STRATEGY, DEMOCRACY AND ELITISM: CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS

When discussing the notion that our Constitution needs to be modernized, I'm generally met with two types of objections. The first objection, at bottom, is that our Constitution cannot be changed because it's a sacred, unalterable holy text. The second objection is that our Constitution is elitist and anti-democratic and therefore, should be completely abandoned. I have addressed the first objection elsewhere, but little has to be said: It is not, in the end, a serious objection. The second objection, however, is a serious objection that must be addressed.

I have previously argued in favor of the possibility of a "tyranny of the majority" against minority groups. My argument is that economically stressed populations have historically been susceptible to demagogues offering a strategy of what I have termed majoritarian apartheid (anti-semitism in Nazi Germany; racism in the South).

However, there is another distinct issue with respect to democracy and elitism. Our Founding Fathers (perhaps Madison, in particular) thought that trained elites would come up with better political solutions than the hoi poloi. Various structural solutions were employed to ensure that the better educated (which for Madison also meant wealthier) citizens would have more influence. Thus, our democracy is indirect rather than direct, the Senate has more power, and so on. This concept is rarely unpacked; it is generally accepted as obviously true or dismissed as obviously false (and irredeemably elitist). I think once you start to unpack and examine this idea, it's clear that it's very complex.

The first step is to understand how we strategize. The process of strategizing is as follows: There is the situation as it happens to currently be (call this A); there is the goal (call this B); and tactics are how one gets from A to B. So, there are three components: where you are; where you're going; and how you get there. We can come up with bad solutions when things go wrong at any of these junctures.

Before I get to the elitism issue, it is worth examining the issue of goals and the constitutional solution to goals that are contrary to civic virtue.

GOALS CONTRARY TO CIVIC VIRTUE

The goal of corporations is not the common good, but rather is maximizing profits (this is required by law, by the way). So, let's examine the example of an HIV-infected blood supply. At some point, the situation faced by companies selling blood products was that they knew the blood supply was infected, there was an accurate test and some countries had passed regulations prohibiting sale of infected blood while other countries had not. The companies' tactic was to sell the HIV-infected blood to those countries that had not yet passed regulations requiring testing. The attorneys who represented hemophiliac victims reviewed the internal documents and there was never a consideration of human toll. There was the situation, there was the goal of maximizing profits and the tactics were logical in light of the goal.

So, is profit motive always bad? Is it always contrary to the common good? Does it always produce these results? Is it true that power always corrupts? Let's consider another example, also related to the AIDS epidemic.

The situation was that the government's approach to AIDS was to focus on finding a vaccine. Those infected, however, desperately needed treatment and were having no success (or very little success) getting the government to devote resources to treatment. The AIDS activists recognized that the pharmaceutical companies would profit from drugs that could treat the symptoms of the disease. The AIDS activists were able to work with pharmaceutical companies and, in fact, it was the pharmaceutical companies who ultimately discovered an effective treatment. The pharmaceutical companies later let people die and only cared about enforcing patents, but initially, their profit motive did produce something that was a benefit to humanity; many lives have been saved by this treatment.

So, one approach is to try to educate people in civic virtue so that they are not vicious. Madison wasn't against education certainly, but he thought you'd never get rid of self-interest (faction) entirely. Therefore, he favored structural solutions: first, transparency so that the public could serve as a check on corruption and second, constitutional prohibitions (what Madison referred to in Federalist No. 51 as auxiliary precautions).

Without getting too far into this, one can think of several structural possibilities: 1) removing the legal holding that corporations are only to maximize profit; 2) assess damages sufficient to make such decisions not profitable; 3) hold corporate officers criminally liable; 4) hold shareholders liable; 5) changing patent laws; etc. I have argued elsewhere that much of this would have to be constitutional (and not legislative or regulatory) because legislation and regulations are too easy to unwind. Further, I have argued that one should constitutionally limit inequality and constitutionally limit the size of corporations (anti-trust measures) so that they do not have the power to overwhelm the legal system and thwart all of the measures designed to hold them accountable. This is a classic Madisonian solution: Keep factions weak enough to control, but strong enough to function. When the United States government cannot successfully litigate against Microsoft, there's a problem. The strategy is, therefore, twofold: In the first instance limit size (of individuals and corporations) so that they can be controlled; then, review - one by one - their negative effects and prohibit them (constitutionally if necessary).

Moving on from goals to examine other portions of the strategizing process, we can begin to unpack some of the problems of elitism. As with profit-motive, elitism can be both good and bad. As always, our goal constitutionally, is to keep the good and eliminate the bad.

UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATION: TOP-DOWN VS. BOTTOM-UP

It may be that all humans are prone to hubris, but elites seem particularly vulnerable to this vice. According to Thucydides, hubris was Athens undoing.

