For Bree: Part One

It's been exactly two months since I posted anything here, but it's not for a lack of wanting to.  Things have been busy and hectic, and I have a backlog of things to discuss.  What brings me back here tonight, however, was an inquiry by an old, dear friend regarding Federalism.  Since Federalism is one of my favorite subjects and I'm completely overeducated in the area of political theory, I like to make use of my secret talents whenever they are required.  Particularly if someone is looking to increase their knowledge base and taking an interest in politics.


So, for you Bree...an introductory case for Anti-Federalism...never mind that you could read The Federalist Papers and get a more succinct debate than I'm likely to engage in...


Before discussing any political issue, it is absolutely essential to determine what your core values are.  I call these your "foundational beliefs."  It is a common joke about philosophy that you can argue the nature of anything, for how do you know that your "truth" is my "truth," or the "absolute truth" and that is true to a degree.  Without getting so far into the minutiae of debate as to question "how do you know that the color white is white?" you still have to determine what YOU believe to be true because those opinions will color your interpretation of everything else.  A difference in foundational beliefs is what will cause two reasonable people to look at the same thing (or body of evidence) and declare that it is two separate and different things entirely.  Example: one person looks at the health care legislation and calls it an unconstitutional, socialist attempt by the government to ration care and limit freedom by controlling access to health care.  Another person looks at it as a perfectly constitutional exercise of government power, that benefits the masses and makes everyone better off.  Why?  Their foundational beliefs about the proper role of government and the nature of mankind are like colored glasses through which they view all of the information.  If you always believe that more government is bad, then any policy that creates more government is going to be bad.


That said, my foundational beliefs are as follows:

• More government always equals less freedom.  If freedom is my ability to make choices for myself, then where a law makes that choice for me (or limits the choices I can make) I have less freedom.
• People are inherently good in that most people don't want to harm others if there is a way to accomplish the same ends without doing so.
• However, if people cannot accomplish their desired ends without harming people, they will typically choose to harm others because they are driven by their instinct for self-preservation and self-interest.
• Not all instances where people pursue self-interest are "bad."  In fact, the pursuit of self-interest is what leads to a vibrant economy in that people will benefiting others while benefiting themselves (that is basically the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith).  Example: I have cookies, but no milk.  You have milk, but no cookies.  So, I trade some cookies for some of your milk, then we both have cookies and milk and are both better off.
• People will naturally form (what Madison called) factions.  I do not believe there to be any device of mankind that can prevent this.  We will always think of "us" and "them" even when we do not mean it in a negative way.  This is my family, that is yours.  I live over here, you live over there.  Of course, factions can develop negative connotations and outputs (see Hitler, al Qaeda), but they are not necessarily "bad" at face value.

So, you are left looking for situations where you can get what you want, with the least possible harm to others, and with the maximum gain to yourself--if others also gain, then great.  I'm best able to make those decisions when all options are open to me.  Using the milk and cookies example again, let's say that you value your milk at one cup of milk to one cookie because you really don't like milk that much and you have lots of it.  you'd rather have more cookies and less milk.  But I really like cookies, and don't have that many, so I'd prefer to give you one cookie for two cups of milk.  Either we'll work it out and both end up with some division of milk and cookies that's satisfactory to both of us, or we'll both go away with what we started with and be dissatisfied.  We can then seek out others who are willing to value our items like we do, and complete a trade.


Now let's say that there is an overabundance of milk and a shortage of cookies, and it's getting difficult for anyone to trade milk and cookies because the people with milk are still not willing to give up too much milk in exchange for a few cookies, because maybe holding out will help them get a better deal later.  Or maybe someone will show up with cake, and you'd be just as willing to trade milk for cake as for cookies.  Now the government is upset because no one is trading milk and cookies, so they aren't getting their tax revenue off the milk and cookie trade.  The set the prices for milk and cookies, and declare that one cookie equals three cups of milk.  Before they did that, though, I came to the conclusion that I was just going to need more cookies in order to get the amount of milk I wanted, so I got to baking more cookies.  And the cake people figured out there was a hole in the marketplace and started baking cake and trading for milk.


I'm super excited because my cookies will now get me three cups of milk, and if the milk people don't like that, then tough.  I have lots of cookies, and I can get three cups of milk for each one.  Milk producers realize there's more to be had making cookies, in comparison to their milk, so they get out of the milk business altogether and start making cookies.  Now all of a sudden there's not enough milk, and way too many cookies and cakes.  The milk people are mad since they can't control the price of their milk and the cookie people are making a killing, even turning around and reselling excess milk for cake since they can buy it so "cheap" and there's a shortage on.


