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By Root 236 0

through helping to maintain them. If he ceases to do so, or has never done so (or nobody has done so for him) there exists no ground on which such claims could be forwarded. Relations between individuals can exist only as products of their wills, but the mere wish of a claimant can hardly create a duty for others.…”20 More broadly, the individual’s right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to benefit from the fruits of his own labor. As the individual’s time on earth is finite, so, too, is his labor. The illegitimate denial or diminution of his labor—that is, the involuntary deprivation of the private property he accumulates from his intellectual and/or physical efforts—is a form of servitude and, hence, immoral.21

There is also no morality in utopian deception and distortion to promote an abstraction, forcing the individual to behave in ways that are contrary to his best interests and destructive of his nature; attacking the civil society’s ethical norms and social arrangements; and making commonplace dependency and coercion. Rather than cultivating a moral society and individual virtuousness, whether through faith, education, or sociability, and building on the accumulated experience and wisdom of earlier generations, utopianism breeds dishonesty not good character; it encourages ideology not reason; it rewards rashness not reflection; it attracts fanatics not statesmen; and it is transformative not reformative. As the world around him grows increasingly unpredictable and hostile, and the moral order of the civil society frays and then unravels, the individual may feel that his daily survival depends on abandoning his own moral nature and teaching, including prudence, self-restraint, and forethought. He may become radicalized and join the ranks of predators, or become isolated and conniving, hoping to avoid notice. He may become dispirited and detached, resigned to a life of misery. He may defiantly stand his moral ground, in which case he may become the predators’ prey. In any event, the law of the jungle becomes the law of the land as the civil society disintegrates.

Clearly, utopianism is incompatible with constitutionalism. Utopianism requires power to be concentrated in a central authority with maximum latitude to transform and control. Oppositely, a constitution establishes parameters that define the form and the limits of government. For example, in the United States, the Constitution divides, disperses, and delineates governmental power. It grants the central government not plenary but enumerated powers. It further deconcentrates power through three branches of the central government, reserving the rest of governmental powers to the states and the people. The Constitution enshrines a governing framework intended to ensure the longevity of the existing society and stifle the potential for tyranny.

The Constitution reflects the Founders’ repudiation of utopianism and any notion of omnipotent and omniscient masterminds. In Federalist 51, James Madison wrote, “But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”22 Madison argued that the draft constitution had achieved that end. In Federalist 45, he explained, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern