Elected Representatives in a Republic: Is Any Sense of Duty Remaining?

I suspect the notion of duty had by 2018 taken a rear seat, pushed out by self-centered ambition, in many if not most democracies in the world. In the ancient world, office-holding by lot stemmed the impact of people desiring office. Of the latter, the desire for personal gain would, I submit, be more likely. In contrast, finding oneself holding an office by lot was more likely to be accompanied by a sense of duty rather than personal ambition. Of course, ordinary citizens could find themselves voting in councils or legislatures—but would that necessarily be so bad?

In the American experiment, office-holding was originally thought of as a civic duty of the wealthy class. Landless citizens were cut off from even voting. George Washington did his duty as the first U.S. president, then went home to Virginia; he had done his duty (and then some). Once he decided not to run again, he did not, while still president, call it quits even if he was personally done with the office. I submit that that sense of duty had been lost by the twenty-first century.

After the 2018 midterm Congressional election, many U.S. House representatives who would retired or were not re-elected conveniently decided that their term would end early. “Call it the revenge of the lame ducks. Many lawmakers, relegated to cubicles as incoming members take their offices, have been skipping votes in the weeks since House Republicans were swept from power in the midterm elections, and Republican leaders are unsure whether they will ever return.”[1] The skipping of votes connotes an absence of a sense of duty; being in Congress in such cases is really about the office-holder, rather than his or her constituents or patriotism. Duty to oneself is not even a pale reflection of duty to the other two.

In the midst of the hegemony of duty to self, corruption can be expected to become a norm in the halls of a government. We could expect self-enriching schemes rather than a duty to fulfill the office. In the case of 2018, the U.S. Government was poised to shutdown, as the two major parties were in a stalemate over funding a southern-border wall. Duty to return to Washington in case one’s vote may facilitate the government remaining in operation would seem to be a relatively clear duty to which a legislator would be bound. Yet a major problem with duty, as with other moral principles, is it’s voluntary nature; legislators in eyesight of the end of their term know they can get away with staying away, whether out of being tired of politics or having a new lucrative opportunity in lobbying or business.

What is a republic, really? Surely some presence of a common good that needs to be looked after in its own right is involved. Who is tasked with this looking after? The government of a republic, no doubt. So office-holders should (i.e., in principle) be foremost oriented to putting the public good first, for no one else in a society is tasked by nature or occupation with putting the interests of the whole before those of the parts. In deciding to end a term of office early, for whatever extrinsic reason, the representatives in the U.S. House in late 2018 demonstrated that the voters had erred by electing people who were not in fact willing (or able) to look after the whole, to keep an eye primarily on the steering of the ship so it would not crash. tasked with steering and looking outward Knowing that the only sector of society tasked with looking after the entire ship and thus for any obstacles ahead is the government, those representatives acted selfishly in spite of the fact that they knew a government showdown would soon come up ahead and the government—that part of society specifically tasked with protecting the ship—could shut down. Such a mentality goes beyond selfishness to include a reckless disregard for the ship, which those representatives had doubtlessly lauded many times when doing so had been in their own interests.

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[1] Julie Hirshfeld and Emily Cochrane, “A Shutdown Looms. Can the G.O.P. Get Lawmakers to Show Up to Vote?” The New York Times, December 16, 2018.

On Democratic Accountability in a Republic: The Pentagon Papers

The publication of portions of the Pentagon Papers despite President Nixon’s threats of treason highlighted the fact that four presidents successively lied to the American People on build-up of U.S. involvement in Indochina (most notably, Vietnam) and the Nixon administration lied on the prospects for victory in the Vietnam War—a war that had not even been declared by Congress. Clearly, democratic accountable extends to foreign policy at least in broad outline, such as in whether or not to continue an active engagement militarily in another region of the world. Even in U.S. presidents being able to get away with effectively declaring war even as one of their roles is that of commander-in-chief—a huge conflict of interest!—democratic accountability by the popular sovereign, the People—is important, even vital should the legislative and judicial branches fail as checks in the separation-of-powers feature of the U.S. Constitution.

