A DUALIST JEFFERSON

One of the anecdotes about Nelson Mandela that I found particularly telling was that he invited his jailer to a front row seat at his inauguration for the presidency of South Africa. I repeat it to point out how “federalist” President Mandela was. The reason I characterize this gesture with this moniker is because central to federalist thinking is the principle that good governance is advanced by bringing into political play as many parties or interests as possible.

In the first of the Federalist Papers,¹ Alexander Hamilton divides all polities into three types: those based on force, those based on accident, and those based on choice. We associate different institutional structures with each type. Those based on force are noted for concentrated power in the fashion of a king or dictator. Those based on accident are noted for power of the elites – an aristocracy or plutocracy. And those based on choice are noted for power of varied interests that make up the political landscape of a nation. The last sees no limitation on the number of interests that should participate in the formulation of public policy. The implementation of this principle has further structural and procedural implications.

First, a polity of choice holds as most important its foundational constitution – the covenant or compact – that spells out the agreement by which those who have chosen to formulate the polity do so. The constitution sets out to form a structural grid of offices, levels of authority, agencies, and even, in some cases, divided sovereignty designations. Yes, it's complex. It is a structure that can lend itself to suffering through politicians who continuously defray responsibility, but it is also a structure that opens opportunities for more to become involved and also opportunities for citizens to find those government officials who are apt to be favorable to any given demand. As a citizen, if you don't like the response in office A, then you can go to office B or office C and so on. In principle, this approach to governance tends to avoid extremely hierarchical tendencies. As with any form of polity, there is a significant danger associated with its approach. That is, polities based on force are in danger of becoming tyrannies; polities based on accident are in danger of becoming cabals of oligarchs, and polities based on choice are in danger of becoming chaotic or anarchistic. When analyzing each of these types, a student is wise to keep the respective dangers in mind and expect that its development, at a fundamental level, fuels many of its more significant political issues.²

Of course, the US exemplifies a polity based on choice. For one, it is a federation which is a subtype of “choice” polities. The US has its matrix structure with bifurcated sovereignty, sovereignty that resides both with the central government and with the state governments. And I see that through its history, to varying degrees, that there has been a particular view of politics which has provided a source of instability. I can trace the manifestation of this challenge from its very beginning as a national polity. That is, the natural rights construct, with its emphasis on the individual and, to some, unrestrained liberty, has been the source for chaotic, anarchistic developments. And no founding “father” was more responsible for this construct's initial influence than the prime author of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. Yet, such a designation should not be made without some qualifying explanations. What makes his contribution along these lines so nebulous is that his association with natural rights thought was due more to isolated comments and written passages than to any well thought-out exposition of ideas. His natural rights assertions, I believe, were motivated by his admiration of John Locke. Locke wrote of individuals giving up a limited amount of liberty in order to form a polity. The British philosopher contextualized his comments with the devising of a fictional origin to societal arrangements – that they emerged from a state of nature. Humans formulated such arrangements by being willing to surrender only those liberties that made societal formation possible. This, to a generation of political thinkers who were fighting the overwhelming level of repression that was the product of a long history of elitist governance, sounded liberalizing. Between the king and the nobles, the history of British rule might have been leading the world into opening up political opportunities, but it still represented a stronghold as to what an individual could and could not do. To men like Jefferson, that history represented stifling horizons and they wanted to change this whole basic political arrangement. Natural rights ideas provided the theoretical arguments by which to attack this legacy. The Declaration is an excellent example of what this fight was all about. But how far down this theoretical path was Jefferson traveling?

