Conservatives in the USA are an interesting lot. They do all they can to ensure economic power has an outsized role in our democracy, then use “government capture” as a rationale to eliminate democracy. Let’s discuss that bit of rhetoric this week.
To understand the rhetoric, one must understand “conservatism” in the USA is actually composed of two rather different groups, one that loves the status quo distribution of economic power, and one that is critical of the status quo distribution of economic power. Both groups oppose democracy but for different reasons. The status quo group hates democracy because they think it may “interfere” with status quo economic power. The anti-status quo group hates democracy because they blame it for the status quo distribution of economic power. They can be tricky to distinguish not just because they’re both anti-democratic but because of clever rhetoric involving terms like “the free market.”
According to the status quo group, “the free market” is basically the current market but without democracy to interfere with it. This group typically doesn’t see a role for government addressing market failures, market structure, etc., because those are part of existing markets and government “interfering” on that basis is just as threatening to the status quo as any other sort of “interference.” The status-quo group tends to disparage democracy as “mob rule,” “collective” decision making, etc. They see democracy as potentially or actually effective, and threatening, harming, aggressive toward status quo economic power. That’s the group that supports economic power having an outsized role in our democratic system, opposes reform of campaign finance and lobbying laws, supports putting conservatives justices on the Supreme Court to get more rulings like Citizens United, etc.
In contrast, the anti-status quo group tends to view “the free market” as the “perfectly competitive market” of both real neoclassical welfare economics and anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style, supposing markets “freely” or naturally tend toward that model. Slightly more sophisticated members of this group may appreciate there’s no basis to suppose a “free” market will tend toward a perfectly competitive market, free of market failure, and will suppose a role for a technocratic, authoritarian government to address such issues. That latter group will not take the “free” in “the free market” literally, and will just think of the term as a funny, folksy way to refer to a perfectly competitive market, no matter how much work technocratic government may need to do to bring it about and sustain it. Alternatively, they may interpret “free” to apply not to the market, per se, but to the people participating in that market, so people in that particular market structure would be freer than they would be under other market structures or non-market decision systems like democracy. The anti-status quo group tends to disparage democracy by arguing it’s been “captured” or unduly influenced by the economically powerful, and that without democracy we would have a more ethically proper distribution of economic power, different from the status quo one.
The interesting thing, of course, is that the anti-democracy activity of the first group, as far as strengthening the role of economic power in our democracy, is what actually fuels the anti-democracy sentiment of the latter group. It’s a cosy and convenient relationship.
For one who supports the democratic ethos, both forms of conservatism will be seen as flawed. The views of the status quo group are flawed because in any society the ethics of the definition, distribution, use of economic power must be addressed in some way. Under modern subjective secular ethics, the only ethically sensible way, the only stable way, to address those important issues is to refer to the always changing, always evolving views of the people in a particular society, the voters, that is, democracy. In that view, status quo economic power doesn’t have a “right” to that power that supersedes the democratic government and law that granted it in the first place, and democracy isn’t attacking, abusing, being aggressive when voters take another look and potentially revise things. The reasoning of the anti-status quo group is flawed for the same reason. Democratic government involving itself in ethical issues like the definition, distribution, use of economic power does not represent unethical “interference” with things that are none of its business. Addressing the ethical issues associated with economic power is what any and every government must do, and will always do, in any lawful, orderly society. It’s nonsense to portray it discharging its proper duties as “interfering” with past iterations of the same activity. Declaring one personally supports the ethics of the distribution of economic power one supposes will result without democratic government is perfectly fine, but what’s not fine is supposing one’s view must prevail over all others, which is inconstant with the democratic ethos.
The sensible response to concerns about any ethically undue influence of economic power in our democratic system, about “government capture” and so on, is to take steps to improve our democracy, limit the role of economic power, not eliminate democracy. The sensible path for conservatives concerned about ethically undue influence of economic power in our democracy is to take up the issue with the group most concerned to preserve and enhance that influence, their fellow conservatives, in the anti-democracy, pro-status quo camp.
Conservatism in the USA is rhetorically clever, sly, tricksy. To understand it, keep your eye on the ethics of the definition, distribution, use of economic power, and more recently who is meant to decide it, particularly the role of democracy.
