North Korea is in the news so much ... that no one pays attention to it. And, in my view, rightly so. Yes, some people have to pay attention. The US government has to say something about threats, if for no other reason than they don't want them to escalate, the UN has to say something, South Korea, Japan, China, but one has the sense that one is trapped in a deja vu all over again. I guess Trump provided a moment of entertainment by sounding a bit like a Kim Jung-un (which earned Trump moderate but near universal condemnation) but other than that ... really? The latest, I gather, is that North Korea will attack Guam sometime in the next X months.
There is not much to say about this that has not been said. North Korea is clearly an odd place run by odd people. So, we might be better off trying to riff on this latest flare up to ask a question that emerges out of it: what are the economics of threat? Since I've been burbling on about the economics of health care, this seems like a natural connection. Is there an economics of threat that we can use to assess not simply this situation but others?
The short answer is that I don't know. I'm not well versed in this subject, in North Korea politics, in the risk/trust literature and the like. But, it seems to me that there might be an unusual rationality to what North Korea is doing. Let us assume that the North Korean government is looking to get something out of its threats. What might this be? Well, it could be all manner of things. It could be favourable trade agreements, international respect, increased longevity for itself, since as a non-democratic regime it must face some international opposition (no matter how well it is repressed).
Can threats advance objectives? There is an interesting connection to Trump here, as well. The Trump government has initially attempted to get what it wants (whatever that might be) by threat. If you don't build a factory in the US, we will impose a tax on your product.
Moreover, threats are not confined to governments. I've been involved in organizations that worked with threats and implied threats. For instance, I was on strike. The threat is there: "if we do not get what we want, we will withhold services." In part, we reacted to an implied threat: "do X or something worse will happen," as a negotiating position from my employer. There were threats all around, even if no one actually used the precise word "threat." Parents threaten children ... clean your room or you are grounded.
Threats then are not confined to North Korea (even if theirs are a lot more grave by an order of magnitude). We use threats because they work. In economic terms, the threat is a currency that allows us to buy something: better labour relations (ideally), chores done, higher domestic employment. Most of the time, threats lurk in the background. Indeed, polite people are not supposed to really threaten someone else. Its not really considered ... well ... appropriate. So, we leave the implication of the threat floating there, in the air, so that people are aware of it, but no one is really saying it. The difference (or, one difference) with North Korea, and to a lesser extent Trump, is that threats are part of the regular political arsenal. (By contrast to Trump, the Bush, Jr., regime thought up a whole new language to disguise threats ["regime change," "pre-emptive defense," "coalition of the willing"]).
The problem with threats -- and I suppose implied threats -- from what I can see is that they have a short shelf life. They might produce immediate results but ultimately, they tend to produce only limited results. Why? Well, because they are not economically efficient.
For instance, imagine that I am running a government and I decide that I will cave in to North Korea's demands (whatever they happen to be) and agree to, say, ease trade sanctions. I have not done this not because I *wanted* to. I've done it because of the threat. What happens when you do something you don't want to? Well, you do it as little as possible. In other words, I might cave, but I don't want to cave in a big way. I might be willing to ease sanctions but I am not going to offer any development aid or IMF loans or a lessening of troops along the border. I'll do precisely -- and only -- what I have to do to respond to that threat.
And, I bet you folks knew that already. After all ... if you threaten to ground your child, how much effort do they spend on cleaning up their room? They meet the basic demand and that is all. (I strongly suspect Trumpian economics will be like this because they are founded on the same false idea that threats work well to accomplish objectives, but that is an issue for another day). Thus, for instance, if we assume North Korea has objectives, its threats help it meet those objectives *but just barely.* Its government might get a bit of international respect (it is involved in international negotiations -- other governments have to talk to it -- at least with regard to scaling back its threats, but that is all. It is not welcomed into the UN Security Council, no one rushes to side a free trade agreement with it, it garners no international free passes to cultural or athletic events, etc.).
What this means is that the threat is actually less economically efficient than other methods of attaining aims. For instance, there are other ways of winning international respect or attracting investment that produce more long-lasting effects. For instance, capacity is important. The US is invited to a host of international fora not because it threatens to get in the door but because it has the capacity to actually effect changes (be these medical care in Africa, famine or natural disaster relief, international athletics, the arts, scientific developments, post-secondary education, etc.). This runs against the grain of much neo-realist thinking with regard to power and the military but the US is not invited to international hockey tournaments because of its army. It is invited because it has a good team (aka, capacity). Its scientists are invited to international conferences because they are good (aka, capacity) not because its leadership had a fit on TV and makes demands. Threats become, in other words, a substitute for other capacity which is, actually, what North Korea lacks (capacity). Hence, it reverts to threats and these then compound the problems.
The other economic issue with a threat is that it is does not circulate endlessly. Sooner or later, other countries get tired of threats and say, in effect, "shit or get off the pot." Said differently, if you don't act on a threat, people start to think you are bluffing. Then ... what do you do? This means that if you rely on threats you either (a) have to act on it or (b) look like a dufus and back off. In the case of North Korea, neither option is particularly good. Imagine if the goal of North Korea's threats is to help the regime stay in power by creating an evil other against which the population will rally. Well, this works ... until they actually launch a missile. After that, the regime's time in office is numbered in the days. Hence, acting on the threat is economically irrational because it will produce the opposite of the desired effect. But B is equally unpalatable because the threats are intended to win respect, the opposite of being seen as a dufus. Either way, threats make bad sense.
