Civilization #52: Empire of Democracy

There's a very famous quote from Oscar Wilde, the English playwright, novelist, and humorist. He said:

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

He meant this as a joke, but what did he mean by it? This is a question we will discuss today. What I will show you is that America, in many ways, was designed as the anti-civilization. The founding fathers of America recognized the failings and problems of civilization and designed a new form of government based on Enlightenment principles to redeem humanity from the prejudices and atrocities of civilization.

The Colonization of a New World

The history of the Americas begins when Europeans, led by the Spanish, started to interact with a new world. Starting in 1492, the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas. They established plantation economies, extracting resources—primarily gold and silver—from the Americas. They also established sugar plantations on the islands of the Caribbean, manning them with slaves from Africa and other places. This was extremely profitable for the Spanish, so of course, the English, the French, and the Dutch Republic wanted to get in on the action.

At first, they started to smuggle resources into the new world and engage in piracy. In 1588, the English Navy defeated the Spanish Armada, which opened up the new world for other Europeans to colonize. The problem, however, was that the Spanish controlled the best parts of the new world, so everyone else was stuck with North America.

North America presented quite a few problems. First, the weather was very cold and not hospitable to colonization. Second, there were lots of Native Americans in North America who were extremely violent. They were used to freedom and would fight to the death. At this time in history, the tallest, strongest people in the world were actually the Native Americans in North America. There were also many diseases that were problematic for the Europeans. Consequently, the Europeans spent decades trying to figure out how to best colonize North America.

Three major nations were trying to colonize North America:

• The French established the fur trade in Canada and the Midwestern United States. They traded with the natives to bring fur back to Europe, which was a great deal for both sides.
• The Dutch established colonies, including New Amsterdam, which is today New York City.
• The British were the most successful at establishing colonies, largely because it was a very grassroots, bottom-up movement.

The first major colony for the British was Jamestown, named after James I of Britain. It was not a very successful colony at first, but they persisted. The most successful colony was actually Boston. What made Boston unique at this stage was that it was established by a company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, that had a charter from the English crown. They also brought families into this area; before, it was basically men who came over, but now it was families.

Third, the people who came over were Puritans. Puritans believe in the importance of literacy; everyone has a responsibility to read the Bible to interpret the command of God properly. From the very beginning, Boston was a literate society with schools and newspapers. It was very political and grew very, very fast. Boston is also perfectly situated between North America and England. As England was industrializing, it required raw resources, mainly agricultural products, from this area. Boston grew rapidly because of all these factors.

By 1682, the eastern United States had been colonized by the British. The French were still in Canada and moving down to the Midwest. The Spanish were in the southern United States, having founded a colony called St. Augustine in Florida, and were also starting to build colonies in California. However, most of the economic activity in North America was based on the eastern seaboard.

The Diversity of the Colonies

It's really important to remember the diversity of these colonies. First, there were differences in the economy. The northern part focused mostly on mercantile trade, while the southern part focused mostly on agriculture. To support the agriculture, they imported slaves from Africa to provide the labor for Charlestown and other places.

The motivations of the individuals were also different. Some came for economic reasons, but a lot came for religious purposes. For example, a man named William Penn, a Quaker, believed in creating a peaceful civilization. He had a charter from the king and founded a new colony called Pennsylvania, named after him, that believed in religious and national tolerance. A lot of Germans came over and settled in Pennsylvania. The capital was Philadelphia, and they were Quakers, so they believed they must not fight against others. This experiment persisted for decades and was pretty successful, but over time they came into conflict with the natives and with other colonies and, as such, started to take up arms.

There was another colony, Baltimore, founded as a Catholic haven. England at this point was mainly Protestant, Puritan, or Anglican. Lord Baltimore decided to found a new colony in Maryland that preached religious tolerance, especially for Catholics. What's really important to remember is that even at this early stage in American history, there was tremendous diversity, openness, and religious tolerance.

The Road to Revolution

By the year 1750, there were about a million British on the eastern seaboard. That's a lot of people. In comparison, the French, who occupied most of the territory in North America, had only 40,000. Eventually, these two groups would come into conflict, creating the French and Indian War. It was not a fair fight: a million British versus 40,000 French. The Indians got involved as well because these colonies were practicing a rapid form of colonization and expansion. They would bring in immigrants, and as the population exploded, these immigrants would be forced to move west to settle territory on the western frontier. These areas were inhabited by Native Americans, which brought the Indians into conflict with the British.

