June 20, 2006
Democracy and Republicanism II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 03:15 PM EST Joshua Zeitz wrote, “Findley claimed that even self-styled virtuous men like Morris had their own interests to protect, and what’s more, that they had ‘a right to advocate their own cause.’ What they didn’t have a right to do, he argued, was deny that they acted from a position of self-interest. In this sense, the Anti-Federalists were the truly gifted prognosticators of the moment. They anticipated the sort of hyper-competitive, interest-block democracy that America would soon become.”
I agree with Findley that everyone has interests to protect and advance. It borders on the definitional that to be alive is to have interests. I also agree wholeheartedly that one should acknowledge those interests. Alas, we very seldom do.
Corporations—flags waving and “America the Beautiful” playing softly in the background—push for protection from foreign competition to protect jobs, to maintain the country’s industrial base, etc., etc. Never mentioned is the fact that tariffs and other impediments to foreign competition make it much easier to earn a certain level of return on investment by allowing them to—harrumph—raise prices. Equally, labor unions push constantly for an increase in the minimum wage, arguing (crocodile tears streaming down both cheeks) that it is needed to help the poor and the downtrodden. Unmentioned is that the poor and downtrodden don’t belong to labor unions. It is a rare union member indeed who earns the minimum wage. But a legally mandated minimum wage acts as a floor for union wages: Push up the minimum wage and you make it much easier to push up union wages. (When both management and labor are on the same side, as they were when they both passionately opposed deregulation of the airline and trucking industries in the 1970s, or in favor of bailing out Chrysler in the 1980s, for instance, you can be sure they are protecting a cushy situation that benefits them at the expense of the public.)
Perhaps the most egregious example of this was in the late nineteenth century when industrialist pressure kept tariffs so high that the government couldn’t spend the money that rolled into its coffers. In 1884, for instance, government revenues exceeded expenses by an awesome 30 percent (Revenues $348 million, surplus $104 million). The industrialists argued that the country’s nascent industries couldn’t compete with the more established European firms and needed the protection to prevent being driven out of business by low-cost imports. Jobs would be wiped out! We’d have to return to our rural past! All will be lost! It was only in 1899 that, when the spectacular falling out between Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie, and the ensuing lawsuit, caused the books of the privately-held Carnegie Steel Company to be opened, it was revealed how specious this argument was. The Carnegie Steel Company turned out to be, by orders of magnitude, the world’s most efficient steel company, a company that was, in fact, very profitably underselling British steel manufacturers in the British market, despite the transportation costs.
It is human nature, I suppose, to perceive one’s own interests as being firmly aligned with what is good for society in general. Still, it would be nice if just now and then someone would say, “Well, yes, we stand to make a buck here, but it’s also a good deal for everyone and here’s why.” But pending that unlikely event, perhaps the press corps could do its duty and perform that function, pointing out how the various parties lobbying for and against something stand to benefit from their positions.
I won’t hold my breath.
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