To begin, Jefferson was not an abstract theoretician. His proclivities were more of a practical bent. According to Richard Hofstadter, Jefferson was more at home studying and sharing his wisdom about the practical concerns of agriculture. Yet, he was no slouch concerning political thought. And his thoughts did have their influence among Americans of the late 1700s and early 1800s, an influence that was substantial and long lasting. Yes, he did talk of how revolution was the useful “manure” for the tree of liberty, but these were populist assertions that were not backed by any mature thinking. Instead, he spoke more convincingly and importantly when he reacted to the work and efforts of his fellow founders. He supported the structural selection, by the founders, of a balanced constitution in which the several classes were represented. “It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.”³ That is why the Constitution creates the structural matrix our governmental system exemplifies. Structurally, according to federalist principles, government should not limit the number of interests that can participate. With these interests comes the diversity of opinions, principles, and passions that are present within the polity at any given time and that should be considered by policymakers. This holds a dual challenge: the inclusion of all interests and the safeguard of each (even of each individual) against the potential tyranny of the majority. Jefferson was sensitive to this danger: “One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one … As little will it avail us as that they are chosen by ourselves.”⁴ This is Jefferson's support, similar to that of James Madison, of an expanded republic. It is a view that expresses a version of federalist principles. So while one can trace an initial argument for natural rights from this founder, one would be wise to make this overall judgment with a healthy dose of restraint.

 

1One should remember this title in considering the content of that historically important collection of essays.

 

2Many of the ideas contained in this description are attributable to the insights of the late, eminent scholar, Daniel J. Elazar.

3Hofstadter, R. (1948). The American political tradition. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Quotation on p. 29.

4Ibid.

REALISTIC REASONS TO PLAY ALONG

I have a story line to share. It's fiction, but I think its ins and outs can be telling of our political system and its processes. Let us say the president is a woman – that a woman won the presidential sweepstakes back in 2008. She has a plan for a national healthcare program. It is one in which the national government copies a plan that already exists in one of the fifty states. That program calls on uninsured people to sign up for a health insurance plan by going online and seeing what private insurance programs have to offer. For people who can't afford any of the plans, there will be a subsidy provided by the federal government to help them pay their premiums. Adding to the appeal of this program is that it has been in effect for several years and works swimmingly well with the citizens of that state loving it. Also, the state plan was initially passed by a Democratically controlled legislature and signed into law by a Republican governor. That gives this program something very rare in our political environment: bipartisan backing. The fictional president, though, has several obstacles in nationalizing this state plan.

The first obstacle is from members of her own party. Her base support – that is, the support of her most committed backers – want a more government-controlled program. They want to extend, in effect, the existing national old age program (Medicare) so that it will be provided to the whole population. That is a program in which the government basically pays for all medical expenses (100% of hospital costs and 80% of doctors' fees) beyond minimal co-payments. It also mandates that all citizens must pay a healthcare tax that corresponds roughly to a modest insurance payment. This puts into the actuary pool people of all ages. By doing this, the pool will include people who are healthy, who happen to be the vast majority of the population. The resulting pool will, therefore, have enough money so that the expenses of the not so healthy can be covered. This is acceptable to the healthy because no one knows when one will change from being a healthy person to an ill person. By the way, this is the principle behind any health insurance program, private or public. This type of program relegates the middle men, the insurance companies, to a much reduced role and cuts back the fees they can charge. Therefore, for this and other reasons, healthcare becomes cheaper. The main objection to this program, though, is that this expands the intrusiveness of government in our healthcare system. At least, that is the concern of conservatives.

Short of this alternative is a mix between what the fictional president wants and what her base supporters want. That would be a program that mirrors the state program but offers, among the provided insurance choices, a “public option.” That is, the basic structure of the program is in line with what the president wants, but, in addition to all the private options, a person can choose a public option similar to the old age program. Again, this would probably be a program with fewer costs since it eliminates the private insurance companies when a person selects the public option. With fewer costs, the public option will have lower premiums and this would provide significant competition to the private options and, therefore, lower the overall costs of healthcare.

Up to now, this story sounds like what happened when Congress was considering healthcare a few years ago. At least, in its broad outline, it is what Representative Luis Gutierrez (D, IL) described the other day as being what was considered by President Obama.¹ But to return to my story line, there are three stated alternative approaches to reforming healthcare: private choices option (what the president wants and is aiming to have become law), the public option (what is a mix between what the president wants and what the president's party base wants), and single government payer option (what the president's party base wants). Our fictional president wants the private choice mainly because she knows there is a high degree of skepticism over the other two alternatives. The opposition party has been very successful in convincing people that any extensive role by government will have government determining what medical services will be available to people if either of these two options were to be put into effect. But beyond this obstacle, the president has another one. That is, she has an extremely hostile opposition party in Congress that, even though they don't have a majority in either chamber of Congress, they can still deny the president any ability to capture bipartisan support for any effort the president might attempt. Since this is such an important area of legislation, the president feels she must secure some opposition party votes in favor of any bill that would pass Congress.