The resolution to this was that King George III proclaimed that the American colonists were not allowed to move west of the Appalachian Mountains. He was restricting the growth of the American colonies to maintain friendship with the natives. Obviously, the Americans didn't like that.

By 1774, there were three major issues that brought the American colonists into conflict with the English crown:

1. Expansion: The English crown was limiting the expansion of the colonies westwards, and they didn't like that.
2. Taxation: It was very expensive for the British to protect the colonies against the French and the Indians. At this stage, it was the British people, not the American people, who were paying for the defense of these colonies. In fact, the British people paid 50 times more in taxes than the Americans. The British crown tried in many instances to impose a tax to get the Americans to pay for their own defense, and the Americans didn't like that. For the longest time, because of the English Civil War and other factors, the English crown could not interfere in North American affairs, so the colonists were used to a high level of autonomy.
3. Trade: At this stage, nations like Spain, France, and Britain were practicing an economic policy called mercantilism. Mercantilism is the idea that all trade should be directed by the state for the purpose of generating wealth for the state. This meant different trade zones were established in competition with each other. If you were a British subject, you were only allowed to trade with other British lands. The Americans could trade with England and India, but they were not allowed to trade with the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish. The Americans didn't really like this either.

These were the three main factors driving division between the American colonists and the British crown, which would culminate in the American Revolution, the War of Independence of 1776.

The American Mentality: Benjamin Franklin

What's also really important to remember is that at this time, per capita, the Americans were far wealthier than the British. This is strange. How is it that even though England was industrializing far more rapidly, had more citizens, and was an empire whereas America was a colony, the Americans per capita were able to become wealthier?

The answer has to do with the American work ethic and attitude towards life, best expressed by a man named Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of America. He had an incredible life. He was born poor but through hard work, tenacity, and optimism, he became a very wealthy merchant, an inventor, a philosopher, an ambassador, and a politician. He is basically the role model for Americans.

Towards the end of his life, he wrote his autobiography. By writing his memoir, he started a new fad in America that persists today: the self-improvement or self-help movement. These are the books that sell the most in America, like How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie or Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. These books tell you how to be more successful in life. The Americans really pioneered this. Before, no one believed that through your hard work you could actually attain more in life. The Americans really started this self-help fad.

Let's read certain passages from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin to gain insight into the American psychology.

From the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, I have raised myself to a state of affluence and some degree of celebrity in the world. As constant good fortune has attended me through every period of my life to my present advanced age, it may be agreeable to my posterity to learn the means of which I made use, and which, with the blessing of Providence, so well succeeded with me. They may also deem them fit to be imitated, should any of them find themselves in similar circumstances.

This is the American Dream: you can be born poor, but through hard work, you can become rich. Not only is he going to tell you how he became rich, but he will teach you how to become rich. If you just do what he does, you'll become rich as well. This is American optimism.

He continues, talking about how a friend told him his writing was poor. Instead of getting angry, he recognized the merit in his friend's criticism and decided to improve himself. He took a magazine, The Spectator, which was very well written, and summarized the main points of the articles. Then, he would take the summary and rewrite the article from memory. Finally, he would compare his work with the original and make adjustments.

Writers don't actually learn to write like this. Historically, we know that writers are people of genius; they're sort of born great writers. You're not going to learn to be a man of genius through pure imitation. But what he's telling us is that through imitation, you can improve yourself. That's a very American outlook—that through pure hard work, tenacity, and persistence, you can learn anything.

Next, he tells us how he became rich:

I began to pay by degrees the debt I had contracted, and in order to insure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion.

He's telling you how he became rich. First, he was honest. When he did business, he made sure he never tricked anyone; his reputation mattered above all. Also, he dressed in a very simple way and didn't waste any money. He came across as a good Christian, a good Calvinist, someone who enjoyed making money and saved all his money in pursuit of the praise of God. This is how you become rich in America. There is merit to what he says: if you work hard, are honest, and save a lot of money, it's possible for you to become rich. This was the common mentality in America at this stage.

He continues:

I ought to have related that, during the autumn of the preceding year, I had form’d most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss’d by the company...

This is really important. After he became rich, he met other rich people and they formed a philosophy club—like a book club—to debate and discuss the political issues of the day. They read John Locke and Thomas Hobbes and discussed these ideas. This is a quintessential American attitude: constant self-improvement. You can become the wealthiest man in the world, but you must still read books.

