Majoritarianism and Democracy vs. Liberty and the Constitution

While she’s mostly known for radical proposals such as confiscatory tax rates and the Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also made waves with recent comments about imposing “democracy” on the economy.

In a discussion last year at Ponoma College in California, I explained why majoritarianism is misguided.

For all intents and purposes, unchecked democracy gives 51 percent of the people a right to rape and pillage 49 percent of the people.

Thankfully, America’s Founders realized that approach was incompatible with individual liberty.

They drafted a Constitution that explicitly limited the power of politicians (and thus also limited the power of people who vote for politicians).

Why? Because they understood history.

Professor Victor Davis Hanson explains how they recognized the dangers of majoritarianism.

The half-millennia success of the stable Roman republican system inspired later French and British Enlightenment thinkers. Their abstract tripartite system of constitutional government stirred the Founding Fathers to concrete action. Americans originally were terrified of what 51 percent of the people in an unchecked democracy might do on any given day—and knew that ancient democracies had always become more not less radical and thus more unstable. For all the squabbles between Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison, they agreed that a republic, not a direct democracy, was a far safer and stable choice of governance. …We often think that a Bill of Rights was designed to protect Americans from monarchs and dictators. It certainly was. But the Founders were just as terrified of what that the majority of elected representatives without restraint might legally do on any given day to an individual citizen. …All consensual governments are prone to scary wild swings of mob-like emotion—and to demagogues who can almost rein in or goad the dêmos. But the Founders sought to make American government immune to Athenian-style craziness through a system of checks and balances that vented popular frenzies without a great deal of damage.

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Professor Gary Galles explains the difference between liberty and democracy.

…far too little attention seems to be given to the differences between democracy—the process by which we select members of government—and liberty—the key to good government. …our Constitution and Bill of Rights…put some things beyond majority determination… Unfortunately, democracy…is entirely consistent with choices that destroy liberty…the growing reach of government makes our exercise of democracy an increasing threat to liberty, defending that liberty requires understanding the limits of democratic determination.

George Will, citing the work of Professor Randy Barnett, explains that the fight is – or should be – between statist majoritarians and libertarian constitutionalists.

Regarding jurisprudence, Democrats are merely results-oriented, interested in…expanding government’s power… Republicans…have grown lazily comfortable with rhetorical boilerplate in praise of “judicial restraint.” …all progressives are Hobbesians in that they say America is dedicated to a process — majoritarian decision-making that legitimates the government power it endorses. Not all Lockeans are libertarians, but all libertarians are Lockeans in that they say America is dedicated to a condition — liberty. …Lockeans favor rigorous judicial protection of certain individual rights — especially private property and freedom of contract — that define and protect the zone of sovereignty within which people are free to act as they please. Hobbesians say the American principle is the right of the majority to have its way. …Lockeans say the Constitution, properly construed and enforced by the judiciary, circumscribes the majoritarian principle by protecting all rights that are crucial to individual sovereignty. …Barnett says, yes, the Constitution — “the law that governs those who govern us” — is libertarian. And a Lockean president would nominate justices who would capaciously define and vigorously defend, against abuses by majoritarian government.

You don’t have to be a Randian to heartily endorse and embrace this sentiment (h/t: Libertarian Reddit).

The most cogent warning about majoritarianism comes from the great Thomas Sowell.

"In the modern welfare state, a vote becomes a license to take what others create — and these others include generations yet unborn."

— Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) April 19, 2017

To emphasize the dangers of majoritarianism, I’ll close by simply citing Brazil in the past and Venezuela today.

P.S. Though I must admit that the Swiss are an example of how majoritarianism can lead to good outcomes.

P.P.S. I strongly encourage you to read what Walter Williams wrote on this topic.

The Macro Damage of Trade Taxes

In a video I shared two months ago included a wide range of academic studies showing that government-imposed trade barriers undermine economic prosperity.

Not that those results were a surprise. Theory teaches us that government intervention is a recipe for economic harm. And we certainly have painful history showing the adverse consequences of protectionism.

When I debate the issue, I like to cite real-world examples, such as the fact that the nations with the lowest trade barriers tend to be very prosperous while protectionist nations are economic laggards.

No wonder there’s such a strong consensus among economists.

Today, we’re going to add to pro-trade consensus.

A new study from the International Monetary Fund investigates the macroeconomic impact of trade taxes. Here’s the basic outline of the methodology.

