Although Jefferson and older Republican at heart tried to establish his empire of liberty the corrupting nature of power ensured the survival of federalist cronyism Patrick Newman Joining me on this episode of liberty versus power is the man himself Patrick Newman and We're still going through cronyism Liberty versus power in America 1607 1849 and we are now going into You know our last episode we just saw the triumphs of the Republicans of Thomas Jefferson and they now have the the reigns of the ship Which brings in a new cast of characters some of which we've touched on in the past But I think this is interesting right? This is a peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another And really again, we're seeing a ideological shift here a rejection of the public to the attempt to kind of Cultivate old european style governance in the the new republic and and you know a desire for something fresh Can you just kind of help set the stage here? Um, you know with with what was Jefferson heriting when he took the office in 18? Oh, yeah, so it's it's important to understand that Jefferson In his what is Jeff what Jefferson the republican party really was it was sort of this? combination of The old anti federalists who still wanted to participate in the government in in in government in government But they didn't know exactly how to do so Radical moderates, so these are these limited government advocates who ended up supporting the constitution during the ratification debates thomas jefferson is a Was a notable example In some disgruntled ex federalists led by james madison who just weren't happy that the federalists weren't exacting Enacting excuse me their preferred a form of cronyism So jefferson is really the the the standard bearer of this new party The republican party it's designed to fight the federalist cronyism stop Hamiltonian big government spending central banking terror of subsidies the growing militarism etc in And then the federalist party did not to cut you off there But it's a point also to because emphasize the degree to which this entrenched federalist party Was fighting kicking and screaming? against this how do you touch on there's a A proposed quasi coup dear the adams administration years right like where we're Hamilton's trying to inspire to kind of let To use the the the force of the administrative state to override A democratic whims you have attempts to to Take over the election system and states are hostile to the federalists right? I mean this is a regime that is is trying to do everything they can to to stop this coalition of variety of of interests Opposing their their claim to right right no they yeah, this is something I talked about a lot in chapter six is that This is one of the reasons I Mentioned I think at the beginning when we were doing this We were starting this this podcast You know talking about my overall book is I call it cronyism And not just crony capitalism because there is a lot of political cronyism where politicians are looking to sort of hurt their competitors People who are also running for elections etc who could take away votes and reduce power by supporting all sorts of policies That that are benefiting themselves and the federalists We're we're we're we're going down fighting. They were not going to just simply You know let the republicans run roughshod over them Nor would they were did they really want them to Win the election they were going to take a lot of things that sometimes bordered on You know does this blatant illegal nature Hamilton At one point after the new york elections around this time had swung to the republicans So the republicans would be able to according to new york law the state legislatures would be able to choose the electors basically ensuring that the new york delegation would go for the The republicans Hamilton wanted john j to call a special session of of of the legislature in order to basically retroactively change the rules And this is something john j He didn't even respond. It was it was too much for him who was who was pretty much a reactionary And most people are we would agree even Even big hamiltonians would say that was probably not his best moment so to speak when he's sort of blatantly engaging in like chicanery You know to to to to keep the election going for the federalists. You also have to understand 1800 and really 1801 when the republics come to power that was the first true peaceful transfer of power between political parties like in in history It was really the most you know in modern history the The did them, you know This is something that had not happened before because what often happened is that when push comes to shove with an election the existing party in power Uh, it was just as all right. We're just going to stay in power like tough We got the guns like there's nothing you can do about it and this could have been a very bad Left turn for the united states where the federalists blatantly hold on to power or something It got very close to that but they did not Jefferson he He's he's elected the electoral college well He it was it was basically congress at this point He has chosen president And he he ushers in what was seen to be a jeffersonian revolution The the government is going to go back sort of closer to the articles confederation There's going to be this big push towards decentralization. It's just a new time This is best seen in the fact that this is now The capital moves from philadelphia this hustling bustling metropolis to this sleepy backwater the federal city that there's really not much going on there and It jefferson's inauguration seems to go pretty well and well This is now going to be this time for the limited government et cetera the anti-federalists who Excuse me the the former anti-federalists who wanted jefferson to return to the articles They were known as the old republicans. They had high expectations high hopes for jefferson Unfortunately, their hopes Became quickly dashed Well, and you highlight kind of jefferson has his immediate pivot towards moderation And this becomes very key with uh several the appointments He makes at different positions not only in within his own cabinet, but in foreign policy positions when people Like uh, you know families like levison and and peck a peckney that benefited from some of these corrupt deals that we mentioned last episode Um, you know, so he's immediately trying to to build on this sort of broad coalition Which you know with with a few exceptions the the old republicans kind of get the the shaft here Though there is one big exception to this Um, which is albert gallatin who we mentioned last episode for being a pennsylvania leader Prior to the the uprising with the the whiskey rebellion there but gallatin and in many ways is Not with the the same sort of of degree of influence Necessarily as a hamilton but kind of it is hamilton's treasurer is as hamilton's uh, sorry, is jefferson's Uh treasurer is his his kind of right-hand man a lot of the economic issues Uh dealing with again a lot of his cronious policies that he's trying to reverse. Yes So what happens is the republican so one of the main Parts of my book that this liberty versus power Theory, you know, this is that cronyism is explained by the the battle between the forces of liberty and power So according to theory that when power is in control of the government So just hamilton and the federalists etc cronyism goes up and we see this very clearly in the 1790s Uh, they're able to pass federalists are able to pass various crony policies related to finances related to military etc and then The forces of liberty win in the revolution of 1800 jefferson and the republican party They take control and so you would expect cronism to decline now that you have People who are supportive of big government. They are against cronies of being controlled the government Unfortunately as the liberty versus power theory teaches us that this is only partially true Especially really just initially and this is because power corrupts. So when you're in control of the government, you now have Power right in the government. And so that power the ability to pass government intervention Corrupts or increases the tendency of the libertarian politicians to pursue their own forms of cronies, right? And so they start to moderate They say well what we said in the campaign was we wanted to totally get rid of the bank of the united states Well, we don't actually mean that we just want to maybe downsize our involvement in a little bit Or just put the