This is also important because these book clubs became the foundation of the American Revolution. The founding fathers would meet in these clubs and conspire to seek independence from Britain. A lot of them believed that Providence—God—had tasked them with founding a new nation based on Enlightenment principles. The religion of these people is what we call Deism. The idea of Deism is that there is a God who created the universe, but after that, God went away, and now it is the responsibility of humans to make the world perfect. That's the mission from God.

This was the best school of philosophy and politics that then existed in the province; for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion, put us on reading with attention upon the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose.

They knew that Providence had tasked them with creating a great nation called America. To understand how to do so, they read all the books of antiquity. They studied Rome, Athens, Sparta, and Carthage. They studied the Dutch Republic and the British Constitution. By studying these classics, they came to a consensus on how to build a new society in the image of God. This is the foundation of the American Revolution.

The Birth of a Nation

In 1776, America declared independence from Britain after years of conflict over a myriad of issues. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers, wrote the Declaration of Independence. Why was America declaring independence?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...

Thomas Jefferson, in writing this, was basically copying word-for-word from John Locke's book, the Second Treatise of Government. This is what John Locke said: we are born with three fundamental rights that God has given us, and therefore no one can take them away—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. Government is created to protect our rights. If government fails to protect these rights, then we have a responsibility and a right to abolish it and create a new one.

The War of Independence and Its Aftermath

The great hero of the War of Independence was, of course, George Washington. Why Americans revere George Washington is not because of how great he was during the war. Ultimately, the Americans didn't actually defeat the British; it was the French and the Spanish who combined to defeat the British. Eventually, the British decided the American colonists were too problematic and decided to just focus on Europe. The Americans fought a guerrilla war and were very brave, but without the French, they could not possibly have defeated the British.

What made George Washington so esteemed in the hearts of the American people is that after the war, he retired. He just went back to his farm and enjoyed his last years in the garden. That's why Americans worship him: he was a man who could have become king of America, but instead, he chose to grant Americans their freedom and independence.

The aide-de-camp of George Washington, the genius of the American Revolution, was actually Alexander Hamilton. He is really the founder of America, the one who had the vision of what America could be. He was in conflict with Jefferson. These two individuals represent two competing strands of America after the war.

For Thomas Jefferson, what was important was to maintain the rights of individuals. He wanted a democracy. Because most people were farmers, he believed economic policies should be focused on agriculture.

Hamilton saw the world differently. He believed in his heart, as did many people at this time, that America was destined to be an empire and therefore needed a strong central government. To become an empire, it must have industry.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights

The colonists were fighting the British because they were trying to tax them, impose an army on them, and limit their trade. To get everyone to fight, they created the Articles of Confederation, which limited the power of the government to impose taxes and raise troops. But this was problematic because you can't actually fight a war like this.

After the British left, problems started to arise. The main problem was that you had lots of soldiers, who used to be farmers, who were promised pay when they joined the militia. But because the government had no money, they were not paid. They were also farmers who had to leave their farms, so they fell into debt, and rich people came and took over their farms. This led to Shays' Rebellion, where farmers were now trying to overthrow the government.

The solution was to create the Constitution, which would grant more power to the central government, especially to collect revenue, control foreign trade, and have an army. This was the solution proposed by Hamilton and his friends. Jefferson argued that this would limit the rights of individuals, so he insisted on adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. You may have heard of the First Amendment (the right to speak freely) or the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms)—this is from the Bill of Rights. The Constitution itself is a framework for how to build a strong central government.

A Nation Divided: Free Labor vs. Slave Labor

Agriculture and industry represent different economic frameworks. With agriculture, you need a lot of slave labor to man the fields and grow the crops. That's why if you want to have agriculture, you have to bring in a lot of slave labor from Africa. But if you focus on industry, you don't want slave labor; you want free labor. You want the market to decide who does what job and how much they get paid. This is a much more efficient way to organize your economy if you are industrializing.

The reason is that when you're industrializing, you need specialized labor and a differentiation of skills. The market is the best mechanism for skills to be differentiated and rewarded. Think about it: if you got really sick and needed heart surgery, would you rather go to a doctor who's a slave or a doctor who's going to charge you a million dollars? Free labor allows for more economic activity and therefore more wealth generation.

These were two competing visions of where America should be headed, and this was a contradiction. You can't have slave labor and free labor at the same time. The North implemented a policy of free labor; the South maintained a policy of slave labor because they were mainly an agricultural society. Obviously, Jefferson was from the South, and Hamilton was from New York. This conflict would eventually give rise to the American Civil War of 1861. This conflict had always been there, but in 1789, when they introduced the Constitution, they chose to ignore it until it finally led to violence.