The first article in the New York Times reported that the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations “built up the American political, military and psychological stakes in Indochina, often more deeply than they realized at the time, with large‐scale military equipment to the French in 1950; with acts of sabotage and terror warfare against North Vietnam beginning in 1954; with moves that encouraged and abetted the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963; with plans, pledges and threats of further action that sprang to life in the Tonkin Gulf clashes in August, 1964; with the careful preparation of public opinion for the years of open warfare that were to follow; and with the calculation in 1965, as the planes and troops were openly committed to sustained combat, that neither accommodation inside South Vietnam nor early negotiations with North Vietnam would achieve the desired result.”[1]

Meanwhile, the American electorate was being kept in the dark—lied to—in spite of the fact that the People in a republic are tasked with holding the elected representatives and their respective appointees accountable.

“The Pentagon study also ranges beyond such historical judgments. It suggests that the predominant American interest was at first containment of Communism and later the defense of the power, influence and prestige of the United States, in both stages irrespective of conditions in Vietnam.”[2] The U.S. Government’s defense of the escalation, however, was limited to the containment of Communism such that it would not take over the world as Marx had foretold and thus threaten even the U.S. itself. During the Johnson and Nixon administrations, American troops were being killed and taken prisoner increasingly for the prestige of the United States and irrespective of the intractable conditions on the ground in Vietnam. Crucially, these administrations kept the American people in the dark on these points, such that no electoral correction could be effected. Ironically, the administrations were claiming to protect democracy even as they were undermining it by using power to subvert democratic accountability by the popular sovereign (i.e., the electorate).

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1. Neil Sheehan, “Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement,” The New York Times, June 13, 1971.

2. Ibid.

Instant Gratification Rules in American Fiscal Policy

With an expected deficit of $1.2 trillion for 2018-2019, the U.S. Government in December, 2017 enacted a tax cut with an expected revenue loss of nearly $1 trillion over a decade (assuming some growth from the tax stimulus) and, two months later, a budget deal passed adding $300 billion to federal spending in the next fiscal year.[1] All this was done with the U.S. debt at over $20 trillion—higher than the annual GDP at the time. With the  economy humming along with a low unemployment rate, the prospect for any fiscal discipline was bleak. Put another way, if budget surpluses could not come at the boom end of an economic cycle, then deficits would be likely in good times and bad. Behind the structural imbalance of contiguous deficits and an ever-growing debt is the all-too-human preference for instant gratification without a corresponding value being placed on self-discipline.

In a republic, the electorate elects representatives in part because direct democracy has no constraint on the immediate passions of a people. In the case of the U.S. Congress and White House,  the representatives had not by 2018 at least resisted the instinct for immediate benefit for the good of the American republics and their peoples—which together constitute the United States. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams agreed in retirement that an educated and virtuous citizenry is vital to a viable republic. The $20 trillion federal debt reflects back on Americans not in a good way in this respect.

For a republic—including one that is also a federation of republics—to be viable over the long term, some allowance for the long term must be made in the form of fiscal discipline. This is essentially self-discipline on a societal level. In the case of the tax cut and additional federal spending, Americans could “expect some of the strongest economic growth” in years.[2] This made the urge for instant gratification particularly alluring. In the medium term, Americans would face “more risk of surging inflation and higher interest rates—fears that were behind a steep stock market sell-off” in early February, 2018.[3] Notice that the negatives begin only in the medium term; hence they do not detract from the instant gratification. In the long term, the U.S. could have less flexibility fiscally in enacting a stimulus to combat a recession or even a crisis like that which had hit Wall Street in September, 2008. Additionally, “higher interest payments could prove a burden on the federal Treasury and on economic growth.”[4] The short term boost in an already booming economy could be expected at the time to hamper economic growth perhaps at a time of recession! Yet the force of this anticipation had no power in the enacting of the tax cut and additional spending. Knowledge, it appears, requires virtue manifesting as self-discipline. That it was missing reflects especially on the elected representatives of both parties, but also on the American electorate that elects and re-elects those representatives with impunity.

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[1] Neil Irwin, “Austerity Era Comes to End,” The New York Times, February 10, 2018.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Spain’s Government: Measuring the Will of the People

“’No government in the world’ could tolerate the threatening of its unity,” said Mariano Rajoy, the prime minister of the E.U. state of Spain after a week of protests pro and con on whether the region of Catalonia should secede from the state.[1] On October 1, 2017, the region had held a referendum on the question in spite of the efforts of the state police to stop the vote. Ninety percent of the 40% of the region’s residents voted in favor of breaking off from Spain, but the active presence of the police means that the results could not be taken as an accurate reading of what the population of Catalan wanted.

