Over the course of this week, I will be digging deeper into the works of Tench Coxe, who was a very colorful Founding Father and not highly remembered for some reason. When I mentioned him in the context of Chapter 5 of Zero Hour, I already knew about him, but never bothered to mention him in The Work-Standard (3rd Ed.) because I have yet to figure out where his true loyalties are.

Was this Conservative businessman from Pennsylvania a Hamiltonian Federalist, a Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican, or some precursor to American Progressivism (“Jeffersonians ends with Hamiltonian means”)? Did he help lay the philosophical basis for American conceptions of Economic Planning, of American Corporatism and American Socialism while under Alexander Hamilton’s tutelage in the Department of the Treasury? Was he the philosophical precursor to the Pan-Germanic Socialist concept of “Wehrhaftigkeit (Defensive Readiness),” the idea that nations cannot attain and maintain freedom without a well-armed civilian population?

Now, I am aware that a lot of Coxe’s ideas would later be refined by Friedrich List and implemented in the German Reich when it was reunited by Prussia. I also know that a reasonable portion of policies from Coxe were in some form realized by the Soviets, the Maoists, the Imperial Japanese, the Fascists and the Falangists and so forth. In essence, nations that are not Liberal Capitalist by any stretch of the human imagination. What kept me from mentioning Coxe in The Work-Standard (3rd Ed.) are questions over his loyalties. I mean, even people living in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War were pondering over whether he was more supportive of the British Empire than the Thirteen Colonies. It is not too unreasonable to expect similar accusations regarding his loyalties to Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans and Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists.

What I am absolutely certain about Coxe is his stances on Economic Planning and his applications of the Wehrhaftigkeit insofar as the latter is understood here in America as that “Constitutional Right to keep and bear arms.” Here is what I was able from to glean based on the writings that I had read thus far, all of which have some analogue in The Work-Standard or The Third Place:

• Advocate for the Federal Government to be able to own and operate lands within the States. This land may be sold or allotted to the American people residing in those States for housing or for economic activities. It should be the Federal Government, not a Real Estate Market, whose congressional policies determine the Value of land and whatever buildings are on the premises.
• Propose Economic Planning for the purposes of establishing cities dedicated to manufacturing and urbanizing the landlocked States, starting with his State of Pennsylvania. Federal, State and Municipal Governments would employ specific non-taxation measures to finance these ventures, establishing Economic Organizations that would function very similar to the Work-Standard’s “National-Socialized Enterprise (NSE)” in Real Estate.
• Anticipate the problems of American Capitalism and recognize the problems of an America dependent on Kapital and Schuld, both foreign and domestic. With foreign Kapital, this was self-evident in his Autarkic positions regarding US trade with the Europeans and the British Empire.
• Beware the “Lobbying” of special interest groups that could sabotage any sound policies that have the potential to further the national interest. Here, there exists the open, yet unanswered question of whether an alternative model of Democracy could address the multiplicity of different interests across nations as large as America.

The American “Constitutional Right to Bear Arms” and Pan-Germanic Socialism’s “Wehrhaftigkeit (Defensive Readiness)” follow the same logic, barring their respective historical contexts. Both share this notion that the freedom of any nation’s people, its Totality, is correlated by their willingness to overcome the fear of death (memento mori) and their readiness for self-defense. In economic life, these sentiments can be found in everyday social attitudes toward the Military-Industrial Complex, from the armed forces and arms manufacturers to the civilian ownership of firearms. If the means of production should belong to both the Totality and their State, why assume there are exceptions to the means of destruction?

Thus, Coxe was already promoting the idea that the Armaments Industry is a strategically vital part of the US economy and that it should be protected by the Federal Government. Not just to keep the US military armed and supplied, but also to ensure that the American people have the means to protect themselves. Even if the sale of firearms was the sole Domain of the Federal and State Governments, that alone does not undermine the Right to Bear Arms. What will undermine it is, obviously, any notions that firearms can be used over disagreements on lawful policymaking, which Coxe condemned in the Whiskey Rebellion. The real ambiguities begin with the historical question of whether a political party’s paramilitary wing may constitute themselves as a “Militia” under Amendment II.

The Federalist Party, according to Coxe, understood Militia not as a “State National Guard” or as the “individual ownership of firearms” but as a “Volunteer Party-Corps” beholden to Congress and answerable to the Presidency. In fact, the last known Federal law of this type was passed by Congress in March 1799, which had expanded the official membership roll to 75,000. It is an interesting piece of US History that has not only been forgotten but was later implemented in various countries throughout the 20th century.

Now, in the metaphysical State of Total Mobilization, in an America where the Jeffersonians have been running things for more than two centuries, the Right to Bear Arms or the Wehrhaftigkeit is being questioned. We live in an America where the calls for imposing gun control on the American people are about as common as the concurring calls for imposing arms control on foreign nations. I feel that a 21st century Federalist understanding of Amendment II is in order. Since I am already convinced that Amendment II and Amendment III (which concerns the militarization of civilian life in peacetime) are closely interrelated, it only makes sense that I should entertain it. Therefore, I will write another Update post on Friday to address my findings, followed by another Update post alongside this week’s topic post on Saturday.

Categories: Philosophy, Uncategorized

Tags: Economics, Federalist Party, Finance, Hamiltonianism, Military Science, Military-Industrial Complex, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Second Amendment, Socialist Finance, Tench Coxe, Third Place, United States, Work-Standard