America’s Secret DNA: The Three Promises of America

America makes three important promises to its citizens: Democracy, Social Equality, and The American Dream. It isn’t keeping them.

The last two articles in this series talked about the promises that support America’s legitimacy. The first piece explained the crises that spark political realignments, and why our current crisis is about a collapse of America’s legitimacy. The following piece explored what legitimacy is, why it’s necessary, and why societies collapse when it disappears.

Let’s talk now about the foundation for America’s legitimacy. As stated in the previous article, America makes three important promises to its citizens:

• Democracy

• Social equality

• The American Dream

America’s success rests on fulfilling these three promises that are no longer being kept.

THE FIRST PILLAR: GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT

The three promises of American democracy rest on two separate pillars. The first is government by consent.

America’s Founding grew out of the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that asserted reason should replace dogma and tradition as the basis for society. This gave birth to an array of revolutionary ideas—the scientific method, the market economy, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. Perhaps most important was the idea of democracy, a government of reason backed by self-governing citizens.

Enlightenment philosophers, like America’s Founders, asserted the only rational basis for one person to govern another was consent. Previous theories of state authority rested on ideas like tradition, blood, or God’s will. Enlightenment thinkers rejected these foundations as irrational, and found the only rational justification for officials of the state to exercise power over other people’s lives is if the people consented to their authority. This became the foundational idea behind every modern democratic republic, including America’s.

Government by consent is powerful because it eliminates the idea of rulers or a ruling class. It holds all power belongs to, and is borrowed from, citizens, and all officials are simply temporary office holders. No one is a ruler, and no one is being ruled. Instead, citizens share responsibility to rule themselves in a system of self-government.

This idea was a revelation because it gives people a reason to buy in and invest in their society. Citizens aren’t being asked to accept and cooperate with rulers, but rather to cooperate with themselves. If they don’t like what officials are doing, they have no one to blame but themselves for selecting them. If they wanted different officials, it’s was their responsibility to convince their fellow citizens. If officials turn out to be unethical, stupid, or make mistakes, citizens need only wait until the next election to replace them. Even if someone is poor, lacks social status, and is laboring on the bottom rungs of society, they have reason to work hard and cooperate because they’re still part-rulers engaged in self-government. There’s no reason to resist or overthrow a system only doing what the people want.

Government by consent is therefore like a magic pill unlocking the stability and prosperity that eluded most every society before republican democracy.

To implement such a government by consent, America makes two implicit promises.

• Democracy: Democracy means more than regular elections. America claims citizens have full power and control over any source of power affecting their lives, including its most powerful people and institutions.

• Social equality: All citizens—no matter how rich, how powerful, how much social status, or where they stand on organizational ladders—are social equals. America has no ruling class, or else consent would be a sham and elections just a means to select which members of the oligarchy rule over them. Social equality in turn requires:

  • Institutions that operate with full transparency. The people cannot rule themselves if officials can manipulate the process or hide information about what they’re doing. Such corruption destroys consent and entrenches officials as a ruling class, rendering citizens as the ruled.

  • Citizens with full mobility on a level field. Those on the bottom must be able to fairly compete to reach the top. If they can’t, there’s a ruling class and self-government is a sham.

THE SECOND PILLAR: THE AMERICAN DREAM

America has also developed a second pillar of legitimacy: The American Dream.

The American Dream is popularly portrayed as a promise of prosperity and wealth. Actually, it’s a promise of opportunity to be and become whatever you hope to be. To a lot of people, the American Dream does involve the good life—a good job they like, a big home, two cars, and a nice family. For others, it’s a dream to become an astronaut, a rock star, a fantasy author, a hippie, or an intellectual. For others, it’s a dream to live in the big city, or on a big farm. For others, it’s a dream to race cars, pursue sports, stream video games, become a mom, read all the Great Books, or live a lifestyle everyone you grew up with thinks is weird.

The point of the American Dream isn’t just living a comfortable life. It’s pursuing on fair and equal terms the kind of life you want.

The American Dream is a natural extension of America’s pioneer spirit. America’s Constitution wasn’t just a new government for a long-established country. After creating this new republic, generations of Americans would have to build America. Brave families bought covered wagons and set off into the wilderness to founds homesteads. Bold adventurers became cowboys or panned for gold in the Wild West. Daring industrialists created new industries in newborn cities in the Midwest. Visionary inventors created new technologies like telephones and airplanes. Crazy innovators moved to California and built Silicon Valley. This spirt of invention became the spirit of America.

This is how The American Dream became America’s third promise. America would not only promise democracy and social equality, but also a nation in which every citizen could define themselves and chase their personal dreams on a fair and level field. This American Dream wasn’t necessary for democratic government. You can have government by consent without the American Dream, as is common in many European democracies. You also can have the Dream without consent, as the current regime in China has sought to build. When combined, however, consent and the American Dream become a potent force.

When fused together, America’s three promises create an impressively stable and a dynamic society. They promise stability and prosperity because citizens have reason to buy into the system, work hard, cooperate, and follow laws made with their input and consent. They also promise a dynamic society because people have reason to, and freedom to, innovate, push boundaries, and explore as they chase their dreams. The American Dream extends beyond merely fighting majority tyranny from government, but also unfair interference from your neighbors, family, industries, and powerful institutions. You’re free to pursue your dreams on a level field regardless of what those around you want for you.

This is secret DNA that made America successful. A society built on these three promises outperforms any other society humanity has known.

As long as America keeps these promises, it will continue to thrive. If it abandons them, it will ultimately collapse and be replaced—almost certainly by something worse. For a host of reasons, we’ve been abandoning these promises. Most concerning, many of the meritocrats tasked with overseeing these promises fail to appreciate the danger. Too many meritocrats are by nature hoop-jumpers, rule-followers, managers, and administrators who like things efficient, predictable, and hierarchical—all things America isn’t supposed to be. They worry about eliminating downsides and preventing mistakes more than unlocking brilliant new opportunities. The demands these three promises create are too chaotic for their tastes. They fail to appreciate these promises are more than kind liberties granted by authorities, but foundation stones holding the system together.

In the next piece, we’ll talk more about why America is breaking its three core promises, and why this is a danger to its national stability and success.

Why do you think the promises of America are not being kept? Join the community in the comments.