Liberals and Libertarians

For those that monitor the blogosphere, and specifically Economist.com's Democracy in America blog, you've no doubt followed the back and forth between Matt Steinglass and Will Wilkinson on any host of issues.  Mr. Steinglass representing broadly the liberal view of things and Mr. Wilkinson the libertarian view of things.  Without a doubt, it's some of the most intelligent debate between these two paradigms ("ideologies" seemed too rigid and not befitting the rationality they bring to the debate).  I, perhaps narcissistic-ly, like to think the exchanges (typically in the comments section) between Ben, Colin (our foil at To Get Rich Is Glorious), and I are like a minor league version of the Steinglass/Wilkinson debates.

Course they still do it best, and when Mr. Wilkinson lays out some tenets of libertarianism including the belief that "Taxation is coercive but imprisoning the guy who nicked your lawn gnome isn't," you can expect that Mr. Steinglass would respond and so he did.  There's a lot of good stuff in there, but specifically on the issue of "taxation being coercive" he notes that: "liberals think of taxation as paying one's fair share for the collective goods that make society feasible. Every society needs collective goods to function, including transportation and infrastructure, education, the justice system itself, and so on... Payment for those goods cannot be left voluntary, as ultimately everyone would welch."

This completely captures why I think taxation is legitimate.  Of course, one could say, and Colin as suggested, that you must have  pessimistic view of people if you believe they won't voluntarily contribute what is needed for the general welfare.  I think that makes me a realist and a liberal.

The Beginning of History

Francis Fukuyama has a very concise summation(behind a registration wall) of the interplay between China and the U.S., both the places they hold in the world, the parts to envy about each system, and a warning of adjustments both need to make  Matthew Steinglass remarks that Dr. Fukuyama’s op-ed “puts it all together in a fashion that's close to perfect.”  Certainly it’s a fantastic summation, but it does raise some questions.

Without a doubt, the Chinese model is hard to classify but it allows China “to make large, complex decisions quickly, and to make them relatively well, at least in economic policy.”  Fukuyama contrasts this with India, where all manner of interests can derail a project, particularly infrastructure projects.  But the big question, one we don’t really have the answer to yet and one that Fukuyama foreshadows is how this system responds in an economic downturn.  

This authoritarian system, which has co-opted the business elite and essentially created a middle class, has been able to use sustained and extraordinary economic growth to dis-incentivize the desire for a more democratic government.  However, there is still a large portion of the population that has not seen any success from this economic expansion.  Perhaps given the sheer size of the country and the control the regime has institutionalized, they have been able to ignore this group.  It should also be noted the government has responded to many of the concerns of all their constituencies, but I have doubts about how long they can stay ahead of the eight ball.  The true test will come when GDP growth comes down to earth, which is not to say I hope it happens, only that it will happen.  (Yes, I understand the irony of saying this will happen like so many people said China would be more democratic as its economy grew.  Sometimes you gotta go out on a limb and think economic principles will hold.)

Fukuyama also takes aim at the American system and points out some of its weaknesses.  He writes, “Americans pride themselves on constitutional checks and balances, based on a political culture that distrusts centralised government. This system has ensured individual liberty and a vibrant private sector, but it has now become polarised and ideologically rigid.”  Quite right.  Balancing our democratic traditions with the demands of a globally inter-connected economy where countries, more so then companies, remain the dominant players presents a tough needle to thread.  I think we find ourselves at a crossroads in America with essentially two competing visions: we can move to weaken the federal government, lower taxes, continue to deregulate, and move back to something akin to the U.S. in the late 1700s or we will have to empower the federal government to make ever bigger decisions about the priorities and direction of the country, which could necessitate higher taxes and will necessitate greater bureaucratic autonomy (and maybe control). The former vision would likely guarantee an inability to compete with China, while the latter vision would compromise aspects of the American psyche that places a heavy premium on individual liberty.

Let me say clearly, I’m not a big fan of either scenario.  While I see the social value of a stronger federal government, I remain suspicious of empowering that government to have even half the power the Chinese government now wields over its populace.  This of course, presents a quandary since the middling-road hasn’t done much for us in the past 20 years or so to address our long-term fiscal challenges or allow our foreign policy to capitalize on that brief moment at the end of the Cold War to reinforce the benevolent hegemony of the United States.  To bring it back to Steinglass, he ends his laudatory post on Fukuyama’s op-ed by noting, “It's not clear where we're heading, and we should keep our wits about us and adapt; we can be left behind, just as others were before us.”  Alternatively, we’re not at the end of history, instead we are at the beginning of a new chapter in our history where the conventions of the last chapter will be challenged in new way.  How the U.S. responds today might tell us in the future if we are watching the sun set on American global dominance.

The Chicken or The Egg: Blaming....someone...

Matt Steinglass has a post up in Democracy in Action discussing Obama's pocket veto of a once uncontroversial piece of mortgage-related legislation. He gets into a defense of the intelligence of elected officials, but I think he gets off track when he says:

These people [member of Congress] aren't mindlessly partisan carney barkers, but they often play them on TV. Why? My working theory is that it's generally because we, the voters, demand it. We're frequently angry, and we're not very smart.

Slow down. I just can't get fully behind this point, and not because I think I'm a pretty smart guy (trust me, I am). My own "working theory" is a media monster that constantly needs fed and the degradation of professional journalism into a horse-race, process-centric smörgåsbord/trough that the monster can feed at. The gaffe, the audacious, indeed the irrational is sexy. The actual policy is tedious, plodding, and boring. Can you imagine watching Morning Joe (I watch at the gym. Yes the gym. Seriously.) for 3 hours in the morning where there is mostly a reasoned discussion of specific policy choices? Mika would fall asleep. Joe would run out of things to say (maybe).

But Stienglass doesn't stop there, he continues:

Rather, I think one of the things you have to recognize about politics is that it's to a great extent composed of very smart people forcefully saying things they know aren't true, in order to retain the support of the public to do the complicated things they know are actually in the public interest.

Let me get this straight: Our elected officials knowingly say things that aren't true to gain our support so when nobody is looking they can actually serve us. Is that really our reality? No wonder there's a Tea Party and people hate incumbents.

Steinglass presents a vision of the US political scene that makes me want to wave a Gadsden flag (h/t Wikipedia). I refuse to accept that 1) The American people want politicians to dumb it down and 2) Dumbing it down is the way to be reelected.

Am I living in denial? Meh, maybe. I prefer to consider it faith in the ability of our politicians, the media, and the we the people to strive for something better.