Topic: Political Philosophy

Niskanen and Discriminatory Democracy

By
James M. Buchanan (1919 - 2013)

William A. “Bill” Niskanen’s book Bureaucracy and Representative Government (Chicago: Aldine, Atherton, 1971) has not received the attention it deserves. Although Niskanen himself may not have fully realized it, the argument offers explanatory insights into the apparently inexorable growth in the collectivized share of valued resource usage. Until and unless political economists and the citizenry come to understand the workings of the institutional structure, governmental action will continue its dramatic increase that described the twentieth century.

Niskanen concentrated analysis on the role of bureaucratic agency in generating pressures for budgetary expansion. The formation and subsequent existence of a designated agency charged with the functional provision of program services, including transfers, insures the omnipresence of an advocacy group which complements and even initiates identifiable sets of beneficiary end-users. Demands for increasing and ever-larger budgets build up with essentially no opposition.

Consider, by way of comparison, the introduction of a valued good or service in the market sector of the economy. Potentially benefited end-users may exhibit latent demand for the product, and potential suppliers will recognize profit opportunities. Production followed by mutually advantageous exchanges follow in which end-users give up their demands for other valued goods. The process is driven by the offsetting pressures—on demanders to increase their utilities by giving up less preferred for more preferred goods and on suppliers to enter exchanges in the other direction as a means of increasing rents. Through marginal adjustments, the market comes into balance. Exchange ceases at the point where neither demanders nor suppliers see further opportunities for gain. There is no gain to be secured by extending production consumption toward satiety.

For the demander-user of a collectivized good or service, the decision calculus is different, in that there is no direct linkage between the quantity of the good demanded and the nonvoluntary payment exacted as the budgetary size changes. The rent seekers and rent holders in bureaucratic positions join constituency beneficiaries in exerting pressures for budgetary expansion, and they face only vague, disorganized, and nonidentified sets of general taxpayers.

The ultimate fiscal “exchange” is necessarily unfair in that the two sides cannot be brought into some rough but unbiased balance that might generate results closer to widely-accepted efficiency norms. Until and unless, the rules are modified specifically to correct for the bias noted, the collectivized sector must increase in relative size, at least to aggregate supply side limits on revenues.

Both hard-nosed positive analysis and imaginative normative proposals for institutional innovation are needed.

This post is intended as a memorial tribute to Bill Niskanen, surely one of the stalwarts of modern classical liberalism. But it may also be interpreted as a call to arms for an intellectual battle against the natural forces of the cultural evolution that push us toward the discriminatory limits that convert “democracy” into a pejorative term.

Topics: 
Political Philosophy

Justice Kennedy’s Mysterious Philosophy

By
David Boaz

Time magazine’s cover story looks at the power and mystery of Justice Anthony Kennedy.

He’s often the pivotal vote on a divided Supreme Court, Massimo Calabresi and David Von Drehle write. Sometimes he sides with the conservatives, sometimes with the liberals. It seems to mystify them:

Over that time, Kennedy cast the pivotal vote in cases dealing with abortion, the death penalty, gay rights, the war on terrorism, campaign finance and school prayer….

Efforts to fit Kennedy’s major opinions into a clear, coherent philosophy have met with little success. He generally sides with the court’s conservatives but is not tethered to any particular constitutional doctrine. “There is no grand unified theory for Justice Kennedy’s jurisprudence,” says Viet Dinh, a leading conservative court watcher….

More and more cases are decided based on his idiosyncratic values.

They do provide a few hints:

Instead of grounding abortion in a “right to privacy,” which is never mentioned in the Constitution, Kennedy declared it to be part of the well-established right to liberty….

[In the Texas sodomy case] Kennedy wrote broadly, “Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions” and “includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct.”…

Opponents of Obamacare focused their Kennedy briefs on a number of opinions in which he maintained the importance of limiting government intrusions into individual liberty.

Hmmm. Justice Kennedy seems to be very concerned with liberty. He often sides with conservatives on economic issues (which are actually never mentioned by Time) and campaign speech, and with liberals on civil liberties, gay rights, and school prayer. Pretty inconsistent, huh?

Or then again, maybe Justice Kennedy has a basically libertarian view of the world and the Constitution. The word “libertarian” never appears in the article. Perhaps it should.

And it’s not like the idea of Justice Kennedy’s libertarianism is a deep, dark secret. The writers might have consulted Helen Knowles’s book The Tie Goes to Freedom: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on Liberty. Or Frank Colucci’s book Justice Kennedy’s Jurisprudence: The Full and Necessary Meaning of Liberty. Or Randy Barnett’s Cato Supreme Court Review article on the Texas case, “Justice Kennedy’s Libertarian Revolution.”