right people in charge. Oh when we said we were going to get rid of the judiciary act of 1801 Well, we didn't really mean that maybe we just wanted to ensure some good republican judges are in there So on and so forth, right? And this is because the forces of liberty. They got to look ahead to the next election They want to expand their coalition, etc Jefferson was particularly susceptible to the last issue Jefferson was sort of the quintessential moderate He was great in rhetoric and great in ideology If you got him to write something and he wrote plenty of hardcore documents in the 1780s in the 1790s, right? And of course the Declaration of Independence I mean, he was fantastic when he was in charge of governing things. He did not always Follow through and so Jefferson He wanted to bring federalists into the party. He just wanted to have one party Keep everyone happy this big republican party. It would be great. And so he wanted to bring federalists into the fold He wanted everyone to shake, you know shake hands and and and hug and etc And then well, just with the right people in charge the constitution and Congress and the presidency, etc. It could have a relatively You know limited government Perspective but Jefferson he does moderate early on he doesn't really appoint many old republicans through relevant positions The only one is Albert Gallatin who in many ways was a moderate in other in other areas And instead he goes with the the ex-federalist and this is best seen in the fact that his secretary of state is the most notorious ex-federalist And that's james madison and I think it's interesting because you know in contrast, however You know as Hamilton as as jefferson is not necessarily doing sort of like the full drain to swamp, right? He only removes I think you know, I think a fourth of a lot of the federalists appointees and things like that You know one of the first big battles is Over the federalist refusing to leave, right? It's over the judiciary. It's over last second midnight appointments and things like that and and you mentioned this is The the degree to which the federalists cling to power almost it even insults Jeffers like it's almost a a counterproductive measure there just how over the top they try to do to maintain their power but one of the early Problems though and I think this this is just something that hits, you know throughout your your chapters here on on the on jefferson Is that it again not going far enough? The republicans are able to repeal the judiciary act of 1801 Which is kind of a saving great, you know gets rid of some of the most vulgar judicial appointments But they do not get it rid of the 1789 judicial act And so again what you have effectively created is that while hamiltonians have been removed from office Uh in the legislature and in the white house We now have the thern reign of government Uh, which is the judicial system that is flexing its muscles It is imposing itself on this new old republican ish regime And here you have the federalist power maintaining to have relevancy through the the supreme court of john marshal Who who yes has the famous quote that compared to hamilton. He has a mere a candle beside the sun at noonday He is very much Uh driven by restoring the sort of Hamiltonian view of government And here you have a jeffersonia administration That seems for almost the get-go on top of their own direct appointees in the administration itself Um is is weak to start off with It does not make the necessary victories needed on the judicial front That that ends up playing a major role and not only issues for for jefferson down the road But really kind of cements Uh a a a political system that we're still dealing with the ramifications now with the degree to which courts have so much more power Than any other office out there in many many ways Yeah, absolutely. You made fantastic points and this is something that really goes. Um, I don't think it's it's a properly appreciated But the jiu-jitsu a lot of cronyism in united states history It was basically protected or even caused by the judiciary The judiciary is not a minor partner in cronyism, right? It in many ways Uh reinforces it strengthens cronyism of various laws It empowers The executive and congress to do certain things etc. And this is why so many anti federalists Both when the act was passed and even subsequently they were against the judiciary act of 1789 Which really created the supreme court and the system of um inferior courts A lot of people might not necessarily know this but there's nothing in the constitution that says You know that that describes the supreme court really in any sort of detail per se It just says congress has the ability to create a court much like there's nothing in the constitution that says The president, you know, the the president has um you can have these executive cabinets of x y and z It just says the the president has the power to appoint the heads of executive cabinets that congress creates It's sort of vague and it's wrapped up You know, it's wrapped up in in in there It's it takes time to unwind sort of like I guess an accordion might be a good a good way of describing this so The federalists after the election of 1800 they lose the executive they lose the legislator, but they still have to do judiciary Adams had appointed um John marshall to be chief justice who is john marshall a lot of people don't really know this but this is one of These interesting facts that I think is extremely important is that john marshall's younger brother James marshall had married the daughter of robert morris one of the wealthiest men at the time Huge land speculator. John marshall had worked with robert morris on various land deals So on and so forth in like a lot of biographies They just sort of like casually mention this is the as if it's not important when I read this i'm like Wait a second. That's this is huge. This is like Spent a lot more time talking about this and less about you know other sorts of early You know, but you know random facts from his early life a etc And so john marshall starts to engage in what's known as judicial review Which is that the supreme court will start to review um the constitutionality or the uncut constitutionality of various legislation And he's doing this to basically protect Prior federalist cronyism a lot of federalists were afraid that now that the republicans control They were going to repeal the bank of the united states. They were going to maybe default or even repudiate part of the national debt Uh, you know downsize the military repeal various laws like the judiciary act of 1801 So on and so forth in that john marshall now wants to use the supreme court as kind of like a sniping tower So he could strike down could stop all of these Uh reform movements dead in its track by basically saying oh you can't do that. That's unconstitutional and it's really you you you mentioned this I think it's important It's a great way It's a great example of how the swamp so to speak kind of like defense It's sort of like a turtle, you know the turtle goes in the shell and then it's like this rock You know, it's this impenetrable edifice right because then the the judiciary they sort of act and and and and they they they try to prevent the republicans from from weakening the government, but They they they they extended their their their reach too much and they were the republicans were able to repeal the judiciary act of 1801 Unfortunately, they didn't go farther as you mentioned by repealing the judiciary act of 1789 Or really jeffson even really appointing hardcore strict constructionists to the supreme court And that really just kind of sets the stage for later Examples of moderation and failure because you're you're only getting rid of some of the government So then the next time the government's going to increase further and cronyism will follow through and and then you know You're now you're you're five steps back as opposed to two steps back so the judiciary not taking the judiciary head on and this is something that Uh happened during jefferson's years as well as later years This is a really big problem that impacted the future of special interest legislation in the united states And and with one defense of jefferson on this point He there there is some attempt to do to do some of this. Um, there's an impeachment trial over samuel chase who is the supreme court justice um, I know some divisions there between jefferson and burr end up Causing some schisms there that ends up leading to burr leaving