THE PIEDS-A-TERRE* FACTOR

Federalist unions are formed by consenting individuals and/or groups coming together to create a union.  The act of federating has a set of purposes and those who join are committing themselves to the union by swearing allegiance to the provisions of a covenant or a compact.  In turn, this commitment is binding irrespective of what others in the union do, whether they abide by the provisions or not.  We who are born in the United States are automatically included in this union of “We the People” and are to abide by the provisions of the US Constitution, our national compact, their main purpose being to set up the United States government and spell out our rights under this arrangement.  The mental construct that provides the philosophical founding for this whole view is called federalism.  Let me point out that the term, federalism, is often misused in that its meaning is ascribed to the prerogatives of the states, also members of our national federation.  While this latter concern is a legitimate one under the parameters of federalism, it is not its sole concern.  Individuals and/or groups who form the union are to be equal and do have rights, but no single or group of members has inordinate or exclusive rights or powers in determining what the federated group does or forms as policy.  Therefore, to singularly use terms such as states’ rights to indicate the totality of what federalism or federalist arrangements entail is a misuse of the term.  One can equally claim that the civil rights claims of individuals or oppressed groups are equally a federalist concern.

This blog has gone over these descriptions before and one of its aims is to point out evidence of this relationship.  I have argued that the view of federalism that prevailed up to the post World War II period, I have designated as traditional federalism.  This view of governance and politics served as the background perspective of what was viewed as legitimate or illegitimate in terms of public policy. 

This posting offers another bit of evidence.  The evidence comes to us indirectly.  The New York Times reports[1] on the prevalence of “shell” companies that have sprung up and are busy buying real estate in New York and other cities.  The Times reports that these companies are a way for nefarious individuals to invest ill-gotten funds to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and, by doing so, launder that money and keep it hidden from government officials.  In its report, the paper claims that this is egregious on several fronts, and included is the fact that this is an affront to a long held federalist bias.  Let me quote the paper:

Public records, dating back to at least the 1800s in New York, set real estate apart as more transparent than bank accounts or stock portfolios.  “There is a whole Jeffersonian rhetoric about land ownership,” said Hendrik Hartog, a professor of the history of American law at Princeton.  “There was a goal to make land transparent, and it was justified by civic values and a whole range of moral judgments like not hiding ownership.”[2]

Why this exception for real estate?  In those days, real estate overwhelmingly consisted of a home and a farm.  It determined, more than any other asset, in which federated arrangement a person belonged.  In order to function as a federation, each member needed to know who his/her confederates were.  Transparency was a must.  But as the natural rights construct has taken over as the main guide in determining our beliefs over governance and politics, this has changed many of our views concerning public policy.

Included have been our requirements concerning transparency in real estate ownership.  As I have pointed out, this more current view of governance and politics has put a premium on choice – individual choice.  The currency of choice is, naturally, money.  As such, policy has become more and more guided by an exclusionary concern for generating money streams for communities as well as individuals.  In true natural rights thinking, the former mayor of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, pronounced on his weekly radio program – in the waning days of his tenure – “If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend.”  Of course, not every billionaire has acquired his/her funds engaging in activities that promote the general welfare, the common good.  And so, policy in New York – actually in the US – has made it possible for any shell company, be it a front for a legitimate business interest, an unsavory interest, a foreign corrupt politician, or a criminal, to park his/her money in a luxury condominium that might be priced at or above $25 million.

The details of how this happens and a list of examples is provided in this lengthy article.  Let me just share a host of problems this practice has caused:  one, it has become harder, if not impossible, to recoup illegally obtained monies here in the US that are so hidden from authorities; two, law authorities are hampered in investigating crimes as it becomes very difficult to “follow the money;” three, because US laws are so lax in this field, other countries use that fact to justify their inaction to tighten their laws; and four, in addition to US officials and other interests being unable to recover monies here, foreign countries have similar problems in acquiring funds they are due from individuals who have committed crimes or are evading taxes in their countries.

Bloomberg argued that lax laws, both federal and local ones, were good for New York because the more billionaires that make their way to his city, the more of their spending will make its way down to regular folks – the trickle-down effect.  It turns out that these folks spend very little time in New York and their anonymity makes it difficult to tax them to pay for the upkeep of the city.  The city is considering establishing a new property tax to be levied on the upper end properties.  One proposal would generate $665 million a year.  Given that these individuals, the ones who are hidden and come from other countries, don’t vote, perhaps such a plan might get instituted.  But that is beyond my purposes here.

Here, I want to point out evidence that more federated-based views existed in the past and that those views have been under challenge as we have moved past such biases.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, changes in human arrangements have unforeseen consequences, especially when structurally we are still constituted under the assumptions of the previous views.

* An apartment used for temporary residence or other than primary residency.

