The Framers of the U.S. Constitution had a justifiable fear
of the concentration of power in their new republic, with results that we all
learn in the fifth grade: separation of powers on the national government
level, an independent judiciary, a
delegation of powers to semi-sovereign state governments, a Bill of Rights, and
a Constitution that’s hard to change. Thus it’s hard to gain total political control of the
USA—hard, but not impossible.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because the heated rhetoric of this
political season suggests that we are at least potentially moving toward a
situation so polarized, based on views of what’s good for the nation so
divergent, that it’s worth taking a moment to consider what might happen if the
extremes we’ve heard so much from recently actually took control of the
nation. We tend to be lulled by
the existence of a stable center, a mass of voters who decide national
elections, one reason why the extreme views of primary candidates typically get
squishy in the general election campaign. Still, it’s possible for a powerful minority to impose
its views on the majority. Slave
owners did for a long time, and prohibitionists famously did in 1919. You could also argue that civil rights
was an imposed minority view in many areas of the country.
When I say total control I mean control of the White House,
a two-thirds + majority in the House and the Senate, and control of
thirty-eight states, both state-house and legislatures. I haven’t done the math, but that can’t
be much above five thousand people.
If you have that, you can change the Constitution and remake the country
any way you like. Five thousand people
out of three hundred million is not an impossible burden. Assuming we take extremists at their
word, what might America look like after a total triumph for the Tea
Party/religious right or the Occupy/social democratic left?
Right America
The right as currently conceived stands above all for two
things: unleashing business and the imposition of a set of values in public
life. Liberty is the slogan, but
in practical terms this means liberty restricted to the owners of capital and
guns and those who share a set of values derived from the American brand of
Protestant Christianity. It’s long
been pointed out that these two bases of the right are in conflict, but there
is no reason why politics could not work these out. At a minimum under such a regime we could expect to
see:
- constitutional amendments prohibiting abortion and same-sex marriage
- the repeal of the 17th Amendment providing for direct popular election of senators and of the 16th Amendment authorizing income taxes
- a modification of the 14th Amendment eliminating automatic citizenship for people born of illegal immigrants
- modification of the 1st Amendment to allow school prayer and public support for religious schools and (perhaps) a statement that the US is a Christian nation; and further, perhaps, to control pornography and make it easier to sue for libel
- clarification of the 2nd amendment, to make clear it applies to the individual right to own guns
- clarification of the 5th Amendment to recognize all regulation as a taking that must be compensated
- reduction of federal power to the status quo ante 1890: little power to regulate; no anti-trust laws; no social or health programs; privatization of federal property; self-regulation the rule for industry; the effective end of unions; a national sales tax to support a federal government that would consist mainly of the military, the courts, the police power, the prisons, the state department, and a few odds and ends
- mass expulsion of illegal immigrants and restrictions on the franchise so as to make it more difficult for poor people to cast votes
What would America be like under such a regime? Well, in a sense we’ve already seen
what it was like, because the world of 100 years ago remains accessible via
historical records. We also have
examples of contemporary nations where extreme individualism and feral
capitalism have been given free rein.
We should expect, therefore, an increase in poverty, suffering from
poverty, and crime. We should
expect a health system divided into three tiers—superb services for the
well-off, mediocre, cost-rationed services for the majority, and charnel houses
for the poor to die in. We should
expect to see even vaster differences between the life styles of the top ten
per cent and the rest. The
national government being rendered impotent, we should expect to see the states
become more significant and this means, if 1890 is the model, the complete
dominance of corporations and their leaders over the business of the
states. Externalities will not be
controlled, and we should expect to see an increase in product-based
poisonings, industrial injury and industrial disasters. Recovery from natural disasters would be increasingly the responsibility
of private efforts and of charity.
Privatization will generally increase, as the business-controlled
government sells off the profitable parts of the public investment and leaves
the remainder to rot.
The upside of this would be an increase in the opportunity
to become rich for those capable and lucky enough. A substantial portion of the population would regard it a paradisiacal
situation. Desperate people with
no safety net would be willing to work under any conditions and for any pay on offer. Manufacturing, free of unions and
environmental and occupational controls, might therefore revive, in the Chinese style. It will be increasingly easy to find servants, and many more
people will be able to afford them.
White person servitude will have a renaissance. Criminal justice/prisons will increase as a share of GDP and will be
entirely privatized. There is no
reason why the greatly increased number of prisoners should not be rented out
for the agricultural, industrial and service tasks that the expelled immigrants
once did, and many will be happy to see black people slaving in the fields
again in chains.