I contend that the state government should have permitted the referendum because democracy itself depends on a people’s self-determination. In intimidating the vote, the state government inhibited a result that could be taken as the people’s will. The respective sizes of the political protests could not be taken as indicative; neither could pronouncements by Catalan or state officials either way. Sergi Miquel, a Catalan lawmaker, insisted that the turnout would have been much higher had the police not acted violently against potential and actual voters, but we cannot surmise how that turnout would have voted. He had an interest in portraying the averted turnout as pro-secession, while the state’s prime minister had an interest in portraying the Catalan people as pro-Spain. Only a fair and open referendum could have revealed what the region’s people wanted, and democracy itself prizes the will of the people even above a government’s political and territorial interests.

That Spain is an E.U. state mitigated what was on the line (i.e., the significance of secession), assuming that Catalan would be a state too. Generally speaking, being part of the same federal system would mean that Catalan and Spain would be part of the same political system and thus have some laws and regulations in common. One of the prime benefits of federalism is that such commonality coexists with differences that reflect different cultures and self-identifications of peoples. People in Texas are both Texans and Americans. So too, Catalan people would be both Catalans and Europeans; Spaniards are of course Europeans as well. In other words, both Catalans and Spaniards would be E.U. citizens even if the region were to secede and become an E.U. state, and this track would mitigate the significance of secession. It follows that the state’s drastic efforts to violently curtail the referendum can be seen as excessive, as well as being at the expense of democracy. It may be that government officials generally are inclined to lose perspective and resort to force because they can. I submit that force in a democracy should be a last resort, especially when the use interferes with taking the measure of the will of the people.

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[1] Patrick Kingsley and Jason Horowitz, “Amid Catalan Crisis, Thousands Hold Rallies in Madrid and Barcelona,” The New York Times, October 7, 2017.

See also: Essays on the E.U. Political Economy

Should Same-Party-Affiliation Exclude Investigations on an Elected Official’s Misconduct?

A survey taken in February, 2017 of 1,571 political scientists on democracy in America reveals a possible problem regarding the extent to which government officials are sanctioned for misconduct. More than half of the respondents believed that the United States only partly meets or does not meet this criterion, whereas about 80 percent of the scholars insisted that the criterion is essential or important to democracy.[1] I submit that partisanship is a major obstacle to performance being able to meet expectations.

When the survey was released, Congress was on a week’s recess. Representatives and senators alike were facing contentious constituents back in the districts and states, respectively. An estimated 1,000 people attended Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) “town meeting.” Recalling the yelling and screaming, he later said, “I thought it was intended to bully and intimidate [me].”[2] Democracy is messy. Moreover, the making of law, which binds an otherwise free people, is inherently conflictual as different interests and ideologies contend for influence on the final legislative output. Given the delegated trust placed in elected legislative representatives, their misconduct should be subject to real sanctions.

Ideally, misconduct should be extended to placing party above integrity—that is to say, giving elected officials a pass on their misconduct simply because they are of the same political party. Constituents can be out in front of even veteran members of Congress on this point. In his “town hall,” Chaffetz heard a constituent insist that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives should investigate President Trump’s conflicts of interest for instances of impropriety.[3] Even though much of the federal conflicts-of-interest law does not apply to the president, the American people arguably should know of actual instances in which the president has or is exploiting the relationship between his governmental power and business interests. Party should not trump integrity as concerning the obligation of members of Congress to provide a check on the executive branch, including the president.

I suspect that the force of partisanship on members of Congress stems in part from the political atmosphere in Washington, D.C.—such that the role of partisanship is perceived as being more significant than it should be and is to constituents back home. Of course, the threats doubtlessly made from higher in the party “food chain” provides an impetus to members of Congress to look the other way concerning the possible misconduct of colleagues of the same party. That a constituent expects her elected representative to put integrity before party in regard to investigating misconduct shows just how decadent the inbred culture of a political elite can be, even in a viable democracy. In other words, it is telling when an angry constituent is the adult and her representative is the child.

