Ignoring our future and failing our children

March 8, 2010 by Nathan Warner 

Despite efficiency, our political system robs future generations

The eminent former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill more than 60 years ago remarked in the House of Commons that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.”

Churchill was pointing out a fundamental truth: While our political system is perhaps the best we have yet come up with, it is by no means even close to perfection.

Our imperfect human nature — what he called “this world of sin and woe”— ensures that any government we come up with will not ever be flawlessly just or good.

As I wrote here last week, democracy encourages politicians to orient all of their actions toward earning votes.

Politicians turn public discourse into opportunities for grandstanding political ads and further invent controversies for the simple sake of exploiting them on the evening news.

They act like bullies on the playground, incessantly vying for attention so that we will return them to their positions at the top of America’s aristocracy.

Democracy thus always tends to fail at its arguably most important task: governing in the best interests of the future good of the community.

Democracy’s focus on rewarding politicians with power creates incentives for politicians to give us what they want over what we really need.

Staunch democrats (advocating purer democracy, not the political party) may disagree, arguing that the people are the best positioned to know what is best for them, both now and in the future, and are best served by focusing on their own interests.

Economic theory posits that everyone working for their own self-interest will create an efficient economy.

People will respond to economic incentives and the laws of supply and demand and the entire community will be better off.

We see that this generally works well in the economy; it isn’t always fair and some do get left behind, but for the most part, our economy has prospered.

In the political realm, self-interest has had a decidedly negative effect. Surely, our nation has prospered and our system of government has emulated across the globe.

Moreover, it is morally repugnant to suggest that the people should not have the right to make their own choices about their future well-being.

But our collective pursuit of our self-interest has given us politicians who are also self-interested and thus respond to our selfishness by giving us exactly what we want, here and now.

They throw useless pork projects all over the country, force outdated weapons contracts on the Pentagon to protect factories and ostensibly jobs and enact subsidies, trade restrictions and state-sanctioned monopolies to benefit corporations and special interests and ensure their reelection.

Though some deficit spending can be effective in stimulating the economy during recessions, we willingly and knowingly spend our way into trillions of dollars of debt for current unnecessary projects and constantly foist the consequences on the future.

Both the people and politicians ruthlessly ignore that all benefits have real costs, to us and the nation as a whole, and that sooner or later these costs must be paid.

Moreover, we forget that, in the very long run, we simply are not the future.

We encourage our politicians to enact policies that favor us now, regardless of any ill effects that will be pushed on future generations.

Thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of the dangers of a “tyranny of the majority,” in which, without adequate protections, voting majorities can exercise just as much tyranny on minority groups as the most ruthless dictator.

This idea can be applied here, too: our unborn descendants are the ultimate minority group.  Having no vote in the here and now, they have no say over policies that benefit us at their expense.

The sad fact is that we know the system works this way.

We know that we and our politicians will always sacrifice long-run welfare for us and our posterity in the name of short-run, individualistic gratification.

This is why the Federal Reserve is organized as a non-political institution, with its leaders appointed between elections and for long terms.

It is largely free to act in the best interests of both the present and future, even to the point of causing recessions in order to prevent future inflation.

It is no accident that China has made such astounding economic progress over the last 50 years.

Being an autocratic state, its leaders are not subject to the changing whims of constituents and simply impose by fiat policies that they know are in the long-term best interests of their nation.

Do not mistake my appreciation for China’s government as an endorsement of autocracy.

Democracy has brought unprecedented prosperity, human rights and security to millions.  But I have to agree with Churchill: Democracy is flawed, but for now, it’s the best thing we have.

But there is a better way than the circus of a government we have now.

In a speech to Parliament in 1774, Irish philosopher and politician Edmund Burke argued that a representative is a trustee of the people, rather than a simple mouthpiece and must exercise “unbiased opinion, his mature judgment [and] his enlightened conscience,” which “he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

To Burke, representatives were responsible to God for the good of “of one nation, with one interest,” and not to “different and hostile interests” of their respective constituents.

This is what a politician should be; this is what our electoral incentives should encourage.

Though it’s perhaps foolish to hope, our nation should, and must, rethink what we expect from our politicians and government.