Book Review: The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding
by Osita Nwanevu
Examining the true motivations for political power
This book takes the ax to the root of the tree. Here, Osita Nwanevu exposes the underlying true concerns of the drafters of the US Constitution—and control of democracy rather than its preservation was their greater concern. Through analysis of the Federalist Papers and other historical documents, Nwanevu illustrates how the Constitution is deliberately designed to frustrate democratic wishes of the citizenry at large. Instead, the founders were primarily concerned with preserving the established wealth structure and with it the suppression of any debt relief—this is a motivation almost identical to that of our contemporary billionaire class. It’s striking how this aspect of political alignment and influence has barely changed at all over time. Although the original Articles of Confederation had the drawbacks commonly noted in popular history, Nwanevu points out a specific flaw enabled by the Articles that was of critical alarm to the men of wealth who developed the new Constitution: The Articles of Confederation were too democratic for their taste. Specifically, state legislatures were passing laws granting debt relief to ordinary citizens—this was the unforgivable situation in the eyes of wealthy elites that created the need for a complete reset of the whole system of government.
The result of the founders’ efforts may find resonance in the Robert Anton Wilson quote: “The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning.” With the US Constitution deliberately designed against popular governance, the author explores some practical approaches for correcting the current stack of cards. In addition to getting money out of politics, including neutering the Citizens United decision, Nwanevu suggests specific reforms to build practical democratic agency for people both in law and within the economy—these include the following essential changes in the relationship between workers and employers:
1. Reviving unions and labor power—the arguments for this are obvious.
2. Reforming corporate governance—the cooperative governance model allows workers to affect more than just pay and working conditions, extending to selection of board members and business decisions. This approach is successfully used in several European countries.
3. Promoting worker ownership—something that goes in line with the “ownership economy,” a concept related to increasing the proportion of Americans who own assets, to give people a personal stake in society. This arrangement, such as the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and other models of worker stock ownership and control, have proven helpful not only for improvements in workplace quality of life but also company profits as well—these examples debunk the canard that helping workers hurts a company’s economic health in a zero sum assumption.
One of the often neglected points in the public discussion of election fairness is the nexus Nwanevu presents between electoral freedom (the legal right to vote) and the actual ability to exercise that freedom without sacrificing essential economic well being (such as one’s own employment)—or suffering other constraints (such as lack of child care) that introduce real world obstacles for some to go vote and enjoy other civic privileges, that exist in name only for far too many citizens. It’s uncanny how the issues surrounding the US Constitution described by the author in this book rhyme so closely with the greed and oppression railed against by the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures from millennia ago—Jesus the Nazarene also drove those points home in several of his parables, as well as the famous incident in which he physically thrashed the money changers and flipped over their tables. There indeed is a place for Jubilee debt relief in our own time (a concept that alarmed the wealthy founders about the Articles of Confederation). This clear eyed presentation by Nwanevu firmly establishes that true economic freedom is a prerequisite for true democracy—let’s see that all the essential components of democracy are established and maintained.