But before I continue with some of the problems that result from guaranteeing everyone the right to form a private army dedicated to the violent overthrow of the US government, I want to move into another topic that has been tantalizing me for some time -- Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. So far, I have read the first book, First Man of Rome, starring Gaius Marius as the title character. Really, I shouldn't be getting to Rome before finishing Greece, and I should start with non-fiction before moving into fiction, but the series has been a temptation to me ever since reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for a more favorable look at the man himself. (Although he has just been born at the end of First Man in Rome).
I have now read the first book, and while it would be an exaggeration to say that I couldn't put it down and was walking around reading it and bumping into things, it did absorb my attention to the point of neglecting other things I probably should have been doing (like posting here), and I got through it faster than would ever seem possible for a 781 page novel.
I also read it at several levels. One was purely a literary level, approaching it as a work of literature, albeit one bounded by actual historical events. One was as a historical novel -- how well does it match actual historical events. And one was as a political novel, seen from the perspective of my consuming obsession -- the failure of democratically elective government, in this case, the Roman Republic.
So I intend to discuss it in (a minimum of) three posts -- first as a pure work of literature, second as a political novel, and third, to compare it to historical events and see how accurate it is.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Friday, June 27, 2014
Presser v. Illinois
There is at least one Supreme Court case that addresses whether the Second Amendment authorizes private armies -- the case of Presser v. Illinois. This case, like Luther v. Borden, is troubling from today's perspective precisely because it does not allow armed resistance to injustice. Yet, like Luther, it is also useful as a reminder that, even in the case of serious injustice, armed rebellion is a terrible thing and not one to be taken lightly or romanticized.
A little background is in order that the opinion is less than clear about. The case took place in the Gilded Age, when labor violence was at an all-time high in this country. Powerful companies hired the Pinkerton Detectives and other private goons as their de facto private armies. Unions countered them by raising their own armed forces, in this case, with the Socialist Labor Party. For this Presser, the head of the armed company, was charged with violating an Illinois statute forbidding military organizations other than those authorized by the state. As a defense, Presser argued that the statute violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. (Unsurprisingly, no such charges were brought against armed forces for powerful companies).
The Supreme Court decision is in some ways deeply offensive to our present-day understanding of the Constitution, but in other ways still current. It took the view current at the time distinguishing between the rights of "citizens of the United States," which were protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and citizens of a state. In particular, most of the Bill of Rights was held to be a restriction only on the Federal Government and not the states:
Presser also avoided addressing the issue of whether the Illinois Military Code was in violation of Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, forbidding states from keeping troops other than the militia authorized by Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16. But it did make clear that states could ban private armies, and its basic reasoning is sound, even if it was unjustly applied in this particular instance:
And the unequal way in which the ban on private armies was enforced raises another question that applies to the Patriot movement to this day, and that I plan to address in the near future -- if the Second Amendment guarantees a right to private armies and armed rebellion, just who is guaranteed that right.
A little background is in order that the opinion is less than clear about. The case took place in the Gilded Age, when labor violence was at an all-time high in this country. Powerful companies hired the Pinkerton Detectives and other private goons as their de facto private armies. Unions countered them by raising their own armed forces, in this case, with the Socialist Labor Party. For this Presser, the head of the armed company, was charged with violating an Illinois statute forbidding military organizations other than those authorized by the state. As a defense, Presser argued that the statute violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. (Unsurprisingly, no such charges were brought against armed forces for powerful companies).
The Supreme Court decision is in some ways deeply offensive to our present-day understanding of the Constitution, but in other ways still current. It took the view current at the time distinguishing between the rights of "citizens of the United States," which were protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and citizens of a state. In particular, most of the Bill of Rights was held to be a restriction only on the Federal Government and not the states:
The provision in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, that "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is a limitation only on the power of Congress and the national government, and not of the states. But in view of the fact that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force of the national government as well as in view of its general powers, the states cannot prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security.
The provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" does not prevent a state from passing such laws to regulate the privileges and immunities of its own citizens as do not abridge their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States.In this it cited the odious case of US v. Cruikshank, a case that deserves to live in the same infamy as Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, holding, in effect, that armed vigilantes in the South could deprive black people of their rights to their hearts' content, and the Federal Government could not intervene. But one can condemn Presser for citing Cruikshank and still regard it as sound in other ways.
Presser also avoided addressing the issue of whether the Illinois Military Code was in violation of Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, forbidding states from keeping troops other than the militia authorized by Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16. But it did make clear that states could ban private armies, and its basic reasoning is sound, even if it was unjustly applied in this particular instance:
Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law. Under our political system, they are subject to the regulation and control of the state and federal governments, acting in due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. . . . The exercise of this power by the states is necessary to the public peace, safety, and good order. To deny the power would be to deny the right of the state to disperse assemblages organized for sedition and treason, and the right to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine.And though we may be appalled at the narrow reading of the Bill of Rights at the time, that applied it only to the Federal Government and not the states, and although we may be offended that the double standard here, enforcing the ban on private armies only against labor and not against management, let us concede the opinion a point here that remains just as valid to this day. Military organization and drill and parade under arms are, or at least should be, subjects especially under the control of the government in every country. To allow unchecked proliferation of private armies is, indeed, an invitation to anarchy.
And the unequal way in which the ban on private armies was enforced raises another question that applies to the Patriot movement to this day, and that I plan to address in the near future -- if the Second Amendment guarantees a right to private armies and armed rebellion, just who is guaranteed that right.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Regulatory Capture: It's Not Just About Regulatory Agencies
And on the phenomenon of regulatory capture, the term should be applied in a broader context than just regulatory agencies being captured by the industries they regulate. Any time the Watchers go from outsider to insider, regulatory capture becomes an issue. Consider:
Surveillance. Attempts to regulate government surveillance and intelligence were made in the 1970's following the Church Hearings. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees were given greater oversight over executive intelligence agencies. The FISA court was created to decide whether foreign intelligence surveillance was warranted. Both attempts have proven toothless. Congressional intelligence committees have simply been coopted into the intelligence system and provide no meaningful oversight. The FISA court has been reduced to a rubber stamp, routinely approving requests like a warrant to gather meta-data on all telephone calls in the country. So far as I can tell, what happened in both cases was that outsiders who originally came in wanting to exercise meaningful oversight became insiders and part of the system.
The press corps. These are supposed to be the watchdogs who keep government honest. Instead, they have become increasingly deferential to the powerful for fear of losing access if they publish anything critical. The press has gone from outsider to insider and been captured by -- government.
Doubtless there are many other examples that can be found. The point here, I think, is that regulatory capture is not evidence of something especially noxious about government regulation, but part of the general tendency of outsiders to become insiders and insiders to protect their own. The question is what to do about it.
Surveillance. Attempts to regulate government surveillance and intelligence were made in the 1970's following the Church Hearings. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees were given greater oversight over executive intelligence agencies. The FISA court was created to decide whether foreign intelligence surveillance was warranted. Both attempts have proven toothless. Congressional intelligence committees have simply been coopted into the intelligence system and provide no meaningful oversight. The FISA court has been reduced to a rubber stamp, routinely approving requests like a warrant to gather meta-data on all telephone calls in the country. So far as I can tell, what happened in both cases was that outsiders who originally came in wanting to exercise meaningful oversight became insiders and part of the system.
The press corps. These are supposed to be the watchdogs who keep government honest. Instead, they have become increasingly deferential to the powerful for fear of losing access if they publish anything critical. The press has gone from outsider to insider and been captured by -- government.
Doubtless there are many other examples that can be found. The point here, I think, is that regulatory capture is not evidence of something especially noxious about government regulation, but part of the general tendency of outsiders to become insiders and insiders to protect their own. The question is what to do about it.