Rather than letting the owners of the goods determine how much they want/need of something and trading accordingly, the whole system has been thrown off balance because people not involved with the trades set the values and moved on.  Now, instead of repealing the cookie-milk price they try and regulate the price of cake to milk trades, and make it illegal for cookie bakers to trade in milk after they've purchased it, and it goes on and on and on...whereas, you and I probably would have settled on one cookie for a cup and a half of milk, since that's a happy medium that we both could have lived with, and would have been better off than had we not traded at all.


Kind of a stupid example, but hopefully it illustrates how making a law on something doesn't necessarily solve the problem and in every instance it will create a cascade of unintended consequences that need to be addressed, until you have a ridiculous amount of rules that completely limit an individual's ability to make the choices that will best benefit them, in that situation, at that moment in time.  No two people know what they need better than those two people, right then.

Now you are probably wondering why in my imaginary scenario, after the milk and cookie market collapsed under government regulation they didn't just deregulate the market and let us figure it out on our own again?  The answer to that is found in more modern political theory, although the Founders touched on it some.  It simply hadn't been fleshed out as a theory until after the industrial revolution, and it boils down to economics, as well.

You see, when we passed a law regulating the sale of milk and cookies we had to have a way to enforce that or the law was pointless.  Therefore, we created an agency to monitor the market and to dole out punishment when people violated the law.  A separate constituency was created that has a stake in the milk and cookie market even though they aren't directly involved in the manufacture or sale of the goods.  Those people don't want to lose their power, or their jobs more importantly, so they will protect their interests even when it's not in the best interests of the general public.  We were already collecting taxes on the initial sale of milk and cookies, but now we have these people to pay, and now we need more revenue.  They increase the fines associated with violating the law, which will increase the appeals and so forth.  Now you need more people to process all of that.  Suddenly the group of people dependent on regulating milk and cookies has grown.  You need special task forces to operate undercover stings, and that requires more money.  I know...let's make people register as licensed milk and cookie sellers and charge a fee for that!  Plus, that protects the consumer because they know they will be getting REAL milk and cookies, and not some contaminated crap from China!  Who's going to process the licenses?  More people, of course!  Now the little guy who was just producing a few gallons of milk a month can't afford to sell milk anymore so he goes out of business.  Only the big corporate milk producers are left, and they try to use their size to influence future policy and get some good breaks on the rules.  A whole other industry pops up with people who help defend (lawyers), or consult (accountants, etc...) people in the industry and help them navigate the increasingly complex rules and regulations.

It's hard to fault them, really.  It would be the same as any regular person walking into their boss's office and saying, "You know what?  I think the company would be better off without me, so why don't you go ahead and fire me?  My job isn't even all that important, so I'd just eliminate the position altogether.  In fact, go ahead and cut my whole department."  No one is going to do that.  The difference between government and a private business, however, is that a private business's growth is limited by the amount of money that can bring in from selling their goods and services.  The government just increases taxes, fees, penalties, etc... to keep funding their ever-growing enterprises. 

The Founders did understand that once government does something--be it passing a law, creating an agency, whatever--that it is highly unlikely that it will ever be repealed or cut.  That is always harder to do than to create it.  This is one of the main reasons they created our system to be cumbersome and slow.  Our Congress was not set up to act quickly because it was felt that no law is better than a bad law, and if it takes multiple steps and lots of time to pass a law, it will be better considered and more likely to have the proper support.

I also started this discussion by using an economic example, and that was intentional.  We declared our independence from Britain for lots of reasons, but primarily for economic ones.  It is also one of the foundational beliefs of our Founding Fathers that economic liberty is central to all others.  Without the ability to own property, and to create goods from raw materials and sell them, keeping the profits to care for ourselves and continue to make goods (or provide services) is the essential nature of liberty.  That which a man creates from his own labor and property is his.  I'm sure that you understand from your interest in Robin Hood, that "confiscating" the fruits of one's labors and/or property is a critical tool of tyrants and oppressive governments.  For most political philosophers who believe in democracy, liberty, etc...the number one function of government is to protect private property rights.  There is no other suitable body for doing so.

Madison said:

 "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."