A Communist representative in the French National Assembly, André Chassaigne, probably expresses what many if not most people believe, in America as in France—that the role of politics is to respond to the needs of people. Is there anything wrong with that? Mr. Chassaigne just declared in an interview (Le Point, January 17, 2022):
The rejection of political discourse … comes from the fact that politics has lost part of its ethics. … It ignores the fundamentals, which are to respond to the needs of people.
Le rejet de la parole politique […] vient du fait que la politique a perdu de son éthique. […] Elle ignore les fondamentaux qui consistent à répondre aux besoins des gens.
Along the same lines, George W. Bush famously declared, “when somebody hurts, government has got to move.”
This is a fundamental point. The error lies in the failure to realize that the way government responds to the needs of people is, most of the times, by catering to some needs of some individuals to the detriment of other needs of other individuals. In order to give to some, the state must take from others. In order to help some satisfy their needs, the state must prevent others from satisfying theirs. The harmed individuals bring up their grievances and, in their turn, demand some privileges that will hurt somebody else. And so forth, up to the point where everybody is both assisted and harmed, a phenomenon called “churning.” An individual balance sheet is generally impossible to calculate except for some long-term government favorites.
Dissension within le peuple de gauche (“the people of the left”), as they say in France, made more visible by the upcoming presidential election, illustrates a fact too seldom emphasized: every socialist (or, for that matter, every statist of the right) thinks that it is his own preferences that would be catered to under his preferred regime. But if they understandably don’t agree among themselves, how can they hope to satisfy “the needs of people”? Individual preferences are different.
Friedrich Hayek believed that the political differences between socialists and classical liberals did not come from conflicting values, but from intellectual errors over how society works and how it is impossible for the state to bring everybody to nirvana; he dedicated his The Road to Serfdom [University of Chicago Press, 1947], “to the socialists of all parties,” and it was not sarcastic. Mr. Chassaigne falls into the errors that Hayek was trying to explain. It is no secret that economic illiteracy is deeper in France than in America.
The “needs of people” in an ad-hoc-policy sense has no ascertainable meaning except to the extent that political authority—politicians and bureaucrats or, at best, a numerical majority—determines what they are. In a free society, each individual decides what trade-offs he will make among all the things he “needs,” and brings his demand on the market, where is it in most cases better satisfied there than at a government window. (The featured image of this post is from a Venezuelan grocery store in 2015: socialism for the 21st century…).
The invocation of ethics by Mr. Chassaigne may be sincere, although “ethics” is not a Marxist category. However, invoking ethics in the political world is generally an indirect way to stake a claim on resources, affirm the priority of the speaker’s preferences, signal virtue, or move voters. Distinguishing between the positive analysis of the consequences of individual or collective choices on the one hand and, on the other hand, ethical values is not an easy task. It helps to be cognizant of the ideas of classical-liberal political economists over the past three centuries.
Given a theoretically realistic view of how society works, one can ask whether individual demands for some goods or services can be better satisfied by politics than by voluntary trade and free interindividual cooperation. This is the million-dollar question among classical liberals and libertarians. With a few exceptions (including Anthony de Jasay), they have answered positively but with the condition that government power and action be strictly constrained (James Buchanan is especially interesting). In this perspective, the question is not how government policies can cater to people’s needs, but whether and how government can help maintain an autoregulated order where individuals and private groups can peacefully pursue their different goals.
READER COMMENTS
David Henderson
Jan 18 2022 at 11:10am
Which George Bush? I don’t have a subscription to the source you linked to.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 18 2022 at 11:24am
David: It was George W, which might be more surprising for some observers. I just added the precision to my post, thanks.
Jose Pablo
Jan 18 2022 at 4:22pm
Mr Chassaigne, should listen to Reagan’s ¿joke?:
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help. “
Jens
Jan 19 2022 at 2:11am
“Voluntary” trade and “free” interindividual cooperation do not generate recognition because intersubjective recognition has nothing to do with reciprocal utility. Recognition arises in the struggle for it. Government and state are neither the best nor the worst helpers in the struggle for recognition, they are an object of the effort. And the question is not whether and how *some* products and services might be better provided by “government” or by “private enterprise.” The question is what narcissistic goals are compatible with the good life *at all*. The left must learn (again) to consistently counter neoliberal propaganda with its own terms and ideas, and the arguments will come all by themselves. There is still a long way to go.
Mactoul
Jan 19 2022 at 7:20am
Politics is hardly about satisfying individual’s demand for goods irrespective of what the goods demanded are.
Politics is all about relative ordering of the goods. Now market can do this by price mechanism. But not entirely. Otherwise what is the role of politics and collective people?
