U.S. Defense Contractors under Pressure

In a republic, which is characterized by representative rather than direct democracy and includes checks on even the elected representatives, private interests, such as corporations that manufacture weapons purchased by the government, undue the very legitimacy and public good of a republic when the elected (and appointed) public officials capitulate to those interests because those interests are of a part rather than the whole. The profit calculus of a defense contractor is not necessarily in line with the national interests of the country in which the corporation operates. Furthermore, acquiescing to the relatively narrow private benefit of corporations places an elected official in the position of possibly betraying one’s constituents and even the national security—the public good—of the whole, the country. It is in the political (and even financial) interests of such officials to hide or obscure their motives in voting on a defense budget by using “real threats abroad” as a subterfuge to increase defense spending going to contractors in payment for more weapons. The threats may be real or not. How would an electorate possibly know without access to classified information? Adam Smith wrote of his concern that governments and capitalists would collude to shortchange labor. The collusion can also be at the expense of an electorate and even a republic itself. In response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question on what sort of government the U.S. Constitutional Convention had just proposed, Ben Franklin is said to have replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The People may be at a considerable disadvantage without realizing it if distant collusion is financially and politically sufficiently concentrated and furtive under subterfuges of public-policy ideals.

The full essay is at "U.S. Defense Contractors under Pressure."

Climate Change: An Outsider in Democracies

The U.S. House of Representatives was created in part as an outlet for the immediacy of a people’s passions; other governmental institutions at the federal level provide a check. The term of a House representative is only 2 years, whereas that of a U.S. senator is 6 years and that of the U.S. president is four. So presumably societal  or even global  problems requiring immediate action find pressing representation in the House, whereas the perspectives of U.S. senators and presidents, being limited to six and four years respectively, are not long-term-oriented enough for problems that could blow up in decades. To register in the crowded minds of House representatives, a long-term problem yet in need of immediate attention must trigger the immediate passions of the constituents unless the representatives value principled leadership (i.e., acting in the best interests of the constituents and the country). Yet passions demanding immediate action tend, I submit, to involve anger. Climate change is thus excluded, and the long-term forecasts do little to impress upon a people how urgent rectifying action really is. Even if the scientific reports of current conditions emphasize extant dramatic changes (not to mention future forecasts with disastrous implications for humanity generally and particular regions, immediate passion is not sufficiently stirred for the U.S. House at least to prioritize addressing the problem.

The full essay is at "Climate Change: An Outsider in Democracies.

U.S. Senators: Falling Short in Representing their States

Like the European Council of the E.U., the U.S. Senate has polities rather than citizens as represented members. That is to say, in both cases, the states are represented. In the case of the E.U., the chief executives of the respective states represent them. In the U.S. case, the citizens of the states elect senators directly, who in turn are tasked with representing their respective states. From the standpoint of representing the polities, the E.U. case is tighter, for a U.S. senator is susceptible to the temptation to vote in the interests of the state’s citizens who voted rather than of the state itself. The two interests may overlap, but they are not identical, for citizens of a member-state may or may not be interested in protecting the prerogatives of the state (government). The Republican legislative responses to the Affordable Care Act (i.e., “Obamacare”) are a case in point. 

The full essay is at "U.S. Senators Falling Short."

For more on the U.S. Senate and the E.U. Council, see the book: Essays on Two Federal Empires, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.

On the U.S. Government’s Fiscal Imbalance: Federalism to the Rescue?

At the outset of the Trump administration in the U.S., real economic output was projected to grow at an annual rate of 1.9 percent over the next decade.[1] The new federal president was hoping his proposals of tax cuts and $1 trillion in additional infrastructure spending over a decade would bump up the annual growth to 4 percent. I submit, however, that just over 2 percent more in the growth rate would not alter the stark “budget reality” facing the new president and the American people.

The full essay is at "U.S. Government's Fiscal Imbalance."

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1. Alan Rappeport, “Federal Debt Projected to Grow by Nearly $10 Trillion Over Next Decade,” The New York Times, January 24, 2017.

Snowden

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words are moving pictures worth? Add in a script and you have actual words—potentially quite substantive words—grounding all that pictorial worth. Moving pictures, or movies for short, are capable of conveying substantial meaning to audiences. In the case of the film, Snowden (2016), the meaning is heavy in political theory. In particular, democratic theory. The film’s value lies in depicting how far short the U.S. Government has slipped from the theory, and, indeed, the People to which that government is in theory accountable.

The full essay is at "Snowden."