Libertarians and "Plutocratic Capture"
Paul Krugman has written another column that expresses my basic concerns for our future. He comments that conservative economists (i.e., libertarians) worry about regulatory capture, i.e., that regulatory agencies will end up being captured by the industries they are supposed to regulate, but not about "plutocratic capture," i.e., that extreme concentration of wealth will lead to the one percent hijacking democratic institutions.
I don't think that is quite right. In my experience, libertarians are well aware of the dangers of plutocratic capture; they just differ from liberals on what to do about it. I confess I am not clear as to what liberals propose to do about regulatory capture. To libertarians the answer is easy -- no regulations, no regulatory capture. Just don't regulate and regulatory capture will be a non-issue.
I have a better sense of the liberal answer to plutocratic capture. It comes in two basic parts. One is to avoid extreme concentration of wealth, whether by redistributive taxation or otherwise. The other is to have other strong power centers in society to counter the strength of the plutocracy -- such as unions, consumer organization, home owner associates, or government. It is a bit glib to say that libertarians' approach to plutocratic capture is the same -- no government, no plutocratic capture. But that is more caricature than total misrepresentation. Libertarians tend to assume that the way to avoid plutocratic capture is to keep government as small and as weak as possible so that it won't be worth capturing. The unstated assumption here is that if plutocrats are not able to exercise power by capturing a strong government, then they will have no power and the rest of us will not have to fear its abuse.
I consider the libertarian viewpoint to be hopelessly naive. It is true, I agree, that the combination of a strong, active state and extreme concentration of wealth creates the danger of plutocratic capture -- of the rich treating the state as their private instrument. But there are two problems with the assumption that keeping the state small and weak will avoid these dangers.
First of all, just how small and weak does the state have to be? After all, the state was much smaller and weaker in the Gilded Age than it is today, yet powerful concentrations of wealth nonetheless thought it worth capturing. Some libertarians describe the state as a monopoly on violence and conclude that it exceeds its proper limits whenever it does anything other than violence. Well, powerful interests of the Gilded Age were entirely happy to use the state's monopoly on violence as an instrument on their behalf to crush unions. But I suppose a libertarian might argue that with today's increased mobility of capital, in the absence of artificial limitations, a company might simply fire any troublesome union organizers and, if this failed to work, relocate to somewhere without unions, so there would be no need to resort to brute force. Other libertarians want to limit the state to the criminal justice system and a civil court system. But the effect of this would simply be to shift the arena for contesting concentrations of economic power to the courts. For instance, if we end all environmental regulation, the best recourse for a victim of a polluting company would be a common law action enjoin a nuisance. But that would not so much shrink the power of the state as shift it to the courts, and thereby give the rich and powerful a strong interest in wanting to capture the process for choosing judges. Other libertarians allow a greater scope for the state, but in that case the state would clearly be worth capturing. In short, I do not think it possible to make the state too small and weak to be worth capturing.
But even assuming we can shrink the state to the point that it is not worth capturing, libertarians are quite wrong in assuming that this will prevent abuses of power by great concentrations of wealth. What actually happens when a society combines great inequality of wealth with a small and weak state is that the rich use their power to form their own state-within-a-state, which they use entirely for their private interests because there is no pretense of public accountability.
We are already seeing an early and relatively benign form of this in the form of gated communities. Gate communities hire their own private security guards -- and resist paying taxes for community police forces. Likewise, people who can afford to may send their children to private schools. They may resist paying taxes for public schools, but even if they do not, public schools lose important advocates and participants. Powerful companies are bypassing the courts by putting arbitration clauses into their contracts and assuring that any dispute under the contract will be arbitrated in a forum favorable to the company. Libertarians will probably defend all these things as appropriate exercises in self-interest, and as proof that the private sector does these things better than government. But to individuals who cannot afford their own private security guards, or private schools, or arbitration forums, the result is an undercutting of public services and access to the courts.
