How to Preserve Freedom in the Long Run
Matt Yglesias writes:
Over the past couple of years, I’ve increasingly heard advocates of “free market” policies try to convince me that their approach is in fact the solution to the problem of the domination of the government by the wealthy and powerful. Their pitch is that if instead of having public sector agencies that try to do things, we just had a “free market” environment, that corporate domination of the political system wouldn’t matter. I think stories like this one underscore the fallacy of that approach. The political system is necessarily everywhere you look determining, among other things, who does and doesn’t have access to the legal system to enforce their rights.
It’s either possible, over the long run, to have a democracy in which practice approximates the ideals of political and legal equality or else it isn’t. If the political power can be mustered to create legislation that serves the public interest, then it can. If it can’t, then simply trying to retreat outside the arena of the “political” will fail as the powerful extend their domination into new arenas.
Mr. Yglesias chooses to grapple with the most crude version of free market arguments — a better summary is that if the political sphere were more limited, its regular domination by certain kinds corporations would matter less — but let’s ignore that here so that we can focus on a more interesting rebuttal.
It’s possible to make it very difficult for the powerful to extend their domination into new areas. For example, in the long run, the Bill of Rights helped Depression era farm labor in California to unionize, despite attempts by agribusiness syndicates to jail or assault organizers merely for addressing worker rallies.
In the short term, the ability of the growers to collude with the California Highway Patrol, local police and vigilantes — and to ram the abhorrent Criminal Syndicalism Act through the state legislature — put labor at the mercy of a quasi-fascist order.
But the Constitution limits the legal ability of legislatures to regulate speech, and strengthens social norms against speech limits. Thus the act was struck down by the courts, freedom of speech and association were protected, and labor made gains — and aren’t we glad that liberals of that era used constitutional freedoms to advance their cause, rather than presuming that permissible speech was just going to be something decided by the political process anyway, so they might as well try to pass a law prohibiting the growers from speaking?
Libertarians wish that liberals would show the same restraint when they see an opportunity to advance their immediate ends by regulating campaign speech, or seizing private property in eminent domain cases, or expanding the commerce clause so much that the federal government is no longer one of delineated powers. Instead, liberals usually take the short term gain, and don’t worry much about the implications of expanding the political sphere, even though long experience shows that powerful special interests will exploit these new political arenas.
Above Mr. Yglesias argues that everything might as well be up to the legislature, but I can’t imagine he really believes this. Should we let Congress regulate American religious practice on the supposition that in the long run, there either is power that can be mustered to benefit the American people, or else there isn’t? The fact is that the power one needs to legislate for good or ill isn’t equivalent to the power one needs to overcome institutional barriers against government participation in certain spheres.
Instead, liberals usually take the short term gain, and don’t worry much about the implications of expanding the political sphere, even though long experience shows that powerful special interests will exploit these new political arenas.
Right, we should do what libertarians want, and let the less powerful be dominated by the more powerful in the same old arena.
— Freddie · Apr 5, 03:59 AM · #
Shorter CF: Let the poor die from lack of health insurance. Then they’ll be free!
— JakeCollins · Apr 5, 04:12 AM · #
I love a good line as much as any but first of all that line wasn’t good and moreover jesus man why be a dick to the most charitable adversary you could really hope to find
— ugh · Apr 5, 05:41 AM · #
Freddie,
Need I really point out that what libertarians want is not for the less powerful to be dominated by the more powerful? Why even comment at The American Scene if you’re going to try scoring cheap points?
JakeCollins,
The same to you. Obviously that isn’t a shorter version of what I said.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 5, 10:02 AM · #
Need I really point out that what libertarians want is not for the less powerful to be dominated by the more powerful? Why even comment at The American Scene if you’re going to try scoring cheap points?
liberals usually take the short term gain, and don’t worry much about the implications of expanding the political sphere, even though long experience shows that powerful special interests will exploit these new political arenas.
You gotta love it.
— Freddie · Apr 5, 02:05 PM · #
Freddie,
I don’t think my assertion is a cheap point. Isn’t it true that liberals usually worry more about securing the short term gain on all sorts of issues, and minimize concerns about expanding the political sphere?
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 5, 02:31 PM · #
When libertarians say “maybe the government shouldn’t do X” liberals always think X is some vital government function that without, babies and grandmothers will die in the streets. Libertarians’ view of X is whatever the most insane, harmful policy they can think. Neither is completely right of course, because like everything else in life, government policies range from stupid and useless to nice and helpful.
Sure, we can debate the extent of each category, (I certainly have my opinions) but there has to be some middle ground policy that is A) not very helpful to the needy AND B) a tool of abuse by the rich and powerful, that both Freddie and Conor would agree to get rid of.
— Brian Moore · Apr 5, 02:41 PM · #
CF
Your assertion may not be a cheap point but it was a sterotypically (for the right, not fo you) thoughtless point.
The fact is that a complex society like ours is way too complex to be analyzed with simple ideological tenets. i.e: smaller governement is better becasue it results in ______. Or We need large activist government to protect the weak from the strong. Your statement, just like MY’s fits into this category.
It is popular lately to note how poorly economists understand their subject, and economist use much more rigorous methods for anaylzing and prediciting than ideologically-based pundits, whose tools are basically a set of untested generalities passed down to them from their elders.
— cw · Apr 5, 02:52 PM · #
The best argument libertarians can make for limited government is to actually care about and insist action be taken to deal with the manipulations and failures of the free market. The best argument liberals can make for expanding the political sphere is to rigorously police that sphere for the same sort of manipulations and failures. Get back to me when either side starts doing that.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 5, 03:01 PM · #
Mike:
I think both sides do this, at least what they feel to be the best method of doing so. Most libertarians already agree that there are quite a few things that shouldn’t be handled by the free market: military, courts, police. Plus many of them probably disagree with you on which instances are failures.
Liberals also believe they are trying to police that sphere, by enacting things like campaign donation limitations and voting to remove corrupt (in their mind) politicians. They probably also disagree with you on which things are violations of that sphere.
The problem is that neither side gets what they want when they do the things you want them to do in public. If a libertarian ran around all day emphasizing market failures, he’d just get linked by liberals and used as a justification for more intervention. If a liberal spent all day deriding the abuse of power in those spheres, he’d just get linked by libertarians who would say “and that’s why we need to get rid of X too!”
Which is precisely what you see above — Freddie didn’t feel like he had to admit that there were perhaps some policies he would get rid of and Conor didn’t feel it necessary to admit there were some he would keep.
Now, I have my own biases, and I feel like I’m being unfair to Conor because there was no implication in his post that we should get rid of everything the government does, and he explicitly listed policies/events he felt were wrong, whereas Freddie seems to be implicitly defending the status quo, even though I’m sure he feels like there are at least some policies that do fit the libertarian judgment of “not helpful and subject to easy abuse” — but he does not do so because it feels like it would be conceding the general point. This isn’t because Freddie is hypocritical or a uniquely stubborn person, but rather because no one gets any internet points for admitting the other side might not be entirely wrong.
But see now I can regurgitate all this crap and feel like I’m an objective and even handed person; look at my self-esteem go up! Time for lunch.
— Brian Moore · Apr 5, 03:17 PM · #
“The problem is that neither side gets what they want when they do the things you want them to do in public.”
Neither side gets what they want right now. Just ask a liberal about the latest “victory” in health care reform or ask a libertarian about, well, pretty much any area of public policy. What we get right now is a constantly expanding state that largely serves the interests of the rich and powerful, a union of the worst nightmares of libertarians and liberals.
I think President Obama on health care reform is a fairly good example of the mindset both liberals and libertarians should adopt. If he has followed the reflexive cries of “fight, fight fight” from the Left, HCR would have probably gone down in flames. That’s because the real obstacles to change aren’t the opponents of that change but the process of change itself. Libs mightily bitched about all the concessions Obama made to the GOP up front without getting anything in return, but what Obama got in return were fewer legitimate areas of argument. Since the GOP and conservatives were only interested in inflicting a political defeat on Obama, that forced them into more and more extreme and unreasoning opposition to HCR.
I’m not saying that Obama is an 11th dimensional chess master who knew exactly how it was all going to work out. I am saying that being reasonable (or at least appearing so) can be more practically advantageous than worrying about maximizing political advantage in all situations.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 5, 03:52 PM · #
“Neither side gets what they want right now. Just ask a liberal about the latest “victory” in health care reform or ask a libertarian about, well, pretty much any area of public policy.”
I guess, but lots of liberals (no idea about percentages) seemed really happy about it — I was in DC when it passed (by accident) and there were certainly a lot of people who were saying things like “finally we are a civilized nation.” And libertarians, while disappointed on that front, have had some victories recently, like Citizens United, which was definitely not argued in a “reasonable, compromising” way, though I agreed with the ruling. They followed a hardline (though again, I believe it to be correct) interpretation of the first amendment, one that (obviously) 4 justices and large % of Americans don’t agree with.
I’m certainly not trying to argue, because I completely agree with the following:
“I am saying that being reasonable (or at least appearing so) can be more practically advantageous than worrying about maximizing political advantage in all situations.”
— Brian Moore · Apr 5, 05:40 PM · #
“Above Mr. Yglesias argues that everything might as well be up to the legislature, but I can’t imagine he really believes this.”
I don’t think that was Matt’s point. I think his point was that if the legislature doesn’t have the political will to enact laws that promote political and legal equality, then it is fallacy to believe that the “free market” will create those conditions in the absence of legislative pressure. If that was in fact his point, then I agree with him. To put it more crudely, it is the consequences of libertarian nirvana that demand government intervention in the market place.
— Steven Donegal · Apr 5, 09:21 PM · #
Perhaps I didn’t understand, but it seemed as if you proved MY’s point.
He observed that “Their pitch is that if instead of having public sector agencies that try to do things, we just had a “free market” environment, that corporate domination of the political system wouldn’t matter,” and concluded this is a fallacy.
Big business forcing the passage of the Criminal Syndicalism Act is a pretty good example of big business/corporate domination of the political system. And it mattered! And the Supreme Court upheld the act; they did not overrule it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_v._California
Government should always play a role in making sure that the rights of citizens, either individually or in the aggregate, can be protected from the power of aggregated capital.
The Act seems to be a clear demonstration that capital can overwhelm the citizens from time to time.
Perhaps I am not as properly familiar with the history of the labor movement in California as I need to be to respond, but it does seem that political organization to counter Big Ag and create a state system that responds to protect association rights over agricultural profits was required. And today, we would want the state to intervene on the behalf of a labor organizing who was beaten or intimidated by the Ag company.
Any way it’s sliced, when powerful economic interests intervene in the political sphere, there needs to be some political pushback/regulation or the economic might wins the field. No?
— agorabum · Apr 5, 09:28 PM · #
The problem with the type of cynicism which states that either way we go we wind up with domination is that it creates a rebellious society if people begin experiencing the lack of Hegelian “recognition” which Alexandre Kojeve spoke of (and Fukuyama analyzed in The End of History and The Last Man) as a vital aspect of human nature — especially in 21st century America which is moving past purely economic and self-preserving desires. The need to matter and freely act is becoming more important.
— mike farmer · Apr 5, 10:16 PM · #
This is facile. Of course “matty” yglesias dare not even mention Public Choice so let us help him with the easy argument of us free-marketeers.
- When the Government is going to give out free goodies, people will want a piece of the action, thereby increasing lobbying expenditure. And the “rich” or well-connected will most likely benefit from this disbursal.
- When the Government is in a position to control/regulate VAST amounts of private wealth, those with the most stake in the process will care the most to get in on the act. This ensures that those special interests being regulated are likely to capture the regulators.
So the free-market solution is simple. You may not agree with it, but its simple and completely coherent and substantive as opposed to the dumb incoherent strawman mentioned by Matty.
It is this: reduce the amount of money and/or power controlled by the Government. This will reduce the incentive for spoils, reduce the number of players who would want available spoils, thereby decreasing lobbying and corruption.
— Contemplationist · Apr 6, 09:18 PM · #