So, what does one do? Well, in the case of North Korea, I don't know. In the case of the US, I have some ideas but in the case of North Korea, the absence of capacity in other areas and the fact that its government has transformed itself into a pariah state creates serious problems. There is no easy out, but I don't want you to miss my point. There is no easy out because of the economics of threats. In the longer run, they have a shelf life and if I were running a government, I'd recognize that and try to make sure I had some other -- more efficient -- way of meeting my goals.
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Friday, July 28, 2017
Twitter Politics: Health Care and Being Voted Off the Island
I was going to begin this post by saying that at least American politics is interesting but it really might not be. I suspect it is interesting both to the partisans of American politics and to those interested in the changing character and nature of US public life. In a previous series of blogs, I tried to suggest that one should avoid the pro/con dialogue on Trump in favour of an analysis that looked at what his rise (and I would have said this whether or not he "won" the presidential election) told us about the changing nature of US politics. I suggested that it said something about: the nature of American Christianity, the public culture of economics in the US, and disturbing trends in the increased legitimacy of racialized politics. Trumpism, in other words, benefited from a series of cultural changes that overtook a section of the US population.
A year later I see no reason to change my mind. The recent debate over health care and the tweet regarding trans-gendered people in the military epitomizes these changes and the culture that upholds them. What do I mean?
Before getting into that I should say that I am no expert on the United States or American politics and I think this is an important consideration. Canadians can find it all too easy to look across the border and make quick comments about the bizarre and retrogressive character of American politics. The fact that this retrogressive character actually seems to be ringing true lends some force to these comments. But, we also need to understand why Canadians make these comments on a regular basis when, in fact, they are often preaching to converted. This can be the subject of another blog. For now, it is a warning.
Instead of criticizing Trumpism, it is important to understand it, at least from an academic point of view, because that is what we do. Our analysis should strive for the same level of nuance, care, and precision that we bring to other analyses. That is: instead of simply dismissing Trump and his politics, we need to grapple with what motivates them. (I fully concede, too, that sometimes what motivates these politics can be disturbing.) In this light, what is going on? Let's take a quick look at healthcare first to illustrate what I am arguing is a broader trend.
The debate over health care illustrates a disjuncture between reality and discourse that pervades part of American public life. Make no mistakes about it. The Republicans will eventually get rid of Obamacare. It has not been saved. By this time next year millions of Americans will be without healthcare insurance and those that have it will be paying higher premiums. The Affordable Healthcare Act has a reprieve but that is all. The key to the disjuncture here is that millions of Americans have now discovered that (a) while they don't like Obamacare, they (b) don't actually know why and, (c) no one can really tell them, and (d) the alternatives aren't very good (and hence the interest in single payer).
Republicans, for their part, have discovered that the United States is divided on this issue. For political reasons, they will try to blame Democrats (and politically, Democrats might be wise to let them but that is a discussion for another day), but they have also discovered that the Democrats are not going down without a fight, that they -- the Republicans -- don't really have an alternative policy that withstands close scrutiny (why? because their plan to lower premiums involved un-insuring people: the poor, the ill, the elderly). Hence, the idea that Obama had somehow personally screwed Americans and taken money from their pockets for no good reason ... well ... that idea has run aground on the reality of the contemporary economics of health care.
In this sense the question is not "is there a disjuncture between reality and discourse" but which prevails? Republicans sold their plan on health care to their constituents -- not all Americans -- by promising lower premiums and by working with a bit of nostalgia for a world that no longer exist. They never explained why those premiums would be lower and hearkened back to an ideal of a small town doctor charging reasonable prices to middle class people just so long as the government did not get involved and "force" him to charge more. A kindly man in a white coat fixed you and your kids. The fact that that world no longer existed does not really matter in the politics of image. They said over and over again that Obamacare had destroyed America ... but how had it? What was actually wrong with it? Like most matters of public policy, the issue is not white and black and there are pros and cons. But what are those? Could the average Republican voter actually tell you?
What is wrong with this disjuncture is not just that it is politicized but that it is dishonest and prevents a real engagement with the issue of health care and its meaning and importance. How is it dishonest? Without being shocked that a politician stretched the truth, it is dishonest not just because it claims that Obamacare had destroyed America without explaining why but because it never explained why healthcare costs money. After all, recall that nice nostalgic image of the kindly town doctor. He didn't charge too much, did he?
Maybe he didn't, but that is not the healthcare world in which we live today. In the US, some healthcare costs are high because some people are making mega profits off of it. There is an expectation of remarkable wealth, at least on the part of some people, and there are a chain of people who actually benefit from the mega healthcare profits (again, something we can get to later). But, another reason healthcare has increased in cost is because ... well ... it got more expensive. I know that sounds simple but consider how high tech medicine has gotten.
For good or ill, I've had some health problems of late and have had to go through some tests over the last few years. The tests I get are remarkably more sophisticated than they were when I was a kid. People are, by and large, living longer. The machines we have in our hospitals tell us more than the machines we used to have and the medicines we have do more for us than the ones we used to have.
All of these things cost money. I cited Canadian data above re life expectancy, but US data will show us the same thing. This is a good news story that is not just happening by itself. It has happening because society -- through their governments -- are investing a lot of money into keeping people alive. There is much more that we could do and I am not talking about heroic and unusual intervention here. I am talking about progress on improving survival rates for people who have serious diseases that would have killed in a short time when I was a kid.