Nor does the state-within-a-state necessarily stop there. In many countries with strong concentration of wealth and a weak state, the rich invade the state's monopoly on violence to form their own private forces, like the Pinkerton Detectives or Latin American death squads. In its most extreme forms, the state can break down altogether and the rich and powerful become warlords.
All of which points up to the central error of libertarianism -- its assumption that the state has a monopoly on power and oppression, that if one eliminates the state, on eliminates power and its potential for abuse.
I don't think that is quite right. In my experience, libertarians are well aware of the dangers of plutocratic capture; they just differ from liberals on what to do about it. I confess I am not clear as to what liberals propose to do about regulatory capture. To libertarians the answer is easy -- no regulations, no regulatory capture. Just don't regulate and regulatory capture will be a non-issue.
I have a better sense of the liberal answer to plutocratic capture. It comes in two basic parts. One is to avoid extreme concentration of wealth, whether by redistributive taxation or otherwise. The other is to have other strong power centers in society to counter the strength of the plutocracy -- such as unions, consumer organization, home owner associates, or government. It is a bit glib to say that libertarians' approach to plutocratic capture is the same -- no government, no plutocratic capture. But that is more caricature than total misrepresentation. Libertarians tend to assume that the way to avoid plutocratic capture is to keep government as small and as weak as possible so that it won't be worth capturing. The unstated assumption here is that if plutocrats are not able to exercise power by capturing a strong government, then they will have no power and the rest of us will not have to fear its abuse.
I consider the libertarian viewpoint to be hopelessly naive. It is true, I agree, that the combination of a strong, active state and extreme concentration of wealth creates the danger of plutocratic capture -- of the rich treating the state as their private instrument. But there are two problems with the assumption that keeping the state small and weak will avoid these dangers.
First of all, just how small and weak does the state have to be? After all, the state was much smaller and weaker in the Gilded Age than it is today, yet powerful concentrations of wealth nonetheless thought it worth capturing. Some libertarians describe the state as a monopoly on violence and conclude that it exceeds its proper limits whenever it does anything other than violence. Well, powerful interests of the Gilded Age were entirely happy to use the state's monopoly on violence as an instrument on their behalf to crush unions. But I suppose a libertarian might argue that with today's increased mobility of capital, in the absence of artificial limitations, a company might simply fire any troublesome union organizers and, if this failed to work, relocate to somewhere without unions, so there would be no need to resort to brute force. Other libertarians want to limit the state to the criminal justice system and a civil court system. But the effect of this would simply be to shift the arena for contesting concentrations of economic power to the courts. For instance, if we end all environmental regulation, the best recourse for a victim of a polluting company would be a common law action enjoin a nuisance. But that would not so much shrink the power of the state as shift it to the courts, and thereby give the rich and powerful a strong interest in wanting to capture the process for choosing judges. Other libertarians allow a greater scope for the state, but in that case the state would clearly be worth capturing. In short, I do not think it possible to make the state too small and weak to be worth capturing.
But even assuming we can shrink the state to the point that it is not worth capturing, libertarians are quite wrong in assuming that this will prevent abuses of power by great concentrations of wealth. What actually happens when a society combines great inequality of wealth with a small and weak state is that the rich use their power to form their own state-within-a-state, which they use entirely for their private interests because there is no pretense of public accountability.
We are already seeing an early and relatively benign form of this in the form of gated communities. Gate communities hire their own private security guards -- and resist paying taxes for community police forces. Likewise, people who can afford to may send their children to private schools. They may resist paying taxes for public schools, but even if they do not, public schools lose important advocates and participants. Powerful companies are bypassing the courts by putting arbitration clauses into their contracts and assuring that any dispute under the contract will be arbitrated in a forum favorable to the company. Libertarians will probably defend all these things as appropriate exercises in self-interest, and as proof that the private sector does these things better than government. But to individuals who cannot afford their own private security guards, or private schools, or arbitration forums, the result is an undercutting of public services and access to the courts.
