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Will The Social Compact in the United States Remain Valid?
Picture yourself as a colonist in America in the mid 18th century.
The British government is taxing your imports and exports. Their agents are everywhere in the bigger cities, making sure that the right companies are allowed commerce. When troubles arise, instead of the Brits coming over to fix it, they hire Germans to come and do their dirty work for them.
Even with all of the discontent, it was very difficult for the colonies to decide to leave the empire. When Jefferson sat down to write the Declaration of Independence, he listed all of the reasons the social contract with England had to be dissolved. The reasoning was basically "we kept up our end of the bargain, but you failed yours"
Adding fuel to the fire was Thomas Paine, who basically called the King of England a brute and said he had no business ruling England, much less the colonies. Paine spoke in a common, easy manner, and appealed directly to his countryman's sense of fairness and justice.
I was thinking about Jefferson and Paine as I continue to read about the amount of public debt the United States is building up and planning to build up. Out of a need to do something, anything, I wrote my senator, Jim Webb.
I told Webb I was a big fan of his books and national service and asked him to do something about out-of-control spending. I told him I also liked his ideas on prison and drug reform. Prison and drug reform are things we can do that could actually raise more money for the government. They could give us more freedoms in our lives. But keep your priorities, I begged. I asked Webb to do what he could about holding runaway spending in check. Don't make a big political scene, I told him. Nobody is looking for you to make a big break from your party. Just don't be a political putz and do the right thing. Don't be a party man. Be a representative.
What happened?
Webb sent me one of his political speeches hacked into a email talking about all of the great things he was voting for. And how he was such a great person for voting for all of them.
It was like I was talking to the wall.
Jim Webb. Putz.
This isn't a post about current politics, though. This is a post about the representative form of government in general. About trends in complex systems and how to intervene to change them -- how to hack democracy. After all, everybody complains about politics, and there's not much to do but complain sometimes (and vote!)
One of the founding principles of the United States was "no taxation without representation" and I think most Americans still hold that principle dear. But I have a simple question: if we are paying taxes for something our grandfathers' representatives voted for, do we really have representation in the sense that matters?
It's a serious question. As more and more political promises are made that future generations are going to have to pay for, sooner or later those future generations are going to wake up and ask "where was I when this obligation was made? Where was my representation for this tax?"
Because as the debt load increases, the amount of political control future generations will have will naturally decrease although their payout will remain the same. After all, most of the money will have been pre-allocated. Their vote will mean less in fiscal terms than those of people fifty years ago.
You can argue that people can always elect representatives that can eliminate programs, and curb spending, and in theory that is true. But in practice how much is actually cut from one congress to the next? Not much. As my example shows, people get elected to do new big things, not to cut programs from poor Americans. Cutting programs is a way to NOT get elected.
Has there ever been a congress that has slashed spending by say, 50 percent? Not to my knowledge. We do a lot of moving the chairs around on the Titanic, but in general the obligations of government as a percentage of GDP has been steadily increasing since the country was formed. This is not a problem of one party or the other, this is a problem of a government where people can get elected by making promises that they don't have to pay for.
This general trend has ramifications. At some point, probably within the next fifty years, the numbers will no longer add up. This will happen sooner if we spend a lot now, but the pattern shows it will happen who is in charge during each year. Congress will allow the credit rating to fall (which is the easiest way out) and somebody is going to be left holding the bag.
The lesson in representative republics, unfortunately, seems to be spend the money while you can. From what I can see it holds true for both parties. The interesting question is