Some economies have recently begun to use commercial policy, seemingly for macroeconomic objectives. So it seems an appropriate time to study what, if any, the macroeconomic consequences of tariffs have actually been in practice. Most of the predisposition of the economics profession against protectionism is based on evidence that is either a) theoretical, b) micro, or c) aggregate and dated. Accordingly, in this paper, we study empirically the macroeconomic effects of tariffs using recent aggregate data. …Our panel of annual data is long if unbalanced, covering 1963 through 2014; more recent data is of greater relevance, but older data contains more protectionism. Since little protectionism remains in rich countries, we use a broad span of 151 countries, including 34 advanced and 117 developing countries.

And here are the results.

Our results suggest that tariff increases have adverse domestic macroeconomic and distributional consequences. We find empirically that tariff increases lead to declines of output and productivity in the medium term, as well as increases in unemployment and inequality. … a one standard deviation (or 3.6 percentage point) tariff increase leads to a decrease in output of about .4% five years later. We consider this effect to be plausibly sized and economically significant… Why does output fall after a tariff increase? …a key channel is the statistically and economically significant decrease in labor productivity, which cumulates to about .9% after five years. …Protectionism also leads to a small (statistically marginal) increase in unemployment…we find that tariff increases lead to more inequality, as measured by the Gini index; the effect becomes statistically significant two years after the tariff change. To summarize: the aversion of the economics profession to the deadweight losses caused by protectionism seems warranted; higher tariffs seem to have lower output and productivity, while raising unemployment and inequality. … there are asymmetric effects of protectionism; tariff increases hurt the economy more than liberalizations help.

These graphs show the main results.

The simple way to think about this data is that protectionism forces an economy to operate with sand in the gears. Another analogy is that protectionism is like having to deal with permanent and needless road detours. You can still get where you want to go, but at greater cost.

The bottom line is that things simply don’t function smoothly once government intervenes.

Lower growth, reduced productivity, and higher unemployment are obvious and inevitable consequences, as shown in the IMF study.

And while I don’t worry about inequality when some people get richer faster than other people get richer in a genuine free market, it’s morally disgusting for politicians to support protectionist policies that are especially harmful to the poor.

P.S. Everything in the IMF study about the damage of trade taxes also applies to the economic analysis of other forms of taxation. Indeed, deadweight losses presumably are even higher when considering income taxes. So the IMF deserves to be castigated for putting politics above economics when it pimps for higher taxes.

New Illinois Governor Wants to Accelerate the State’s Fiscal Collapse with a “Progressive” Tax

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how New York is committing slow-motion fiscal suicide.

The politicians in Illinois must have noticed because they now want (another “hold my beer” moment?) to accelerate the already-happening collapse of their state.

The new governor, J.B. Pritzker, wants to undo the state’s 4.95 percent flat tax, which is the only decent feature of the Illinois tax system.

And he has a plan to impose a so-called progressive tax with a top rate of 7.95.

Here are some excerpts from the Chicago Tribune‘s report., starting with the actual plan.

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker embarked on a new and potentially bruising political campaign Thursday by seeking to win public approval of a graduated-rate income tax that he contended would raise $3.4 billion by increasing taxes for the wealthy…for his long-discussed plan to replace the state’s constitutionally mandated flat-rate income tax. Currently, all Illinois residents are taxed at 4.95 percent… Pritzker’s proposal is largely reliant on raising taxes significantly on residents making more than $250,000 a year, with those earning $1 million and up taxed at 7.95 percent of their total income. …The corporate tax rate would increase from the current 7 percent to 7.95 percent, matching the top personal rate. …The governor’s proposal would give Illinois the second-highest top marginal tax rate among its neighboring states.

And here’s what would need to happen for the change to occur.

Before Pritzker’s plan can be implemented, three-fifths majorities in each chamber of the legislature must approve a constitutional amendment doing away with the flat tax requirement. The measure would then require voter approval, which couldn’t happen until at least November 2020. …Democrats hold enough seats in both chambers of the legislature to approve the constitutional amendment without any GOP votes. Whether they’ll be willing to do so remains in question. Democratic leaders welcomed Pritzker’s proposal… voters in 2014 endorsed the idea by a wide margin in an advisory referendum.

The sensible people on the Chicago Tribune‘s editorial board are not very impressed, to put it mildly.