So, and now we will vary from what actually happened; after consulting with her advisers, the president decides on the following strategy. The president will first, with much public fanfare, announce the administration's supposed healthcare position which is a single government payer plan. While this is not true – she is not aiming to get this plan through Congress – she makes the public argument for this option. She secures the support from key members of Congress who belong to the president's party. To some of these members, whom the president really trusts, she confides in them what the true strategy is and is about to be implemented. The president then calls a much publicized meeting which includes leaders from both parties to work out a national healthcare program. The opposition party members protest, but agree to attend. Since Americans want their government to address the fact that there are about 40 million Americans who can't afford health insurance and it is bad form to reject a presidential invitation, they agree to attend the meeting. There is also the added fact that everyone's health costs are being pushed higher than they should be since hospitals are passing on to other patients the costs of treatment for those who can't pay. These passed-on costs, on average, are costing the Americans an extra thousand dollars a year. In back rooms, the president's negotiators are able to talk a few key opposition members into supporting a plan that resembles the bipartisan program already existing in the one state mentioned above. They agree because the ideas for this program were initiated by conservatives and rely on private insurance companies competing for the uninsured people's business. But first, they are to propose and publicly insist that the administration adopt a set of provisions that are geared to lower health costs. One such provision would be to shift insurance markets from being organized at the state level to being organized at the national level. This would increase, they claim, more competition and lower insurance premiums.² When they do this, the administration balks, but states that instead of supporting the government payer plan, the president is willing to adopt the public option alternative. The opposition again publicly rejects that offer and holds that the administration should now adopt the existing state model in which private options are offered to people. All of these moves have been previously planned as public give and take between a few members of Congress from both parties and the president. The president agrees to this last offer and, in effect, gets what she initially wanted. While the president wins, she does so in such a way that everyone walks away with the ability to claim a victory. The nation has a national healthcare program, but it is a program that is based on ideas initially offered by conservative sources.

I hope you don't find the above story line as being too rambling a tale. The point is to illustrate an important aspect of our political processes and one that is probably part and parcel of any democratic system. That is, politics is made up of a lot of perceptions. I believe that one reason President Barack Obama has met with such opposition to his healthcare law has been the fact that it was passed with all Democratic votes in Congress. One can claim that the opposition, the Republicans, is mostly responsible for Democrats having to count on only their members to get a healthcare program. But from the Republican perspective, the President came up with the program and mostly jammed it down their throats. But if the President could have followed a scenario more in line with my storyline, then perhaps there could have been some Republican votes and those Republicans could have shared in some of the credit in passing legislation that finally provided healthcare to millions of Americans. Instead, Obama and the Democrats in Congress went it alone.

Some of you might be saying, he doesn't know what actually happened in the passing of healthcare – that there was a lot more involved with the actual events that led to the Affordable Care Act. Maybe I don't know all that went into that particular legislative process. After all, all negotiations do not happen in public. Perhaps what actually happened is the best we could have expected. I provide this story not so much to criticize the administration as to provide an alternative approach to policy making – one that illustrates potential give and take (even if staged) that can provide positive results for all involved. This might include some grandstanding, some staging, or some other manipulations to achieve what is politically possible. Is it an ideal scenario? Of course not, but it is a view that takes into account some less than ideal realities. As it is, while the Republicans ended up with a form of healthcare that reflected many of their stated principles, the way the law came about offered them few to no opportunities to claim credit. After all, they are in the business of selling themselves to the electorate as being worthy of credit and when that is deprived, they have no transactional reason to play along. And while it is common for people to expect a higher motivation on the part of their leaders, history tells us that on this account, they will probably be disappointed.

1The Representative gave this description during a meeting of the Judiciary Committee.

2It would also provide an incentive to all insurance companies to set up shop in the lowest regulated states.