Oligarchy (ol.i.gar.chy, n,

1. Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.

2. A state governed by a few persons.

This defines the current political system in the United States of America. The representative, federal form of government originally designed and defined by our founding fathers has been transformed. It has disappeared. Its transformation was not accompanied by any significant, universally acknowledged and witnessed event but by a gradual erosion of our original form of government "by the people" as its authority was gradually abrogated by nine unelected people who serve for life - the justices of the Supreme Court.

The Court has, in exchange, given Congress the power to tax and spend with virtually no limits in its findings in United states vs. Butler  in 1936 and then Helvering vs. Davis  in1937. The cumulative effect of these two decisions was to was declare that Congress' power to tax and spend under the clause was "limited to general or national concerns", and that Congress itself could determine when spending constituted spending for the general welfare. To date, no legislation passed by Congress has ever been struck down because it did not serve the "general welfare". Thomas Jefferson wrote "(Congress) are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless." But then, during Franklin Roosevelt's administration, when our government discovered that it was expected to be compassionate in competition with private charitable organizations, the Court, as a defense against the attempted attack on its structure by FDR, ignored this interpretation of the clause by its author thereby removing much of our protection from our own government's rapaciousness and opened the door to the infection of socialism from which we continue to suffer. The Court continues to look the other way (or to offer support) as Congress finds new ways to redistribute wealth and engage in social engineering, clearly areas originally intended to be those from which Congress was excluded.

Note that no amendment of the Constitution was deemed necessary to change the entire social contract between the governed and government. The word of the "few persons" (the members of the new despotic oligarchy) was adequate. We are told repeatedly by these new rulers that the Constitution must be a "living document". Of course it must be! It always has been! It contains within its body the directions needed to keep it "current". Of course, "the few" cannot be bothered by such an impediment to their overarching power. They have come to rely on the "substantive due process" doctrine whereby they have taken upon themselves the ultimate authority to judge almost any dispute and to decide on its resolution without anyone having any recourse from their decision.

Thomas Jefferson was vehemently opposed to this practice. He wrote "You seem ... to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves." [The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Jarvis (September 28, 1820)].

Clearly, we live today in an oligarchy in the United States in which nine unelected life-time residents of the Supreme Court are free to make determinations of policy and morality (properly belonging to our elected representatives) by reading views into the Constitution that are nowhere implied in that document and are, in fact, clearly contradictory to the documented intentions of its framers and ratifiers. There has been some backlash against this situation. The California state constitution can be amended by majority vote in referenda on state ballots. The entire concept of a deliberative democratic republic form of government, shown to be unworkable in the face of the oligarchy of the judiciary, has been replaced by a simple democracy wherein majority rule can, in fact, lead to tyranny of that majority "unencumbered" by the rationality of a deliberative representative body.

Neither an oligarchy nor purely democratic form of government has ever been shown to be best for the governed. With all its flaws the democratic republic designed by our founders was far better than either. It can be regained but not without a great deal of struggle and a return to the fundamental principles of tolerance and learning required of its governed. In my opinion, it will never be restored because the leadership needed to initiate and sustain such a struggle will never emerge again.

Note: George Will has written on the underlying cause of the continued degradation of the judiciary. (click here)