Was Thomas Jefferson a SOCIALIST?

kellyb

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kellyb
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http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s32.html

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
28 Oct. 1785Papers 8:681--82
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This little attendrissement, with the solitude of my walk led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe. The property of this country is absolutely concentered in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards.
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I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.
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Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
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Fact: Conservative schoolbooks written in Texas, which will be used by most public schools in the USA, purposefully disregard Jefferson due to his non-theistic leanings.

Personally, I consider Thomas Jefferson to be a genius.
 
Jesus. James Madison, too.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s50.html

In every political society, parties are unavoidable. A difference of interests, real or supposed, is the most natural and fruitful source of them. The great object should be to combat the evil: 1. By establishing a political equality among all. 2. By withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few, to increase the inequality of property, by an immoderate, and especially an unmerited, accumulation of riches. 3. By the silent operation of laws, which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.
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People are aware of Jeffersons' financial troubles, right? Maybe a slave owner who spent all his inherited money and died buried in debt isn't the guy we should be taking advice from. At least not making it gospel.
 
rwguinn said:
But notice:
he said "reduce extreme wealth towards astate of mediocrity..."
not
"reduce extreme wealth to a state of mediocrity"
Which is what Socialism strives for.
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I added a bold for you. Sounds to me like What you claim Socialism does is exactly what Jefferson wants.

You could easily change Jefferson's quote to "reduce extreme wealth striving towards a state of mediocrity..."
 
The socialism thing was really kind of a joke. A lot of those guys were total "progressives" by today's standards, though.
 
Jesus was a socialist too, and if it was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me.
 
Thunder said:
Fact: Conservative schoolbooks written in Texas, which will be used by most public schools in the USA, purposefully disregard Jefferson due to his non-theistic leanings.

Personally, I consider Thomas Jefferson to be a genius.
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When you get ahold of the textbook that will be used by most public school in the USA that disregards Thomas Jefferson let me know.
 
On the subject of was Thomas Jefferson a socialist there is nothing better than a wealthy slave owning, mansion building, elite, socialist.
 
thaiboxerken said:
So you want him to send you a textbook?
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No I would like to see what is actually written in the textbooks not a scare article about what the evil Texas Board of Education is going to do to the majority of the textbooks in the US. But somewhere there is a different thread on that.
 
Donal said:
People are aware of Jeffersons' financial troubles, right? Maybe a slave owner who spent all his inherited money and died buried in debt isn't the guy we should be taking advice from. At least not making it gospel.
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eeyore1954 said:
On the subject of was Thomas Jefferson a socialist there is nothing better than a wealthy slave owning, mansion building, elite, socialist.
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So we have a disagreement. Either we can't trust him because either he sucked at capitalism or we can't trust him because he was really good at it. Either way it discredits everything and he is not to be trusted on these matters, right?
 
eeyore1954 said:
No I would like to see what is actually written in the textbooks ....
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How do you see that Jefferson was excluded from a textbook without examining the textbook if you are going to dismiss articles about that textbook?
 
Thunder said:
interesting.
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and confusing but what I found is that a particular question was changed
from AOL news
http://www.aolnews.com/discuss/2010...rom-teaching-standard#gcpDiscussPageUrlAnchor
the original curriculum asked students to "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present."
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to
"Explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone."
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If you consider changing one question to be the same as disregarding Thomas Jefferson ok.
 
I can't find a publishing date for the new text books but these people appear to be the main thrust behind this in Texas.

http://www.textbookreviews.org/index.html?content=newsletters/nl07-10p3_textbook_access_needed.htm

They and the TEA (texas education agency) confirm both the sway that texas has and the changes made.

Some samples from that website.

The SBOE should check both militant Islamic cultural jihadists (backed by Arab petrowealth in the U.S. textbook industry), and American academ ic secularists, in their com bined assault on Christian ity in World History classes.
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Tax cuts promoted economic expansion. Deficits of the 1980s protected that expansion by restraining government growth. Political liberals were the most upset about those deficits.
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Why do Thomas Jefferson and James Madison hate America?
 
Thunder said:
Jesus believed in giving free food to the hungry.

Socialist pig!!!

:)
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Did Jesus believe in helping other out of love or out of a government requirement?

By the way IMHO Jesus did have many socialist views. Jefferson I don't think so but maybe some historian can make a valid argument. Depends upon the definition of socialism. He may have believed in socialism as long as he could remain in the upper strata.
 
