Big Tent Revue points to an old article in Dissent which challanges this idea, or at least points out the the country's founders were far more complex politicaly than we give them credit for. They did all seem to believe that disparities in wealth were a big problem and limiting the size of the national government was a way for the wealthy to ensure that any compeition from below was stiffled. The purpose of limiting government was to enhance equality. Things have changed since then.
From Bid Tent Review:
A fascinating and revealing article from an old Dissent about the redistributive dimensions of early Jeffersonian thought. The founding fathers are often portrayed, particularly by rightists, as devoutly laissez-faire. In reality, they seemed to divide up between conservative Hamiltonian corporatists and radical Jeffersonian egalitarians, the former urging government collusion with commercialists and the latter urging some form of leveling to the advantage of small holders and craftsmen. From the start, the only place where laissez-faire prevailed was at the federal level; states and localities had broad powers to police morals and markets. And even at the federal level, “hands off” inherently meant favoring some against others.
“Wealth, like suffrage,” Taylor wrote in his Inquiry Into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States, “must be considerably distributed, to sustain a democratick republic; and hence, whatever draws a considerable proportion of either into a few hands, will destroy it. As power follows wealth, the majority must have wealth or lose power.”
From Dissent:
If the welfare state means progressive taxation, social spending to strengthen the middle class and elevate the poor, and the regulation of corporate power, it does not offend Jeffersonian principles. What offends Jeffersonian principles is a government that “fortifies the conspiracies” of the rich and powerful (as Philadelphia republican George Logan put it in 1792), leaving ordinary people without protection from their strategies and combinations and their public disregard. By that standard, we have reached a new low point of Jeffersonian liberty. In Jefferson’s name, the government has promoted inequality, not restrained it. It has punished poor communities, weakened the middle class, and created a new ruling class that makes our old Loyalist enemies seem moderate and unjustly maligned. The people responsible for this certainly do have a philosophy of limited government. But their limited government is the Gilded Age version, a doctrine of elite self-defense. It is not the early American version, where the beginning of freedom is equality of productive resources, and limiting government is necessary to prevent that equality from being destroyed by wealthy elites.
In 2301, as we begin to discuss public opinion, we need to determine why our attitudes about history changes from time to time. The Diissent article makes a provocative claim the supporters of limits government have distorted what the founders actually thought about the role of government and the need for more equal distribution of wealth.