These are good costs. I am glad we have paid for them and I hope we -- and the folks in the US -- continue to pay for them. I think investing in people's lives is a good thing to do viz investing in, say, more consumer goods that we don't really need. But, and this is the point I want to make, these things cost money. The machines we use for tests are expensive. Training the highly qualified people who look after these tests and who provide care to us is expensive. My complaint is not that they are expensive. In fact, I'm not even complaining. I am analyzing. And, what this analysis points to is this: many Americans don't understand why healthcare is so expensive. They work with an idealized and antedated (even if nostalgically pleasing) image of what healthcare actually is. They don't understand that the money we have paid for healthcare on a social level has worked. It has improved quality of life and it has improved life expectancy. It is not perfect, but if one understood reality, one might start to think again about those promising to "fix" a problem that, in reality, might not exist in the fist place. Or, more exactly, not in the same way it has been presented.
What does all this have to do with American public life. It highlights the problem of the disjuncture between reality and discourse. Because Americans are not grappling with the real reasons why healthcare has increased in cost, they cannot have a real -- as in potentially effective -- debate about good healthcare policy. Hence, rather than celebrating the improved quality of life and longer life and socially broader health care, they see only problems that are not the problems that they really need to address. Instead, they approach a healthcare debate not in a manner that looks forward and asks "how do we keep the ball rolling?" but instead in a manner of trying to figure out who will be voted off the island.
A year later I see no reason to change my mind. The recent debate over health care and the tweet regarding trans-gendered people in the military epitomizes these changes and the culture that upholds them. What do I mean?
Before getting into that I should say that I am no expert on the United States or American politics and I think this is an important consideration. Canadians can find it all too easy to look across the border and make quick comments about the bizarre and retrogressive character of American politics. The fact that this retrogressive character actually seems to be ringing true lends some force to these comments. But, we also need to understand why Canadians make these comments on a regular basis when, in fact, they are often preaching to converted. This can be the subject of another blog. For now, it is a warning.
Instead of criticizing Trumpism, it is important to understand it, at least from an academic point of view, because that is what we do. Our analysis should strive for the same level of nuance, care, and precision that we bring to other analyses. That is: instead of simply dismissing Trump and his politics, we need to grapple with what motivates them. (I fully concede, too, that sometimes what motivates these politics can be disturbing.) In this light, what is going on? Let's take a quick look at healthcare first to illustrate what I am arguing is a broader trend.
The debate over health care illustrates a disjuncture between reality and discourse that pervades part of American public life. Make no mistakes about it. The Republicans will eventually get rid of Obamacare. It has not been saved. By this time next year millions of Americans will be without healthcare insurance and those that have it will be paying higher premiums. The Affordable Healthcare Act has a reprieve but that is all. The key to the disjuncture here is that millions of Americans have now discovered that (a) while they don't like Obamacare, they (b) don't actually know why and, (c) no one can really tell them, and (d) the alternatives aren't very good (and hence the interest in single payer).
Republicans, for their part, have discovered that the United States is divided on this issue. For political reasons, they will try to blame Democrats (and politically, Democrats might be wise to let them but that is a discussion for another day), but they have also discovered that the Democrats are not going down without a fight, that they -- the Republicans -- don't really have an alternative policy that withstands close scrutiny (why? because their plan to lower premiums involved un-insuring people: the poor, the ill, the elderly). Hence, the idea that Obama had somehow personally screwed Americans and taken money from their pockets for no good reason ... well ... that idea has run aground on the reality of the contemporary economics of health care.
In this sense the question is not "is there a disjuncture between reality and discourse" but which prevails? Republicans sold their plan on health care to their constituents -- not all Americans -- by promising lower premiums and by working with a bit of nostalgia for a world that no longer exist. They never explained why those premiums would be lower and hearkened back to an ideal of a small town doctor charging reasonable prices to middle class people just so long as the government did not get involved and "force" him to charge more. A kindly man in a white coat fixed you and your kids. The fact that that world no longer existed does not really matter in the politics of image. They said over and over again that Obamacare had destroyed America ... but how had it? What was actually wrong with it? Like most matters of public policy, the issue is not white and black and there are pros and cons. But what are those? Could the average Republican voter actually tell you?
What is wrong with this disjuncture is not just that it is politicized but that it is dishonest and prevents a real engagement with the issue of health care and its meaning and importance. How is it dishonest? Without being shocked that a politician stretched the truth, it is dishonest not just because it claims that Obamacare had destroyed America without explaining why but because it never explained why healthcare costs money. After all, recall that nice nostalgic image of the kindly town doctor. He didn't charge too much, did he?
Maybe he didn't, but that is not the healthcare world in which we live today. In the US, some healthcare costs are high because some people are making mega profits off of it. There is an expectation of remarkable wealth, at least on the part of some people, and there are a chain of people who actually benefit from the mega healthcare profits (again, something we can get to later). But, another reason healthcare has increased in cost is because ... well ... it got more expensive. I know that sounds simple but consider how high tech medicine has gotten.
For good or ill, I've had some health problems of late and have had to go through some tests over the last few years. The tests I get are remarkably more sophisticated than they were when I was a kid. People are, by and large, living longer. The machines we have in our hospitals tell us more than the machines we used to have and the medicines we have do more for us than the ones we used to have.
