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Who Still Owns America?
The legacy of Jeffersonian Democracy is still radical today.
Jeffersonian democracy is characterized by an agrarian economy made up of small property owners; a decentralized government that derives its strength from the community; and individual responsibility for the environment. These tenants of Jeffersonian democracy continue to resonate among Americans who stand opposed to corporate agriculture, the ever expanding hegemony of the federal government, and the loss of small town values that seem to have vanished along with rural American life.
An interesting book that looks at the role Jeffersonian democracy has in our own country is called Who Owns America? A New Declaration of Independence The book, edited by Herbert Agar and Allen Tate, revisits the political theory first laid out by Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers of our country.
American Capitalism in Crisis
In 1936, the year Who Owns America? was published, American capitalism was in crisis. Our country was in the midst of an economic depression and everyone questioned America’s ability to maintain its political, economic and social system.
The Great Depression presented American government with its greatest challenge since the Civil War and nearly everyone thought that radical reform was not only necessary…