Democratic theory holds just the opposite—namely, that an elected representative can withstand the momentary excessive passions of the moment that have no such check in a direct democracy, wherein people vote directly on proposed laws such as was the case in ancient Athens. Put another way, representative democracy itself is a check against mob rule. It is telling, therefore, when someone from an angry mob is the adult in the room.

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[1] Claire C. Miller and Kevin Quealy, “Democracy in America: How Is It Doing?” The New York Times, February 23, 2017.

[2] Andrew Kaczynski, “Rep. Jason Chaffetz: People at My Town Hall ‘Intended to Bully and Intimidate’ Me,” CNN.com, February 23, 2017.

[3] “Morning Edition,” National Public Radio, February 23, 2017.

Is Democracy Inimical to Prudent Government Budgeting: The U.S. and India Contrasted

At a time when the U.S. Government sported an accumulated debt of roughly $20 trillion, with continued deficits expected to add about $10 trillion more over the next ten years, the most populous democracy in the world, India, laid out a prudent budget proposal—one that had been “extremely well thought-out,” according to Deepak Parekh of the Housing Development Finance Corporation in India.[1]

On February 1, 2017, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi made public its budget proposal for the following year. Even as the proposed budget “would significantly increase spending on infrastructure, rural areas and antipoverty programs,” the government’s annual deficit would be reduced to 3.2 percent of GDP from 3.5 percent in the current fiscal year.[2] The budget “included tax cuts for lower income taxpayers and small business, even as it came close to sticking with the country’s target for reducing the budget deficit.”[3] In a democratic system, in which popular pressure is even in theory for increased government spending and lower taxes, increasing discretionary spending need not come at the expense of fiscal discipline. “The economy needs the spending to give consumption a boost, but the government is also giving weight to fiscal prudence,” said Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist at Crisil, an Indian credit-rating agency.[4] The proposal even adds spending on infrastructure such as roads in rural areas—an investment favorable to attracting foreign direct investment as the stated aim is to increase “efficiency and access to markets while providing jobs.”[5]

Modi’s action against currency on which taxes are not paid in banning the largest currency notes in November, 2016 had led the I.M.F. to cut its predicted growth rate for India by one percentage point for 2017 to 6.6 percent, so Modi must have been facing popular pressure to spur economic growth by distending fiscal policy beyond what prudence would allow. Even as five states prepared to go to the polls beginning on February 4^th, the prime minister prudently wanted to demonstrate “strength in advance of national elections in 2019.”[6] Put another way, the pressure to allow the projected deficits to increase as a percent of GDP must have been enormous, yet fiscal discipline prevailed and even allowed for targeted priorities that would take due account of the value of fiscal stimulus. 

Democracy can be strong, meaning self-disciplined, yet there is no guarantee. As Thomas Jefferson and John Adams agreed when they were exchanging letters in retirement, an educated and virtuous citizenry is essential to the continuance of a viable republic whose house is in order. A $20 trillion government debt is indicative that at least one house is not in order, and the case of India demonstrates that the problem is not democracy itself.

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[1] Getta Anand, “Arun Jaitley, India’s Finance Chief, Aims to Spur Economy Hit by Cash Shortage,” The New York Times, February 1, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

Brexit and Calexit: Excessive Democracy?

Ordered by Britain’s Supreme Court to get the state’s Parliament’s approval for the state to secede from the Union, the Prime Minister, Teresa May, faced the prospect of debate, amendments, and the votes themselves in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In the latter chamber, May’s Conservative Party did not at the time have a majority. Some in her party “suggested that she should quickly appoint enough new lords to give her the votes she needs. But few say they expect that to be necessary: with little democratic legitimacy, the 805 lords are unlikely to dare to block” the referendum outcome favoring secession.[1] I submit that the democratic criterion is ill-fitting to the House of Lords.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

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[1] Katrin Bennhold, “Ordered to Seek Approval on ‘Brexit,’ Teresa May Does So. Tersely,” The New York Times, January 26, 2017.

Snowden

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words are moving pictures worth? Add in a script and you have actual words—potentially quite substantive words—grounding all that pictorial worth. Moving pictures, or movies for short, are capable of conveying substantial meaning to audiences. In the case of the film, Snowden (2016), the meaning is heavy in political theory. In particular, democratic theory. The film’s value lies in depicting how far short the U.S. Government has slipped from the theory, and, indeed, the People to which that government is in theory accountable.

The full essay is at "Snowden."