tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post1219053607200304969..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: A Defense of CongressJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-79605012848121167442010-10-13T20:47:01.648-05:002010-10-13T20:47:01.648-05:00I'm watching Yes Minister right now! I love N...I'm watching Yes Minister right now! I love NetFlix Instant Play and my Sony BluRay!Tom Mayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05020816016509323155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-60282097517596950552010-10-13T13:13:27.380-05:002010-10-13T13:13:27.380-05:00Economics of Contempt (link below) has a post abou...Economics of Contempt (link below) has a post about Rattner's account of his interaction with Sheila Bair that illustrates #2. <br /><br />The FDIC is an independent agency headed by a powerful technocrat who does not take marching orders from the Oval Office. If Rattner is to be believed, Sheila Bair is an ambitious woman who wasn't above using the GM bailout to increase the FDIC's power & her own prestige. <br /><br />As a result, Bair focused on problems--illusory problems according to Rattner--with the proposed bailout in order to engage in horse trading. In other words, his interaction with a well-intentioned technocrat wasn't much better than it was with Congress (which, after all, passed TARP which enabled all that nonsense to begin with).Some Guyhttp://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-44202004081511828482010-10-13T13:08:15.455-05:002010-10-13T13:08:15.455-05:00Further to my comment above, I think more needs to...Further to my comment above, I think more needs to be said about Hamilton on this issue. It's easy to default to Madison as somehow spokesman for the Framers because he was a better writer, but Hamilton probably had more influence on how the new government actually came to work in practice. Anyway, I'm imagining what Hamilton would like best or least about our current system if he saw it now. I can't believe he'd look kindly on a fractious, interest-group-driven Congress; he'd probably say, "This is why I favored having a strongman president-for-life." <br /><br />On the other hand, I think he'd be delighted that there's an entire intellectual field, widely respected as a kind of "science," whose practitioners do nothing but study the economy and make policy recommendations that have a scientific imprimatur but that somehow almost always conduce to the interests of the bond markets and the merchant / banker / stock-jobber / <i>rentier</i> class. When he further saw that there's a powerful central bank that can intervene in the economy directly, that it's an official federal agency but well-insulated from politics, that its chairman is one of those putative scientists and that his pronouncements are generally treated as oracles of wisdom, he'd be happier than a pig in snuff. And if you then told him, "Ah, but Alex, we believe our venal, cynical, self-interested legislators are a tribute to your Founding intentions," he'd try to shoot you with Aaaron Burr's dueling pistol.Jeffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-46888315075664242932010-10-13T12:18:11.557-05:002010-10-13T12:18:11.557-05:00Anon,
Thanks (and fixed). I just fix typos w/out...Anon,<br /><br />Thanks (and fixed). I just fix typos w/out showing that they were fixed, but how timely! I get an excuse to link to this:<br /><br />http://www.donkeylicious.com/2010/10/can-yglesias-top-this.htmlJonathan Bernsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-45659406457285984642010-10-13T12:14:36.821-05:002010-10-13T12:14:36.821-05:00As I've said before, I have real doubts that a...As I've said before, I have real doubts that anything we're seeing today can fairly be called "Madisonian" or imputed to the "design" of the Framers. At the very least, we have to be careful about claiming that they valued "democracy," (a) because many of them didn't, and said so ("the Democracy" was a term of abuse well into the 19th century, often used in the same sentence as "the mob" or "the rabble"), and (b) because even where we find praise of democracy in the late 18th century, we have to be carefully not to read it anachronistically in light of our own understanding of the term instead of theirs. As to a Congress driven by interest groups, this seems hard to square with Madison/Publius's famous contrast between (good) representative bodies, which would<br /><br /><i>"refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves";</i><br /><br />-- and, on the other hand, (bad) representation, in which:<br /><br /><i>"Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people."</i><br /><br />So in Madison, we have "the true interest of the country" versus "partial considerations" and "local prejudices." Does not sound like a ringing endorsement of interest-group politics to me.<br /><br />As to rule by experts, that ideal came along a hundred years later, so we don't have the Framers' opinions on it. But I think a case could be made that the public-spirited, non-prejudiced legislators they were talking about were their idea of experts, i.e. people who understood public problems and their possible solutions better than average people do and would apply that knowledge / wisdom (their nearest equivalent words for "expertise") in the public's behalf. Hamilton, in particular, strikes me as a Framer who would have welcomed a certain amount of "technocracy," at least in economic matters. And let's recall that virtually everybody's choice for first president was George Washington, who as a general had proven that he was a (nonpartisan) expert in his field, i.e. military affairs and defending the country.<br /><br />None of this is to say that the system today is not functioning well, or that if it isn't, the fault lies with some kind of departure from the Framers' ideal. I'm not an originalist, so I think the question of what Madison and Hamilton thought is mostly academic. But I'm also an academic, so I think it's worth trying to get the history right regardless.Jeffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-62047641674964017622010-10-13T11:54:38.326-05:002010-10-13T11:54:38.326-05:00I was hoping you would comment on this interview, ...I was hoping you would comment on this interview, Jonathan. Thanks - very interesting points on the very real value of a "petty" comments. I have often found your posts in defense of the current system of American government, as infuriating as it may often be to everyone, compelling, especially when so many folks talk about it as "broken."<br /><br />On a similar note, I wonder if you might be interested in commenting on the recent Christopher Hitchens article, wherein he complains about how awful and venal modern politicians are? Seems like the sort of thing that could have easily been written 50 or 100 or 200 years ago and no one would know the difference. Do you think his arguments here have any merit?<br /><br />http://www.slate.com/id/2270651/Zednoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-53300009150334288072010-10-13T11:51:55.872-05:002010-10-13T11:51:55.872-05:00Let me get this straight: the Founders wanted Con...Let me get this straight: the Founders wanted Congress to be divisive, parochial, and petty because, otherwise, advocates of parochial and petty interests would feel left out and helpless to change policy? Call me naive, but I'd prefer a system where there isn't such a huge potential for such minor concerns to be given outsized influence in the halls of power.<br /><br />Instead, we have a situation where I, as a member of the majority, need to constantly worry that the voices of very loud but very tiny minorities will sway legislators to act contrary to the best interests of the nation as a whole.<br /><br />And I don't really get the idea that, if we let bureaucrats and experts make more policy decisions, we will "inevitably" leave everything to them and thus lose our ability to "do politics." Why can't people trust, but verify? In other words, when the bureaucrats are right, leave them alone; when they are wrong, organize for legislative solutions. The idea that a more empowered technocracy would lead to some mass public disengagement from politics -- just seems really far-fetched.<br /><br />To me, the most telling part of your post is this:<br /><br /><i>Someone in the system should also be looking out for the big picture.</i><br /><br />I think that's exactly Rattner's point. Except he realizes, unlike you, that it can't just be <i>one</i> branch of government taking the big-picture view -- because the President can't pass legislation by himself. <br /><br />When one branch of government is divisive, petty, and parochial, the entire government operates that way, sinking to the lowest common denominator. Maybe the Founders intended that, maybe not. But the argument that this is an objectively <i>good</i> way for government to operate is just not persuasive.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15913245096162048743noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-37088176736770576662010-10-13T11:49:21.889-05:002010-10-13T11:49:21.889-05:00Guess I'll be the first to point this out:
&q...Guess I'll be the first to point this out:<br /><br />"Part of why the Founders thought that democracy was a good thing was because they learned, through their revolution, about the human capacity for pubic action"<br /><br />Somebody has some awkward muscle memory.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com