Noam Chomsky on the inherent lacking of the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights

 

Professor Dellinger's words, "the fourth amendment is
[no longer to be] read ... as conferring ... a personal right to be free
of unwarranted searches and seizures, and . . . [when] the justice that
is due [under the amendment] is [no longer] justice to individuals ...
[but is] merely justice to formless groupings of the citizenry ... ." Del-
linger, Of Rights and Remedies: The Constitution as a Sword, 85 HARv.

L. REv. 1532, 1553 (1972) [hereinafter cited as Dellinger].

Thus Madison argued in Federalist No. 51, "The constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other — that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights."

Understanding that the public good and private rights (or property rights) are equated for Madison, and understanding the value which the Framers placed upon economic development, privilege, and the linkage of individual freedom and affluence, we may conclude that one function of elected representatives is to guard the "better people" against the majority when the majority entertains ideas which challenge inequality, privilege, and/or private property.

After all, argued Madison, if there were to be an invasion of private rights, the injury would result "not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents [owners of property], but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument" of a popular majority. Jefferson seemed to share this view when he said that he appreciated the "legal check it [the Bill of Rights] puts into the hands of the judiciary."^ In addition, there was support in the House of Representatives for a Bill of Rights.

Proposals which attempted to make private power accountable, even in limited ways, however, were rejected. Consequently, while we have protection as individuals from the government (in principle but not in practice), the Bill of Rights does not protect us from corporations or from our employers. The point here is that the Bill of Rights is quite consistent with the enhancement of private power intended by the Constitution.

Having established the political supremacy of property owners, the Constitution was then able to authorize the state to encourage economic expansion through the regulation of commerce, the protection of industry, trade, and private property the guarantee of contracts, and the development of a capital market. In other words the state was placed at the service of private elites and made an instrument of private power.

3) The greatest threat io private power (free enterprise, the market system, contracts, production for profit and private ownership of productive property) has primarily been public power(_3. government controlled by common people for the welfare of the common people in the interest of community).  Noam Chomsky has made the point well:

"If segments of the usually irrelevant and apathetic public begin to organize and try to participate in some meaningful fashion in shaping affairs of state, that is not democracy, that is called a crisis of democracy as liberal elites in fact call it and it's a crisis that must be overcome by various means."''

James Madison's understanding (in Federalist No. 10), noted eariier, that the problem confronting the Framers in designing the Constitution was how to "secure... private rights against the danger of... faction, and at the same time... the spirit and form of popular government." The solution arrived at, you will recall, was a design which so fragmented political power that it would be difficult for the majority to "discover their own strength and act in unison with each other."

the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed