's Joe on Plumber on the US government banning media coverage of war and advocating the return of the days of government propagandizing war in "private" movie theaters.

I'll be honest with you. I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I-I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for'em. Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to downer--and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'Well look at this atrocity,' well you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

Here's Joe the Plumber "improvising" american history, you know "back in the day" when criticizing a standing army was "supposedly" grounds for being shot.

Back in the day, really, when people would talk about our military in a poor way, somebody would shoot ‘em. And there’d be nothing said about that, because they knew it was wrong. You don’t talk about our troops. You support our troops.

Here's Joe the Plumber shilling for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on the behalf of a private home electronics company. For Joe, upgrading your TV or buying a TV converter box is a matter of national public safety.

The DTV transition affects the public safety of the United States, so it's imperative that all Americans come together and learn all we can about the DTV transition...

As b-psycho pointed out, the use of the term "Hamiltonian," in the broad sense, refers to the role/scope of government vis a vis hierarchical organs tied to the power of a strong central authority. Hamilton, in the modern parlance, would be a "corporatist." In contemporary terms, we usually use the term "corporatism" in lieu of the more anachronistic term,"Hamiltonianism."

Joe the Plumber, in the aftermath of Repubs being totally out of power, suddenly making populist noise about the "Federal Reserve" is a big part of the joke. An American Empire fielding a large scale standing army and enforcing an overseas military hegemony absolutely requires a a "Hamiltonian system of Finance" to remain viable. If the American Empire had to be financed out of direct taxation of it's own citizens(and/or direct extraction of tribute from foreign nations like the empires of old), then the "American Empire" wouldn't last 5 seconds. The double-digit IQ idiocy of American Empire "small government conservative" wing of the GOP is astounding. It is precisely "Hamiltonian Corporatism" that props up one of history's most egregious examples of a "socialist institution," namely the US Military. The US Military, the greatest military enforcer of empire in the history of the planet, doesn't directly extract tribute for it's services. It's thusly a profound example of a socialist institution that relies on a modern collective action model of Hamiltonian/Corporatist finance.