I’m not saying that Justice Kennedy is a down-the-line, Nozick-reading, Cato Institute libertarian. He did join the Court’s statist majority in the medical marijuana case Raich v. Gonzales. And he infuriated libertarians by joining the majority in striking down state term limits and upholding state eminent domain. But the books and article cited above, and the Institute for Justice’s 1997 rating of Supreme Court justices, do point to a strong libertarian streak in Kennedy’s jurisprudence.

Time’s inability to point that out reminds me of a column I did in 2010, on another distinguished journalist’s inability to apply the obvious label to Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s political views – which are clearly libertarian, or as he would put it, liberal. Are journalists really so stuck in a red/blue, liberal/conservative world that they can’t identify libertarianism even when they describe its elements?

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties, Political Philosophy

Obama’s Definition of Compromise

By
David Boaz

NPR reports that in an Ohio campaign speech, President Obama praised the post-World War II “era of compromise” and “broad consensus” when both parties worked together for the national interest. He gave some specific examples:

As much as we might associate the GI Bill with Franklin Roosevelt, or Medicare with Lyndon Johnson, it was a Republican—Lincoln—who launched the Transcontinental Railroad, the National Academy of Sciences, land-grant colleges. It was a Republican—Eisenhower—who launched the Interstate Highway System and a new era of scientific research. It was Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency; Reagan who worked with Democrats to save Social Security—and who, by the way, raised taxes to help pay down an exploding deficit.

That is, President Obama’s idea of compromise and consensus is that Republicans support expanded government and higher taxes. He offers no examples of Democrats supporting tax reduction, spending restraint, or deregulation. It seems that in his view, the national interest is entirely and exclusively the expansion of the size, scope, and power of government. Remember that when you hear the president and his allies call for compromise and consensus. Compromise is a one-way street in President Obama’s world.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Political Philosophy

Join Rand Paul and Me at Cato’s Summer Conference

By
David Boaz

Sen. Rand Paul, recently hailed as “America’s most important anti-war politician,” will join the distinguished list of speakers at this year’s session of Cato University.

This year Cato University will be held for the first time in the magnificent new F. A. Hayek Auditorium at the Cato Institute in Washington. From July 29 to August 3, join fellow libertarians from around the country and the world to listen to lectures on economic, political, historical, and philosophical foundations of liberty. Speakers include

  • the widely published economist Steve Landsburg,
  • the scintillating speaker and West Point historian Rob McDonald,
  • the polymath Tom Palmer,
  • Cato scholars Roger Pilon, Bob Levy, Christopher Preble, Malou Innocent, Mark Calabria, Michael Cannon, and even me —
  • plus the special dinner address on Capitol Hill by Senator Paul.

Note that Cato University is not just for students — there will be participants from college age to retirement.

Check out Cato University here.

Topics: 
General, Political Philosophy

You’ve Met Julia the Moocher, Now Meet Emily

By
Daniel J. Mitchell

The Obama campaign’s “Life of Julia” ad is a disturbing sign. It suggests that political strategists, pollsters, and campaign advisers must think that the people living off government are getting to the point where they can out-vote the people paying for government.

If that’s true, America is doomed to become another Greece - which would be an appropriate fate since, for all intents and purposes, Julia is the fictional twin of a real-life Greek woman who thought it was government’s job to give her things.

In general, I think the best response to Julia is mockery, which is why I shared this Iowahawk parody and this Ramirez cartoon.

But we also need a serious discussion of why dependency is a bad thing, which is why I’m glad the Center for Freedom and Prosperity has produced this new “Economics 101” video.

It’s narrated by Emily O’Neill, who contrasts the moocher mentality of Julia with how she wants her life to develop. To give away the message, she wants the kind of fulfillment that only exists when you earn things.

Emily’s view could be considered Randian libertarianism, conventional conservatism, or both. That’s because there’s a common moral belief in both philosophies that government-imposed coercion and redistribution erode the social capital of a people.

This is perhaps the key issue for America’s future, which is why I hope you’ll share this video widely. Otherwise, we my face a future where this Chuck Asay cartoon becomes reality. Speaking of Asay, this cartoon is a pretty good summary of what the Julia ad is really saying.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care, Political Philosophy, Tax and Budget Policy

Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Social Issues

By
David Boaz

Like Walter Olson, I was struck yesterday by Tim Carney’s admonition that “Libertarians need to reassess their allegiances on social matters” in light of government infringements on religious liberty. Walter did a good job of demonstrating that libertarians, even those who are not themselves religious, have been “on the front lines” in defending religious liberty in such cases as Catholic hospitals’ objections to paying for birth control and the wedding photographer in New Mexico who didn’t want to photograph a gay wedding. Libertarians don’t have to be conservatives to object to “liberal” infringements on personal and religious freedoms.