the Uh Administration in the second term But there is an attempt to at least try to impeach some justices just that that measure fails And then jefferson kind of responds to it by just continuing to pivot in the middle. Oh, absolutely And this is the the impeachment is it's sort of an ingenious way of dealing with the problem Uh, we're basically well, we can't get rid of we we can't just get rid of these because you know the the these judges Uh, so we're going to indirectly try and do so by impeaching them At least trying to exercise the rotation in office through this way because they're choosing that to do it through more direct ways But it it it there there's resistance to this it it only Goes so far and then so the whole thing just kind of dies in its tracks and that john marshall is is sort of uh scots He's protected in the supreme court And this is a this is a big issue ross bard had mentioned this that a big problem the supreme court Is it's an elite group of people who have lifetime tenure and they're very insulated From political control. So they're insulated from rotation and this is just It it it really does affect the the the future of the supreme court because the supreme court early on During the years of john marshall. It wasn't really used so much in the 17 90s This is because hamilton was always there to provide some sort of constitutional guidance In cases had to be actually heard in the the system of lower courts before the supreme court could hear them etc But the supreme court under the marshall era Took basically a very big government pro cronyism stance and this this was really Cataclysmic for the the the future of reform Okay, so moving away from the the weaknesses and some of the appointees and the supreme court measurements Um, let's go to where it's kind of kind of the good stuff here and and that is you know, even though not necessarily a strongest top-to-bottom Albert gallatin as treasury secretary He is assisted with other old republicans such as john randolph and a nathaniel makin who I believe jefferson called the last of the romans kind of just referring to this very True republican virtue aspect of public service Um, gallatin is again the the republican sort of of of you know, opposition of the hamiltonian Uh, uh framework. He has his own he writes a sketch of the finances of the united states, which is kind of a very, uh In-depth dive into public, you know public economy from an old republican standpoint they're they're the focus on repealing internal taxes on cutting spending on You know, not necessarily the outright abolition of the bank of the united states, but changes here There are some very significant policy gains made from This perspective influenced by adam smith Within the mold of the secretary albert gallatin. Yeah, absolutely. And so However much I criticized the jefferson administration. I call it failed a lot of that criticism is especially especially relates to the The second administration the first administration there were some crucial moderations the libera louisiana purchase had a lot of problems Um overall though, I mean he was fairly successful, you know libertarians, you know beggars can't be choosers so to speak So, you know when there are being steps used to reduce the size of the government to cut down taxes the cut military spending etc I mean that that's very good. So the jeff the first administration overall my book You know get gets gets about an a Gallatin was the one bright spot You know in jefferson's cabinet, right? He was the secretary of the treasury. I don't agree with everything he did He was pro bank of the united states Which led to some issues, but he was very frugal He was very influenced by adam smith So he he he was appreciative of free markets He was against sort of hamiltonian mercantilism etc and Through uh, yeah through the individuals you've mentioned guys like john randolph and uh, nathan, you'll make it in congress They were able to reform the government in certain respects get rid of the the whiskey tax Right, which led to a huge decline in the number of treasury officials in the government So it was sort of a quasi permanent reform. They were able to downsize Parts of the military. Okay, there were some issues with the navy and that had to deal with the barberry pirates But gallatin wasn't behind that that was jefferson's fault They did continue to sell off stock in the the government's ownership of the bank of the united states Which sort of privatized the institution a little bit. Uh, these are all important reforms They deserve to be mentioned and really the main credit for them should go to albert gallatin as as you discussed Yeah, just some figures here, um, that you mentioned You know when they take over in 1800 internal taxes make up about seven percent of government revenue by the time that we're looking at that second administration in 1804 They make up less than one The bureaucracy in 1801 is larger than it is in 1826 By several hundred staffers. So again, there really is this significant You know that there is there is the swamp is drained to a certain extent And I think this is interesting. Is all you know within some of the intellectual conversations particularly on the right right now there is a Holding up and champion of hamilton as sort of the embodiment of the early american greatness And but but yet if you recognize just how kind of how you know It went on too long right from our perspective, right? But you know, it was three administrations and hamiltoni or three three terms and the hamilton policies were so unpopular So destabilizing that we had this people's revolution in 1800. It really is If you're looking for a common good political economy, right it the focus on Reducing public corruption and the impact that these these state privileges have not simply on sort of You know Spreadsheet sort of numb, you know, that's just some of that like the cost of of corruption here and there But genuinely the the impact of this You know of a small government economic system on the virtue of their society I think is something where again like the the the gallatin system The impact here that the successes of this first Jefferson administration if we are looking at, you know, what is the core of economic american exceptionalism from a Political economic lens. I think these are the years that we should be looking upon Again, you're touching on is some of these accomplishments that we very we did see play out. Yeah, absolutely And the those are all very important issues. I think they are related to When I mentioned that jefferson, it's it's it'd be remiss to it's to neglect his Empire of liberty concept. This is something I refer to in my own and I for I refer to in cronyism And it's very important because which jefferson wanted sort of his ideal society is that well the you the the landmass of north america Would be governed by These the system of sort of these decentralized confederacies He thought the pacific coast would be a totally separate government He wasn't really concerned if there was one government, you know, or just multiple confederacies and they'd be linked Sort of by common cultural norms and language, etc. So you would have sort of this system of limited government English societies that were insulated from all the problems of the old Order in europe be from the atlantic ocean And of course, that's not like an anarcho capitalist society, but I'd like to live in that that'd be pretty cool I'll take that any day of the week and You know, he wasn't able to get there, but this is something that really animated a lot of republicans at this time was this is Hey, um You know, let's create the you know, we want to return To this system of limited government. We don't want this massive empire. That's going to lead you a lot of problems And I think it's a very important remark It's entirely justified because a lot of times especially When we're looking back at american history We sort of think that it's pre-ordained That the united states had to become the size that it was supposed to be that we just have in our mind All right, we've got the continental united states from the atlantic to the pacific and then there's this weird ice box Known as alaska and there's a little island in hawai It's like any sort of deviation from that would be like this terrible calamity that You know must be stopped at you know at all costs and reality The modern united states only came about through a series of very unique Circumstances a lot of it related to cronism and conquest