"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition"
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Dependence is not just a private condition but a political danger. When people must rely on patrons, employers, creditors, or the state for their livelihood, they are pressured to obey and to bargain away principle. Subservience follows from the fear of losing support; venality arises when favors become currency and conscience becomes a negotiable asset. The early stirrings of moral character, the germ of virtue, wither when rewards and punishments are controlled by others. Such a climate produces citizens who can be manipulated, ready-made instruments for the designs of ambition, whether that ambition belongs to a demagogue, a faction, or a centralized authority.
This warning grows out of Jeffersons republican ideal of an independent citizenry. He prized economic self-reliance because it supports political independence. In his reflections on society and government, he contrasted the freeholder farmer, who can say no to corrupt power, with those enmeshed in systems of debt, patronage, or wage dependence that make resistance costly. He distrusted standing armies for similar reasons: soldiers dependent on pay and promotion could become tools of an ambitious executive. He worried that public debt and financial monopolies would create networks of obligation that corrode civic virtue and make the public sphere a marketplace of favors.
The argument also frames his skepticism toward concentrated manufacturing in his era. Large factories gathered laborers into relationships of dependence that, he feared, would weaken the habits of self-governance. Widespread property ownership, local civic participation, and education were for him the antidotes, distributing power and reducing the leverage of would-be rulers over vulnerable lives.
There is a stark irony: Jefferson himself lived with and benefited from the ultimate form of coerced dependence, slavery, which reveals the limits and contradictions in his practice. Yet the core insight retains force. A republic that cultivates independence in its citizens protects their capacity for virtue; one that tolerates pervasive dependence invites corruption and readies the path for ambitious power to take hold.
This warning grows out of Jeffersons republican ideal of an independent citizenry. He prized economic self-reliance because it supports political independence. In his reflections on society and government, he contrasted the freeholder farmer, who can say no to corrupt power, with those enmeshed in systems of debt, patronage, or wage dependence that make resistance costly. He distrusted standing armies for similar reasons: soldiers dependent on pay and promotion could become tools of an ambitious executive. He worried that public debt and financial monopolies would create networks of obligation that corrode civic virtue and make the public sphere a marketplace of favors.
The argument also frames his skepticism toward concentrated manufacturing in his era. Large factories gathered laborers into relationships of dependence that, he feared, would weaken the habits of self-governance. Widespread property ownership, local civic participation, and education were for him the antidotes, distributing power and reducing the leverage of would-be rulers over vulnerable lives.
There is a stark irony: Jefferson himself lived with and benefited from the ultimate form of coerced dependence, slavery, which reveals the limits and contradictions in his practice. Yet the core insight retains force. A republic that cultivates independence in its citizens protects their capacity for virtue; one that tolerates pervasive dependence invites corruption and readies the path for ambitious power to take hold.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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