But there’s another problem with what Carney wrote. I’m not quite sure what “Libertarians need to reassess their allegiances on social matters” means. But perhaps he means that libertarians should stop thinking of themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” and recognize that a lot of infringements on freedom come from the left. In my experience libertarians are well aware that in matters from taxes to gun ownership to Catholic hospitals, liberals don’t live up to the ideal of true liberalism.

But what about conservatives? Are conservatives really the defenders of freedom? Carney seems to want us to think so, and to line up with conservatives “on social matters.” But the real record of conservatives on personal and social freedom is not very good. Consider:

  • Conservatives, like National Review, supported state-imposed racial segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. (I won’t go back and claim that “conservatives” supported slavery or other pre-modern violations of freedom.)
  • Conservatives opposed legal and social equality for women.
  • Conservatives supported laws banning homosexual acts among consenting adults.
  • Conservatives still oppose equal marriage rights for gay couples.
  • Conservatives (and plenty of liberals) support the policy of drug prohibition, which results in nearly a million arrests a year for marijuana use.
  • Conservatives support state-imposed prayers and other endorsements of religion in public schools.
Conservatives have a bad record on social freedom. It is, in a word, illiberal. Carney may be right that,
This is how the culture war generally plays out these days: The Left uses government to force religious people and cultural conservatives to violate their consciences, and then cries “theocracy” when conservatives object.
But conservatives earned the skepticism of liberals and libertarians on social issues over long decades during which they supported far greater intrusions on personal freedom than the ones Carney is writing about—which are nevertheless illiberal and should be opposed by all who adhere to the principles of freedom.
Topics: 
General, Political Philosophy

“Government Is Always a Rival, and Often an Enemy, of Religion”

By
Walter Olson

On Friday, under leadership mostly associated with the Roman Catholic Church and the anti-abortion movement, protesters rallied in more than 150 cities against the HHS Obamacare mandate requiring church-affiliated universities, hospitals and other institutions to furnish access to “reproductive health services” that run counter to their church’s teachings. In today’s Washington Examiner, columnist Tim Carney writes, “What should have been obvious is becoming clearer to religious conservatives: Government is always a rival, and often an enemy, of religion.” An accompanying AP picture of a demonstration in Little Rock, Arkansas shows protesters waving crosses inscribed “Don’t Tread on Me.”

Carney goes on to discuss another controversy in the news, last week’s ruling by the New Mexico Supreme Court Court of Appeals that a photographer’s business counts as a “public accommodation,” which requires her to photograph a gay wedding for a prospective client despite her religious objections. (New Mexico does not legally recognize gay marriage; its courts instead ruled under a general anti-discrimination law covering sexual orientation.) Like Carney, and like most people I’ve talked to about the case, I find this result an appalling intrusion on the photographer’s wish to live her own life and run her own business as she pleases.

So I was taken aback when Carney goes on to assert that all this proves “Libertarians need to reassess their allegiances on social matters.” Who does he think has been on the front lines on these questions, during long stretches in which organized religion chose not to get involved, if not libertarians?

Take the photographer case. Google “Elane Photography” + “New Mexico” and the top entry you find is from libertarian-leaning law professor Eugene Volokh, who has spoken out strongly against the ruling as contrary to First Amendment values. Another of the top ten is from our friend Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who calls the decision “wrong” and “the imposition of progressive orthodoxy by judicial fiat.” Notably, two among the other top ten results are from writers at gay websites who argue on generally classical-liberal grounds that it is wrong to coerce the photographer.

The story is similar on the ObamaCare contraception mandate: any number of libertarians and classical liberals who do not necessarily share the Catholic Church’s views on contraception or gays have nonetheless spoken up for the importance of letting it run its institutions under its own lights, an argument that extends to other social service areas such as adoption.

Meanwhile, as Carney rightly observes, many who share his own religious convictions “have too often embraced government, either in the name of social justice or traditional values.” It might be noted that modern discrimination law accords “protected group” status to religion itself, an inclusion that remains curiously uncontroversial among many religious conservatives even though it carries with it a rich potential for chipping away at private conscience rights and the autonomy of private institutions.

As I understand it, the libertarian position is to prize religious liberty, while also disapproving the use of government as an instrument of culture war. That’s no contradiction. It’s the American way.

Topics: 
General, Law and Civil Liberties, Political Philosophy

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