America's Founding and the Struggle over Economic Inequality

Extract

Clement Fatovic's book surveys the intellectual and political debates over economic inequality during the construction of the American Constitution. Beginning with the social conflicts that emerged during the era of the Articles of Confederation, Fatovic traces the various social struggles by laboring classes over issues of inequality and unequal property. Strikes, riots, and uprisings, such as the Whiskey Rebellion (1791) and Shay's Rebellion (1786–1787), erupted during this period “when government failed to enact the changes demanded by the laboring classes” (p. 36). These local movements were able, in some cases, to affect state constitutions such as in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. In the former state, property qualifications for voting were eliminated and the vote was given to free blacks.

What emerges from the success of these movements was a general concern over property rights and the “specter of leveling” (p. 49). As a result, thinkers such as Johns Adams began reworking the concept of republicanism to emphasize individual rights rather than concern over property. The perceived excesses of Shay's Rebellion led to a concern over the “excesses of democracy.” This sets the stage in subsequent chapters for the constitutional debates over economic inequality. Fatovic shows how the “Constitution was a direct response to the class conflict that roiled state politics throughout the 1780s” and proceeds to discuss the many framers who saw the need to protect against the power of the lower classes (p. 57). But many of them also thought in more thoroughly republican terms: James Madison, for example, sought to protect property rights not for the protection of elites but for the interests of the wealthy and the poor.