Jose Pablo
Jan 19 2022 at 9:19am
The concept of “public goods” (the one I think you are referring to) is a “convenient excuse” and, basically, works like this:
You postulate that there are goods than can be best provided by the government. Goods that (quoting Samuelson) “are collectively consumed are non-rival and non-excludable.”. Avoiding “free riders” for these goods would be expensive. Maybe.
But, in any case, when you look at the actual government expenditures, they have nothing to do with this “theory”:
Almost 2/3 of government expending is on Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare which are not “collectively consumed” (particularly so in the United States) which are “rival” and which are “excludable”. They were created with “nation building” purposes (Bismarck in Prussia) as a way of buying “loyalty” to government (and has been used for this purpose ever since).
Education (not in the federal budget but a significant expenditure) is not collective is rival and is also excludable.
Security related expenditures (a category truly collective, non-rival and non-excludable) are less than 20% of the federal budget (defense, state department, FBI, DHS, etc…)
It is very difficult to argue than the need for “public goods” has grown from around 7% 100 years ago to more than 40% nowadays. Some “other thing” is at play in the ever-growing size of the State.
If anything, technology has allowed to make excludable goods and services that were non-excludable before (roads, radio, TV ….). If providing “public goods” were the goal, the federal budget should be reducing over time. Clearly not the case.
Mactoul
Jan 20 2022 at 4:11am
Among the goods that government provides is that some goods shall not be provided. That is, a prohibition–a very important public good and I doubt capable of being provided by market.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jan 20 2022 at 8:55am
“Public goods” are not the only argument for State action. Redistribution of consumption is another. [This is the main justification for SS/Medicare/Medicaid.] Pigou taxation is another.
Jose Pablo
Jan 20 2022 at 9:29pm
So, the main goal of SS and Medicare is “redistribution of consumption”?
From whom to whom?
From working people under 35, with an average net worth of $76,000, to people over 65 with an average net worth over $1,200,000? Sure, they base these policies on the “effectiveness” of this redistribution in maximizing “global wellbeing” (whatever it is). Certainly, looks like that.
Pigouvian taxes on alcohol and gasoline administered by the State since a long time ago are also well known for their effectiveness reducing the consumption of alcohol and the emission of CO2 to the “historically” low levels we see today.
Sure, this has been the driving goal on the design, implementation and periodical evaluation of this policies through all these years. And not, never! trying to win the votes of the constituencies than can better help them to win the next election or collecting taxes with a minimum political cost.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 19 2022 at 10:47am
Mactoul: You write:
This is true for Plato, not for Adam Smith. Jamea Buchanan makes this opposition clear. If you believe that all value derives from equal individuals, politics can only be (1) a sort of exchange, which is what Buchanan and Smith argued for, or a sort of exploitation by philosopher-kings (and their clients), which is Plato. Buchanan’s Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative provides a good statement of “politics as exchange, as opposed to politics as conflict.
Mactoul
Jan 20 2022 at 4:07am
The proposition “All value derives from equal individuals” is hardly self-evident. Indeed, I have no clear notion of its meaning. For me, politics is just a struggle to realize one’s values. That is, to make real one’s vision of the good. No holds barred.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 20 2022 at 10:52am
Mactoul: Your comment looks like the exact opposite of all shades of liberal opinion since the 18th century (plus a few predecessors). Of course, labels are not arguments, but I am trying to find out what your own argument is. Your sentence “For me, politics is just a struggle to realize one’s value” reminds me of what the fascists often expressed or (if we take “values” loosely) what Marxian theorists were after. Your following clause, “That is, to make real one’s vision of the good,” seems to contradict what you just said, for it refers instead to Plato (or any philosopher-king who thinks his “the good” is better).
Mactoul
Jan 20 2022 at 8:21pm
If by liberalism you mean attempts to derive political community from individuals then I disagree. To me, the political community aka State Or tribe, the family and the individual are three irreducible levels, none derivable from others. All attempts to derive political community from individuals fail.
To realize is to make real . I have a vision of good, you have another. Which vision will be realized in the world we share is naturally a matter of struggle.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jan 20 2022 at 8:48am
The only argument for state action to meet some “need” whether an income transfer or the correction of an externality, is not that it will achieve “nirvana” [which has never seemed like a very attractive optimum optimorum to me :)] but that it will do more good than harm. The problem with many (most?) policy initiatives is that in practice they fail to take the harm into account.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 20 2022 at 11:26am
Thomas: Perhaps there is a cause why “many (most?) policy initiatives … in practice … fail to take the harm into account”? We can interpret both Buchanan’s and Hayek’s work as an attempt to answer this question.
Pierre Lemieux
Jan 20 2022 at 1:08pm
Not to mention de Jasay, who has a neat public-choice-style explanation: harm is just the cost that the state makes some pay in order to support its preferred clientèles.
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