Commenting on the government of his native
commonwealth in the mid-19th century, the libertarian reformer William B.
Greene remarked that while “[s]cientifically speaking, the government of
Massachusetts is socialistic; practically… it is plutocratic.” Greene’s point
is enormously underappreciated in the popular political conversation today.
Even when collectivization through the state purports and desires to serve the
poor and less fortunate, it will, as a matter of practice, be operated in the
interests of the rich and powerful.
The Catholic intellectual G.K. Chesterton, who advocated the
distinctive philosophy of distributism, similarly remarked the existing
political and economic system was “a sort of plutocratic collectivism.” It
turns out good intentions notwithstanding, concentrating power and
collectivizing resources doesn’t actually help the greater number of people in
society.
We often simply assume “the public sector” must operate for the
benefit of the public good, whereas “the private sector” is the realm of greedy
corporate-types. Like the left-right political spectrum, our institutional
nomenclature is inadequate, unable to accurately explain the social phenomena
to which it applies. Indeed, our oversimplified system of labels often hides
important subtleties. Momentarily dispensing with these terms allows us to get
behind them, to consider the actual behaviors and architectures they represent
and the incentives that operate through and within them.
For example, what happens if we suppose people who work in
government are essentially just like everyone else? Perhaps, as the economist Knut
Wicksellpointed out, “They are not pure organs of the community with no
thought other than to promote the common weal.” Of course, this general truth
long predates both Wicksell and modern public choice theory. But it is a
monumental insight that, if taken even half-seriously, would change the entire
landscape of the debate in political philosophy and public policy.
When it comes to the “public sector,” to government actors, we
guard our incredibly tenuous assumptions so assiduously that we lose sight of
the underlying human beings, who, of course, are normally self-interested and
deeply implicated in power dynamics. We have allowed our social and political
terms of art to overshadow such dynamics, to take precedence over careful
examinations of the relevant behaviors.
The question with which we ought to be concerned is, what
mechanisms make the individual or institution under consideration accountable?
What incentives do they have to act in accordance with our charming theory
about how they will act? Policy wonks and political theorists seldom deign to
bother with these questions. This is one of the many reasons why classical
liberals seek to confine government, which is only the institutionalization of
coercion and compulsion, to certain narrow functions.
It is not at all clear what acting for the public good means if it
signifies something more than acting for the good of each of the public’s
component parts -- that is, actual individual persons. Perhaps the public good
implies some kind of utilitarian framework, in which, in Jeremy Bentham’s
famous formulation, “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that
is the measure of right and wrong.” In this kind of utility calculation,
individual citizens are, in principle, expendable; their happiness, or lack
thereof, is only a means to an end, an infinitesimal value in a vast equation
that represents society as a whole. Were we ever able to discover such an
equation for the maximization of societal happiness, government would more
likely impede movement in its direction than contribute to its realization.
This points to a basic problem with the lofty appeals made by
politicians and bureaucrats to the public or common good: When they make such
appeals, they never bother to define it, and very rarely are they asked to. We
simply take their invocations of this high-sounding ideal at face value,
satisfied that other people (experts, as it were) will sort out the details.
But, as we have noted, these experts have no real incentive to act any more
selflessly than do private citizens working in the private sector -- even
assuming, arguendo, that we could all agree upon the meaning of the public
good, which, again, we can’t.
There are no perfect solutions to these enduring social and
political puzzles, but the best ones involve taking incentives sufficiently
seriously that we balance them against one another, conscious of the dangers of
concentrating power.
We find this kind of balancing in the Framers’ admittedly abortive
(abortive because the executive branch has now effectively commandeered all
three functions) attempt to separate the federal government’s legislative,
executive, and judicial functions. Intermingling the financial interests of
millions of individuals without their consent creates serious incentive
problems, conflicts of interest, and opportunities for abuse. This problem is
ordinarily just assumed away; after all, the hearts of all involved are in the
right place, devoted to the public good. I submit that we should start holding
government and the people who run it to the same standard of accountability we
apply to everyone else -- no more, no less. This simple move would alter the
entire picture of what we want government to do.
David S. D’Amato (think@heartland.org)
is an attorney, adjunct law professor at DePaul University in Chicago, and a
policy advisor at The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank
headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/10/lets_be_honest_about_government_behavior.html
