The Solidarity Alliance

I. The Origin and History of Nations.

HOSE TWO FAMED THOMASES of Western political philosophy, Hobbes and Paine, were separated by a century of time — and a far wider gulf of perception.

In his British Civil War-era treatise, The Leviathan, Hobbes portrayed a grim State of Nature, existing before the creation of government, that he painted as "a war of all against all" in which life was "nasty, poor, brutish and short." But Paine argued, in a letter of impassioned defense of the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, that reason was already operating in the state of nature, allowing men to constitute a society that would defend their rights.

We believe both were right.

The first hominids dwelt in small, family-based tribes that were almost constantly at odds. Technology was virtually nonexistent, and resources correspondingly scarce. Every man, woman and child spent most of each day gathering food for mere survival; and any perceived infringement of that activity meant a skirmish with some neighboring tribe. No one could specialize; there were no doctors to heal the sick, no dentists to repair decaying teeth before they rotted away, no police to stop theft, rape or murder. Life was indeed all that Hobbes made of it.

But reason was there too, the capacity that distinguishes humanity from the less advanced species. And reason dictated alliances, undertaken for mutual security and economic advantage, that slowly metamophosed into permanent leagues of tribes.

Over time, the tribal leagues grew larger, forming the nuclei of nations. Significantly, those leagues did not only enhance security. They allowed specialization. They allowed some to hunt, others to gather roots and vegetables, still others to become medicine men and women. And soon they facilitated a new economic vector: agriculture, which was hardly practicable in a time of tribal strife, but which allowed still further specialization and improvement in the lives of the people.

But as long as the leagues remained small, they also remained vulnerable. Stronger groups preyed upon and conquered them. Drought and disease overtook them, and a single disaster could virtually destroy any of them. Larger societies were needed to provide stability and shared resources.

And so arose the nation.

Characterized not only by greater size but also by far greater complexity than their antecedents, nations provided for security via armies and police; for health through formally trained doctors; for food through farms producing staples needed by all as well as such luxuries as dairy products; and perhaps most important, for leisure that would allow culture, science, philosophy, art and music to arise. Systems of government, however, were generally quite primitive, with strong-armed, self-appointed leaders in absolute control. The armies and police were still essentially the property of kings rather than defenders of the people. And this state of affairs persisted, with rare and generally short-lived exceptions, until quite recently.

Then came King Charles I of England. Arrogant and perfidious, given to summoning parliaments in order to raise funds and then dissolving them, he so angered the landed gentry that he was deposed in civil war by Oliver Cromwell, who formed a constitutional republic, and subsequently beheaded. It was the chaos of this conflict that drove a self-exiled Hobbes to pen his magnum opus, wherein he declared that the ideal society was characterized by a strong ruler empowered to enforce his will upon any and all of his lawful subjects. In fact, the sole right Hobbes recognized was that of mere life, for he argued that recognition of any further rights would undermine the authority of the state.

The republic did not long survive, but its legacy was the American Revolution, soon followed by the French Revolution. Out of the chaos of civil war, new voices had emerged, notably those of two Johns: Locke and Milton. And these new voices proposed, as the Solidarity Alliance proposes, that even as the legal and moral authority of a nation's government proceeded from the consent of the governed, they existed ultimately in the service of a single principle: that government has no purpose other than to defend the rights and security of its citizens — and it is the definition of those rights that today constitutes the chief object of strife between left and right.

The revolutions of the eighteenth century added a codicil: Any government that fails to safeguard the rights of all its citizens will perish.

II. Prologue.

VERY NATION UPON THE EARTH is riven by inequity. A few amoral, alien-souled and avaricious men and women of privilege have seized possession of most property and almost all power, while the great majority of the world's people dwell in poverty, squalor, terror and misery, devoid of opportunity and robbed of hope.

But we are one world and one species, not two, and we must abandon our divisions and inequities if our societies are to survive and prosper. Each of us has certain rights that must not be infringed or abridged, and those rights should not vary from nation to nation or from class to class.