All of these things cost money. I cited Canadian data above re life expectancy, but US data will show us the same thing. This is a good news story that is not just happening by itself. It has happening because society -- through their governments -- are investing a lot of money into keeping people alive. There is much more that we could do and I am not talking about heroic and unusual intervention here. I am talking about progress on improving survival rates for people who have serious diseases that would have killed in a short time when I was a kid.
These are good costs. I am glad we have paid for them and I hope we -- and the folks in the US -- continue to pay for them. I think investing in people's lives is a good thing to do viz investing in, say, more consumer goods that we don't really need. But, and this is the point I want to make, these things cost money. The machines we use for tests are expensive. Training the highly qualified people who look after these tests and who provide care to us is expensive. My complaint is not that they are expensive. In fact, I'm not even complaining. I am analyzing. And, what this analysis points to is this: many Americans don't understand why healthcare is so expensive. They work with an idealized and antedated (even if nostalgically pleasing) image of what healthcare actually is. They don't understand that the money we have paid for healthcare on a social level has worked. It has improved quality of life and it has improved life expectancy. It is not perfect, but if one understood reality, one might start to think again about those promising to "fix" a problem that, in reality, might not exist in the fist place. Or, more exactly, not in the same way it has been presented.
What does all this have to do with American public life. It highlights the problem of the disjuncture between reality and discourse. Because Americans are not grappling with the real reasons why healthcare has increased in cost, they cannot have a real -- as in potentially effective -- debate about good healthcare policy. Hence, rather than celebrating the improved quality of life and longer life and socially broader health care, they see only problems that are not the problems that they really need to address. Instead, they approach a healthcare debate not in a manner that looks forward and asks "how do we keep the ball rolling?" but instead in a manner of trying to figure out who will be voted off the island.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
American Separatists
Is there anything intelligent that can be said about the movement -- on the part of several hundred thousand Americans -- to petition for their state to peacefully leave the US? I will confess that I don't really follow American public life with anything like the attention that I should. Like most Canadians, I watch the odd news report and move on, usually with a quick "thank you" to the powers that be that I am Canadian and live in Canada. Said differently, while I teach my students not to stereotype Americans, to recognize the country for its diversity and its positive characteristics (to not treat Fox News as if it were the US but recognize the honesty, hard work, and principles of most of Americans), I fall into the Canadian trap of making broad assumptions about the US, as much as anyone else.
With regard to the petitions set up for individual states to separate from the US, the stereotype is easy … almost too easy. Those setting up the stereotype seem to be (from what I can tell) by and large white, extremely right wing, and prejudiced. Their concern seems to be not with the United States but with the fact that they have a black President and they do not like it … not one bit. To follow the stereotype, the problem these people have is not with their freedom (which is no different today than it was yesterday or the day before) but with the fact that they see a black leader as somehow an infringement on their freedom. The fact that these petitions are coming, by and large, from southern states with a history of virulent racism seems only to confirm this stereotype. Disturbing stuff.
For us in Canada, however, there might be other ways we can look at this movement that are more profitable because we have our own history of separatism (leaving aside that the US does as well, and far more violent). Here is a first effort to say something intelligent about the US separatist movement, acknowledging that I might fail (I might not say something intelligent at all). There are several things we might learn from this movement.
First, a lot of people do not like democracy. Sure, they like it when their "side" wins. But, in this case, losing an election seems to be considered tantamount to something that is horrible, a disaster of unusual proportions, a threat to the very fabric of society, freedom and democracy. This can happy. Populations can elect authoritarian governments and even totalitarian ones. But, it is unusual and I do not think anyone could reasonably argue that the last American election produced an authoritarian government. After all, the Democrats won the presidency but the Republicans won the House of Representatives. The Democrats won the Senate but hardly swept it and two independent members (not members of either major party) now have Senate seats. The Republicans, moreover, outpoll the Democrats in terms of state governors. So, even if one does not like Obama, there is no evidence that the US is drifting to authoritarianism, much less totalitarianism. Indeed, the election produced results that might have made the US "founding fathers" smile: checks and balances. The Congress has to negotiate with each other and the president; the president has to negotiate with the Congress to pass laws. This is what the founding fathers wanted. They did not want one group (one party, let's say) to control everything. They wanted divisions that forced negotiations. And, in this sense, the election produced exactly the results that it was supposed to produce (at least according to a best-case scenario interpretation of the US Constitution).
One can have a debate about democracy -- its meaning, social and economic dimensions, etc. -- but no one would doubt that a representative democracy is a legitimate form of state organization (legitimate understood in a colloquial way). So, why do not some people like this result? Why do they dislike it so much that they are willing to leave the US? The conclusion I am putting forward is that they do not actually like democracy. If their side wins … great, something to celebrate. If their side loses, they want to take their toys and go home. The first thing that we should learn, then, about this movement is that a small percentage of Americans do not like democracy and so their commitment to the US is contingent on getting what they want out of it. One might wonder whether or not these are good citizens. After all, citizens are not supposed to make their loyalty to the nation contingent upon getting exactly what they want out of it and leaving if they do not, are they? If I did that, I would have set up my own separatist movement ages ago.
