Table Of ContentOn American Freedom
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On American Freedom
A Critique of the Country’s Core
Value with a Reform Agenda
Kenneth E. Morris
on american freedom
Copyright © Kenneth E. Morris, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-43589-7
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-49328-9 ISBN 978-1-137-42841-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137428417
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morris, Kenneth Earl, 1955–
On American freedom : a critique of the country’s core value with a
reform agenda / Kenneth E. Morris.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Liberty—United States. 2. Liberty—Philosophy. 3. Federal
government—United States. I. Title.
JC599.U5M69 2014
320.9730191—dc23 2014000702
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: July 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of father
Earl William Morris (1919–2007)
“[W]hoever seriously considers the immense extent of territory
comprehended within the limits of the United States . . . will receive
it as an intuitive truth, that a consolidated republican form of
government therein, can never . . . secure the blessings of liberty to
you and your posterity. . . . It is natural, says Montesquieu, to a
republic to have only a small territory, otherwise it cannot long
subsist. . . . In large republics, the public good is sacrificed to a
thousand views. . . . The extent of many of the states of the Union,
is at this time almost too great for the superintendence of a
republican form of government, and must one day . . . be reduced.”
George Clinton, governor of New York and vice president of the
United States, New York Journal, October 25, 1787
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Puzzle of Freedom 1
The Main Meanings of Freedom 5
An Orienting Value of Freedom 14
Remembering the Republic in Republicanism 27
Chapter 2 From Republics to a National Empire 35
Original Compromises 36
The Rise of the Militaristic Empire 43
The Rise of the Imperial Oligarchy 54
The Empire Becomes a Nation 65
Chapter 3 The Return of Feudalism 79
A Critique of the Free-Market Idea of Freedom 82
Jobholding in the US Economy 93
The Political Foundations of the New Feudalism 106
The Instinct for Workmanship 120
Chapter 4 American Stoicism 125
The Curious Religious Roots of American Freedom 126
Freedom and the Consumption of Domesticity 131
A Culture of Domesticated Freedom 137
Rejecting Republics 145
Nature Mystified 149
The Absent Alternative 153
viii l Contents
Chapter 5 A Place for Freedom 155
America’s Natural Republics 159
Deficiencies in the Natural Republics 163
Current Metropolitan Reform Agendas 166
American City-States 172
“Necessary” and “Expressly” 182
Saving the Embassy 186
Notes 195
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this book benefitted from partial critical readings
by Andy Nathan of Columbia University and Chris Rehn of Dordt
College, as well as two fuller critical reading by anonymous peer
reviewers engaged by Penn State University Press. I postponed revising the
book then in order to write another, Unfinished Revolution: Daniel Ortega
and Nicaragua’s Struggle for Liberation, only to discover when I returned to
it that Sandy Thatcher had retired as the editorial director of Penn State
University Press and his replacement discontinued the press’s list in US poli-
tics. Fortunately, Palgrave Macmillan agreed to publish the book instead. I
therefore want to thank my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Brian O’Connor,
as well another anonymous reviewer engaged by that press. Nevertheless, I
want to thank Sandy for his support in the early stages.
The recent revision process benefitted from additional critical readings
by Ray Yang of Colorado State University and Richard Morley, a former
professor and now a family therapist in Atlanta. Helpful suggestions were
also offered by William Finlay of the University of Georgia.
All along, the central argument of this book was shaped by discussions
with Burt Sparer, a retired city planner who launched a sensational 30-year
“encore career” as an activist for the kinds of cities he believed possible.
Burt helped me to see social life from the standpoint of the minutia—lane
widths, zoning ordinances, federal-state funding formulas, and so forth. It
was therefore with considerable delight that upon rereading The Federalist
Papers I found James Madison arguing from such geographic detail that a
surveyor’s tripod was almost presupposed. I became convinced that most of
us are so enmeshed in the nation-state and beholden to its ideologies that we
fail to appreciate how values like freedom are ultimately realized or not in
the political-geography of more proximate space. Unfortunately, Burt died
before I finished the book—but not before leaving his mark on both the
book and me.