Economists judged poverty based solely on income. Even seemingly well meaning economists would claim that sweat shops were an improvement in some situations. This person was making $1 per day and now they're making $2 per day. Well, the problem with this, as the economist Amartya Sen recognized, is that income is not a good measure of well-being. There were many agricultural communities who had very little income (and thus, from the perspective of an economist appeared impoverished) who were actually caring for their populations quite well. Everyone had food, clothing and shelter and no one had to work that hard. The people were happy and flourishing, but on paper, they appeared impoverished. According to economists, these perfectly happy people would be better off working in a sweat shop.

This is a very serious problem with elites. They assume they know more and fail to examine the situation. They don't even bother to look. These agricultural villages many have been helped with preventable diseases, but lack of income was not their problem. So, the tactics were bad - tragic, in fact - because elites did not accurately understand the situation. Amartya Sen created the Human Development Index as a mechanism to provide a more accurate measure of well being. Income and GDP growth have proven to be terrible measures of well being. However, most of the economics profession still uses these blunt (and tragically misleading) measures. Joseph Stiglitz whistleblowing with respect to the World Bank and IMF as well as Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine also suggest that this "blindness" can be self-serving.

However, let's consider another example of failing to understand the situation. The Dust Bowl residents really had no chance of accurately understanding the situation - they were just hoping for rain. Twenty-five percent of them were forced to flee. This complex ecological problem wasn't easy for scientists to figure out. FDR had his Secretary of Agriculture study it, he was able to understand it and the government started taking measures to remedy the problem. In the meantime, the government provided food relief and job programs.

Those who assert that we should have small government or who mistrust all power or all elites have argued against federal disaster relief (Ron Paul explicitly made such an argument and he does so from an ideology that distrusts all power and denies the possibility of legitimate government). But there are clearly problems of scale that can overwhelm communities. It is particularly important that we think carefully about this issue at this juncture because climate change assures that communities worldwide will be facing these types of problems.

Finally, let us consider a third example. I have experience working with local housing development. The process in the county I have experience with is as follows: The developer submits a plan that includes engineering reports, environmental impact reports, traffic impacts reports and so on. This plan is reviewed by trained planning officials and they obtain independent review of the reports. So, at this stage, there have been two phases of expert review and, in my experience, the assessments are generally not the same. Finally, the plan is submitted to the public and the public is permitted to comment. My experience is that the public often raises valid issues that were missed by both sets of experts. Perhaps an environmental group points out that a wildlife corridor is affected; perhaps local residents point out that a children's route to and from school wasn't considered; etc. Even well meaning experts who are trying to understand the situation have difficulty appreciating all of the issues. However, those directly affected or specially interested understand the impacts immediately. We can understand issues that effect us quite clearly, but most people have difficultly appreciating all of the impacts on others. Additionally, it's simply better to democratize the process. The more people trying to solve a problem, the more likely you will be to arrive at a good strategy.

So, the relationship between top-down (elite) versus bottom-up (democratic) solutions isn't clear cut. Certainly, it is best - when possible - to empower people to solve their own problems. Moreover, when problems are of a scale that outside help is needed, it's important to accurately assess the situation and to involve the community in that process. Nonetheless, it is clear that, in some instances, expertise and perhaps resources beyond what the community has access to is required. However, it is not only mistaken, but dangerous to believe that elites always arrive at better political solutions.

How are we to work this out constitutionally? One possibility is to favor local solutions to the extent possible, but to provide for federal disaster relief for ecological, natural or economic disasters. To remedy top-down problems, install mechanisms to ensure that those providing disaster relief have considered and are sensitive to local input and concern. Finally, make sure assessments and plans are publicly available, that local comment is published and provide for independent review as well as accountability.

Economic Disasters

With respect to economic disasters, I have in mind two things.

First, economic crashes: No country facing a "liquidity trap" economic crash has been able to politically confront it, even when they know what to do. Iceland likely comes the closest to successfully confronting a crash. The causes of this appear to by multifactorial: About half of our economics profession apparently never learned Keynes so, there's a problem of cultural amnesia; wealthy interests like high unemployment; and borrowing and spending massive sums of money is a tough sell to the public. However, one could constitutionally mandate stimulus, jobs programs and debt relief necessary to restore full employment in the event of "liquidity trap" conditions which would make it so that you didn't have to get political consensus in order to confront this emergency situation. It's a disaster that unfolds very slowly, which makes it difficult to make good decisions.

There are at least two other issues here (and this is more of a note to myself): bank crashes (having to decide whether to bail them out on the spot is not a good situation for the public; some general principles regarding how these events are and are not to be handled might be appropriate) and debt levels (according to the economist Hyman Minsky there is an issue of cultural amnesia with respect to debt levels).

The second thing I have in mind with respect to economic disasters is local economic disasters, by which I mean economic events that put communities is a situation of local systemic failure. When a company leaves a company town, that town needs emergency assistance. The towns and cities impacted by NAFTA were given nothing. There was no plan in place. They need unemployment, food assistance and jobs programs until they are able to recover.