In finance, we should expect to see the historic cycles of
boom, bubble and bust continue and grow more violent, in the absence of
financial regulation. Monopolies
will flourish, but so will competition from gray and black markets. Again, some people will get very
rich. Looting of natural
resources and pollution will increase, and the public fisc will serve even more
as a piggy bank for the new oligarchy.
Education will be largely privatized and its function as a
vetting system for the elite will be enhanced. Outside the elite, schools will become even more like jails
and will function essentially as holding pens for populations destined for
actual prisons. A small number of
students will be rescued and made into elite stars to justify the neglect of
the vast majority, who in any case are not needed for industry or agriculture
anymore, except (see above) as prison labor. It will be found, in general, more efficient to
continue to export our manufacturing to, and import the required intelligentsia
from, South and East Asia, rather than suffer the irritation of an educated
population of Americans. The
resulting passive and ill-educated population will be kept docile by drugs and
sports of ever-increasing violence, and encouraged to die early.
In public morals we should see a new era of hypocrisy. A
sort of American ulema will drive
deviance underground and out of sight.
Some of the recent advances in feminism and civil rights may be rolled
back, perhaps not directly but as a result of the other changes mentioned. The availability of porn
will decrease, but the availability of prostitution will increase, and become
cheaper. Orphanages will come back
as will the red-light districts.
Sodomy laws may be revived and gay people pushed back into the
closet. Contraception and sex
education will be harder to get in many states and venereal diseases and
illegal abortion will increase, so that the actual abortion rate may end up
higher than it is now, as in, for example, Bolivia, which has very severe legal
barriers to abortion.
In summary, we should expect the country to resemble a
gigantic Guatemala, with a somewhat more populous overclass living an extremely
pleasant life, quite insulated from the rest of the American people
whose lives would resemble those of the so-called Third World even more than
they do now. But the society will probably
be more exciting, violent, and colorful than the one of today, and many
people will thrive in such an environment.
Left America
Here too, we have examples of what life is presently like in
the country that America could become in the event of a total triumph of the
left: that is, northern Europe, Canada or Australia. The Constitutional changes
here would be less extensive but might include:
- a modification of the 1st Amendment to prohibit the use of the public airwaves for political advertising
- A Constitutional commitment to full employment
- A reinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment to clarify either that it really meant the militia and nothing else; or, that it meant the right to bear only the kind of arms available when the amendment was passed—black powder, single-shot weapons and swords
- a clarification that controls on the externalities of production are not takings; and a strengthening of the commerce clause to allow easier regulation
- the abolition of the electoral college; restrictions on state efforts to restrict the franchise
Beyond that we would see free single-payer universal health care and free
education continued through university, plus serious vocational education programs, with an associated commitment to service
on the part of the young people
thus aided. Most doctors would be
salaried, and working in non-profit comprehensive health centers. Tax rates would return to Eisenhower-era
levels. The capital gains
exemption would be severely restricted and inheritance taxes raised. The government would take a somewhat larger
percentage of GNP; incomes would gradually become more equal. Regulation of
the economy would be much stricter, in banking and finance, in safety, in the
environment. There would be
massive infrastructure investments in schools, clean energy, rapid transit and
high-speed rail. Banking and
finance would become dull again and not the destination of the brightest and
most ambitious.
The social
status of teachers would be raised to levels observed in Scandinavia and
Singapore. They would be recruited
from the top quintile rather than from the bottom one, as we do now. The poorest students might be educated
in the sort of environment available now only to the wealthiest, but, of
course, the poorest would not be nearly so poor to begin with.
This sort of society would be safer, cleaner, healthier,
more productive and better-educated than the one we have now, but it would also
be far more regulated and offer less individual opportunity to grow rich. Religion would have less influence on
the public sphere—abortion would be not only legal but free, contraceptives
would be supplied to high school students and sex education would begin in middle school. Abortion rates would fall, as, for example,
they have in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Crime, especially violent domestic crime, would drop. Guns would be far more controlled.
In summary, we should expect the country to resemble a
gigantic Finland, with almost all people living a secure and pleasant life,
with incomes tending toward equality, a great deal of leisure, and excellent public
facilities, but with relatively restricted opportunities to make a killing and
achieve vast wealth. Social
mobility may be decreased in both directions. Growth as usually measured will slow. There may be less radical innovation,
but also less volatility: a peaceful if somewhat dull society.