in that The modern united states turned into the empire of power not the empire of liberty Jefferson had longed for Uh before he became president Well, and this guy kind of I think we're got touched on with our next episode on sort of the uh The fall of the jeffersonian revolution, but it is interesting I mean one of the attempts made to create a a a Parallel republic What was from uh erin burr? jefferson's first vice presidential Vice president who tries to Motivate american troops And military members including injue jackson a few others to to move against spanish controlled new orleans And take over prior to the louisiana Around the same time of louisiana purchase. So it is interesting jefferson in theory versus jefferson practice not always on the same page Unfortunately, I think in particularly in ways that we're going to dive into further on the next episode Um, but but since we're this this all kind of has a little bit of a defense aspect in it as well Just one other point about gallatin that you you highlight that I think is really interesting Is that a greed of which he also had an understanding of the military industrial complex Yeah, in an early sense, um where he he warns about the the way which defense spending creates a vested interest group Uh and and obviously when we're seeing a rise You know, we have uh, not only at the end of the adams administration Do we have the tensions between france and england? But as you mentioned briefly earlier, um, you have the barbary pile of pirates hassling american ships Fueling a military response, which you highlight navy secretary robert smith who had a background in the shipping industry in particular may have had a role and and really fattening the the physical response to The the the triple a war and perhaps an example right there in practice of gallatin's concerns about vested interest groups in foreign policy Yeah, absolutely So there was this issue with the the barbary pirates and this is a lot of mainstream historians They say well, this is our the united states had to show its its supremacy on the on on on the world stage You had these clear what might be considered terrorists nowadays Um, or at least of like 10 years ago. They were Kidnapping american pirate american sailors, etc. This is in north africa. This had to be stopped. So, you know, we had to send You know the the navy and in doing so this is our first war We showed that we were a government to be respected with and you know, yeah You got to do all that stuff and well a lot of people they forget that they don't talk about that how people like john adams Uh mentioned that actually they were looking for tribute In that while this tribute may or may not have been just, uh, I mean it was it was unjust. They were basically looking for taxes Um, the the barbary pirates is that it was going to cost less to pay them than to go fight them Right. So from the visit from the fiscal side, it's just well, let's just let's just pay them off basically in that Yeah, you know instead of fighting them, uh, you know that that that was probably the the the the proper response to to do You know to do but jefferson didn't want to do that He wanted he was he was against the barbary pirates from the 1780s An additional thing and this is something I talk about in my book is that he wanted to bring Discruntled federalists into the republican party and what better way of doing that than pleasing Uh, the various naval interests who at the time were basically located in new england And in shipping centers like baltimore and they were overwhelmingly federalist and you look at jefferson's various appointments related to the the trapoly war etc And this is uh, yeah, it's a clear instance of this and that he's supporting this law I mean he's supporting this war partially as a way of pleasing the federalists And of course when you look at america's wars as I do throughout this book and as well as many other scholars have done There's a lot of cronyism that goes into wars that goes into the financing of the wars that goes into Who's going to be the contractors for said war so on and so forth and that this is clear And that there were various vested naval mercantile interests that were benefiting from this This is uh, albert gallatin was against it John randolph was against it. Both of them were against the war. Unfortunately. They couldn't persuade jefferson to back off of sort of His bellicose demands another area where you know if we're looking at uh, I can Battles against cronyism um While again and we mentioned earlier that gallatin has a bit of a soft spot for uh, the bank of the united states Can you touch on a little bit about his specific defenses? Because you know That there was a sort of a narrative out there that if if I understand correctly the bank of the united states sort of played a role in checking excess Uh, paper currency coming out of state chartered banks, right? And so there was sort of a argument That a bank of the united states was was genuinely necessary for helping preserve sound money Rather than inflationist policies Uh, can you touch on that defense before we get into some of the the interesting political backgrounds? There's a lot of fun stuff that's here in the the partisanship of the financial sector Gallatin's own sort of arguments in favor of a federal bank. Yeah, so the gallatin basically Although he was an old republican. He was not as Anti-central banking as other old republicans such as uh, john taylor, etc And that john he was he was he says he's a swiss at heart So he's gotta he's definitely got a little bit of a soft spot for exactly exactly banking. He's not he's not uh He's not he's not full american. I guess, you know, he's got he's got the elements of of europe in him And so he's got the banking that the swiss uh, the swiss bank genes are in him Is that gallatin basically argued that well And this is this is kind of an issue where charter goes a little bit of the flip-flopping because previously gallatin had criticized the bank of the united states lending practices He now he argued that well the bank is actually useful because it can make loans through congress when it was in trouble and the bank's branches Um allowed the government to easily transfer money across the country and and and so on and and that It was it was basically that well in the right hands The central bank could be used the bank of the united states could be used for the benefit of jefferson and the republican party And so jefferson basically sided with the the this argument, right? He said that okay, it this is this is this is okay We'll keep the bank This is a real shock for a lot of jeffersonians such as john randolph and john taylor because jefferson's one of his favorite Things to do was to criticize the bank in the 1790. So this is uh admittedly a Uh stain on gallatin's a great record That he he he thought the bank of the united states could be very useful to the government Um this you know transferring money and making loans to it and that this by by not getting rid of the bank What jefferson basically did is he said the bank was constitutional? Okay, and then that weakened The the the various roadblocks to expansions of government power So not getting rid of the bank during jefferson's Presidency was a big issue. Okay, and they had a long standing ramifications But he does still kind of have this, you know If he uses the words I think that it talks about weakening that a powerful enemy Which sounds very jacksonian and kind of a later later date Um kind of a view of the bank itself But you know while they they do not Abolish the bank they they do do some important things from a kind of the reform sort of standpoint Um as you mentioned earlier, they sold all the all the federal stock in the bank Um, but just by reducing the government debt it made the bank holdings go down But but the republicans really embraced chartering other banks as a way of creating greater competition to the bank in the united states And and so it kind of creates a that sort of mechanism as some sort of check on some of the privileges here Yeah, that's that's a there's a there's a great point in in uh, the the The republicans they weren't great, you know the on on you know going the full hardcore aspect on on banking or how maybe as modern austrians we would like this Part of the reason as I talk about is because adam smith in many other proponents really adam smith who is very influential Otherwise had a pretty free mark You know benefit free market influence on american