What Ails American Democracy?

Fukuyama writes:

The fundamental problem, he argues, lies in the Madisonian machinery of American constitutional law. The Founders’ separation of powers can generate positive outcomes only when political opponents trust one another sufficiently to approve one another’s nominees, support one another’s bills, and practice the grubby but essential arts of political compromise. When the spirit of trust breaks down, the result is not democracy but vetocracy, a term coined by Fukuyama. Too many political players—courts, congressional committees, special interests like the National Rifle Association and the American Medical Association, independent commissions, regulatory authorities—have acquired the power to veto measures; too few have the power to get things done....

Contemporary American conservatism has no solution to paralysis; “starving the beast” ignores the necessity of capable government regulation for any efficient capitalist economy. The progressive side, Fukuyama argues, is equally at fault: encumbering American government with contradictory and unfunded mandates only reduces public confidence in the state’s capacity to serve its citizens fairly and efficiently.

What separates Fukuyama’s analysis from conservative and progressive polemics alike is his argument that this crisis of government results from “too much law and too much ‘democracy’ relative to American state capacity.”

I'm sure it would be easier to get things done if bureaucrats didn't have to ask the people very often. In recommending a more British system, what he wants is what Sir Humphrey wants: control of the important things taken out of the hands of the barbarians.

But the last time the American political system girded itself up and did what it wanted in spite of clear and robust public opinion, what we got was the ACA -- the worst piece of legislation in the history of the country, the ramifications of which are still not clear years after it passed and which no one had even read at the time they passed it. They could not have read it: it was too long, and passed in too short a time, for a human being to have gotten through it even had it been as easy and light as a romance novel, let alone the technically dense and logically disrupted tangle that it was. What we get when the elite put aside their concern for the 'veto' of public opinion is exactly this.

Another example he raises is infrastructure. But there's no opposition from the American people to repairing infrastructure. The only opposition comes from within the elite class itself:

The president-elect's original plan was designed to stop the hemorrhaging in construction and manufacturing while investing in physical infrastructure that is indispensable for long-term economic growth. It was not a grab bag of gender-correct programs, nor was it a macho plan--the whole idea of economic stimulus is to use government spending to put idle factors of production back to work.

The president-elect responded to the protests by sending Jason Furman, his soon-to-be deputy director at the National Economic Council, along with his senior aides to a meeting organized by Kim Gandy and Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal. Gandy described the scene:
I can't resist saying that this meeting didn't look like the other transition meetings I attended. In addition to the presence of more women, the room actually looked different--because Feminist Majority President Ellie Smeal had asked that the chairs be set in a circle, with no table in the center.

The senior economists listened attentively as Gandy and Smeal and other advocates argued for a stimulus package that would add jobs for nurses, social workers, teachers, and librarians in our crumbling "human infrastructure" (they had found their testosterone-free slogan). Did Furman mention that jobs in the "human infrastructure"--health, education, and government--had increased by more than half a million since December 2007?

Now I will admit that our public libraries are looking better these days. Both of the ones within twenty-five miles of here have undergone significant expansion, adding computer rooms and staff (who are not only exclusively female, but the only people in that twenty-five mile radius with Obama bumper stickers). Mission accomplished!

The roads are a little rougher than they used to be, but that's OK: there isn't as much industrial traffic. Or agricultural traffic either: all the local dairies that used to be here have gone out of business due to the cost of increased regulations.

Speaking of milk, have you noticed how steep the price is for a gallon of milk lately? Partially that's from driving farmers out of the market, but partially it's from robust regulation. The USDA congratulates itself on its regulation of that market, as the regulators openly disdain the market as a method for balancing supply and demand.

There's one more thing that is at work, which is that people nationally don't agree on what should be done in many cases. Localities have the kind of agreement about political problems that can produce progress; nationally we are divided, and shouldn't expect or even want "progress." All "progress" of that kind would mean is increasing the tension between Americans.

So from my perspective, the problem isn't that the government can't get anything done. The problem is that it shouldn't be doing at least half the things it's trying to do.

Democracy is like the market in that it takes advantage of local information to make complex decisions. For that reason, its effects work best when they remain local: when townships and school boards and churches and clubs vote on the rules that govern them as bodies. The more power is centralized, and the more it is slowed by the ossification that comes with size and bureaucracy, the more even democratic decisions are bad ones.

Want to fix America? Push power down. Break the Federal government's stranglehold on everything except its few limited, Constitutional roles. Eliminate most of the government, repeal all regulations back to say the first Bush administration, and have state and local governments decide which ones they want.

The Federal government can retain its basic role, the one Jefferson thought was important:

With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. To the State governments are reserved all legislation and administration, in affairs which concern their own citizens only, and to the federal government is given whatever concerns foreigners, or the citizens of other States; these functions alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government; neither having control over the other, but within its own department. There are one or two exceptions only to this partition of power. But, you may ask, if the two departments should claim each the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground: but if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called, to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best.

We've added one more constitutional role to Jefferson's ideal, which is making sure that even within states government does not violate basic rights. Generally the Federal government has done this badly, but at times they've been the only one to do it at all. For now, it might be retained.

But do these few things, and nothing else, at the Federal level. That would radically reduce the power available to the elite, and radically increase democratic forms. It would also improve the nation in every respect.