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[1] Story, L. and Saul, S.  (2015).  Hidden wealth flows to elite New York condos.  The New York Times, February, 8, pp. 1 and 14-16 (Front Page section).

[2] Ibid., p. 14.

“STELLA”?

This blog has offered a narrative.  It is the story of how our political culture has evolved.  The story depicts a series of changes, but overall the projection has been from what I have termed a traditional federalist construct to a natural rights construct.  The changes have affected all of our major institutions including our politics, our economy, even our family relationships.  Life today is quite different from what it was back in 1949.  The changes toward a natural rights view can be traced back to the time of our independence and the writing of our current constitution.  But the rate of change has gone into overdrive since the beginning of the ‘50s.  Such a construct shift affects many of our beliefs, many of our assumptions.  The changes seep deeply into our conscious and even our subconscious.  The old dies hard, if at all.  We can consciously believe one thing and subconsciously hold on to something else.  In no realm of life is this more true than in our sexual beliefs and emotions – sex is a strong force; it is what I call the “joker in the deck.”

Under traditional federalism, the belief was that matters of personal life are subject to external regulation, but that since this is personal, the source of regulation should be locally controlled.  We have a “right” to be comfortable with the prevailing costumes and mores.  Blue laws were well established in our country, as well as marriage laws (governing divorce, for example) and other more intimate concerns.  But entering the twentieth century, technological change was to dramatically alter this assumed domain.  The movies, for example, undermined the local province in matters of sex, family, and other moral areas.  The powers to be, seeing that a national medium undercut parochial proclivities, set up boards and commissions to regulate the content of movies.  The Catholic Church, for example, established the League of Decency and rated movies.  Their decisions determined what “good” Catholics would see.  Even more powerful was the Breen Commission that governed what was allowed to be produced.  All and all, the attempt was to save morally bent people, those influenced by Puritanical standards of decency, from being exposed to unwanted material.  It also attempted to assure that young people not be shown material that would undermine these good people’s efforts to properly socialize their children to their moral view.  Since these standards varied widely across the country, decisions were made in favor of the most restrictive.  This, in turn, restricted the options of film producers.

Of course, all of this was not accepted so willingly.  Motivated by artistic aims and by making more money, the film industry fought this system to varying degrees of stridency.  The owners of studios such as Warner Brothers and MGM were more willing to go along as long as all of the studios were equally affected.  It was more the producers, directors, and actors who objected most since this interfered with what they wanted to accomplish on screen.  No more emblematic to this drama was the story associated with producing A Streetcar Named Desire.  In his book, David Halberstam[1] gives a short, insightful overview of that story.  One bit of context; the story line of the film had already been the subject of a Broadway play.  As today, Broadway was mostly patronized by more urbane audiences, not the more rural clientele with which the regulatory boards were so concerned.  Here is the urbane people’s reaction:

A Streetcar Named Desire was not just a play – it was an event.  Its frank treatment of sophisticated sexual themes marked it as part of a powerful new current in American society and cultural life.  Even the plot seemed emblematic – the brutal assault on Blanche’s prim, Victorian pretensions by Stanley’s primal sexuality.  Every night on Broadway the audience would leave the theater visibly shaken – not only in response to Blanche’s breakdown, but also in some small way, perhaps, because they had gotten a glimpse of the violent changes just beginning to transform their own culture and lives.[2]

And now the story was going national on the big screen.  Of course, the plot did not make it to the screen untouched.  Halberstam gives an interesting account of that transition.  But enough of the story survived to make it a classic and helped propel its leading man to stardom.  He, Marlon Brando, would be one of those cultural figures who would personify what that transformation would be.

My take on this upheaval is that it was needed.  Traditional federalism had become over-restrictive for a world we had created with films, radio, and now the Internet.  One can view this from an absolute sense:  people should have the right to express themselves, period.  Or one can view this in more relative terms:  rights are based on the social values that prevail in a given time.  What, to me, seems timeless is our need to conduct our affairs in social contexts and that in order to be functional, we must take into account what can be handled at a given time.  Yes, there are certain rights that transcend any social setting.  Slavery is immoral in any setting, for example, regardless of what one might find in any holy text or what had been accepted practice in the past.  Societies that engaged in it paid a price.  But liberty is a social construct, and its very definition has changed through the centuries.  The Puritan’s view of it is vastly different from what prevails today.  The question we, including secondary students, should ask is:  does our view of liberty enhance the ability of our society to survive and does it enhance our ability to achieve our established goals and aims?  Asking these questions does not determine an exact definition of liberty, but they do provide a functional approach to determining what liberty should mean.

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[1] Halberstam, D.  (1993).  The fifties.  New York, NY:  Fawcett Columbine.

[2] Ibid. p. 256.