(10:47 PM) | Adam Kotsko:

The Role of Principles in Politics

Today's Krugman column comes to a conclusion I find interesting for several reasons. Here it is:

In short, this year's election will be a contest between a candidate who advocates a return to economic policies that were associated with eight years of very solid job growth, and one who advocates continuation of policies that have, after three years, yielded exactly one good monthly jobs report. I know: Mr. Clinton doesn't deserve all or even most of the credit for the good times on his watch, and Mr. Bush doesn't deserve all the blame for the bad times on his. Still, on the face of it there's nothing to recommend Mr. Bush's approach. But will voters see it differently?

My guess is no. If the election is driven by economics at all — which seems doubtful right now, with the debacle in Iraq accelerating — it will reflect the job situation on the ground, which remains grim.

Fiscal and spending policies are far from omnipotent over the economy, and it makes more sense to vote for a president based on things that the president is more directly responsible for: foreign policy, effective administration of the federal government, fair and impartial enforcement of the law, prudent domestic policy proposals, etc. Certainly a president can institute policies that help or hinder the economy to some degree, but at the end of the day, no one person, not even the president, can usually be given blame or credit for the state of the economy. Voting for a president based on the state of the economy, especially voting out a president based on poor economic performance, is to a large degree a case of wanting someone to blame.

Let's say that, like me, you think Bush's performance on all levels has been abyssmal and that he richly deserves to be relieved of his presidential responsibilities. Should you be worried if people are voting for the opposition candidate "for the wrong reason"? I think this is a complex question. Of course, on the level of the long-term sustainability of our political system, it's not good for the president to be held responsible for something that's not directly under his control. In the short term, however, it's definitely good to have your guy in office, for whatever reason -- and you can never trust your opponent not to take advantage of economic conditions when that's strategically beneficial in the short term. Passing up an opportunity now in favor of a principle that's unlikely to be upheld by all players seems counter-productive.

To take it a step further: was it really out of bounds, in principle, for the Bush administration to take advantage of 9-11 politically? Let's say Al Gore had been in office, and let's say that he fell asleep behind the wheel and allowed 9-11 to happen. What if he had used his new-found popularity to push through some radical environmental reforms and to develop new technologies and infrastructure to shake our nation of its reliance on automobiles? Clearly, this would not be simply a reaction to 9-11, and it was an obvious part of Gore' book -- but it could probably be plausibly connected to 9-11 in people's minds, perhaps more easily than the Iraq war was. In this hypothetical situation, Gore would have done something that he believed to be in the long-term interests of the United States, something he had long hoped to do, but that only the national unity that followed from 9-11 would allow him the opportunity to do. Would that have been bad? Would that have been wrong of him? Wouldn't the right wing have a right to complain that he was hijacking 9-11 for his own purposes?

The Bush administration clearly believes its policies to be in the long-term interests of the United States, as they define those interests (mainly the long-term interests of capital). I think they're wrong, and a lot of people think they are. So is the problem really that they took advantage of 9-11 in order to push through policies they thought were in the interests of the United States, but thought might be a longshot otherwise? Isn't the real problem that they're just wrong? Was it wrong for the Bush administration to take advantage of a loophole in our electoral system in order to take power, if they thought their policies were in the long-term interests of the US/capital (and let's give them the benefit of the doubt that this is the case -- that they're not "evil" or something)? Would it have been wrong for Gore, in the legalistic society in which we live, to say, "Yes, I know the winner of the Florida electoral votes is ambiguous -- but screw it, I won the popular vote, so the Supreme Court needs to decide in such a way that the electoral college winner will be the same as the winner of the popular vote?" Would that have undercut our democratic institutions any more or less? Would it have been "okay" because Gore has better policies (which he does)?

As a general rule, I think that political debates should be about content rather than about "etiquette" type of issues -- but would it be wrong for an opposition candidate, in the current setting or in my hypothetical situation, to take advantage of the public's disproportionate concern about "etiquette" issues and exploit the appearance of Bush's (or Gore's) exploitation of 9-11 for their own political gain? Does the ethical judgment change if we believe particular policies (i.e., content issues) to have more or less directly caused the degradation of the public sphere to the point where direct debate on content is no longer possible? (For instance, if we think that deregulation, massive cutbacks in social spending, favoritism to the corporate world, etc., are to blame for the deficient state of public discourse and only a major investment in the nation's social and intellectual infrastructure is likely to remedy that problem -- that the tenor of public debate cannot be directly changed without changing the "base.")

Further, how does one proceed if one believes one's opponent to be making a systematic effort to hijack and distort our system of government for his own ends -- when he "sincerely" believes his policies are in the best interests of the American people? Would it be okay for one's own team to use the same techniques, since "they did it first"? What is to be done? Should a political party be willing to sacrifice itself and thus open the door for all manner of terrible, destructive policies (advanced out of a more or less "sincere," if deluded, belief that such policies are good), in order to preserve democratic institutions? If the opposition party gets into power, should it make an effort to finesse the system in such a way that the other party has only a small opportunity to gain power? At what point does it stop being a democracy? At what point are the institutions no longer worth preserving, or at what point does preserving the institutions mean sacrificing more important things?

At what level should principles be operative: advancing specific content/policies, or preserving institutions and procedural issues? If you're really running in order to advance your policies, is it okay to take advantage of public perceptions (true or false) that your opponent is trying to undermine democratic institutions? Is it possible to get people to believe that any political party could undermine democratic institutions -- until they're already undermined? If you believe your opponent to be undermining democratic institutions, but know you could never convince the public that this is so, would it be ethical to encourage the public to kick out your opponent for less relevant or "fair" reasons (such as economic performance)?

I don't know. I need to go back to reading Hardt and Negri -- maybe they know.

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