Reflections On The Will Of The People
Oct. 4th, 2011 11:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribSo, according to yet another poll, the idea of taxing millionaires more is supported by 64% of Americans. Yet, it appears that idea will not even get a serious hearing in Congress, let alone become law.
On January 20, 1920, the United States prohibited the 'manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors' in the United States. Although amending the Constitution requires a great deal of effort, it's not clear to me that a majority of Americans thought that this was a good idea. From watching Ken Burn's new documentary, by 1924 its reasonably clear that a majority of Americans thought that Prohibition was a bad idea. Yet the law held until 1932.
There is a common thread in both these events; namely that a motivated and active minority can override a less-motivated or less-active majority. Some of this is by design - the American system of government is designed to have lots of roadblocks as a means of preventing one faction from gaining too much power. But this is not peculiar to the American system of government - dictators throughout history use this fact to gain and hold power. Obviously, in the case of dictatorship, the "active" minority is willing to use force to seize and hold power, which makes them both more effective and less moral, but even in a peaceful democracy, the process can be hijacked by a minority.
Nor is this phenomenon unique to these two events - American history is full of similar examples, most notably slavery. I don't have a prescription to fix the problem, but when evaluating the performance of politicians, it's a problem worth understanding.
On January 20, 1920, the United States prohibited the 'manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors' in the United States. Although amending the Constitution requires a great deal of effort, it's not clear to me that a majority of Americans thought that this was a good idea. From watching Ken Burn's new documentary, by 1924 its reasonably clear that a majority of Americans thought that Prohibition was a bad idea. Yet the law held until 1932.
There is a common thread in both these events; namely that a motivated and active minority can override a less-motivated or less-active majority. Some of this is by design - the American system of government is designed to have lots of roadblocks as a means of preventing one faction from gaining too much power. But this is not peculiar to the American system of government - dictators throughout history use this fact to gain and hold power. Obviously, in the case of dictatorship, the "active" minority is willing to use force to seize and hold power, which makes them both more effective and less moral, but even in a peaceful democracy, the process can be hijacked by a minority.
Nor is this phenomenon unique to these two events - American history is full of similar examples, most notably slavery. I don't have a prescription to fix the problem, but when evaluating the performance of politicians, it's a problem worth understanding.
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Date: 2011-10-04 05:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 05:31 pm (UTC)To this day I still find British officials far easier to work with than anybody in the US, from parking officials upwards.
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Date: 2011-10-05 08:04 am (UTC)Well, you see, the Federal Government in Washington is busily, and I believe quite deliberately, Sovietizing the nation: Creating so many laws and regulations and so many bureaucrats for each one that it is simply, literally impossible to live within the law - making everyone a lawbreaker somewhere, somehow. One survives by staying below the radar and trusting to the law of averages.
(Ask any small business: OSHA inspectors will find a violation, try as you may to avoid it, because no one knows all of their rules. The same is, of course, true for Internal Revenue.)
Eventually, as in Russia, there are so many laws and rules that even the police just shrug - and respect for the rule of law goes right out the window.
One of the best books on the subject I can recommend is The Death of Common Sense (http://www.philipkhoward.com/books/the_death_of_common_sense): How Law is Suffocating America, by Philip K Howard. It's eye-opening. To the people in every generation who say, “There oughtta be a law,” we must ask, Why?
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Date: 2011-10-05 03:20 pm (UTC)Plus, as Chris points out, this tendency to let small groups direct odd laws seems to go back a long way.
In the UK when the government pushes something a bit too far, the population usually push back hard enough for something to be done about it. Like the Poll Tax in the 1990s, a tax so unpopular that it basically brought down Margaret Thatcher - and yet, it was a tax aimed directly at her older and richer mild class voters. However, the people most affected, poor and young basically killed it.
Until the Wall St protest started, I hadn't seen an awful lot of the actual US silent majority flexing their muscles.
Your tax code is certainly a nightmare, but I don't think that's to drive tax revenue. As I pay somebody to work through it, it looks more like it's designed to reward handsomely the people who can afford people to work through it...
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Date: 2011-10-05 07:40 am (UTC)The other thing about that amendment which raised eyebrows at the time and has been noted since, is that it is the first Constitutional Amendment which restricts personal freedom instead of advancing it. Whether it be forbidding involuntary servitude or granting women the vote, whatever - this was a new one.
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Date: 2011-10-05 02:43 pm (UTC)Jerry Critter
critterscrap.blogspot.com