-Analysis-
BUENOS AIRES — From the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries, the various ‘founding fathers’ of constitutional life on the American continent, from the United States to our country, Argentina, designed institutional mechanisms based on the famous “checks and balances” that still work today.
They also foresaw, with particular care, something we tend to overlook today, namely the means of “activating” that machinery and keeping it in working order. For that they built a particular system of representation equipped with various incentives and a controversial fuel, as it were, namely human self-interest.
On the one hand, periodic elections, both direct and indirect, were established to allow the election of representatives of the different factions into which society was divided. On the other, they set out “external and internal controls” on the elected officials, even if the periodic elections were effectively the main (or perhaps only) external control.
The ‘fuel’ of self-interest
Regarding internal checks, multiple and mutual controls were created within the various branches of government: there was a presidential veto, the judiciary’s constitutional control, impeachment procedures, etc.. This complex scheme of incentives was, as foreseen, to function using the ‘fuel’ of self-interest, which was seen to be the chief motivator of individuals.
As one Founding Father of the American constitution, James Madison, wrote in one of his well-known papers (Federalist 51), “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Thus in his ambition to be reelected, the politician would have to please his electors; and in their ambition to keep power and prevent their subjection to the power of another department or branch of government, legislators would limit the excesses of the president; the president could veto legislative “excesses,” etc..
Self-interest was seen as enough to make the model work, both in the economy and in politics.
There are at least two points to be made on the logic of this model. It firstly shares the logic the 18th century economist Adam Smith believed to be at heart of the economy. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,” he wrote in The Wealth of Nations.
The dream of perfect representation is over
Self-interest was seen as enough to make the model work, both in the economy and in politics: the politician too, in other words, would take decisions favorable to citizens, not from generosity but in his ambition for reelection.
The model based on self-interest and ambition had absolutely no regard for the ‘civic virtues’ of interest to the republican-minded thinkers of the time. Our constitutional ancestors thus ignored the need to cultivate values like solidarity, civic commitment, loyalty, etc.
And that might have been at the source of the complications we are suffering today.
The representative system designed in that formative period was effectively meant for small societies, divided into a few groups that were homogeneous inside and where, hopefully, the worker represented the interests of his entire class and the landowner that of all his peers.
Today, societies are far more diverse, and divided into thousands of internally heterogeneous groups. The dream of full or perfect representation is over. For example, what a worker or entrepreneur might say in parliament today may turn out to be barely representative of the interests of workers and businessmen outside.
We are faced with a problem of representation that is both extreme and structural (rather than circumstantial and personal), which impacts the protection of the interests of diverse social groups.
The public interest, a common destiny of the people’s demands, are not built in to this scenario
Likewise, the main tools foreseen to supplement or reinforce this representation (punishment through electoral loss, controls by another branch of government, etc..) are losing their efficacy and sense. In terms of external controls, an elected senator or representative knows today that his or her election is much less dependent on what their constituents think than the legislator’s ties with a provincial governor, say, or party chief. With internal checks, officials have cottoned onto a stark reality: it is no longer so easy for citizens to punish or set them right.
But here too (one can only hope), the same incentive – self-interest – will move these elected officials (whether politicians or judges), to seek pacts and even confront each other or other branches in line with their own calculations on maximizing their power.
Sadly, the public interest, a common destiny of the people’s demands, are not built in to this scenario, and politicians will only pay attention to their own ties to the power in place or to dominant sectors. This is both disconcerting and disheartening for any democracy, though also, in Argentina’s dismal case, a perfect picture of our public life.
