Common Sense with Paul Jacob

“Commerce makes the action of arbitrary power over our existence more oppressive than in the past, because, as our speculations are more varied, arbitrary power must multiply itself to reach them. But commerce also makes the action of arbitrary power easier to elude, because it changes the nature of property, which becomes, in virtue of this change, almost impossible to seize.

“Commerce confers a new quality on property, circulation. Without circulation, property is merely a usufruct; political authority can always affect usufruct, because it can prevent its enjoyment; but circulation creates an invisible and invincible obstacle to the actions of social power.

“The effects of commerce extend even further: not only does it emancipate individuals, but, by creating credit, it places authority itself in a position of dependence.”

Benjamin Constant, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns, 1819.

[W]ith the progress of society, government has within its sphere grown more powerful and efficient, this sphere has not been greatly enlarged. But the sphere of individual activity has greatly enlarged, and with the spread of knowledge the individual has become better able to maintain his rights against society, and governments are becoming less and less able to manage him.

Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1886), p. 447.

American life is a powerful solvent. As it stamps the immigrant, almost before he can speak English, with an unmistakable muscular tension, cheery self-confidence and habitual challenge in the voice and eyes, so it seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good-will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.

George Santayana, Character and Opinion in the United States (1920).