Designing the "Perfect" Government

The Constitution was meant to be the most perfect form of government ever established. America was a clean slate, a tabula rasa. The Americans could do whatever they wanted. They studied all the previous republican, democratic, monarchal, and aristocratic systems and decided to imitate Montesquieu, a French thinker who believed in the idea of separation of powers. If you want to create a perfect government, you need to balance the different factions of society using separation of powers.

The American system has three different branches of government:

• The President controls the military and foreign policy.
• Congress controls the purse, the financing of government.
• The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution, the highest law of the land.

If done properly, these three branches will balance each other out. They are meant to be checks and balances; each is meant to inhibit the overextension of the other.

The other check and balance is the division between the federal (Washington D.C.), state, and local levels. The responsibilities of each are defined very clearly, and the idea is that they should also balance each other out. This contrasts with a system like the Chinese one, where you have one person in charge with a Politburo underneath him, which then appoints everyone into the government, army, and provincial and local governments. It's a very top-down system, whereas the American system is meant to be a balanced system.

The Federalist Papers

Now that you've decided you need a constitution and a federal government, how do you convince the people to go along with it? For the Constitution to go into effect, all 13 states had to agree to it by a two-thirds majority. To convince people, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote The Federalist Papers, a series of newspaper articles explaining why the Constitution was necessary.

Hamilton, the genius of the Constitution, was really driving the need for a strong central government to facilitate America's imperial ambitions. He quotes Montesquieu in Federalist No. 9 to explain the benefits of a mixed, balanced government:

"It is a kind of assemblage of societies that constitute a new one, capable of increasing, by means of new associations, till they arrive to such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of the united body... A republican government may in this manner subsist in a large extent, by uniting a number of small ones."

Within America, it will be a republican system, so you will enjoy democracy in your local area. But at a national level, in relation to other states, it will be a monarchy where the president represents the nation in conflicts with other great European nations.

Another thing the Constitution does is require that if the president wants to appoint officials, they have to be vetted and approved by the Senate. This was new. Usually, a king can appoint whomever he wants. In the Constitution, the Senate must vet everyone. The idea is to create accountability and transparency. Hamilton explains this in Federalist No. 76:

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.

Let's just say the president wants to appoint his son to be the Secretary of State. The son appears before the Senate, and it's like a job interview. If the son is an idiot and doesn't know anything, he has embarrassed the president. It's this fear of being embarrassed that inhibits the president from abusing his powers. That's the theory, and over the course of American history, it's worked very well. Public opinion is very strong. But what's important to remember is that all this is based on convention, on norms and values. As long as people buy into these conventions, the system will work. But if you're someone like Donald Trump who does not buy into these norms, it may be a problem.

In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton explains that in creating a government, we're not trying to aspire to greatness; we're trying to prevent collapse. This is risk management.

These judicious reflections contain a lesson of moderation to all the sincere lovers of the Union, and ought to put them upon their guard against hazarding anarchy, civil war, a perpetual alienation of the States from each other, and perhaps the military despotism of a victorious demagogue.

What's the risk of government? You could have anarchy, civil war, division, or a tyrant arising. The point of the Constitution is risk management—to prevent America from failing.

Manifest Destiny and the Rise of an Empire

With the Constitution, America embarked on Manifest Destiny—the idea that it is the will of God for America to conquer and settle the entire Western Hemisphere. North and South America, it's all America because that is the will of God. Today, when Trump says America should annex Canada and Greenland, that's part of Manifest Destiny. It's not new.

This led to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. President Monroe announced before Congress that from now on, Europeans were not allowed to interfere in the Western Hemisphere.

The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

Russia, France, Germany, Britain, Spain—forget the Western Hemisphere. It's our territory. You come over here, and we'll beat the crap out of you.

To achieve its Manifest Destiny, America needed to expand, and it used multiple strategies:

• 1803: It bought the Midwest from Napoleon in the Louisiana Purchase. Of course, there were natives in these territories, so the Americans eradicated them in a war of genocide.
• 1812: The War of 1812 was a conflict between America and Canada. Because of Manifest Destiny, America saw Canada as part of its territory, but the British didn't agree. The war was a stalemate, and afterwards, they agreed that Canada would stay a British colony.
• 1846: In the Mexican-American War, America fought Mexico and took over Texas and California. The entire western part of the United States was now incorporated into the new nation.