Biscuit said:
So we have a disagreement.
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Not at all. The fact that he was wealthy, had many slaves, spent truck loads of money on his mansion and was a bit of a snob are well documented facts. The wealth was inherited. And the mansion building was one of sevral things that lead to his bankruptcy.

Either we can't trust him because either he sucked at capitalism or we can't trust him because he was really good at it.
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No, he sucked. Horribly.

Either way it discredits everything and he is not to be trusted on these matters, right?
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Yes, if you are really bad at finance, I'm not going to take your advice on finance. Is that really hard to comprehend?

Jefferson was a great writer, inventor, statesman, and several other things. Finance just wasn't his gift.
 
Donal said:
Not at all.
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I was pointing how the two of you both dismiss any discussion of Jefferson being a socialist through two opposing arguments.

1. He sucked at finances so being a socialist is bad
2. He was a elitist in a newly formed capitalist country so he was a bad socialist.

I just thought it was funny.
 
Kelly B,

Well, Thomas Jefferson realized that while it was not possible to perfectly spread wealth evenly, he did apparently wish to minimize the inequality. That isn't entirely unreasonable.

As for his statements about exempting tax below a certain point, we do that already to some extent, and as for and taxing richer people a higher amount is called a graduated tax, so long as you don't tax the rich so much that everybody ends up with the same exact amount of money. Interestingly, Reagan actually was fine with such a tax.
 
How could TJ have been a Socialist if socialism wasn't invented yet?????

IIRC from fundamental Marxist theory, Socialism was the transition phase on the way to that lovely nirvana of communism.

TJ was dead before Marx ever had his econo-political model (flawed to whatever degree you wish to debate over) figured out.
 
Biscuit said:
I was pointing how the two of you both dismiss any discussion of Jefferson being a socialist through two opposing arguments.
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No, you are just twisting people's words

1. He sucked at finances so being a socialist is bad
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No, he sucked at finances, so let's not take his advice on finance. That was my point.

2. He was a elitist in a newly formed capitalist country so he was a bad socialist.
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No, he just wasn't a socialist.

I just thought it was funny.
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Well, you were wrong. Try again.
 
Darth Rotor said:
How could TJ have been a Socialist if socialism wasn't invented yet?????

IIRC from fundamental Marxist theory, Socialism was the transition phase on the way to that lovely nirvana of communism.

TJ was dead before Marx ever had his econo-political model (flawed to whatever degree you wish to debate over) figured out.
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I was really just making a joke about how nowadays any sort of progressive taxation/wealth redistribution is seen as some kind of anti-American commie new age "socialism". Like the founding fathers were libertarian rightwingers or something, when clearly, if anything, they were economic leftists by modern standards.
 
No, no, no, NO.

They were a group of men of varying backgrounds and philosophies. They were not one monotonous voice all of the same thought. Two of them shot at each other over their differences FFS.

To say they all followed one big idea or principal is simply ignoring well documented facts.
 
Well, I don't think any of them believed that trickle down economics was the road to national prosperity.

And the one that wrote the constitution wanted to "reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort."
 
Darth Rotor said:
How could TJ have been a Socialist if socialism wasn't invented yet?????

IIRC from fundamental Marxist theory, Socialism was the transition phase on the way to that lovely nirvana of communism.

TJ was dead before Marx ever had his econo-political model (flawed to whatever degree you wish to debate over) figured out.
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Marx didn't invent Socialism, and some of his first works were critiques of the Utopian Socialists (Which, just by the names, is kind of ironic) who were already around.

It is hard to speak of socialism before then because it would be indistinguishable from humanism, republicanism, etc. in pre-industrial times. Though that doesn't stop many from trying to retrofit famous people into their ideology.

In America, the early 1800's socialist fad was to make these odd communal towns, where they often attempted eugenics. I don't think I need to say how those turned out.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
It is hard to speak of socialism before then because it would be indistinguishable from humanism, republicanism, etc. in pre-industrial times. Though that doesn't stop many from trying to retrofit famous people into their ideology.
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Is that an attempt at a dig at me?

For the record, I don't think TJ or Madison were Marx-style (striving for a classless society, with "the masses" owning "the means of production") socialists, just like I don't think modern US progressives are socialists by the same definition, or that countries like France are socialist by Marxism definitions.

I just think it's funny that nowadays, progressive taxation to fund the general welfare is considered "OMG EVIL SOCIALISM!!1!" When really, the founding fathers expressed ideals significantly more radically "left-wing" (by modern standards) than modern progressives hold today.
 
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