…how much will taxes increase under a rate structure Pritzker proposed? You might want to cover your eyes. About $3.4 billion annually… That extraction of dollars from taxpayers’ pockets would be in addition to roughly $5 billion raised annually in new revenue under the 2017 income tax hike. …How did Springfield’s collection of all that new money work out for state government and taxpayers? Here’s how: Illinois remains deeply in debt, continues to borrow to pay bills, faces an insurmountable unfunded pension liability and is losing taxpayers who are fed up with paying more. The flight of Illinoisans to other states is intensifying with 2018’s loss of 45,116 net residents, the worst of five years of consistent, dropping population. …Illinois needs to be adding more taxpayers and businesses, not subtracting them. When politicians raise taxes, they aren’t adding. A switch to a graduated tax would eliminate one of Illinois’ only fishing lures to attract taxpayers and jobs: its constitutionally protected flat income tax. …Pritzker’s proposal, like each tax hike before it, was introduced with no meaningful reform on the spending side of the ledger. This is all about collecting more money. …In fact, the tax hike would come amid promises of spending new billions.

And here’s a quirk that is sure to backfire.

For filers who report income of more than $1 million annually, the 7.95 percent rate would not be marginalized; meaning, it would be applied to every dollar, not just income of more than $1 million. Line up the Allied moving vans for business owners and other high-income families who’ve had a bellyful of one of America’s highest state and local tax burdens.

The Tax Foundation analyzed this part of Pritzker’s plan.

This creates a significant tax cliff, where a person making $1,000,000 pays $70,935 in taxes, while someone earning one dollar more pays $79,500, a difference of $8,565 on a single dollar of income.

That’s quite a marginal tax rate. I suspect even French politicians (as well as Cam Newton) might agree that’s too high.

Though I’m sure that tax lawyers and accountants will applaud since they’ll doubtlessly get a lot of new business from taxpayers who want to avoid that cliff (assuming, of course, that some entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners actually decide to remain in Illinois).

While the tax cliff is awful policy, it’s actually relatively minor compared to the importance of this table in the Tax Foundation report. It shows how the state’s already-low competitiveness ranking will dramatically decline if Pritzker’s class-warfare plan is adopted.

The Illinois Policy Institute has also analyzed the plan.

Unsurprisingly, there will be fewer jobs in the state, with the losses projected to reach catastrophic levels if the new tax scheme is adjusted to finance all of the Pritzker’s new spending.

And when tax rates go up – and they will if states like Connecticut, New Jersey, and California are any indication – that will mean very bad news for middle class taxpayers.

The governor is claiming they will be protected. But once the politicians get the power to tax one person at a higher rate, it’s just a matter of time before they tax everyone at higher rates.

Here’s IPI’s look at projected tax rates based on three different scenarios.

The bottom line is that the middle class will suffer most, thanks to fewer jobs and higher taxes.

Rich taxpayer will be hurt as well, but they have the most escape options, whether they move out of the state or rely on tax avoidance strategies.

Let’s close with a few observations about the state’s core problem of too much spending.

Steve Cortes, writing for Real Clear Politics, outlines the problems in his home state.

…one class of people has found a way to prosper: public employees. …over 94,000 total public employees and retirees in Illinois command $100,000+ salaries from taxpayers…former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who earned a $140,000 pension for his eight years of service in the Illinois legislature. …Such public-sector extravagance has fiscally transformed Illinois into America’s Greece – only without all the sunshine, ouzo, and amazing ruins.

So nobody should be surprised to learn that the burden of state spending has been growing at an unsustainable rate.

Indeed, over the past 20 years, state spending has ballooned from $34 billion to $86 billion according to the Census Bureau. At the risk of understatement, the politicians in Springfield have not been obeying my Golden Rule.

And today’s miserable fiscal situation will get even worse in the near future since Illinois is ranked near the bottom when it comes to setting aside money for lavish bureaucrat pensions and other retirement goodies.

Indeed, paying off the state’s energized bureaucrat lobby almost certainly is the main motive for Pritzker’s tax hike. As as happened in the past, this tax hike is designed to finance bigger government.

Yet that tax hike won’t work.

Massive out-migration already is wreaking havoc with the state’s finances. And if Pritzker gets his tax hike, the exodus will become even more dramatic.

P.S. Keep in mind, incidentally, that all this bad news for Illinois will almost certainly become worse news thanks to the recent tax reform. Restricting the state and local tax deduction means a much smaller implicit federal subsidy for high-tax states.

P.P.S. I created a poll last year and asked people which state will be the first to suffer a fiscal collapse. Illinois already has a big lead, and I won’t be surprised if that lead expands if Pritzker is able to kill the flat tax.

Cross-Border Investment Threatened by Extraterritorial Tax and Regulatory Policy

When I write about the benefits of trade, I periodically point out that America has a trade deficit because it has a foreign investment surplus.

And since investment is a key driver of economic growth and rising wages, that’s a good outcome.

