Eric Baldwin is an electrical engineering senior and Mustang Daily libertarian columnist.
Democracy comes in two flavors — direct and representative. Direct democracy takes place when enfranchised citizens vote on the issues and problems they face, while in a representative democracy the citizens select proxies for that task.
The size and complexity of our modern world precludes the simpler version of democracy, but both are inherently weak to certain kinds of misuse. The tendency of special interests to gain undue influence due to a quirk of human behavior known as the “Tragedy of the Commons.”
The Tragedy of the Commons — also known as the Prisoners’ Dilemma — is when decision-making units (voters, companies, the Illuminati) can make choices where the benefits are restricted to the decider, while the costs are distributed among “the group.”
The Tragedy is named after a situation where several cowherds have access to common land. The land can sustainably feed only a limited number of cows before its carrying capacity is reduced. Without an enforceable agreement to regulate access, the cowherds will overgraze the commons. In the end, the land becomes so damaged that nobody is able to graze as many cattle as they would if it had been sustainably grazed. Without controlling costs, decision-makers will tend to engage in decisions that are in the aggregate ultimately destructive — even to themselves.
Special Interest Groups are a pretty broad set of entities; so much so that it is difficult to identify where a general interest ends and special interest begins (especially because the “general interest” is really an aggregate of all private interests). But, special interest groups (whatever they are) certainly do exist and participate in the realm of politics.
The most easily-identifiable type of special interest group is the private business. Industrial manufacturers, agricultural concerns and renewable energy companies all have specific preferences and interests that are different, or differently-proportioned, than those of the average citizen.
Advocacy groups are another form of special interest. They represent the specific religious, social and political inclinations of various voter groups.
The first element of government is force. If a government does not have coercive power (or force), it is not a government. Every special interest group, whatever its purpose, pursues certain goals. Many of those goals are, or can be, touched by government power.
Subsidies are a good example, as are regulations that reduce competitive pressures (licensing) and requirements to purchase certain products or services (construction specifications).
When individual citizens cast votes, they do so as one among millions. The vast number of voters that participate means the contribution of any single voter is nearly zero. As a result, the cost of voting (doing a little research and going to the poll) can be quite high compared to the benefit of contributing a fraction of a percent to the final decision. The value of making a more correct fractional decision, is probably less than the cost of additional research necessary to reach it. Therefore, voters tend to do less research.
Special interests can exploit this in two ways. By providing large amounts of advertising, they reduce the cost to the voter of acquiring more (but not necessarily better) information. And by increasing the apparent value of each voter’s fractional decision (voting is patriotic/throw the bums out), they can increase targeted voter turnout on ideological and emotional grounds.
In the upper echelons of politics, such as Congress, the decision-making entities face a different cost/benefit analysis than the average citizen. There are fewer voters, so each vote has a much larger impact — and after all, it is their job to obtain information and make decisions. They spend an enormous amount of other peoples’ time and money to get more accurate data and decide how to use it more effectively.
Here special interests have different methods of pursuing their goals. Campaigning for office costs a great deal of money. Special interests, business or social, have money to fund those campaigns, ensuring an obligated official. They also have the money to hire information-dealers and people-pushers — lobbyists — to influence the decisions those officials make.
The cost to a voter of losing a political decision is often low (when a tariff is implemented, or a product is subsidized or mandated), while the benefit to special interests is often high. The benefit to a voter of winning a political decision is often low (preventing a subsidy/tariff/mandate) while the cost to special interests, in missed revenue/funding/feelings of superiority, is often high.
As a result, special interests have a tendency to dominate in the political arena, and individual citizens, who wish to get involved, will be best served by supporting whatever special interest is most aligned with their own goals.
Eventually, most people are taxed/regulated/mandated under the assumption, conscious or otherwise, that being screwed over a lot and getting a special advantage is better than merely being screwed over a lot. It’s just not worthwhile (individually) to fight it (individually).
The agents most active in the political arena — special interests — will push to get as much benefit as they can from the tools available to them. But ultimately, special interests can only obtain the privileges available for politicians to dispense.
The great financial and ideological struggles we see in our government are not incidental; they are inherent. Those who stand to gain the most from power have the greatest interest in obtaining, preserving and expanding it. This is an argument against the increase in government powers, because it can only result in an increasingly violent struggle for control — terminating either in anarchy or authoritarianism.
Expansion of government powers is tempting because of the seeming good to which it may be put, but such a result, would be more a happy accident or a sporadic event than a consistent policy. It would be wiser to pursue a thoughtful, organized retreat from omnipotence to essentials — distributing power rather than collecting it — so democracy may be less useful for manipulation.
Will that solve problems? No.
People love trouble — it’s our nature. But, it is important to understand that even a government completely free from partisanship and manipulation would be incapable of addressing the root cause of human conflict. There are no mechanical solutions to moral problems.
A less-powerful, less-enticing structure would be an improvement. First, it would reduce the temptation to fix all our problems by legislation. Second, it would reduce the temptation to obtain profit and agreement by force.