Nor does the state-within-a-state necessarily stop there. In many countries with strong concentration of wealth and a weak state, the rich invade the state's monopoly on violence to form their own private forces, like the Pinkerton Detectives or Latin American death squads. In its most extreme forms, the state can break down altogether and the rich and powerful become warlords.
All of which points up to the central error of libertarianism -- its assumption that the state has a monopoly on power and oppression, that if one eliminates the state, on eliminates power and its potential for abuse.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Beware R > G
I have not read Thomas Picketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but really I probably should. Its basic hypothesis is simple:: Historic trend is for return on assets to grow faster than the overall economy, leading to ever increased concentration of wealth. We broke from trend for a while, but are returning to it. Or, to put it more simply, the rate of return on assets is greater than overall economic growth. R > G, in economic speak. That could explain a lot.
As I understand it, Picketty focuses mostly on modern times, but modern times have been unusual. His data apparently goes all the way back to 0 A.D. and shows that historically, the return on assets has generally been around 4.5%, going up slightly to about 5% around the time of the Industrial Revolution. World economic growth has never been this high.* Indeed, world economic growth was minimal from 0 to 1000 and under 1% until the Industrial Revolution got going. R abnormally dropped to around 1% around 1913-1950; G reached the extraordinary height approaching 4% (still below the historical return on assets, bear in mind) between 1950 and the present, while R has been moving toward its historical level, but remains (narrowly) below G. Picketty presupposes that R will return to its historic level, while G falls, though not all the way to its historic level.
This graph (and, presumably, Picketty's book) does not go back to pre-0 A.D., but his hypothesis could explain a lot. Because so far as I can tell, the failure of democratically elective government in Classical Antiquity can roughly be summed up as R > G. There was (I assume) real economic growth in classical Greece and Rome (remember, the G in the graph is world economic growth). The wealth became increasingly concentrated, while growing portions of the population became impoverished. In Rome, at least, a lot of what was happening was the growth of vast slave plantations that really could grow more food with less labor -- but the result of supporting a larger population with less work was massive unemployment. England suffered the same problem pre-Industrial Revolution and ultimately solved it with industrialization. In Classical times, no such resolution was found. Wealth simply accumulated in fewer and fewer hands and more and more people were poor and unemployed, with no relief in sight. The details, of course, differed from time to time and place to place, and I look forward to learning about them. But underlying it all was the iron law of R > G.
And Picketty's hypothesis, if true, has scary implications for the future. I do not expect R > G to be as much of an issue in the modern failure of democracy as in Classical times (although do not forget that democracy is most likely to fail when a country's G falls) because the massive increase in G from industrial development came to the rescue. But if Picketty is right, and if others are right in their fears that automation will make people obsolete, we could end up right back where so many other societies -- from Classical Greece and Rome to England before the Industrial Revolution -- great at producing stuff, but unable to make room for large portions of the population.
R > G may prove to be a major difference in failing democracy in Classical versus modern times.
_____________________________________________
*Economic growth has reached and exceeded this level in individual countries, but only up to a point, and never world-wide.
This graph (and, presumably, Picketty's book) does not go back to pre-0 A.D., but his hypothesis could explain a lot. Because so far as I can tell, the failure of democratically elective government in Classical Antiquity can roughly be summed up as R > G. There was (I assume) real economic growth in classical Greece and Rome (remember, the G in the graph is world economic growth). The wealth became increasingly concentrated, while growing portions of the population became impoverished. In Rome, at least, a lot of what was happening was the growth of vast slave plantations that really could grow more food with less labor -- but the result of supporting a larger population with less work was massive unemployment. England suffered the same problem pre-Industrial Revolution and ultimately solved it with industrialization. In Classical times, no such resolution was found. Wealth simply accumulated in fewer and fewer hands and more and more people were poor and unemployed, with no relief in sight. The details, of course, differed from time to time and place to place, and I look forward to learning about them. But underlying it all was the iron law of R > G.
