fungible II

"law and order was the compromise the state had to find between for and against. when the state intervened for someone, it usually meant going to the rescue of the social hierarchy: how would the upper-class minority survive without the state as guarantor of order on its side? but in return, no state could have existed without the collaboration of the dominant class...when the state intervened against someone it was inevitably the masses who had to be contained and returned to the path of duty, that is to work." fernand braudel. "civilization and capitalism 15th-18th century. volume II the wheels of commerce." p516

braudel is no dilettante...and his exhaustive work is another line of evidence in the social stratification and combination of wealth and power that have been going on since the neolithic revolution...he is writing about the rise of european nation states, however there is no escape from the ties between this country and europe...axtell's concept of reactive change aside, the framers of the constitution drew heavily from european political philosophy ( we are back to locke again and the ideal of not" erecting a numerous democracy"...a central point in understanding how things have become what they are )...in essence the "dominant class" is the state...its interests are the state's interests and when those interests are threatened the state is threatened...madison, jay, and especially hamilton viewed events like shay's rebellion not as an extension of the principles of the declaration of independence and the right and obligation of a people to rebel against a tyrannical ( always a subjective matter ) government, but rather as mass disorder and a threat to the stability ( read prerogatives of the elite ) of the nation...the mob was incapable of governing themselves and the bottle jefferson had opened needed to be corked again...the constitution is the counter-revolution...and when jefferson left washington in 1809 he never went back.