Would Thomas Jefferson Had Been a Trotskiite???

[Rakhmetov]

I saw in the wiki article on permanent revolution that:

Thomas Jefferson called for a revolution every 20 years. Doesn't that accord with Trotsky's thesis of "permanent revolution"??? (Ignoring the question of slaves for a moment.)

The term has also been used to describe Thomas Jefferson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson)'s endorsement of periodic rebellion as "medicine necessary for the sound health of government".[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution#cite_note-0)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8LaMSPcIFuwJ:www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1531520/reply%3Fc%3D5+thomas+jefferson+a+revolution+every+ 10+years&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[graymouser]

Thomas Jefferson called for a revolution every 20 years. Doesn't that accord with Trotsky's thesis of "permanent revolution"??? (Ignoring the question of slaves for a moment.)
No.

The Permanent Revolution is a revolution that:

1. Extends, in the under-developed countries, directly from the democratic tasks (democratic rights, land reform and so on) to the socialist tasks (expropriation of the bourgeoisie). This is because the bourgeoisie in those countries has no progressive character, and must be overcome entirely. This must be done in alliance with the peasantry of such countries, as happened in Russia.

2. Is not confined to one country at a time, but spreads across the world. This is because industrial capitalism would fight otherwise to encircle and undermine the single socialist country, while that country would never be self-sufficient enough to provide socialization of plenty as opposed to socialization of want (as has often been the case in degenerate workers' states).

Jefferson's idea of continuous revolutions was about maintaining a completely different type of democracy, keeping small landholders in power through continually resisting corruption and the growth of a new aristocracy. It was a utopian vision of small farmers ruling an idyllic democratic state, which of course clashed violently with both the slaveholding system and the nascent industrial bourgeoisie. Before the Civil War, Jeffersonian democracy could not have operated because of slavery; afterward, because industry's foothold was too deep. Jefferson neither had the conception of the working class as the revolutionary class, nor of the internationalization of the revolution.

[thriller]

While Thomas Jefferson and many other founding idealists of the U.S. often said "the tree of liberty must shed blood from time to time" I don't think he'd really be a Trot. His ideas of an "egalitarian empire" and very local, decentralized, government seems to counter many Bolsheviks and Trots ideas.

[khad]

Oh yes, we can all be good little flag waving patriots and try to rehabilitate the classist racist scum that constituted the USA's founders.

Jeffersonian political economy--do you know of it? Let me break it down for you.

1. Agrarianism - The United States was to avoid developing heavy industries so as to avoid the proletarianization and pauperism of European cities.

2. Voting based on property rights - Jefferson believed that (obviously white) men who did not have an independent livelihood, ideally on a plantation like himself, were threats to democracy because their votes could be bought and controlled.

3. Territorial expansion - In order to create this republic of free and independent farmers, Jefferson envisaged and realized massive territorial expansion into the West. His notion of democracy was tied to the idea that there would always be abundant agricultural land for US settlers.

Try fitting these into Trotskyism and maybe we'll have a conversation. Bonus points if you somehow reconcile Jefferson's open antipathy towards the proletariat with socialism.

[thriller]

2. Voting based on property rights - Jefferson believed that (obviously white) men who did not have an independent livelihood, ideally on a plantation like himself, were threats to democracy because their votes could be bought and controlled.

Actually it was Thomas Jefferson who abolished voting rights based on property. Why he did this still remains a little fuzzy, however it is hard to argue that Jefferson wanted voting only for landowners when he himself abolished it.

[khad]

Actually it was Thomas Jefferson who abolished voting rights based on property. Why he did this still remains a little fuzzy, however it is hard to argue that Jefferson wanted voting only for landowners when he himself abolished it.
Abolished? Don't talk such rot. Property requirements weren't abolished until the Age of Jackson, and even then Virginia clung on to its arcane freehold law that Jefferson himself had a hand in until 1850.

Here is a handy dandy cheat sheet detailing the major points of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy
http://www.urbandaleschools.com/uploads/users/templemanl/EvolutionofDemocracy.pdf

[thriller]

Here is a handy dandy cheat sheet detailing the major points of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy
http://www.urbandaleschools.com/uploads/users/templemanl/EvolutionofDemocracy.pdf

Blahh i'm fucking useless today, my bad. Don't know how I got them mixed up, maybe its the 40 minutes of sleep I'm running on :P

[khad]

Blahh i'm fucking useless today, my bad. Don't know how I got them mixed up, maybe its the 40 minutes of sleep I'm running on :P
Granted, his setting of the property requirement to a relatively small 25 acres in the VA constitution of 1776 opened up voting to thousands of households, but it was still a measure to contain what he feared would be a restless mass of paupers in the cities. Jefferson believed in expanding the franchise, but there were those who he would never expand it to.