It basically means that foreigners who earn dollars by exporting to America are helping to finance America’s future prosperity by then plowing that money back into our financial markets (see this video for more details).

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that politicians are making cross-border investment more difficult.

They are using tax and regulatory policies to hinder the flow of money, just like they use protectionist policies to hinder the flow of goods and services.

A new report from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, authored by Bruce Zagaris, explains this unfortunate development. He starts by explaining some of the bad policies imposed by Washington.

The ever-growing complexity and reach of the U.S. tax system impinges on the ability of U.S. taxpayers to live abroad, work abroad, open bank accounts abroad, or conduct business abroad. …These developments create a challenging environment, with taxpayers being subject to onerous – and sometimes conflicting – requirements. The complex array of obligations put taxpayers in legal jeopardy as governments threaten to impose sanctions on investors and businesses… The U.S. has even proactively prosecuted individuals and companies for cross-border tax activities that do not violate American laws. …The paperwork and reporting requirements for cross-border economic activity are extensive. …The icing on the cake of intrusiveness and costly compliance is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

FATCA is horrid legislation, perhaps the single worst part of the internal revenue code.

And bad policy from the U.S. has given other nations an excuse to adopt similar bad rules – aided and abetted by statist international bureaucracies such as the European Commission and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The difficulties caused by extraterritorial taxation are exacerbated by similar moves by other nations, often implemented as a response to aggressive policies by the United States. … the OECD has developed compliance and enforcement initiatives. …extraterritorial tax rules also are impinging on corporations. …The EU has taken a series of aggressive steps to impose tax on cross-border transactions. …Overly aggressive tax compliance and enforcement initiatives erode globalization, impede the ability of normal commerce and the movement of people, capital, and goods, and threaten privacy.

I especially like Bruce’s conclusion. All of the rules that stifle and hinder cross-border investment only exist because politicians have adopted bad tax laws.

Most of the policies reviewed above are only necessary because governments not only tax income, but also impose extra layers of tax on income that is saved an invested, exacerbated by decisions to impose such tax laws on income earned outside national borders. In a neutral, territorial tax system that taxes economic activity only one time, such as the Hall-Rabushka flat tax, almost all international tax conflicts disappear.

Amen. If we had a flat tax, there would be no case to be made for these bad policies.

Writing for the Washington Times, Richard Rahn of the Institute for Global Economic Growth cites this new study as he warns that an ever-expanding web of global tax rules is throwing sand in the gears of the global economy.

Global economic growth, particularly foreign investment, is slowing. One reason is likely the growing complexity of engaging in cross-border financial transactions. Major companies, banks and other financial institutions have been required to pay, in some cases, multi-billion-dollar fines to various governments for some alleged tax or other violation. The question is: Why is this occurring when virtually all of these institutions have compliance officers, tax lawyers, accountants, auditors, etc.? Much of the problem seems to stem from the ever-changing regulations and laws among countries, which are increasingly impossible to understand and comply with, even by the most sophisticated businesses. …The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation has just published an important paper by the highly regarded international tax lawyer Bruce Zagaris, titled “Why the U.S. and the Worldwide Tax Systems Have Run Amok.” …Overly complex and even incomprehensible rules govern many international wealth and business transfers, as well as very onerous reporting requirements for people that have foreign interests. …In his paper, Mr. Zagaris details the problems caused by FATCA and a number of other international tax-related rules and regulations. Many of the rules and regulations would never meet basic cost-benefit analysis. They create much pain for little or no gain.

I would modify that last sentence.

The only “gain” from all these tax rules is a comparatively small amount of additional tax revenue for politicians (Obama originally promised $100 billion annually from FATCA and the actual law is projected to collect than $1 billion per year).

Yet there is great pain imposed on the private sector.

Moreover, laws to hinder cross-border capital flows are especially disadvantageous for the United States, as illustrated by this chart from Bruce’s report.

Sadly, damage to the productive sector of the economy is not something that politicians lose sleep over.

After all, they wouldn’t be imposing risky extraterritorial policies if they actually cared about what’s best for the nation.

Is Socialism on the Winning Side of History?

Socialism is a joke. It doesn’t work. And it is so often a gateway to totalitarianism.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. In this interview, I express my concern that the United States has passed a tipping point.

In the discussion, I included my usual caveat about the meaning of socialism.

I prefer the technical definition, which involves government ownership of the means of production, central planning, and government-dictated prices. But most people assume it simply means big government, in which case it’s hard to find nations that don’t qualify.