And Picketty's hypothesis, if true, has scary implications for the future. I do not expect R > G to be as much of an issue in the modern failure of democracy as in Classical times (although do not forget that democracy is most likely to fail when a country's G falls) because the massive increase in G from industrial development came to the rescue. But if Picketty is right, and if others are right in their fears that automation will make people obsolete, we could end up right back where so many other societies -- from Classical Greece and Rome to England before the Industrial Revolution -- great at producing stuff, but unable to make room for large portions of the population.
R > G may prove to be a major difference in failing democracy in Classical versus modern times.
_____________________________________________
*Economic growth has reached and exceeded this level in individual countries, but only up to a point, and never world-wide.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Memo to Google
To: Google
From: Your readers
Re: World Cup Soccer
Message: We have noticed a lot of World Cup related themes up there when we do Google searches lately. We get that you are big soccer fans and all excited about the World Cup. And it is cute. But really, enough is enough after a while. Can't you come up with something else just as cute?
From: Your readers
Re: World Cup Soccer
Message: We have noticed a lot of World Cup related themes up there when we do Google searches lately. We get that you are big soccer fans and all excited about the World Cup. And it is cute. But really, enough is enough after a while. Can't you come up with something else just as cute?
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Dear President Obama: Talk to Congress Before Starting Any Wars
Dear President Obama:
Apparently you believe that you have authority to intervene in Iraq without consulting Congress. So let me make this heartfelt appeal to you. Talk to Congress before you do anything rash.
There are two reasons you should do this, one a matter of policy and one of politics.
As a matter of policy, we have had more than too many Presidents fighting unilateral, unauthorized wars. Granted, this is not new. As a matter of fact, it has been happening since Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines to the shores of Tripoli. But enough is enough. The decision to go to war (even a small war) is to large a decision to be made by one man. It is a decision for the nation, to be made through its representatives in Congress. Granted, in times past and no doubt times future Congress has not served as much of a brake on out-of-control Presidents. But the nation is war weary and war wary. If we are going to have a war, even on a small scale, it needs talking over before you do something stupid.
As for the matter of politics, in acting unilaterally, you leave yourself vulnerable. Make no mistake, regardless of what you do, the Republicans will condemn you for it and say you should have done the opposite. So instead of giving them the opening, force them to commit. Granted, they will still blame you for withdrawing and insist that if you had just lest a small residual force, all would be well today. Well, don't worry. No one believes them. Not even Glen Beck, for God's sake! So go ahead. Before you act, make them stand up and commit.
With any luck, they will block you.
Apparently you believe that you have authority to intervene in Iraq without consulting Congress. So let me make this heartfelt appeal to you. Talk to Congress before you do anything rash.
There are two reasons you should do this, one a matter of policy and one of politics.
As a matter of policy, we have had more than too many Presidents fighting unilateral, unauthorized wars. Granted, this is not new. As a matter of fact, it has been happening since Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines to the shores of Tripoli. But enough is enough. The decision to go to war (even a small war) is to large a decision to be made by one man. It is a decision for the nation, to be made through its representatives in Congress. Granted, in times past and no doubt times future Congress has not served as much of a brake on out-of-control Presidents. But the nation is war weary and war wary. If we are going to have a war, even on a small scale, it needs talking over before you do something stupid.
As for the matter of politics, in acting unilaterally, you leave yourself vulnerable. Make no mistake, regardless of what you do, the Republicans will condemn you for it and say you should have done the opposite. So instead of giving them the opening, force them to commit. Granted, they will still blame you for withdrawing and insist that if you had just lest a small residual force, all would be well today. Well, don't worry. No one believes them. Not even Glen Beck, for God's sake! So go ahead. Before you act, make them stand up and commit.
With any luck, they will block you.
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