The Civil War and a New Birth of Freedom

In 1861, we have the Civil War. As I've explained, the conflict between Thomas Jefferson's and Alexander Hamilton's visions for America eventually led to this war. You may have learned that the Civil War was about slavery; it was not primarily about slavery. It was mainly about state rights. It was really about democracy versus empire. In a democracy, the states can do whatever they want. But in an empire, the central government can dictate policy.

Eventually, this led to the Civil War, and of course, the North won because it was far more industrial, wealthier, and more powerful than the South. Hamilton's vision was now achieved and would be expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere.

There was a problem, though. The Civil War was the deadliest war in American history.

This was by far the deadliest war in American history. Brothers were killing brothers. It was a tremendously bloody conflict. After the war ended, everyone was asking, "Why did we do this? What was the point?" There was shock, anger, and frustration.

Abraham Lincoln, president at the time and considered the greatest in American history, now had to stand up and explain why this war happened. He needed to form a new vision of America that would bind people together and create a new union. He presented this new vision in the Gettysburg Address, considered the greatest speech in American history. The Battle of Gettysburg was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Here is the speech in its entirety:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The War of Independence was not just a war to seek independence from Britain; it was a revolution in human affairs. It was about bringing liberty to the world and creating a new civilization. The American Revolution was an experiment in human liberation, and the Civil War was meant to destroy this experiment. The sacrifice of the men who died is what made the land sacred and saved the nation.

The men are dead. There's nothing we can do to resurrect them. It is the responsibility of us, the living, to honor their sacrifice and continue the mission they died for: to spread liberty throughout the world.

With Hamilton, it was about empire; for Jefferson, it was about democracy. There was a conflict. What Lincoln did, which was revolutionary, was to say this is not a conflict because we are an empire of democracy. We are born in liberty, we fight for liberty, and we will spread liberty. This was a new concept. America was no longer confined to the Western Hemisphere; it had a responsibility to honor the dead by creating liberty throughout the world, creating a new chapter in human civilization. This was the purpose of the speech: to heal America by reminding them of their divine mission.

After the Civil War, America industrialized rapidly.

• 1867: It bought Alaska from Russia.
• 1898: America fought the Spanish and took over their colonies, including the Philippines and Cuba. America had become an imperial power.
• World War I: America defeated Germany.
• World War II: America became the global hegemon.
• Post-Soviet Union: We now live in the Pax Americana. America is the greatest power in the world. They have completed Lincoln's vision.

A Frenchman's Critique: Democracy in America

But what is an empire of democracy? We go back to Oscar Wilde's quote: "America is not a civilization." To understand this, we have to read another book, Democracy in America, by a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville. This is the most famous book ever written about America, published in 1835 after he visited for about eight months. He was trying to explain why American democracy works and why it is destined to eventually conquer the world.

There's a lot of debate about this book, but de Tocqueville was actually skeptical about American democracy. He was afraid of what spreading American liberty would mean for the world. The argument is that America is the first mass democratic, middle-class country. But because of that, the people there are selfish, conformist, and unimaginative. He feared that as America conquered the world, the world would become atomized, uniform, and mediocre.

• Atomized means we live in our own little bubble and don't care about larger issues.
• Uniform means everyone thinks the same way.
• Mediocre means no one is striving for greatness anymore.

If you think about the world we live in today, this is it. How did this happen? To understand this, it's important to go back to the Dutch Republic and what it means to be middle class. The middle class is distinct because it creates anxiety, uncertainty, and competition. Anxiety comes from the fact that your situation is never stable; you could be rich tomorrow but poor the next day. This is different from history, where if you're born poor, you stay poor. Because status is not given but must be earned, there's competition. This leads to an obsessive control of yourself, a focus on cleanliness, and a desire to accumulate and achieve.

Think about Benjamin Franklin. Why was he focused on such simple living, on earning so much money, on constantly wanting to achieve? It's because of the anxiety of being middle class. You're born poor, you become wealthy, but how do you know you won't become poor again? The only way to resolve this anxiety is by constantly accumulating more.

Let's look at some passages from Democracy in America. De Tocqueville argues that in aristocratic societies, there's a huge gap between the rich and the poor, the great and the mediocre. Democratic societies take this system and flatten it, creating a large middle class. They're not that great, but they're not that poor either. In theory, this sounds better. But de Tocqueville spent a lot of time looking at America and decided that's not what happened. It wasn't a simple flattening; it was a lowering of everything.

What have we, then, done in rejecting the social condition of our ancestors and indiscriminately casting aside their institutions, ideas, and mores? ... The prestige of royal power has vanished, but the majesty of the law has not taken its place... It seems to me that we have destroyed the independent beings who were once able to contend with tyranny on their own.