Regardless of the best definition, the reason for my pessimism is simple. It’s a combination of changing demographics and poorly designed entitlement programs.

For all intents and purposes, we’re on a trajectory (the “most predictable crisis in history“) to become another Greece.

The good news is that we probably have a couple of decades before the crisis occurs. The bad news is that our political class seems to have no interest in the reforms that would be necessary to avert the crisis.

Though maybe the crisis will occur sooner than we think. I wrote back in 2015 that the debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was merely a discussion over how fast we should drive in the wrong direction.

Well, Crazy Bernie didn’t get the nomination, but he seems to have won the war for the soul of the party. As I point out in this second clip, the radicals are now in the ascendancy on the left.

By the way, here’s the interview with Thomas Sowell that was used as a lead-in to my interview. He may be even more pessimistic than I am.

Though you’ll notice that Professor Sowell included a caveat, speculating that maybe there will be some unforeseeable development that saves the western world (or perhaps just the United States) from gradual decay.

Let’s close this column with some optimism on that point.

I’m old enough to remember the malaise of the 1970s, which wasn’t just based on the economic mess caused by Nixon-style and Carter-style statism. Many people also thought capitalism was no better than communism and that we needed to find some sort of middle ground (and some economists were horribly guilty of this sin).

Thankfully, Reagan had a different approach (including mockery rather than moral equivalence) and the western world won the Cold War.

Gun Control Humor

I shared some socialism humor yesterday to start the weekend, so let’s end the weekend by adding to our collection of satire about gun control.

We’ll start with a fairy tale, loosely based on this video, for left-wing children. Or, to be more precise, a fairy tale for parents who want to raise anti-empirical left-wing children.

This book belongs on the shelf along with the leftist version of The Little Red Hen, the leftist version of The Little Engine that Could, and the leftist version of The Ant and the Grasshopper.

I’ve already shared several variations of this next image. But it never gets old, so here’s another.

There’s nothing particularly amusing or satirical about these rules for gun safety, but the final rule at the end is too good not to share (as I’m sure the guy at the bottom of this column would agree).

Returning the theme of fairy tales, here’s a Michael Ramirez cartoon about the utter failure of gun control in Chicago.

I’m guessing Obama’s book includes this example of rigorous, Chicago-related, social-science research.

Here’s another cartoon that builds on many previous examples.

The video at the end of this column also is a good lesson about gun-free zones.

And if you want some serious analysis explaining why gun-free zones don’t work, click here and here.

Last but not least, here’s my favorite part of today’s collection (h/t: Libertarian Reddit).

Amen. Just like the image at the end of this column.

I’ll close by including links (here, here, and here) for those who want serious discussion on gun control, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution.

Socialism Humor

I realize that mocking socialism is like taking candy from a baby, but I have several items to add to our collection.

But today I’m going to follow the advice of some readers who have told me that I should make a serious point with each bit of satire so that readers (especially those not already immersed in these issues) understand why socialism is both laughable and tragic.

Our first example is some humor based on The Simpson’s, and it makes the important point that majoritarian coercion is still coercion.

Which is why America’s Founders did their best to limit the extent of majoritarian democracy.

I like this next image because it’s the satirical version of my column on why the left should be nice to upper-income taxpayers.

Sadly, my friends on the left seem unable to resist killing – or at least driving away – those golden geese.

And when more and more people are riding in the wagon and fewer and fewer people are pulling the wagon, the end result is not pretty.

Speaking of not pretty, this is the R-rated version of a great Michael Ramirez cartoon.

President Eisenhower also had something to say about free stuff.

Moving to our next example, socialists have this romantic notion of a society where everyone pulls together for the common good.

But when they try to set up such systems on a voluntary basis, they inevitably fail because of an unsolvable incentive structure.

Which is what makes this sign funny…and accurate.

Reminds me of this superb tweet.

Our final example just appeared in my inbox this morning, so it’s very well timed.

It makes the all-important point that ever-expanding government power is bad for civil liberties (hence this very powerful poster about gun control) and bad for full stomachs.

While the image is funny, the real-world consequences are not.

Poor people are starving to death in Venezuela.

And don’t forget the tens of millions of deaths thanks to famines in Mao’s China or the Ukraine under Stalin. Or the mass starvation in North Korea (which was portrayed as a triumph against obesity by an especially despicable bureaucrat at the World Health Organization).

To be sure, there’s a big difference between liberal socialism and totalitarian socialism. I’d take the former if forced to choose. And even when considering liberal socialism, there’s are big differences between market-friendly versions and intervention-based versions.

But, all things considered, I prefer freedom and prosperity.