politicians a weak spot was monetary Was monetary theory and policy without smith even the most hardcore smithians Free market smithians will admit this hamilton was able to use it to his advantage during the bank debates and um The jefferson's or jeffersonians are kind of left a little flat-footed They know how to criticize monetary cronyism don't necessarily know what to replace it with Something that they do end up replacing it with is that at least on the state level They engage in what's really a a def de facto deregulation by just saying all right We're not going to get rid of the chartering system. We're just going to issue a lot more charters Right, which is that if you're if you're making the doctor's license is easier to get then you're really just Deregulating the system, of course. It's not perfect. You still have the licensing system for doctors But if it becomes a lot easier for doctors to get it or at least easier for certain people to get it then it's a deregulation Unfortunately, there are issues with this because The power to charter is still in control of the state legislature so you can play favorites So my book I go through all these these examples in various states on how Uh, you know the the republicans They would they they would talk to talk, but they wouldn't always walk the walk They did, you know issue more charters, etc. But they played favorites because they moderated they realized that if they get bank bankers in the financial groups Supportive of banking on their side, then they are going to vote for them in elections Okay, which is again desire to expand your electoral base. It's a corrupting problem And so on so this is um the the the bank deregulation that goes on the state level is a fascinating Um side story of the the struggle between liberty and power and the the cronyism that results from it Yeah, I think it's interesting the way that you highlight some of these explicitly partisan aspects of this financial system You can I think it's interesting with some of the parallels out there right now on sort of the degree to which Uh, uh, you know the need to create sort of parallel institutions, right the fears of You know, say people on the right having the banking system use them by progressive woke capital or whatever I mean that that really was sort of the the setting here Um, you know, you had erin burr's bank in new york city going up against hamilton's bank and The the attempts of using the legislature to to help benefit one at the expense of others Uh, you know, similar things playing out with explicitly republican banks in pennsylvania Going against explicitly federalist banks in pennsylvania. Again, you really do see the degree to which A partisanship is completely dividing these institutions And and I think it's also important because it's the same sort of thing. It's happening You know within the press, right? You have newspapers effect something I meant to mention earlier is that one of those other signs of Of moderation from jefferson was simply the decision to go with a more moderate republican Newspaper as sort of the newspaper of choice over the most radical You know, again when we're talking about these partisan party systems here in you know, the the 18th century the 19th century These really are parallel tracks rather than sort of this you know, uh politics as sort of theater You know, we're in the 20th century everything, you know, the two parties they disagree in public But there's a lot of agreement behind the scenes here. There really was divides and in separation Of depending upon, you know, where your political loyalty was. Yeah, that's that's that's that's a great point. It's a fantastic illustration of the differences between politics back in the day and politics now where politics It was fiercely competitive in a sense that you took sides You you just really tried to bring out the faithful in elections and whichever side brought out more of its faithful One the election in that one way you would communicate to the faithful was through these Newspapers and as a side note, I love newspapers if you actually look at old newspapers in the 1800s They always had a section it's huge paper They, you know Pages and they always had a section it would take up one page and it was it was sort of collections of all sorts of other little One or two sentence lines from other like-minded newspapers So it was like a collection of tweets You or you could scroll and you would see it's like a lot of newspapers They would just collect various information from other newspapers, etc And so I just always found that is like, oh, well, it was like the my it was like the the twitter of back in the day You know, you'd be updating these, um You know once once a day and so on but yeah having jefferson He he chose to um, he chose me. I think it was the national intelligence Or was his preferred newspaper as opposed to the aurora and this this this was upsetting The national intelligence or basically became As time went on it became sort of the dispokesman for cronyism in the swamp. It would basically support Congress's various special interest legislation and the newspaper saying oh, this is going to benefit the public This is a this is a good thing, etc. And in return congress would grant it The it would give it various lucrative contracts for printing documents. So the actual Publishing house of the newspaper this happened at the state level as well as the federal level This is a really clear example of alliance have thrown an altar, right? And this is like medias corrupt now and it was It was corrupt back then where they would support these policies in return The congress would give them these printing contracts that you know court They would literally be like you get a 40% rate of return, you know, these extremely lucrative printing contracts That you're like, oh, of course, you're gonna go for the bait and yeah, that that that that was that was an issue But you know the the the the jefferson the jeffersonian Era is really it's just a great example of a of a missed opportunity some notable advances were made by gallatin Etc. But during these early years, it was it was really moderation Um, but there was a still a downward trend In cronyism was more instead of being a total hack and slash it was really just kind of a slow whittling away but unfortunately Matters sort of took a turn for the worst really beginning with the louisiana purchase, which is a whole story into itself Yes, and we will be getting on the the louisiana purchase and the corruptions of land From the jeffersonian administration with the next episode But one little Last little anecdote on the banking issue that I just enjoyed because Henry clay is not one of my favorite american Figures, particularly as a jacksonian But I love that here here. We had Henry clay fighting for Rechartering state banks against the bank of the united states because he was personally invested in banks in katucky in maryland And even even though he was otherwise, you know Very hamiltonian a lot of his other economic viewpoints here We had some skin in the game first for some higher stock payments His investments and and you know smaller state banks Trumped his interest in the bank of the united states What which eventually does kind of a term out Later on when George clinton is the vice president that time rules against it But it's again clay trying to get every little last dime he can yeah Oh, yeah, that's that's one thing that was always true about him and and uh, yeah a lot some state banks were against the bank of the united states Not because they were against central banking per se, but just because they wanted those state banks wanted The bank of the united states monopoly on federal deposits They basically wanted more of that cronyism to themselves because if the federal government is storing money at these banks These banks have a lot more money. They can use to make loans so on and so forth. So it's just a great profit Exit profit opportunity. So henry clay Early on in his career. He took an anti Bank of the united states stance. I won't necessarily say central banking, but of course later on um, he becomes a Enthusiastic supporter of the second bank of the united states. So henry clay. He's also not one of my favorite politicians either And so that kind of leaves us here, you know at We're kind of We skipped a little bit ahead on on kind of just resolving the bank topic but we are going to get into uh, the second term of the jefferson administration To to lean heavily from a