A strange story resonated in News week suggests that many people haven’t thought about how democratic politics works, or perhaps they are confusing politics as they wish it were with what it actually is. The magazine writes (“Donald Trump threatened with new investigation», May 11, 2024):
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, has threatened former President Donald Trump with a new investigation into his promises to big oil companies.
The Washington Post reported this week on a deal that Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, proposed to top oil executives at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago last month: raise $1 billion for his campaign and it would roll back dozens of President Joe Biden’s environmental regulations and prevent new rules, according to people with knowledge of the dinner.
According to JobAccording to our sources, Trump said offering him $1 billion would be a “deal,” due to taxes and regulations they wouldn’t have to worry about if he were in office. …
“Put these things together and it starts to look pretty damn corrupt,” Whitehouse said.
In reality, bribes, solicited or offered, constitute the daily bread of politicians. They promise political gifts in exchange for one form of support or another, or respond to interest group support with favorable interventions. These agreements represent the political form of economic exchange, which is why public choice theorists speak of a “political market”.
Joe Biden openly seeks support from apparatchiks and union members in exchange for “worker-centered” policies. Maybe Donald Trump is just more transparent. And he plays the game on the side of various special interests – although, like any populist worth his salt, he also tries to bribe workers by imposing tariffs on consumers and importing companies. A nuance is necessary: a political bribe aimed at extending freedom of contract equally to all – something we rarely see these days – should not be condemned; it is the system that creates this necessity that is condemnable.
Political corruption also occurs when a politician offers to a certain class of voters to favor their interests, opinions or feelings – and they are often the same thing – in exchange for their support of his own interests. in the advantages of power. Corruption is at the heart of majority politics. The consequences for public and private ethics, as well as for the survival of a free society, are far from insignificant.
The more power the state has, the more widespread this legalized corruption becomes. A defining characteristic of the classical liberal and libertarian tradition has been its opposition to state power, democratic or not.
James Buchanan, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics, proposed a solution through “constitutional political economy” which developed on the foundations of public choice economics. The solution revolves around the constitutional limits imposed on everyday politics and aims precisely to end the negative-sum game of redistribution and exploitation of political losers by political winners. Buchanan and colleagues argued that only at the level of unanimously accepted constitutional rules in a virtual social contract can political exchange be non-exploitative; at this level (the “constitutional stage”), he asserts, politics resembles an economic exchange in the interest of all. This is not exploitation because, in theory, any individual can veto a system of rules that would result in greater costs than benefits. for him. (See his The limits of freedomhis seminal The calculation of consent with Gordon Tullock; and his The reason for the rules with Geoffrey Brennan; the links are to my reviews of these books.)
The most radical and subversive attack on majoritarian politics from an overtly liberal perspective can be found in the writings of another economist and political philosopher, Anthony de Jasay, notably in his aptly titled book. Against politics (link to my review).
If we wish to complete the picture of the main currents of liberal political philosophy of the 20th century, we could add the critique of majoritarian democracy formulated by Friedrich Hayek. In a quest for opportunity (broad cost-benefit analysis), democratic politics destroys the traditional rule of law that has generated a self-regulated social order. (See in particular his Rules and order And The mirage of social justice; links to my reviews.)