The second thing to learn is that setting up petitions is easy to do and so people do it (it is particularly easy in this day and age. I sign a number of electronic petitions each year). The ease of signing an electronic petition might have led some signatories to not consider what they were doing: a sort of heat of the moment type of thing. Why? Because there is an odd contradiction between their rationale for rejecting Obama and questioning his legitimacy and their own actions. You might recall (see a former blog) that some Republicans have claimed that the Democrats won the election because Obama promised Latina/o and black and youth voters "things." In other words, Obama voters only voted for him because they go things and this is supposedly bad and illegitimate. (I'd argue that providing services to citizens is part of the job of the state, but that is another story and another blog.) Yet, when these signatories don't get what they want … the argument is reversed. Democratic voters are bad for voting to get what they want; they are right to leave (destroy their country) when they don't get what they want. If they had won, on the other hand, they would have gotten what they wanted and so would not separate. You see where I am going. The very thing separatist signatories fault Democratic voters for is the thing they are doing. We can learn, than, not that these people are irrational but that the logic of American separatism is oddly contradictory.
Third, we can learn that so-called "moral issues" are important to these people. Now, I do not agree with the definition of moral issue (gay marriage, abortion) because it leave out other issues (equality, rule of law, environmental protection, care of the poor) that strike me as moral issues as well. Said differently, I think the division between "moral issues" and environmental and economic issues is artificial. Be that as it may, what seems to animate these people are "moral issues" and not economic issues. The state intervening in the economy to protect, say, the poor is treated as bad; the state intervening in the society to prevent women's choice is treated as good. We can agree or disagree with this logic (for the record, I disagree) but we should learn that for a certain sector of society (again, I think small, I think jobs and education and health care are the issues of import to most Americans), these issues count and count more then other issues.
Finally, I think we learn about the dangers of heightened rhetoric. For the last several years, the extreme wing of the Republican Party has ramped up the rhetoric against Obama. Ramping up rhetoric can be a good political tactic. It helped Chretien win his second majority; kept Martin in power longer than he otherwise would have been. Harper's crew deployed it against both Dion and Ignatieff (vote for Dion and the economy will be destroyed; do not vote for Ignatieff because he is a tourist Canadian). But, the fact that something is a good political tactic does not mean that it has no other implications. By ramping up the rhetoric, the Tea Party made the last election -- again, for a certain section of Americans -- a life and death battle between truth and God (on the one side) lined up with freedom and democracy against totalitarianism (remember all those Obama "death committees" and Obama = Hitler signs) -- and it is no wonder that those people are now deeply worried.
The truth, of course, is that policy disagreements are rarely about this type of Holy Order versus the reign of Satan type of thing. As I said, daily life in the US has not changed a great deal since Obama came to power (which might be a reason to be concerned about him if you were a Democrat), the American constitution is working the way it was designed, there is nothing unusual with citizens wanting a state to provide services, etc. But, the important point is what Obama came to symbols to those opposed to him. He symbolized not alternative policies that one can like or dislike, but night and day.
So, that is my first effort. Is there anything I am not considering? My argument is that we should look past the stereotypes and silliness of separatist signatories and, when we do, we do not find hard and fast conclusions (for instance, that this is motivated by racism) but instead, a series of issues that might be worth considering in a comparative perspective; things that we can learn about the way in which democratic societies function and the problems this functioning encounters.
With regard to the petitions set up for individual states to separate from the US, the stereotype is easy … almost too easy. Those setting up the stereotype seem to be (from what I can tell) by and large white, extremely right wing, and prejudiced. Their concern seems to be not with the United States but with the fact that they have a black President and they do not like it … not one bit. To follow the stereotype, the problem these people have is not with their freedom (which is no different today than it was yesterday or the day before) but with the fact that they see a black leader as somehow an infringement on their freedom. The fact that these petitions are coming, by and large, from southern states with a history of virulent racism seems only to confirm this stereotype. Disturbing stuff.
For us in Canada, however, there might be other ways we can look at this movement that are more profitable because we have our own history of separatism (leaving aside that the US does as well, and far more violent). Here is a first effort to say something intelligent about the US separatist movement, acknowledging that I might fail (I might not say something intelligent at all). There are several things we might learn from this movement.
First, a lot of people do not like democracy. Sure, they like it when their "side" wins. But, in this case, losing an election seems to be considered tantamount to something that is horrible, a disaster of unusual proportions, a threat to the very fabric of society, freedom and democracy. This can happy. Populations can elect authoritarian governments and even totalitarian ones. But, it is unusual and I do not think anyone could reasonably argue that the last American election produced an authoritarian government. After all, the Democrats won the presidency but the Republicans won the House of Representatives. The Democrats won the Senate but hardly swept it and two independent members (not members of either major party) now have Senate seats. The Republicans, moreover, outpoll the Democrats in terms of state governors. So, even if one does not like Obama, there is no evidence that the US is drifting to authoritarianism, much less totalitarianism. Indeed, the election produced results that might have made the US "founding fathers" smile: checks and balances. The Congress has to negotiate with each other and the president; the president has to negotiate with the Congress to pass laws. This is what the founding fathers wanted. They did not want one group (one party, let's say) to control everything. They wanted divisions that forced negotiations. And, in this sense, the election produced exactly the results that it was supposed to produce (at least according to a best-case scenario interpretation of the US Constitution).
One can have a debate about democracy -- its meaning, social and economic dimensions, etc. -- but no one would doubt that a representative democracy is a legitimate form of state organization (legitimate understood in a colloquial way). So, why do not some people like this result? Why do they dislike it so much that they are willing to leave the US? The conclusion I am putting forward is that they do not actually like democracy. If their side wins … great, something to celebrate. If their side loses, they want to take their toys and go home. The first thing that we should learn, then, about this movement is that a small percentage of Americans do not like democracy and so their commitment to the US is contingent on getting what they want out of it. One might wonder whether or not these are good citizens. After all, citizens are not supposed to make their loyalty to the nation contingent upon getting exactly what they want out of it and leaving if they do not, are they? If I did that, I would have set up my own separatist movement ages ago.