quote of yours the republicans had laissez faire in their grasp The empire of liberty was on their horizon Unfortunately matters quickly changed in 1803 um I can I I think this stuff is just so fascinating because you know, so much of this stuff continues to ring true regardless of whether it is the political successes of uh, even to a certain extent the I think some of the failings of jefferson What we're true with some of the bourbon democrats after the civil war and them trying to reclaim Build up the democratic party then I'm sure with the old right true with some of the the conservative movement victories 1980s And some of rothbard's critiques on on you know, why the right continued to fail throughout the 20th century It is the the inability to fully appreciate the need to purge the ranks of You know the cronious aspects of the past and to fill these positions With your own people again. It's just so fascinating to see how much true it was during the jeffersonian days um It's going to be interesting to contrast that with some of the jacksonian stuff Which kind of is kind of gonna sell itself as you know It's in its own right a resurrection of the spirit of 1800 and just the parallels from there That we can still learn from today in this sort of stuff. I find fascinating Patrick before we go. Is there any last sort of Pivots here on again when we're talking about the good stuff of the jeffersonian era Any any last little tidbits that you think listeners should know? Um No, I think really we kind of cover the basics. I think the jeffersonians Really, I think just you should know that we'll talk more about this later on in the podcast series just more about the old republicans about men such as john taylor and and uh In john randoff and how they were really sort of hardcore libertarians. They were anti-state They were small government, etc And that they really did try make an effort in the first jefferson administration to Not have the government moderate to push for even more hardcore reforms, etc And they failed In that you know, they they they got the short end of the stick so to speak but really overall First jefferson administration in terms of overall, you know, just presidential administrations It gets it gets high grades. It gets high marks in in in my book But the second jefferson administration, that's that's where the downfall truly begins And that is where we'll leave off here today on the liberty versus power podcast Again, thank you so much for joining if you enjoy this content, please rate review tell your friends Again history is so important to you know, the better we understand the past the better equipped We're going to be to deal with the future until next time. It's been though bishop patrick newman keep listening


But thanks everyone for sticking around for this. My name's Owen. I'm a digital learning manager at Cardiff University. I'm joined by Laura and Matt, my colleagues. We're going to talk about... We've seen a lot of really big external initiatives that are fantastic today, just like the one we've heard about as well. They've got so much scope for really, really impressive change, but we're going to talk about some things a little bit more internal and a small but really important change that we made within our digital education team. I'm going to give a little bit of background about the team and about what this was. Laura's going to talk about what we did and some staff feedback, and then Matt is going to talk about the success factors and our next steps. A little bit of information about us. We're now a central team. Before the pandemic, we were distributed in different academic schools across the university, and there's around 35 of us ranging from learning technology support assistants, learning designers, digital learning managers, learning technology. Anything you can think of that has gone on job description that kind of fits within this sort of team, we've got one of them at least. Laura and Matt and I have previously worked in clinical schools. Before the pandemic, I was a liaison for our biomedical life sciences college, which covers all the clinical schools together. In these roles, we had been exposed to quite a lot of medical content that, to be honest, without any warning at all. My first job at the university was to go out and buy a nice video camera, so that's quite exciting because I turned up a few days later. I was really excited to get to use it. I got sent to the operating theatre with it to film people having surgery, which was somewhat unexpected and somewhat grim, and definitely not something that I had been told about when I was going through the application process for the job. That's fine. This happens when we get jobs. Not everything is in the job description, and that's fine. But in this case, we're not 100% on whether that's okay. Laura and Matt have worked in optometry, so you can imagine the sort of stuff that they've seen, and Laura's most recent role in biosciences includes work on modules about human anatomy and dissection, and again, not really in the job description. Our big central team is also in the process of replacing our VLE, and we have got loads of people to be delivering training sessions and workshops and things like that in disciplines that they're not familiar with. Someone from Music Social Science is now working in medicine or engineering rather than having every single person do one of every single workshop and things. Another big part of our role involves coordinating our support hub, which is an email-based help desk, really, made up of junior members of the team who don't have a lot of experience working in closely with learning content. That's not really part of their role. They're on the edge of the technical education tech side of things. We realised there's quite a good chance of someone who's quite happy working with content in their discipline or sort of generic content is going to end up actually working on something they've not experienced before, and it might be something that makes them quite uncomfortable and that they wouldn't be expecting to work on. Then we realised, actually, that's not just our support team. That's everyone in our 35-person team, and I'm convinced that it's more wide across the university as well. What I mean by content that makes people uncomfortable is it's really easy to imagine in medicine. But the more we reflect on our experience, we realise, actually, it's probably more of an individual thing than a kind of conceptual thing or a disciplined thing. I've given some examples here that are, because it's quite hard to explain them without saying about things that are quite distressing. I've given some examples that you might hear about in the news. You can just extrapolate those if you want to or not. Maybe you're asked to help edit a podcast on end-of-life care or palliative care. That's 99% of the time, that's probably okay. But what if that comes in the week of an anniversary of someone that you know that's passed away? Maybe that's not something you want to be working on then. If we go outside of medicine, what about engineering, working on content that explains what happens to a car when it's in the car crash? Same thing. Looking at journalism, discussing the ethics of printing photos of what happens when small boats capsise. Real example from a university. Law, creating e-learning content for criminal cases that discuss things that maybe you don't want to think about, maybe you don't want to read about. I think that gives examples enough to show that this is a bit more wider than maybe we think. It took us a long time to think of these examples only when some of them actually came up that we realised how widespread this might be. But actually, is this actually important? I think it is. We think it is. But when we asked our team about this to find out what they thought. So you can read the actual information specifically on the slides, but anything in red or pink is something that I consider is something we didn't want to happen. So most of our team, almost all of our responses, indicated they'd encountered content that made them uncomfortable at least once with most of them saying more than once in their careers as digital education professionals either at Cardiff or elsewhere. Almost everyone said they encountered it as part of their role rather than by accident because we didn't want to include things like if somebody walked into a lecture theatre and there's something going on, that's not the same thing. And again, most people said