America as an act of disobedience

CEI’s annual Julian L. Simon Memorial Award Dinner is on September 23. The theme is American Treasures. This post celebrates one of the most precious of those treasures: America’s rebellious spirit.

Americans are a disobedient lot. We live our own lives in our own way, and we stand up to anyone who would stop us. The American Revolution was a way of saying “no” to one of the world’s most powerful kings. The blood and treasure lost in the fight were a way of saying, “and we mean it.” That disobedient spirit also shows in Americans’ openness to entrepreneurship and innovation.

The Revolution inspired a Constitution that is structured so that, at least in theory, no one person ever gains too much authority. Think of it as limiting authority ahead of time. Rather than a king who rules a nation, the Constitution creates a president, who presides (hence the name) over one branch of a three-branch government. Each of those three branches is in turn checked and balanced by the others.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are the most disobedient of all. They say, respectively, that individuals have vast unenumerated rights, not just the ones enumerated in the Constitution, and that the enumerated powers the Constitution gives to the federal government are the only powers it gives to the federal government. All other powers “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Areas where the Constitution fell short, such as keeping slavery legal, eventually required their own costly acts of disobedience to make right. Later battles, like those for women’s rights, racial equality, and gay and transgender rights, have been less violent but every bit as disobedient, and every bit as American. Long may they continue.

America’s free enterprise economic system is the most disobedient part of all, because it makes other acts of defiance possible. In 1800, roughly 90 percent of Americans were farmers. Farming was so unproductive that nearly everyone had to farm to stay fed. If you were born on a farm, you probably died on one, too, whether you wanted to or not.

Today, only about 1.5 percent of America’s workforce is in agriculture, yet we are net exporters of food. That amazing productivity is due to market-tested innovations. Regular people with ideas and initiative freed hundreds of millions of people to live their own lives in their own way, even if their elders disapproved.

Rising incomes made it possible for parents to free their children from working on farms or in factories, and to send them to school instead, where they could gain the tools to shape their own futures and live different lives from their parents if they wanted to.

Later inventions such as electricity, dishwashers, and clothes washing machines made it possible for women to make more of their own life choices, even when the men around them didn’t approve.

The automobile opened up new job opportunities for workers beyond walking distance. This new competition forced employers to offer workers better wages and benefits, shorter hours, and safer working conditions.

Americans are also free to create their own businesses and become their own masters. Every act of entrepreneurship is an act of disobedience. Every entrepreneur looks out at the world and sees something they can do better. Then they go out and do it, even when nobody believes in them.

Every new invention is an act of defiance against the past. Yes, I know things have always been done this way, the inventor says. But I have created something better. Try it and see.

Much of American culture is based on disobedience, and not just in its safer forms like rock, hip-hop, or movies and television shows that mock and question social norms. One of art’s highest callings is to get people to question authority.

Our generation’s job, like that of every generation, is to stay loyal to this legacy of disobedience. When presidents give themselves more power, it is our duty as Americans to push back. If regulators try to block peaceful adults from dealing with each other, our duty is to block the regulators instead. If the way things have always been done isn’t good enough, it is our duty to find a better way and act on it.

Our disobedient streak has made America one of the freest and richest countries on Earth. Long may we continue honoring America’s tradition by defying convention.