The second thing to learn is that setting up petitions is easy to do and so people do it (it is particularly easy in this day and age. I sign a number of electronic petitions each year). The ease of signing an electronic petition might have led some signatories to not consider what they were doing: a sort of heat of the moment type of thing. Why? Because there is an odd contradiction between their rationale for rejecting Obama and questioning his legitimacy and their own actions. You might recall (see a former blog) that some Republicans have claimed that the Democrats won the election because Obama promised Latina/o and black and youth voters "things." In other words, Obama voters only voted for him because they go things and this is supposedly bad and illegitimate. (I'd argue that providing services to citizens is part of the job of the state, but that is another story and another blog.) Yet, when these signatories don't get what they want … the argument is reversed. Democratic voters are bad for voting to get what they want; they are right to leave (destroy their country) when they don't get what they want. If they had won, on the other hand, they would have gotten what they wanted and so would not separate. You see where I am going. The very thing separatist signatories fault Democratic voters for is the thing they are doing. We can learn, than, not that these people are irrational but that the logic of American separatism is oddly contradictory.
Third, we can learn that so-called "moral issues" are important to these people. Now, I do not agree with the definition of moral issue (gay marriage, abortion) because it leave out other issues (equality, rule of law, environmental protection, care of the poor) that strike me as moral issues as well. Said differently, I think the division between "moral issues" and environmental and economic issues is artificial. Be that as it may, what seems to animate these people are "moral issues" and not economic issues. The state intervening in the economy to protect, say, the poor is treated as bad; the state intervening in the society to prevent women's choice is treated as good. We can agree or disagree with this logic (for the record, I disagree) but we should learn that for a certain sector of society (again, I think small, I think jobs and education and health care are the issues of import to most Americans), these issues count and count more then other issues.
Finally, I think we learn about the dangers of heightened rhetoric. For the last several years, the extreme wing of the Republican Party has ramped up the rhetoric against Obama. Ramping up rhetoric can be a good political tactic. It helped Chretien win his second majority; kept Martin in power longer than he otherwise would have been. Harper's crew deployed it against both Dion and Ignatieff (vote for Dion and the economy will be destroyed; do not vote for Ignatieff because he is a tourist Canadian). But, the fact that something is a good political tactic does not mean that it has no other implications. By ramping up the rhetoric, the Tea Party made the last election -- again, for a certain section of Americans -- a life and death battle between truth and God (on the one side) lined up with freedom and democracy against totalitarianism (remember all those Obama "death committees" and Obama = Hitler signs) -- and it is no wonder that those people are now deeply worried.
The truth, of course, is that policy disagreements are rarely about this type of Holy Order versus the reign of Satan type of thing. As I said, daily life in the US has not changed a great deal since Obama came to power (which might be a reason to be concerned about him if you were a Democrat), the American constitution is working the way it was designed, there is nothing unusual with citizens wanting a state to provide services, etc. But, the important point is what Obama came to symbols to those opposed to him. He symbolized not alternative policies that one can like or dislike, but night and day.
So, that is my first effort. Is there anything I am not considering? My argument is that we should look past the stereotypes and silliness of separatist signatories and, when we do, we do not find hard and fast conclusions (for instance, that this is motivated by racism) but instead, a series of issues that might be worth considering in a comparative perspective; things that we can learn about the way in which democratic societies function and the problems this functioning encounters.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Superpacs
Superpacs are American. We don't have them in Canada but they could be related to changes that are almost certainly going to be made to the Elections Act in Canada pertaining to political financing. Superpacs deserve attention for two reasons. First, because they stand to subvert democracy; second, because the rationale used to defend them against electoral reform measures illustrates the differences between Canada and the US.
Superpacs are committees that can raise large amounts of money for use by candidates. US campaign laws -- like Canada's -- prohibit large donations from a single individual to a single candidate or party. In effect, American thinking on limiting contribution levels is the same as Canada's: one should not be able to buy an office … at least in a democracy. Superpacs are not bound by these limits and, theoretically, they are not part of a candidates campaign financing, even if the money they provide, say, goes into buying advertising that says "don't vote for my opponent." Recently, one superpac is credited with keeping Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign alive. The Gingrich campaign had run out of money and was clearly not attracting a lot of grass roots support. A superpac stepped in and purchased something like $10 million dollars with of advertising for him. Superpacs are, then, a way of getting around rules that limit campaign contributions. If the goal of limiting campaign contributions is to ensure a level playing, superpacs are a way of getting around this. Superpacs became legal through a court decision/ In its decision in the court case that made superpacs legal, the US court ruled that to not allow people to spend what they can/want on elections is a limit on free speech. If they happen to have ten million dollars, so this argument runs, and they want to spend that ten million on advertising that says "elect so and so," the state should not interfere and to do so constitutes a violation of freedom of speech.
