Federalism, the EU, and Liberty

by Liberty and Power

Am currently working on a paper that discusses Jim Buchanan's view of federalism for a conference, and it got me thinking a lot about the EU. In principle a federal system should increase political and economic liberty. Political liberty grows when several governments have to share power; economic liberty grows because leviathan does not have monopoly taxing power. This is the case that Geoff Brennan and Buchanan make in their book The Power to Tax.

So why have so many libertarians been opposed to the EU. Many valid specific concerns have been raised, most notably the complete lack of a constitution initially. But I think there was something else that bothered me quite a bit - the EU always seemed elite driven with remarkable indifference to voter preference. I know I'm sounding old-fashioned, but I do have this vague romantic notion that politicians, albeit ones limited significantly by political institutions, should have some responsiveness to citizens interests.

Which brings me an editorial in today's Economist discussing Tony Blair's recent offer to put EU membership to a vote in the UK. I know some libertarians on this page will scoff at this, but I think it's a good idea. First off, I think it might be part of a larger trend towards democracy on the continent which, although certainly worse then a republican form of government, is waaaaaaay better then the plutocracy that currently dominates most European countries. Second, I can't imagine that once voters see what's really in the EU constitution, and interests start to discuss it publicly, that it will pass.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, it would strengthen the power that the federal units, the nations themselves, would have in the system. That's the only way something like the EU can work. If the EU bureaucracy has grown recently like a football player on steroids, turning the EU entry decision over to voters might get the nations themselves in the weight room with a fighting chance to make this work.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Max Schwing - 4/25/2004

So, you say because there are people or groups interested in getting their share in Europe, most European governments are plutocracies?
What is then the difference between European "plutocracies" and the United States?

Best regards, Max

Jonathan Dresner - 4/24/2004

OK, I'll bite. Why is a democracy worse than a republic? And why does a single vote on a crucial issue qualify as a "larger trend?"

Gus diZerega - 4/24/2004

In the midst of a post with which I strongly agree, Pat Lynch repeats an old error with its roots, so far as I know, in the John Birch Society insane fantasies, and which is simply and destructively mistaken. In Birch-speak "The is a republic, not a democracy, let's keep it that way."

Madison in Federalist 10 defined democracy as a government by direct involvement of the people, Athenian style. He described a republic as a government where people elect their representatives. It is the principle of representation which distinguishes a democracy from a republic for Madison.

Some years later Thomas Jefferson translated a book by A. V. C. Destutt Tracy about the new American system. Tracy wrote it in French. There, so far as I am aware, for the first time the term "representative democracy" was used in describing the US system. Jefferson coined it, translating from the French. Before then the term did not exist.

But what about "republic"? Well, Madison pulled a fast one. Before he wrote, a republic referred to a polity where the basic orders of society were represented, ideally in such a way that no order could tyrannize over another. For many, Great Britain was a republic, since both Lords and Commons had to agree for anything to get done. This was why Montesquieu classified it as one.

America had no orders. It adopted the classical liberal principle that people should be equal under the law. It didn't adopt it perfectly, but it did to a greater extent than elsewhere, and legitimated itself in those terms, as with the Declaration of Independence.

The old term for a republic could not apply to the US. But it enjoyed near universal acceptance as a good form of government. Madison therefore adapted the term to apply to a government unlike any that had ever existed before - what we now call, after Jefferson, a representative democracy.

What would Madison have thought of Jefferson's terminology? Well, their political alliance is famous and was pretty much life long. They disagreed on the margins, but never on the fundamentals.

So, the old right wing argument that we are a republic not a democracy only applies in criticizing advocates of direct democracy - which these days are almost universally right wingers advocating initiatives. They often use them to accomplish the tyranny of the majority that Madison hoped the representative principle would moderate.

Right wingers talk a lot about the constitution, they never bothered to understand it. Scalia and Bork are great examples. How they talk about the constitution is sort of like how they talk about morality.