RWCG:
I think nowadays we need a twin concept: democracy failure. Presumably, democracy, like markets, is supposed to optimize outcomes for people in some way or another. (Otherwise, why do we have it?) So then, just as with market failure, democracy failure could be defined along the lines of, a (self-sustaining or sustained) pattern that can emerge in democratic governance in which the outcome is undesirable in some appropriately-measured way.Go read the whole thing.
This would all have to be firmed up, and there would be the usual disputes over definitions and all, but for starters it seems worth pointing out that today we observe in our ‘democracy’ some patterns that seem both self-sustaining and sub-optimal: the rise of the ‘Smart’ crowd or mandarin class controlling bureaucracy and perpetuating their own power; wealth massively accruing to the capital city chasing privilege, rent-seeking and corruption in a time of recession and deprivation for the middle class; on the voter/’buy’ side, large swathes of the electorate electing a man they knew virtually nothing about to be the chief executive primarily because of his skin color, fantasies they had made up about him, and/or this fluffy-opiate Youtube video; rising inequality concentrated in a super-rich class characterized by massive self-indulgence and waste combined with a state of utter denial about their self-centeredness that usually goes hand in hand with a belief in their own benevolent progressivity. (Arnold Kling has more charges in his docket against the state of our democracy here. )
The point is that these patterns and tendencies all tend to feed on each other and sustain – increasingly so, it seems – a certain malign social arrangement. In this arrangement we see
Read down this list and then start back at the top. Repeat a couple of times. Each seems to feed on the previous. There seems no way out of this loop, either. So imagine what sort of society these tendencies will perpetuate. Is it the sort of society of equally-protected rights, rule of law governed by a blind justice, opportunity for all, and widespread prosperity usually connoted (rightly or wrongly) by the term ‘democracy’?
- an elite ‘progressive’ class of super-rich, condescendingly supersnobbish elites on top with ever-increasing power (smoothly bouncing between corporations and government, blurring the lines between the two, living and passing on to their children lives of unprecedented comfort, prestige, and privilege), with
- credentials to ‘certify’, and ‘correct’ ideologies that flatter them, that they deserve that power and ratify the highly delusional views they all have about their benevolence and ‘progressive’ superiority, which
- insulates them with an ironclad sense of entitlement to their high status and wealth (they deserve it because they care, or are Smart, or aren’t racist, or…), even as
- their privilege and comfort is fed by extracting – more and more in violation of the rule of law and the social compact, but rather due to cozy arrangements and privileges – ever more wealth, power and status from an electorate, an electorate made up mostly of people who are either
- simply unable to remove this elite from power and claw back some of their rights/property, or
- actively and willing ceding power to this elite due to various romantic or fantasy views they have about governance and society, views that can be very seductive (because they flatter those who hold them into thinking they are Smart), views which are
- nurtured – at times consciously – by the elite for obvious self-serving reasons: the more the democratic electorate holds these romantic views, the more power/wealth will accrue to the progressive elite, to the ‘Smart People’.
Note, Sonic Charmer corrects me, saying he is not being sarcastic, in the least.
:)
7 comments:
Think you made a typo and typed 'market' where you meant 'democracy'...
Also, who says I was being sarcastic? I'm perfectly serious.
For example, look at Al Gore. This 'liberal' has become a freaking billionaire by leveraging off of ongoing rent-seeking efforts/arguments, efforts for which he is, simultaneously, lauded with adulation from all the Smart people (and even a Nobel Prize!) to the point where his views are now orthodox canon among the elite (including the media, which constantly lectures the electorate to believe them) and threaten to be written into law, making himself and his friends/associated that much richer and more ensconced in their riches, with the luck of the ballot box in any given election cycle.
This certainly seems representative of a failure mode of democracy to me.
I corrected the type. Thanks for pointing that out.
Sheesh.
And, I also noted that you say you are not being sarcastic.
However, we both know that most of these "Market Faiulures" are not failures of the market, but are, instead, failures that result from government interference in the market.
We also both know that it is not impossible for the market to sometimes make mistakes, but on the whole, I think we would agree that, in the long run, the market is the most fair mechanism for dividing up our efforts and their results.
Likewise, I think Democracy works. I think it does not work so well when government, and/or, government-sponsored organizations, like ACORN, interfere.
Or, are you talking about something even beyond that.
I would remind you that Al Gore has benefited from government giving tremendous amounts of money to academics, so that they produce the results that he wants.
Additionally, at this point, the media works for the Democratic party on the subject of the desirability of Barack Obama and Global Warming.
However, I don't know that that is a Democracy Failure.
Instead, I think it is a Market Failure.
Let's put it this way:
If 'market failure' can be overused (and we agree that it is), then you are right, so can 'democracy failure'. But at the same time I do think the concept of democracy failure makes just as much sense, and happens just as much as, market failure. If not more so.
Your example of the media being in the tank for one party is part & parcel of what I mean by democracy failure. It is not purely a market failure; for one thing, it's not a pure market outcome: the media is not wholly independent from government (the broadcast spectrum is divvied up & licensed by gov't; access to their press conferences is highly controlled).
But more generally, democracy failure is meant to connote the entire cycle of politicians doing entirely self-serving things, but being lauded for it among opinion makers/Smart people, which then increases not decreases their chance for re-election, to do more self-serving things. (And the politicians carry a certain class of people along with them in their self-serving ways: upper middle class intelligentsia types, journalists, academics, etc profit from the cycle too...)
And the media play their role in that cycle. So it's a market failure in particular yes, but it's also part of democracy failure.
Ok. I understand.
Why is it I think of this as being sarcastic? I must be a real believer in Democracy and Free Markets.
So, my answer would be, in a Democracy, we get the government we deserve.
I don't consider that a failure. I consider it a success.
But then, in saying that, perhaps I am the one being sarcastic.
I'm a believer in democracy too. I think of what I'm doing here as identifying a failure mode of democracy. Like if you fly a plane straight up and the engine stalls. This doesn't mean I think democracy should be abandoned any more than I think one shouldn't fly airplanes; it means I think we should come up with ways to avoid this failure mode and correct course when we seem to be approaching it.
Not that I'm smart enough to know how to do that, or anything...
Well, you'd better be smart enough, cuz we can't leave it to the Smart People.
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