Abe Lincoln & Bill Gates -- American Peasants Both

In my last post I happily reported peasantry as a way of life is quite alive right here in the US. It’s just that we have failed to recognize it
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Rather than thinking about a subsistence farm we should be thinking about what that farm really means. It means economic self reliance. As importantly, it offers the individual the greatest amount of freedom to go about his business as he sees fit and as he pleases.

Our modern peasants are those among us who have the means to be economically self reliant. That includes the ten percent of those currently employed who are self employed, but it also includes those who while they might be employed in larger organizations could support themselves by joining the ranks of the self employed.

Our republic was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and have the God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights are secured by property rights and the right to one’s labor. These are the foundation of our constitution and in turn are the foundation of a peasant economy.

Bill Gates is a peasant, a very wealthy one, but a peasant nonetheless. Abraham Lincoln was peasant, but a great president who by abolishing slavery set the second cornerstone for our peasant economy.

This observation by Allen C. Guezlo, posted on the National Review on Line, 2/12/11, outlines how “free labor” was necessary to secure the full measure of personal, political and economic freedom. The full article is long and scholarly, but is a must read.

“In a system of free labor, by contrast, the prospect of profit incites the laborer to work and save, then turn into an entrepreneur himself and hire others to labor. Hiring workers, in turn, not only fires the entrepreneur’s ambition, but opens up the path of ambition for his employees, “men who have not their own land to work upon, or shops to work in, and who are benefited by working for others.”

“Lincoln was aware that pro-slavery propagandists had begun claiming in the 1850s that laborers in northern factories were, in reality, no more free to make wage bargains than slaves on southern plantations. In fact, they claimed, “free labor” was worse off, because employers had no obligation to provide health care for mere wage-earners or to support them in childhood and old age, the way slaveowners did for their slaves.

““Twenty-five years ago, I was a hired laborer.” A typical young man in this situation, he explained, “has for his capital nothing, save two strong hands that God has given him, a heart willing to labor, and a freedom to choose the mode of his work.” If the beginner really is willing, however, “he works industriously, he behaves soberly, and the result of a year or two’s labor is a surplus of capital . . . and in course of time he too has enough capital to hire some new beginner.” This, to Lincoln, was the key flaw in the slavery defenders’ case: Slavery offered no reward at all for sobriety or industry, while free labor was the “just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all — gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all.”

“He did not deny that there were hired men who never became anything more, but that was not because of any defect in free-labor capitalism. “If any continue through life in the condition of the hired laborer, it is not the fault of the system, but because of either a dependent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular misfortune.” Ambition was not a crime to be punished. “We do not propose any war upon capital,” he insisted. Far from it: He wanted “to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else” and “leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can.” The genius of free labor, he explained to an audience of workingmen in New Haven, Conn., was that “when one starts poor, as most do in the race of life . . . he knows he can better his condition.” Lincoln wanted every “man to have the chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better his condition. . . . That is the true system . . . and so it may go on and on in one ceaseless round so long as man exists on the face of the earth!”

“To make this system work, Lincoln envisioned an active role for the federal government, but it was hardly that of a top-down managerial state. “The leading principle — the sheet anchor of American republicanism,” Lincoln said, is that “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent.” This was what guaranteed “individuals . . . the sacred right to regulate their own family affairs” and “communities . . . [to] arrange their own internal matters to suit themselves” without wanton interference by government. “The proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own” was the “foundation of the sense of justice there is in me.””

I’ll next be serving up a fine chicken, wild rice and shiitake mushroom soup. The thought of it pleases me. The making of it will please me. And I hope the eating of it will please me even more. It’s a peasant’s thing. Pursuit of happiness.

A Peasant's Funereal

I wrote what follows more than 20 years ago. It’s a description of my wife’s grandfather’s funereal who was in fact a peasant. I thought what I was witnessing was the end of peasantry, at least in western world. Happily, I’ve found I was mistaken.

Julius Kamenz, 95, died an old-timer.  His funeral was surprisingly well attended considering his age.  Most people have few friends left when they're 95, and are mourned only by immediate family.  Julius' funeral was standing room only, and all the more remarkable in that, since his arrival to the United States thirty six years ago, he refused to speak the language of his adopted land.

Lothar, Julius's son-in-law, lead a large choir in German hymns.  Passages of scripture were read first in English and then once more in German.  This bilingual order of service carried through to the eulogy.  The funeral ran somewhat long.  In fact, it seemed as two separate funerals were being conducted simultaneously; one directed toward and immigrant church, and the other aimed at the American born children of these immigrants.

While almost every one possessed a fluent command of English, There were many who found comfort in their native German.  And considering that Julius never spoke English himself, it wouldn't have been appropriate to conduct his funeral exclusively in English.

Somewhere into the second sermon, the German sermon, a general restlessness settled among the crowd. A reference first to Hitler and then Stalin sounded, and like a shot brought everyone to attention.  Unexpected, the reference seemed grossly misplaced in the context of a eulogy.  Only Julius' obituary, printed with the order of service and read after the invocation and opening prayer, gave a clue as to why this infamous pair should be mentioned at a man's funeral.

"Born on February 26,1893, in Tacherjackow, Russia," it spoke of a peasant born into the rich farm land of the Ukraine.

Julius Kamenz' ambition was to farm.  Prior to world war I, Russian agriculture hadn't drastically changed since the middle ages.  Julius expected no more from life than a piece of land and a good team of horses.

"In 1915," it continued, "during World War I, he and his parents were sent from their home in the Ukraine to Siberia."

Empires gave way to modern nation states.

The birth pains of an industrial age started taking a toll. Two-million Russians died in World War I.  Revolution, civil war and famine claimed nine-million more.  Refugees became a distinguishing feature of this century.

"They returned home four years later, and farmed for their livelihood," it went on. Stalin had his own vision for the modern world.  In 1927, it didn't include opposition.  By 1930, it excluded most of the Ukraine.  Again, famine claimed seven-million.  Another seven-million were arrested.  One-million were executed outright, and the rest sent to labor camps where most died.

The short obituary continued, "during World War II, the family fled from the Ukraine to Germany."

Two-million ethnic Germans, whose settlement in the Ukraine dated from the time of Catherine the Great, were either deported or fled from their homes. The Nazi occupation army wasn't an army of liberation from Stalin's tyranny.  In just two days, Nazi death squad, Einsatzgruppe C killed over 33,000 Jews in the ravine of Babi Yar, a few miles outside Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.  The horror of Stalin yielded only to the horror of Hitler.

Julius Kamenz knew both.  Pastor Babbel's mention of these two contrasted their ambition, power and final infamy, with the humble peasant who finally entered into the full glory of God.

And finally, "as many other refugees, they sought a new life in the United States.  In 1952, the family came to Milwaukee...Where Julius was employed as the grounds keeper/gardener at a convent.”

At a brief burial service the following morning, the family had the coffin reopened for those few who hadn't attended the funeral the night before.  This service included only family and a few friends.  It was conducted entirely in English.

Afterwards, the funeral director offered a rose to the widow. He went on to invite everyone to come and also claim a rose.  A solemn procession filed by a closed coffin.