This is an interesting argument but is it true? Does electoral financing reform designed to create a level playing field and enhance democracy, impinge free speech if it does not allow the rich to devote millions and millions of dollars (labour unions and corporations get the same privilege, btw)? This is important to Canada because it appears that the Harper Conservatives will take steps to eliminate Canada's electoral reform financing (perhaps under the guise of saving money) that impose limits on how much individuals can donate and provides some measure of public financing to ensure that parties -- if supported by voters! -- have resources. Why ensure this through the state? Why not just rely on citizens to donate? Because not all citizens have the same ability to donate. Should a political party suffer, one might ask (or, at least I suspect this was the logic) because its supporters are poor. If one did not have some level of state support and contribution limits, a party with a small number of wealthy supporters would have more resources then a party with a very large number of poor supports. One Irving could make up for … well … all of southeast New Brunswick I suspect. At least, as I said, I suspect that was the logic. And, it runs counter to the logic used by the US Supreme Ct, which was: to impose a limit on what people can do with their money is an affront to free speech. I suspect that at least some Conservatives or their supporter will try to use this latter argument in Canada as the federal Tories end electoral reform. So … does it make sense?
The short answer is "no, this argument does not make sense." First, no rich person (union or company) is actually censored through campaign contribution limits. No one, for instance, loses their right to put up a web page, give and interview, call people on the phone, scream their message from the rooftops … etc. No one is actually silenced. A claim for free speech is usually made because someone is being prevented from saying (or, writing) something. In this case, then, we have a claim to free speech that is unusual (this is, I remind you in the US) in the sense that this claim was made even though no one was actually prevented from saying anything.
Since no one was actually ever silenced by electoral finance reform, what we have here is an argument that runs thus: free speech is threatened if we do not allow wealthy individuals or institutions to operate in excess of the already agreed upon limits. This last clause is important. No one is saying that candidates can't advertise or that people cannot contribute to candidates. What they are saying is that we have agreed upon a set of rules about contributions (how much one can donate) but we are going to let some people not follow the rules. Everyone else, to be sure, has to, but wealthy individuals and institutions don't.
Does that sound like a defense of free speech to you? Think quickly about it, without reflection, and see what you determine. Rephrased the question is this: is it right to have one law for the wealthy and one law for the rest of us? Most people, I suspect, are going to conclude that this argument about donations to superpacs has nothing whatsoever to do with free speech. It is not a defense of it but an arguing that, in effect, says "let the rich opt out of laws they don't like." In other words, exactly how superpacs got to be about free speech is a tad confusing since they are not about speech but about its diffusion. They are not about one's right to say something, but about one's right to opt out of rules that otherwise apply evenly to all citizens. One might be able to make a good argument about an "opt out" clause, but that is not my point. My point is that why superpacs should be a speech issue is not clear. And, since superpacs are not about speech, exactly how they are justified on the basis of preserving free speech is even less clear.
A second issue relates to advertising. This is important because most superpac money seems to go to advertising, that is try to effect the way people think about issues and candidates, hence its connection to free speech. The argument I often here is this: "advertising doesn't affect anything, people are still free to make up their own minds." Ergo .. one should not limit advertising spending because it treats adults as children who are not free to make up their own minds. This argument is not really about free speech per se either, but more about whether or not advertising has an effect. In effect, this argument suggests that one should not be too concerned about the fact that the wealthy are treated differently and allowed to by mass amounts of advertising that advance their electoral choices because advertising is really of no use since adults will make up their own minds. What do we think of this argument?
To find out, let me ask the question a different way: if advertising (the use to which superpacs put their money) is valueless, why were superpacs fighting to stay alive in the courts? Clearly, someone -- the people running them and donating the money -- thought they were useful. The rich are not irrational. Large corporations are not run by fools. The people who donate millions of dollars (above contribution limits) to a candidate so it can be spent on advertising do so because they are trying to influence the way people vote. These people are adverting because they see it as a way of affecting public views.The argument that we should not be concerned about having one rule for the rich and one rule for the rest of us is refuted by the rich themselves. In voting with their feet -- in buying advertising -- they are saying "we think this works." My point is this: it is not me saying that advertising works to convince people. Everyone who donates to a superpac thinks so, the people who fought in the courts think so, the people who run large companies think so.
So far, I've said that I don't find the arguments for superpacs compelling. Free speech does not require superpacs and no one appears to suffered from censorship before Superpacs emerged on the scene. The argument that superpacs spending is benign is problematic because the people running superpacs don't intend it to be benign. They intend it to have an effect. It also opens up the troubling line of argumentation that constitutionally and legally sets up two sets of campaign contribution rules based on social class. Now, to be clear. I am not arguing for Soviet Communism. What I am suggesting, however, is that Canadians pay some attention to what is going on in the US before we change our electoral financing laws. Our laws are not perfect. But, they have served Canada rather well to this point. There is room for reform but that reform sould move forward … and into a situation where money supplants democracy, silly arguments that have nothing to do with free speech are mobilized (and accepted) in support of political manipulation, and equal benefit of the law falls by the wayside.
Superpacs are committees that can raise large amounts of money for use by candidates. US campaign laws -- like Canada's -- prohibit large donations from a single individual to a single candidate or party. In effect, American thinking on limiting contribution levels is the same as Canada's: one should not be able to buy an office … at least in a democracy. Superpacs are not bound by these limits and, theoretically, they are not part of a candidates campaign financing, even if the money they provide, say, goes into buying advertising that says "don't vote for my opponent." Recently, one superpac is credited with keeping Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign alive. The Gingrich campaign had run out of money and was clearly not attracting a lot of grass roots support. A superpac stepped in and purchased something like $10 million dollars with of advertising for him. Superpacs are, then, a way of getting around rules that limit campaign contributions. If the goal of limiting campaign contributions is to ensure a level playing, superpacs are a way of getting around this. Superpacs became legal through a court decision/ In its decision in the court case that made superpacs legal, the US court ruled that to not allow people to spend what they can/want on elections is a limit on free speech. If they happen to have ten million dollars, so this argument runs, and they want to spend that ten million on advertising that says "elect so and so," the state should not interfere and to do so constitutes a violation of freedom of speech.
