Once again, voters went to the polls to reject overweening government, responding to waves of rhetoric that decried the government takeover of health care, the bailouts and spending, and the arrogance of power. And again, domestic economic issues dominated. And so the “Obama regime,” as the Republicans have started calling it, got a much-deserved smack on the nose.
Strangely, it was a similar set of themes that brought Obama to power: resentment against the outrageous power abuses and wars of the Bush regime, and fear that the Republican Party represented more of the same. Looking back further, it was the same theme that brought Bush to power. He ran with the promise of a more humble foreign policy, while decrying taxes and big government. We could keep going back and back this way, to 1994, 1992, and throughout the eighties, and back through the seventies, and back all the way to 1932 and even to Wilson’s promise to keep us out of World War I. Voters keep pulling the lever against the state and yet the state marches ever onward, growing bigger and more abusive all the time.
How can we account for this? Following Rothbard, Nock, Van Creveld, Chodorov, and Oppenheimer, what the voters are voting on is not the state but merely a false front.
If the state is a giant building, the office holders we vote for are merely the facade. We are given buckets of paint to paint this facade red or blue or some combination of the two colors, but this has very little to do with what goes on inside. Our job is to argue and vote over which color we want it to be but never presume to have an influence over its actual affairs.
If we want to truly understand the state, and not just its appearances and its periodic election frenzies, we need to consider that the modern state is very different from the medieval or ancient state, which were personal states, inseparable from the ruler. Modern states are impersonal entities that have a life apart from their temporary office holders and spokesmen. If the Congress, Presidency, and Supreme Court were all put on a slow boat to China, for example, the state would endure and continue as always. Its machinery consists almost entirely in gears and parts that are not subject to referendums and democratic mandates.
This is why these elections never really accomplish what voters what them to accomplish. Elections deal with superficial issues, not fundamental ones. And isn’t this obvious just from listening to the victory speeches last night? I actually heard one Republican going on about the need for a “line item veto” and a “balanced budget” and a “strong defense” in this dangerous world. It was like 30 years ago all over again. The political class is strangely disconnected from the actual workings of the state.
Anyway, all these thoughts come from the great works on the state linked above. They are the books we need in order to truly understand and avoid getting tricked by this ridiculous spectacle every two and four years.
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30 Responses
I liked the article cause it raiseas an important question, though I think the author missed the point. Elections are related to ACCESS to power, not to how the State is run, not o the EXERCISE of power. It is not that elections deal with superficial issues and Government with fundamental ones. They are different issues and need to be addressed separately.
“If the state is a giant building, the office holders we vote for are merely the facade. We are given buckets of paint to paint this facade red or blue or some combination of the two colors, but this has very little to do with what goes on inside. Our job is to argue and vote over which color we want it to be but never presume to have an influence over its actual affairs.”
Good analogy. The voting issue is a red herring.
This will always be true with the state, but this split with the Republicans only growing so much in the House but not the Senate could be great. Hopefully the great destroyers of personal liberty (the social conservatives) and the equally great destroyers of economic liberty (the fiscal liberals) will claw at each other and be unable to get any massive legislation through. I’m not quite optimistic enough to hope for the almighty state to scale back its disgusting power, but maybe the nutcases will limit themselves by the simple numbers of the matter.
At least… I’ll try to hope for just that much, even with the state marching on… and on… and on… and on….
Another very important book to understand this whole issue is Jouvenel’s, On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth.
ridiculous spectacle every two and four years. Wait, what?
I wonder: would someone here prefer the world where Ron Paul is not a congressman? If not, how exactly did Ron get there? Also it was precisely this ridiculous spectacle that made Rand Paul now one of the senators. Result of some specific action by specific indvidual voters, result that I much like, and too bad other good candidates stayed before the gates this time. Next elections another chance.
Note that in the meantime we’re still free to go for whatever alternative to voting that you guys can present us with. But there’s little valid argument for not at least trying to change things for better also by voting. Economists may want to estimate what exactly are the opportunity costs of actually going to the polls and casting the votes.
This is eerily similar to what happened in 2006 when voters resoundingly rejected big-government Bush the Younger. Democrats promised responsible government. Then they won big, except for Obama, in 2008 and governed just like the Republicans had, but worse. The people keep rejecting big government, but all the two parties deliver is even bigger government in response. They’re so corrupt, it’s all they know how to do.
Good points Jeff. The problem I see is how do you educate the electorate to show them that voting for someone in the two party system is just a vote for a bigger state? This also begs the assumption that the electorate doesn’t want that. Sadly, a lot of people don’t mind this as long as their views or their desires win.
