EARTH CONSTITUTION WATCH: The USA in Crisis

Article originally published by DWF News

The US was founded on contradictory principles, and these contradictions are manifest in today’s social rebellion ignited by the police murder of African-American George Floyd. The first principle includes the 18th-century idea of human rights, human equality, and human dignity which animated some of the rhetoric of the founding fathers. The second principle falsely embodied within the list of “inalienable rights” that the founders affirmed, was the principle of private property and the “right” to use that property to exploit others for one’s own personal gain. This is the fundamental principle of capitalism.

This latter principle in the 19th century led not only to the dehumanization of vast armies of workers in horrible factories, being forced to work 14 hours per day with nominal wages while their children as young as 7 and 8 years of age were forced to labor alongside the workers in the “satanic mills” of the implacable capitalist system.  It also led to the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of black Africans in tribute to this same satanic system: not only can private property make wage-slaves of penniless workers but it can turn human beings themselves into “private property,” the actual ownership and enslavement of other persons.

The worship of unlimited ownership of private property

The institutionalized racism of the law enforcement system of the United States that the current rebellion within the US is protesting today, is the legacy of the system that idolatrously worships private property as more fundamental than human equality and dignity. Across much of the world, there are protests in solidarity with the US rebellion, but the solidarity is not only with respect to institutionalized racism but also to a nation subjected to the criminal whims of President Donald Trump.  Trump, who began his presidency by giving a huge tax break to the super-rich corporations and bankers in the US, is not only the worst President in the history of a country that has had many terrible presidents. Rather, he has simply and clearly underlined the stark contradiction at the heart of the US system.

Are police protecting the rich from the poor?

Trump does not care about people, but about his own and others private accumulation of wealth. He understands “domination” because that is what is necessary in a capitalist society. Despite the rhetoric about “equality and dignity” of citizens, the true function of law enforcement in the US is to protect the property of the rich from the poor.  The institutionalized racism of law enforcement is only a legacy of the notion that even human beings can be enslaved as private property. The slaves were freed, but the worship of private property was never seriously questioned.

That is why during the coronavirus epidemic the US government is not forcing the big meat-packing plants and other industry giants to enforce social distancing and protection of their workers. In many cases workers are required to work in unsafe conditions, unprotected from virus exposure, or else lose their jobs.  Private profit is more important than worker’s lives. And in many of these plants it is black and brown skinned people who are forced to take these wage-slave jobs.

The Constitution for the Federation of Earth transcends these contradictions because its fundamental principle is precisely the freedom, equality, and dignity of every person on Earth. It constructs the Earth Federation government on these principles and explicitly prohibits all forms of discrimination by class, sex, race, or religion.   If the moral foundation of a system is correct, then its practical consequences will be correct. Our human condition around the planet is premised on contradictions rather than fundamentally correct principles.

Off track USA and nation-state value system can be fixed under the Earth Constitution

One contradiction is between the worship of private property and the affirmation of human dignity.  The two cannot go successfully together.  Another contradiction is between the idea that the world can be divided into some 193 “sovereign” nation-states, recognizing no enforceable laws above themselves and the idea that we are all human beings with the same equality and dignity. These two concepts also cannot go successfully together. Either we are fragmented into “sovereign” lawless states, or we are one human family. We cannot be both. The Earth Constitution transcends the contradiction between so-called “sovereign nation-states” and our universal human dignity, just as it transcends the contradiction between the worship of the private accumulation of wealth and the equal dignity of citizens.

Global democracy, and a decent world for everyone on the planet, a world of peace, justice, and environmental sustainability flows from the fundamental principle that all people are brothers and sisters, with equality and dignity.  The Earth Constitution, for the first time in history, gives us a set of governmental institutions not based on inherent contradictions. Uniting the world under this clear, single moral principle, is the only thing that can make possible a flourishing human future for our children. From this moral principle then flows pragmatic forms of politics and economics that empower and dignify people, rather than dehumanizing them.

The immense contradictions at the heart of the US system, exacerbated and manifested by Donald Trump and institutionalized racism, will never be solved as long as the contradictions are not dealt with.  The US is a failed system precisely because it is founded on explicit contradictions. Our principle must be human dignity, not perverted and not adulterated by the irrational worship of private property and the unlimited accumulation of private wealth. The principle of unity in diversity behind the Earth Constitution gives us the fundamental model for true human liberation.