"Is it the aim of government simply to maintain order, as a referee, between two equally matched fighters? Or is it that government has some special interest in maintaining a certain kind of order, a certain distribution of power and wealth, a distribution in which government officials are not neutral referees but participants? In that case, the disorder they might worry about is the disorder of popular rebellion against those monopolizing the society's wealth. This interpretation makes sense when one looks at the economic interests, the social backgrounds, of the makers of the Constitution."

-A People's History, Howard Zinn

"Wasn't it the nature of representative government, even when most broadly based, to be conservative, to prevent tumultuous change?"

-A People's History, Howard Zinn

"The rich must, in their own interest, either control the government directly or control the laws by which government operates.

Beard studied the economic backgrounds and political ideas of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up the Constitution. He found that a majority of them were lawyers by profession, that most of them were men of wealth, in land, slaves, manufacturing, or shipping, that half of the had money loaned out at interest, and that forty of the fifty-five held government bonds, according to the records of the Treasury Department.

Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slaveowners needed federal security against slave revolts and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds.

Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property. And so the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups."

-A People's History, Howard Zinn

War benefits the rich, not poor

"Revolutionary America may have been a middle-class society, happier and more prosperous than any other in its time, but it contained a large and growing number of fairly poor people, and many of them did much of the actual fighting and suffering between 1775 and 1783: A very old story.

The Military conflict itself diminished other issues, made people choose sides in the one contest that was publicly important, forced people onto the side of the Revolution whose interest in Independence was not at all obvious. Ruling elites seem to have learned through the generations - consciously or not - that war makes them more secure against internal trouble.

 The force of military preparation had a way of pushing neutral people into line. In Connecticut, a law was passed requiring military service of all males between sixteen and sixty, omitting certain government officials, ministers, Yale students and faculty, Negroes, Indians, and mulattos. Someone called to duty could provide a substitue or get out of it by paying 5 pounds."

-A People's History, Howard Zinn

"In 1700s, someone wrote to the New York Gazette, 'Is it equitable that 99 should suffer for the extravagance or grandeur of one, especially when it is considered that men frequently owe their wealth to the impoverishment of their neighbors?'"

-A People's History, Howard Zinn

1% vs 99% in 1700s

"The colonies grew fast in the 700s. Through all that growth, the upper class was getting most of the benefits and monopolized political power. The top 1% of the population consisted of 50 rich individuals who had 25% of the wealth. By 1770, the top 1% of property owners owned 44% of the wealth.

In the middle 1700s, colonial New England found that vagabonds and paupers kept increasing. There was a concentration of wealth,  widening of the gap between rich and poor. The colonies, it seems, were societies of contending classes.

The country therefore was not "born free" but born slave and free, servant and master, tenant and landlord, poor and rich."

-A People's History, Howard Zinn

"Was all this bloodshed and deceit- from Columbus to Cortes, Pizarro, the Puritans - a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization? Was Morison right in burying the story of genocide inside a more important story of human progress? Perhaps a persuasive argument can be made - as it was made by Stalin when he killed peasants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima. But how can the judgment be made if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are either unmentioned or mentioned quickly?

The quick disposal might be acceptable ("Unfortunate, yes, but it had to be done.") to the middle and upper class of the conquering and "advanced" countries. But is it acceptable to the poor of Asia, Africa, Latin America, or to the prisoners in Soviet labor camps, or the blacks in urban ghettos, or the Indians on reservations - to the victims of that progress which benefits a privileged minority in the world?

If there are necessary sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves? We can all decide to give up something of ours, but do we have the right to throw into the pire the children of others, or even our own children, for a progress which is not nearly as clear or present as sickness or health, life or death?"

-A People's History, Howard Zinn