1. The nation is not an entity unto itself, but a projection of the will of its citizens, in whom all sovereignty ultimately resides; and that sovereignty shall be neither abridged by the nation's leaders nor surrendered by its citizens.
   
   
2. The will of the citizens shall be manifested in laws duly enacted by their elected representatives, whose ultimate aim shall be the safeguarding of the rights of each citizen; and no law shall be enacted that is not consistent with those rights.
   
   
3. Each citizen is born free and equal under the law, and shall remain so. No social distinction shall exist that is not necessary for the common good.
   
   
4. Each citizen shall enjoy from birth the essential rights of life, liberty, privacy, property, security and resistance to oppression; and each nation's laws and constitution shall reflect this principle.
   
   
5. Each citizen shall further be free to act in any manner that does not infringe the rights of others. No law shall be enacted that unduly abridges that freedom.
   
   
6. No person shall be deprived, for whatever cause, of the necessary elements of life: adequate and nutritious food; clean water and air; adequate shelter and clothing; attentive and knowledgeable health care; and full education.
   
   
7. The social contract that permits these rights also implies corresponding responsibilities. Thus, each citizen shall contribute to the common good in proportion to his or her means.
   
   
8. No citizen shall be compelled to serve another, for the enrichment of the latter; for this is a form of slavery. Thus, the nation shall prevent any citizens' control of the means of production by diffusing such control as widely as possible and insuring ongoing competition among producers.
   
   
9. There being limited resources available to a growing population, the nation shall ensure that no undue disparity of wealth exists; for when most property belongs to the elite few, the many suffer deprivation of the essentials that are their birthright.
   
   
10. Each citizen, upon attaining adulthood as defined by the nation, shall have a single vote to cast in electing its leaders, and shall be afforded a civic education adequate to permit that vote to be cast wisely.
    
    
11. Each citizen shall have the expressed right to assembly, freedom of speech and press, and access to such public media as will permit the dissemination of his or her views.
    
    
12. The nation shall establish no state religion; nor shall any citizen be deprived of the right to observe, or refrain from observing, any faith or creed.
    
    
13. Since laws are established for the common good, they must apply equally to all.
    
    
14. Representatives elected to lead the nation are the servants of the citizens; accordingly, they must be ever ready, upon demand, to furnish to the citizens a full accounting of their activities.
    
    
15. Power concentrated is power abused. Therefore, authority shall be diffused through a large assembly that cannot be controlled or easily swayed by any individual, class or faction.
    
    
16. The earth and its bounty are the property of all. Access to natural beauty, solitude and silence, so necessary to sanity, shall not be a function of class or position, but shall be the patrimony of all.

III. The Defining Principles
of the Solidarity Alliance

N ADDITION TO THE RIGHTS delineated above, the Solidarity Alliance also stands for seven fundamental principles:

1. Individual liberty to the greatest practicable degree.
   
   

   Each citizen must have the maximum of freedom, limited only where that freedom infringes upon the rights of others. Similarly, and by extension, each person possesses the right to privacy, again so long as his or her private acts do not harm others. The concept of "victimless crime" abridges these rights, while the enforcement of laws under this principle merely criminalizes citizens who have done no real wrong. Thus, laws forbidding use of drugs and comparable "offenses" are themselves offensive to the cause of liberty. The governing principle for individuals is therefore: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt."

   But when this right is extended without limit to corporations, mischief ensues, for corporate "rights" often conflict with and override individual freedom, while the companies in question use their economic clout to suppress competition.

   Since corporations have acquired effective power in proportion to their wealth and influence over government that vitiates any attempt at fair and democratic governance, and since they exist transnationally, an effective international apparatus must be created to constrain them from abusing workers, consumers and the environment alike. It is all too clear from their history that they cannot be trusted to police themselves.

   The Solidarity Alliance therefore advocates the constituting of a United Nations initiative aimed at limiting the size, scope and influence of big business and encouraging open competition. Member nations, of course, must be brought to cooperate; that is where our direct political advocacy will become operative.

2. A well-regulated marketplace.
   

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