This is an interesting argument but is it true? Does electoral financing reform designed to create a level playing field and enhance democracy, impinge free speech if it does not allow the rich to devote millions and millions of dollars (labour unions and corporations get the same privilege, btw)? This is important to Canada because it appears that the Harper Conservatives will take steps to eliminate Canada's electoral reform financing (perhaps under the guise of saving money) that impose limits on how much individuals can donate and provides some measure of public financing to ensure that parties -- if supported by voters! -- have resources. Why ensure this through the state? Why not just rely on citizens to donate? Because not all citizens have the same ability to donate. Should a political party suffer, one might ask (or, at least I suspect this was the logic) because its supporters are poor. If one did not have some level of state support and contribution limits, a party with a small number of wealthy supporters would have more resources then a party with a very large number of poor supports. One Irving could make up for … well … all of southeast New Brunswick I suspect. At least, as I said, I suspect that was the logic. And, it runs counter to the logic used by the US Supreme Ct, which was: to impose a limit on what people can do with their money is an affront to free speech. I suspect that at least some Conservatives or their supporter will try to use this latter argument in Canada as the federal Tories end electoral reform. So … does it make sense?
The short answer is "no, this argument does not make sense." First, no rich person (union or company) is actually censored through campaign contribution limits. No one, for instance, loses their right to put up a web page, give and interview, call people on the phone, scream their message from the rooftops … etc. No one is actually silenced. A claim for free speech is usually made because someone is being prevented from saying (or, writing) something. In this case, then, we have a claim to free speech that is unusual (this is, I remind you in the US) in the sense that this claim was made even though no one was actually prevented from saying anything.
Since no one was actually ever silenced by electoral finance reform, what we have here is an argument that runs thus: free speech is threatened if we do not allow wealthy individuals or institutions to operate in excess of the already agreed upon limits. This last clause is important. No one is saying that candidates can't advertise or that people cannot contribute to candidates. What they are saying is that we have agreed upon a set of rules about contributions (how much one can donate) but we are going to let some people not follow the rules. Everyone else, to be sure, has to, but wealthy individuals and institutions don't.
Does that sound like a defense of free speech to you? Think quickly about it, without reflection, and see what you determine. Rephrased the question is this: is it right to have one law for the wealthy and one law for the rest of us? Most people, I suspect, are going to conclude that this argument about donations to superpacs has nothing whatsoever to do with free speech. It is not a defense of it but an arguing that, in effect, says "let the rich opt out of laws they don't like." In other words, exactly how superpacs got to be about free speech is a tad confusing since they are not about speech but about its diffusion. They are not about one's right to say something, but about one's right to opt out of rules that otherwise apply evenly to all citizens. One might be able to make a good argument about an "opt out" clause, but that is not my point. My point is that why superpacs should be a speech issue is not clear. And, since superpacs are not about speech, exactly how they are justified on the basis of preserving free speech is even less clear.
A second issue relates to advertising. This is important because most superpac money seems to go to advertising, that is try to effect the way people think about issues and candidates, hence its connection to free speech. The argument I often here is this: "advertising doesn't affect anything, people are still free to make up their own minds." Ergo .. one should not limit advertising spending because it treats adults as children who are not free to make up their own minds. This argument is not really about free speech per se either, but more about whether or not advertising has an effect. In effect, this argument suggests that one should not be too concerned about the fact that the wealthy are treated differently and allowed to by mass amounts of advertising that advance their electoral choices because advertising is really of no use since adults will make up their own minds. What do we think of this argument?
To find out, let me ask the question a different way: if advertising (the use to which superpacs put their money) is valueless, why were superpacs fighting to stay alive in the courts? Clearly, someone -- the people running them and donating the money -- thought they were useful. The rich are not irrational. Large corporations are not run by fools. The people who donate millions of dollars (above contribution limits) to a candidate so it can be spent on advertising do so because they are trying to influence the way people vote. These people are adverting because they see it as a way of affecting public views.The argument that we should not be concerned about having one rule for the rich and one rule for the rest of us is refuted by the rich themselves. In voting with their feet -- in buying advertising -- they are saying "we think this works." My point is this: it is not me saying that advertising works to convince people. Everyone who donates to a superpac thinks so, the people who fought in the courts think so, the people who run large companies think so.
So far, I've said that I don't find the arguments for superpacs compelling. Free speech does not require superpacs and no one appears to suffered from censorship before Superpacs emerged on the scene. The argument that superpacs spending is benign is problematic because the people running superpacs don't intend it to be benign. They intend it to have an effect. It also opens up the troubling line of argumentation that constitutionally and legally sets up two sets of campaign contribution rules based on social class. Now, to be clear. I am not arguing for Soviet Communism. What I am suggesting, however, is that Canadians pay some attention to what is going on in the US before we change our electoral financing laws. Our laws are not perfect. But, they have served Canada rather well to this point. There is room for reform but that reform sould move forward … and into a situation where money supplants democracy, silly arguments that have nothing to do with free speech are mobilized (and accepted) in support of political manipulation, and equal benefit of the law falls by the wayside.
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