Before, we worshiped a king, and the king made us obedient to his law. We got rid of the king and said, "Let's keep the law." The problem is, people respect and revere those who are superior to them; they do not respect ideas and laws. In theory, America is a rule-of-law nation, but people don't revere these laws as much as they would a superior man.

In an aristocratic system, great individuals like Robespierre can emerge to challenge the system, supported by others who see its injustice. But in a democracy, great individuals are oppressed by the conformity, the tyranny of the majority. If everyone's happy and you come out and say, "This system is wrong," people will shut you down. In a middle-class society, you're not allowed to question popular opinion, and therefore no great man can arise. If you think about it, in American history, there aren't that many great individuals. The people they worship are not generals or leaders, but business people: Henry Ford, Elon Musk, Thomas Edison.

The poor man has for the most part held on to the prejudices of his forebears without their faith, and to their ignorance without their virtues...

The Catholic Church and medieval Europe were problematic, but at least people knew how to live a good life. Now, if you're a poor person, you're completely lost. You're expected to discover your own purpose in life, but if you don't, you're alienated.

I see men who, in the name of progress, seek to reduce man to a material being... They look for what is useful without concern for what is just, for science removed from faith, and for prosperity apart from virtue. Having styled themselves champions of modern civilization, they have arrogantly placed themselves at its head, usurping a position abandoned by others, which they are quite unworthy of occupying.

This is the ultimate problem in America: materialism. Before, in civilization, you were asked to die for your nation. Now, you're asked to go make money and buy things. In this system, the worst rise to power, and the best are trampled down by conformity.

I am trying to imagine what new features despotism might have in today's world: I see an innumerable host of men, all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls... Over these men stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasures and watching over their fate.

Think about the society we live in today. Before, we were asked to sacrifice for civilization. Now, we're asked to just buy things. Buying things will make us happy, and it's the responsibility of the government to ensure we can buy things.

It is impossible to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants... The possibility of a constitution being republican in its head and ultramonarchical in all its other parts has always struck me as a monstrous and ephemeral creation.

We think we live in a democracy, that the government listens to us, but it's really an imperial bureaucracy that's in charge, and that's a monster.

The vices of those who govern and the imbecility of the governed would quickly bring about its ruin, and the people, tired of their representatives and of themselves, would either create freer institutions or soon return to prostrating themselves at the feet of a single master.

This is a prophecy: America, as it is structured, is not sustainable. Either it will break apart in a civil war, or a tyrant will emerge and it will become a monarchy.

Conclusion: America as a Game

Before, the focus was on civilization: a shared history, culture, and values. The purpose of your life was to maintain, protect, and defend your civilization. But civilization has problems:

• Prejudice: The belief that your civilization is superior leads to war, violence, and a lack of innovation.
• Inflexibility: It limits openness and immigration.

This was a problem for America, which was founded by immigrants and is characterized by diversity and openness. Civilization could not solve these problems. So what did America do? Rather than build a civilization, it created a game.

In many ways, America is an anti-civilization, trying to remedy the failings of past civilizations. The idea was to create a game with fair rules.

1. The Game Masters: The government must be fair, transparent, and democratic to get as many people to play as possible.
2. The Rules: The rules must be fair, just, and winnable.
3. The Goal: The purpose of the game is to make as much money as possible (material acquisition).
4. The Prize: If you win, the money is yours (private property). Whatever you earn is yours forever, and your children's.

This is the game America constructed. It's great because you can bring in as many immigrants as you want—everyone wants to play this game. It allows for openness, rapid innovation, and diversity because everyone is striving to make as much money as possible.

That's what America is. It sees itself as a new civilization, but it's really an anti-civilization because it's a game. Over time, as America became wealthier, it was able to conquer the world and establish this game globally. In China today, we are playing this game. We believe we go to school to get an education, go to America, get a degree, and become rich so we can buy things. We've all been brainwashed to play this game.

The problem is that eventually, a few will win everything, creating massive inequality. When this happens, people say, "This game sucks. What do we do now?" Then, people become nostalgic. "I miss civilization. I miss when my identity was clear, when I knew what I had to do, when I was asked to make sacrifices for the greater good."

Of course, this is what gives us MAGA (Make America Great Again). Ultimately, MAGA is about trying to restore the idea of civilization in America—to make America into a white, Christian, democratic nation again, to restore the vision of Thomas Jefferson.