From the 1776 VA constitution, written by Jefferson:

"All male persons of full age and sane mind having a freehold estate in [one fourth of an acre] of land in any town, or in [25] acres of land in the country, and all elected persons resident in the colony who shall have paid scot and lot to government the last [two years] shall have right to give their vote in the election of their respective representatives. And every person so qualified to elect shall be capable of being elected, provided he shall have given no bribe either directly or indirectly to any elector, and shall take an oath of fidelity to the state and of duty in his office, before he enters on the exercise thereof. During his continuance in the said office he shall hold no public pension nor post of profit, either himself, or by another for his use."

So if you rented like so many workers did, you were SOL.

[cb9's_unity]

Can this be moved to Chit-Chat? This could actually be a really fun conversation, but one that won't produce anything of political merit.

Could we create an argument that Jefferson was in fact the Mao of the founding fathers? After all, he did glorify the yeoman farmer over the wage laborer. He also believed that a new constitution should be created every 19 years, as to reflect a new generation of people. This clearly shows that he wanted the government to listen to each new generation and then put its sentiments into real governmental practice. Pretty much mass line amirite?

[REDSOX]

More like an anarchist

[khad]

Can this be moved to Chit-Chat? This could actually be a really fun conversation, but one that won't produce anything of political merit.
I'll do it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Washington = Lenin
Jefferson = Trotsky
Hamilton = Stalin

[Os Cangaceiros]

Or maybe John Adams should be Stalin...hmm...

[Rafiq]

He'd be a Capitalist

[S.Artesian]

Besides being a slaveholder [no, we can't leave that aside, since it is the material basis for his theorizing], and besides being all those other things, let's not leave out Jefferson's sterling behavior as a rapist-- enslaving a woman and then taking her as his sexual concubine.

Wonderful scumbag that the bourgeoisie refer to as a genius, isn't he?

[Kléber]

Adams and Hamilton were the progressive ones, even if bourgeois history books have some kind of reactionary crush on Jefferson. The Adams administration may not have abolished slavery in the USA but it did send money and guns to help Toussaint Louverture and his comrades on Saint-Domingue (Haiti) fight against the slaveowners and imperialists. When Jefferson came to power in 1801, his administration cut aid and diplomatic ties with the Haitian revolutionaries, and tacitly supported Napoleon Bonaparte's attempt to restore slavery in the Caribbean. That's why the USA, despite having funded the Haitian Revolution virtually from the start, did not recognize the Republic of Haiti as a legitimate country until Lincoln was president.

[Burn A Flag]

Thomas Jefferson Owned Capital. I doubt he was a socialist in any way.

[Tablo]

Thomas Jefferson Owned Capital. I doubt he was a socialist in any way.
Capital and slaves. He was a fucking loser as far as I'm concerned.

[Sam_b]

Was this originally posted in Politics?

HAHAHAHA WHAT A JOKE

[Sir Comradical]

No because he wasn't a sociali...ohh I see what you did there.

I guess this is a Trotskyite bashing thread, right?

[ZeroNowhere]

Capital and slaves. He was a fucking loser as far as I'm concerned.
You own slaves? You... you loser!


Thomas Jefferson called for a revolution every 20 years. Doesn't that accord with Trotsky's thesis of "permanent revolution"??? (Ignoring the question of slaves for a moment.)

The term has also been used to describe Thomas Jefferson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson)'s endorsement of periodic rebellion as "medicine necessary for the sound health of government".[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution#cite_note-0)
I'm tempted to take the above as a serious question, if only to give this user the benefit of the doubt. And when that's giving the benefit of the doubt...

[Obs]

Was this originally posted in Politics?

HAHAHAHA WHAT A JOKE
Why can't I thank posts in Chit-Chat?!

[the last donut of the night]

Was this originally posted in Politics?

HAHAHAHA WHAT A JOKE

that's the scary part

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Thomas Jefferson, or T. Pain (as he was known to those darn Brits), was a socialist. Haven't you guys noticed Capital is just a unnecessarily long version of the Declaration of Independence?

[ZeroNowhere]

Thomas Jefferson, or T. Pain (as he was known to those darn Brits), was a socialist. Haven't you guys noticed Capital is just a unnecessarily long version of the Declaration of Independence?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that capital is a social relation."