there was no expectation that they made clear to them before they took the role that they would encounter this sort of content and that it wasn't implied either. So when they did encounter it, we asked them if they were able to step away or if they were able to carry on. And most of them, unfortunately, said that they were expected to carry on. There's some quotes on here. Lots of people were saying, oh, we just had to grin and bear it and deal with it just like I had to. And finally, we asked if they'd seen content that they would make other people uncomfortable even if they were okay with it. And as you can see, the majority of people said, yes, at least occasionally, if not more than once. So I'm going to pass over to Laura now to talk about what we did and give you this control and try and clip this. Okay. So I'm going to talk about more about what we actually did to get this project started. So the initial focus for the project, it was around empowering individuals. We wanted people to come away from this feeling empowered and that they felt they could step away from something that they felt uncomfortable with even if it was an anticipatory situation. Now, this isn't a research project. This is about people, but we still had a measure of success and our measure of success was that if one person used this resource in a positive way and it meant that they could step away, then we considered that to be a success. So how do we actually provide this information? So we created a resource and we just wanted it to be direct, compact, simplistic, very practically focused. So we put in steps that people could take to avoid the content and then what to do if that situation arises. And we incorporated accessibility and inclusivity principles and our design as well. So in terms of dissemination, we made this in a Zootie, just an online package. People could access through a browser and bookmark, very quick access and we made it available on our SharePoint pages as well. So people knew where to find it if they needed it. So we've got one of the pages on here just as an example as you can see. It's just text-based, straightforward, bullet points, straight to the points that people could get for the information that they needed.  So what we wanted to do in the first instance is encourage people to say before they go into something, what might I see in this module that could potentially cause me distress, discomfort and make me feel uncomfortable? So that might be based on the name of the module and what school it's come from. It's not always obvious, but take that moment to reflect. But then most critically, it's you can step back from this. You can say, no, step away, tell somebody, tell somebody I do not want to work on this. You don't need to give a reason. There's no need for a disclosure in this. You want to disclose that's completely up to the individual, but they can step away and then if they get to the point where something's made them uncomfortable, this is where you get support for your wellbeing. We also included content on how to ask staff in schools when you're working on projects. If there's something in here that I might see that might cause distress or cause somebody else distress because the closer you are to something in terms of your subject matter, the less you see these things. So sometimes people say, oh, actually, I haven't thought of it like that before. And then they say, actually, yes, there might be something in here. This is what they might find. And then finally, there's guidance for people who've been disclosed to where somebody says, I've been upset and there's just our university resources where wellbeing, where to get help. So it was the actual feedback and the impact. So we focus very much around the usefulness of this and the majority of the team surveyed said that for them on a personal level that they found it useful. So there were a few people who said they didn't find it useful, but this is purely subjective. So there might be people who maybe can look at absolutely anything. There's never going to be an issue. And that's totally fine. That does happen. But what was really positive reassuring is that they all said they thought it was important that we needed to have this even if they felt that it might be important for somebody else. So that level of empathy that somebody else might find this useful. We've got a really nice quote here from one of the team that's saying that you don't always know there's an issue until this is too late. And this is one of the reasons why this is really important. And lastly, we asked if they've made use of the resource and actually six out of the 11 people responded to this question and said, yes. Now coming back to our measure of success, our measure of success was one person. So for us, this is a massively positive outcome that they've known it was there and they've come back and they've used it. So looking on then to more deep diving on impact and say coming back to this confidence and feeling empowered. This is moving towards more of a cultural shift and that's going to talk a bit more later about the team in itself in that respect. So we wanted staff to give us an indication of how confident does this resource make you feel in being able to deal with content and uncomfortable content in the future? And for the most part, most people said yes, it made them feel confident. But then does the existence of the resource make you feel more confident about asking to stop working on something? And the absolute majority again said yes, which is what we wanted to see. We wanted people to come away and say yes, I feel be able to say I do not want to work on this makes me feeling comfortable. And then just at the bottom here we've got another quote from a member of the team who said that this was a revelation because they didn't know that they could step away. They didn't know they could say no and that they would prioritise the work over their own well-being. So for them stepping away from this looking at this resource knowing that they could look after themselves and put themselves first was really crucial. And hand over to Matt. Thanks a lot. Cheers. So I'm going to talk to you a bit about let's move on actually about what we think made it possible for this change to be successful. So the success of this policy we think is built on the existing flexibility in workload management that has been practised since we were brought into a central team in 2020. So as Owen said we have around 35 different digital education professionals in various roles in the DJED team meaning there are enough people to step in to support colleagues when needed. And this established way of working has led to a great deal of trust between team members and we've proven over time that a self-directed support environment works for us. So the eight members in the support hub team so these are the people that pick up queries from across the university. They've shown for two years before we implemented this policy that they can be trusted to engage with queries based on their own availability interests and expertise. They deal with around 5000 queries every year and all are answered within 24 hours without the need for management to step in. So and since introducing this policy that's not changed at all. And then within the wider digital education team school partners can and have been relied upon. They rely on each other to support each other and cover each other in sickness and absence for years. So this isn't an issue. We all know each other really well. We've worked collaboratively on many, many projects together. So these exist in strong relationships. I've made it easier for team members to communicate their preferences and feel supported while making decisions. They're best for them whether that's talking with their line manager or anybody else. And team members who support schools they meet every single week online based on what college they're in. The support hub meets every single week online and everybody in the digital education team meets at least once a month in a whole team meeting where we discuss policies in the university and wherever we're working on. So, you know, we can communicate about these issues in those meetings. So everyone in the team, I think we all have the same values, you know, I think the success of this is rooted in those shared values of empathy, respect and collaboration. So it's not just a talk and wellbeing gesture. And I think Laura has demonstrated that they believe that themselves. So they're seniors team members that have worked in the university for 10, 15 years or more in a variety of different schools and different roles. So there's a broad range of experience when dealing with problematic content in a number of different contexts. And, you know, these senior team members see themselves as mentors, you know, they want to support junior team members and they want to share their expertise. So before the pandemic, there was a central team, but it was much, much smaller. So the majority of our learning technologists back then were based in schools and isolated.  