I think Anthony Gregory put it best when he said: “It is hilarious to me that almost everyone who believes in democracy is violently opposed to one side winning. When left-liberals talk about democracy, what they really mean is they favor Democrats to rule, but with the official consent of more than half the electorate. Democracy is simply a means of securing majority consent for the state, which all states need, at least in a tacit sense, if they are to persist. Democracies shore up oppression, rather than tempering it. But it would be better to have a more explicit single-party state, of all Democrats or all Republicans. It would be easier to recognize that the state is a violent, parasitic entity without the illusions afforded by the polling booth.”
From REASON magazine Monday:
Evidently what voters want are candidates who’ll denounce “Big Government” and promise to protect their entitlements.
…what voters *want* them to accomplish.
H/T to redstate.com for pointing out that ALL 95 endorses of “net neutrality” lost yesterday. Wow, just wow:
http://www.netneutralityprotectors.com/
A libertarian who’s relying on Rand Paul to stand strong athwart the growth of the state will soon be disappointed.
I don’t mind trying, but not every candidate is a Ron Paul, and if I think we’ll just lose freedom in another way I see no reason to try to pick which freedoms I get to lose.
Good.
ROFL. Seriously awesome.
Voters are pulling the food pellet lever for relief; they could care less about change. The so-called Tea Party doesn’t even have a platform yet it garners more solidarity than Republicans or Democrats. If a Space Alien Party offered to trash Obama, they’d elect anything they put up. This is not an ELECTION, as in “name someone you’d like to see in charge.” It’s a RECALL.The candidates who campaigned promising to smash “Obamacare” haven’t offered anything in its place. They are simply promising us a lynching and we’re buying seats for that. No one can say for sure what the landscape would be like without the cash Congress signed on to dumping into the economy, but the fact that the Ship of State did not sink doesn’t mean we weren’t foundering.
The one thing I noticed about the election that you guys might like is that in Nevada, about 2.2% of the popular vote went to “None of the Above” in the Senate race. That’s about twice as much as most of the Libertarian Party candidates around the country got.
“This is not an ELECTION, as in “name someone you’d like to see in charge.” It’s a RECALL.”
So was the 2008 election. A lot of the people who voted for Obama, really voted against four more years.
“The candidates who campaigned promising to smash “Obamacare” haven’t offered anything in its place.”
They don’t really need to offer anything in its place. Status quo ante would be preferable to Obamacare.
A video explaining the mentality behind it all.
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7523395
Rand Paul is a disgrace to his father and to the movement.
This absolutely wasn’t about Republicans and Democrats, and things are getting ever more volatile. I wouldn’t be too surprised if we ended up back where we came from in another 2-4 years. http://solutionproblem.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/tread-lightly-republicans/
But I think the point about voters’ historical inclinations toward freedom, going all the way back to Wilson, was very powerful. It is also quite disappointing to think how often and how long we’ve been sold empty promises by empty suits. All we want is to be left alone; is that so hard?
Well said.
Agreed. The only possible good thing I see coming out of this is stalemate. But then, that’s only a possibility. The reality will most likely be a slew of compromises that will do no one any good.
“Meet the new Boss… same as the old Boss.” – The Who
Wrote myself in as a candidate for the State House here in GA. At least I can count on my own integrity.
I’m not saying your wrong, but I need more to go on regarding Rand Paul’s switch. Is he not rejecting a control of physician’s incomes? Is he not merely conceding a sort of grandfathering in of people who are now too old to make up in privatization what SS would provide; what they’ve already contributed and planned on all their lives? These are honest questions as I’m not from Kentucky and haven’t kept abreast of all the Rand Paul details.
Hooray! I’m one of the 1.1%!
All WE want is to be left alone. Unfortunately, most want something else.
Matthew,
Do you truly see no reason to pick which freedoms you lose? Surely losing the freedom to drink alcohol is less damaging to you than becoming a full fledged slave… I would think you would have some preference between the two.
Recouping their contributions has never been a part of the deal. That money is long spent.
I’m assuming the point here was more that picking to lose economic liberties (voting for fiscal ‘liberals’/Democrats) or picking to lose personal liberties (voting for social conservatives/Republicans) is useless. Is anyone expecting any politician to stick to just taking away the freedom to drink alcohol though? And that’s not even remembering that last time we tried that particular thing, we created a whole underground market of violence.* In very few cases are you voting for drinking rights vs. all rights anyway.
*Since this was just an example, it’s reasonable to also note that alcohol isn’t special in this way. Prohibition of any desired object will produce this affect. See narcotics.
This is actually a surprise, considering that you rarely hear a bad word about net neutrality.
Another tiny plus for realistic thought.