Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving celebrations will reflect a poignant quality, a loss of optimism. Many people are more apprehensive than hopeful. We have ridden waves of prosperity whose continuation seems uncertain. Yet, we have much to celebrate. Let’s do so thoughtfully.

Several nations celebrate Thanksgiving, but we have a special appreciation given by our history. Every school child used to learn of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, many of whom died from hardship. Since then we’ve enjoyed unprecedented material progress. This surely is worth celebrating, but not at the expense of civility and integrity.

It’s easy for Gallatin Valley folks to appreciate fall’s amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties. That’s our everyday backdrop. Our unseen features, the institutions that have fostered liberty, civility, and prosperity, also deserve recognition and sincere appreciation. These are great benefits, ones worth acknowledging on Thanksgiving. They flow from our Constitution, the world’s most remarkable framework for ordering society.

I have friends who believe our Constitution was divinely inspired. I can think of no empirical test of this claim, but were I to nominate one document for such attribution, it would be the Constitution. Nothing else comes close. Here’s why it is remarkably innovative and constructive.

America’s founders understood that our lives and wealth are always at risk from two kinds of predators: stationary rulers and marauding thieves and pirates. The Founders self-appointed task was to balance these two forces. First, they created political arrangements sufficiently strong to protect citizens from marauders. Concurrently, they designed institutions to keep stationary bandits in government from extracting wealth from some and transferring it to themselves and their supporters.

Special interests mobilize to do precisely this, employ governmental authority to transfer wealth and opportunities. That’s why they exist, how they’re sustained, and why they are so difficult to eliminate. Consider Chicago and Illinois more generally. Illinois governors from both parties commonly move from the governor’s mansion to prison. This culture of corruption feeds on political allocations.

The Founders’ key insights produced legal arrangements that made it more productive to create wealth than to transfer it via either government or simple theft. Traditionally, under our Constitution wealth creation trumped predation. We should give thanks if this again becomes true.

Our Founders understood that most governments work as engines of plunder. And rulers knew that unauthorized violence squanders wealth. Hence, kings, princes, and dictators claimed monopoly on legitimate force. The Founders understood this and designed our constitution to keep governors from abusing the power required to preserve order and protect property. They solved, for a while, these two central problems of political economy.

Alas, wealth and political power are never randomly related; over the long run they converge. Powerful interests try to rig the game. We see this process highlighted as presidential candidates in the Iowa primaries support corn-based ethanol, clearly an ethical, ecological, and economic abomination.

America’s drift toward political rather than market allocations necessarily leads to special interest investments in politicians. This creates both inequities and inefficiencies. And that’s where we are today. Many people have an intuitive understanding of this, one reason why apprehension mars this Thanksgiving.

It’s not clear what follows. Some see politics rectifying injustices and reducing outcome inequalities. They have an unconstrained vision of the potential improvements that government can bring, even with diverse populations and an expanding underclass. They believe: “If we only care enough and tax highly enough, then good results will follow.” They rejoice in promises of hope and change while discounting traditional wisdom.

Others fear predictable consequences of using politics to reallocate wealth and opportunities. National politics rewards duplicity and hypocrisy. Even the most egregious earmark bill is defended as advancing the public interest. One sure thing, political allocations tax civility and integrity while sacrificing efficiency.

Regardless of what follows, tomorrow we have much to celebrate. Let’s give thoughtful thanks for what made America the imperfect ideal.