And this meant that they felt as though they had to deal with content that made them feel uncomfortable. They felt as though they didn't have a choice. As there was no one else to step in. So we think that being in this bigger central team with 35 members is, I think it's been the foundation that's allowed this policy to work. So yeah, what are our next steps? So we want, we want to raise awareness with academic and pro program admin teams by being an open and honest with colleagues when we come across potentially problematic content. Just so that they think twice about what they can do in their own practice to warn colleagues. And we'd like to go bigger and gather experiences from outside Cardiff and do some research with other digital education professionals and look at how we can make this something that is embedded as part of our roles potentially. Which is why we're speaking to you today at this conference. So we encourage anybody interested in working with us from other institutions to reach out to us see if we can do some work together. And finally, we want to look to see if this is something that affects professional service staff and other teams within the university, which means having conversations with people and in other roles and speaking at other events and conferences. So that's what we plan on doing. So are there any questions from anybody? Questions? Questions anyone? Thank you. It's really interesting initiative. Can I just ask about your senior leadership support for this? So if you took this to a really extreme scenario where you've got a module going live tomorrow with 100 people on it and you're having to work on material that you find distressing, would a senior leader back you and saying, OK, then that module can't be ready in time? I think so. Yeah. Well, I mean, as part of our senior management team and the digital team, I would back the team to do that. We shouldn't be at that point if we're at these points. So we did think about what are the extreme situations? What if somebody picks up on something because of a value that we don't share and they don't want to work on a piece of content for a value that I don't consider to be something that is appropriate for the university? What if everyone on the team decides there's something they don't want to work on? But actually, these these scenarios are so extreme, so rare that I'd much rather have implemented something that allows the people that have benefited from it to benefit from it now and when we encounter that situation, we'll deal with it then. I'm feeling fairly confident that we'd be OK in that situation to support that individual, though. Thank you. So how's about your students? So is it an initiative that you are planning to extend to your students? Is it something that you would like to address you're worried about? And do you know if your students perhaps have been in a situation where they have seen something like it? When we were looking into this, actually, there's a lot. There's a lot of support for staff and I work with a lot of staff in the NHS. There's a lot of support for NHS staff who are obviously seeing things on a database that is significantly worse than the sort of things we're talking about here in most cases. Students also have a lot of support networks within their discipline. So you wouldn't expect. I wouldn't expect a medical student. They might they might struggle with something they encounter, but there are support networks in place through the people they work with on their placements through their academic teams and this program support teams and the same in other disciplines. That support is there. Is that the reason that actually that we saw? We kind of saw this as a gap where students have got support. Staff have got support, but there's a whole graph of people in the middle who encounter it so rarely that nobody's ever really thought about their support in that area. Oh, it's great. I'd say do you online, right? OK, so and then do you your team with your piece of work and how you support staff? Do you communicate with the people who support students? So this is really early stages for us. That's one of our next steps is to look at where does this go beyond our team because I think that there's going to be professional services teams that are dealing with if I know there are and so by sciences optometry as well. We all know. So it's kind of how do we get that message across without it sounding like here's another thing for academic people to do when they've got a billion other things that are maybe more important in their minds. But actually when we've mentioned it to people they've got you know, I never even thought that I was sending you a link to this picture of this or sending you that it just it just doesn't hasn't quite been people's minds yet. So we're trying to sort of raise that awareness and then look into where we might be able to make some more interventions to kind of help. I was just going to ask so obviously this is going to work in a central team. I can understand that in a you know, a technical support team that is based in a clinical discipline for example. How might how might that work? Or do you think that there is an argument to put information and to trigger warnings into job descriptions? You know, because it's unavoidable. Yeah, and I think it's not when you say trigger one of these is like that. I know I know we all know what we mean. But if the more externally that's our university is talking about trigger one instead of that again. It's just about making it clear in the job description. Actually, this is a clinical school. This is a you are going to be ex you are potentially going to be seeing this and it's just about being open. We'd be open with our students. We'd be open with with staff in our team that we manage about other things. So why not why not be open about this recruitment is notoriously bad with job descriptions that are just kind of a bit random and person specs just to get people into professional services. And yeah, I think we haven't got any answers for spaces that exist at the moment. But going forward we think getting into the job description getting into the the recruitment process so people know what they're getting into is absolutely key. Because then you won't lose people either if they really if they're really upset by it they're going to go and work somewhere else and you've wasted all your recruitment time and all your money as well. So is that I know I've been asked from the questions but do you want to add anything? Yeah, just one for me for that was really interesting and a really good presentation. I just wanted to kind of understand you know when you say don't want to you're not able to deliver something. What do you look at all the alternatives and different ways of doing things? How do you get round? Yeah, so it's not so much and I think that we might not have been very clear about this in 15 minutes but it's not about not delivering something. It's about an individual. So the power of care thing the end of life care is something that's happened to me. I didn't want to work on this bit of work but we've got other people to come in. So I go to someone say look we've got this piece of work that's coming. It's about this. Is there anyone who is quite as happy to sort of go and work for the team and meet the team on that. So it's it's not so much about not delivering pieces of work. It's about swapping out the individual person that might be doing that piece of work with them or potentially taking them out of maybe the more intense sides of it. So standing behind a camera filming what's going on. You can't not look what you have to know what's going on editing that podcast or whatever. But that doesn't mean you can't build the module. It just it's just about taking the intensity away from the situation. Yeah, that was the last question. Great, great, great question. A big round of applause for Alex, as well as the team.