A Deweyan perspective on the economic theory of democracy.

• Author: Radin, Margaret Jane
• Position: John Dewey

INTRODUCTION

The economic theory of democracy, otherwise known as public choice theory, applies the postulates and reasoning of economics to politics and constitutions. "The basic behavioral postulate of public choice, as for economics, is that man is an egoistic, rational, utility maximizer."(1) The basic methodological premise, as for economics, is a rigorous atomistic individualism. The basic moral stance, as for much of economics, is that this is positive" theory, unconcerned with the goodness or badness of political actors and institutions, but only seeking to observe how incentives and institutional structures interact to produce empirical consequences.

For the functioning of democratic institutions--legislatures, administrative bodies, courts--the main predicted empirical consequence of all this individual maximization behavior by political actors--legislators, administrators, judges--is that there is massive rent-seeking going on. (Rent-seeking, in the parlance of public choice, means manipulating wealth transfers away from the unorganized public in favor of well-organized interest groups. Public choice theorists use two different aspects of scientific methodology, which I can characterize as deductive and inductive, to study these phenomena. In deductive research, public choice theorists use formal models to derive in detail exactly how we should see all this profit-seeking do its work on various aspects of the body politic. In inductive research, they use statistical analysis of data to collate the details of how the profit-seeking postulate fits the facts of democratic institutions, their process and output.

Public choice theory presents a bleak picture for any sanguine believer in high school civics. Instead of commitment to dialogue, deliberation, and ideals of public betterment, politicians are committed to collecting as much campaign money as possible so that they can be re-elected. In this bleak picture voting is paradoxical because it is an irrational act, economically speaking. Maybe votes are just commodities that are bought by interest groups for politicians "in exchange for higher probability of seeing a favorite bill passed."(2)

Whether public choice theory is a good or useful way to look at politics is disputed. As a land use teacher, I can say that the model seems to describe pretty well many of the interactions between developers and local planning and zoning officials. But if this is the truth about politics, what should we make of the ideal of deliberative self-government? What should we make of the ideal of a polity whose whole is more than the sum of its parts? Must we conclude that these ideals are merely obfuscatory rhetoric, used only because such rhetoric is welfare-maximizing for some powerful group?

I have been wondering what a Deweyan would make of public choice theory. From what we know of John Dewey's views of democracy, what is it plausible to imagine he might say if a time machine could bring him to our present? In this essay I'm going to speculate rather freely on that question. At first glance it might seem that Dewey's passionate commitment to the ideal of liberal deliberative self-government would make him dismiss public choice theory as anathema. Yet I think the question is interestingly more complex. As you will see, I imagine that Dewey would approve of the impulse to find a scientific approach to explain and predict the consequences of various features of human incentive structures and institutional design; but I also imagine he would think public choice analysis sadly mistakes the contingent nonideal situation we find ourselves in for a set of immutable laws; and I think he would find it important to consider the feedback into cultural evolution of this way of conceiving of our political process.

1. DEWEYAN DEMOCRATIC THEORY: IDEAL AND NONIDEAL

   1. DEMOCRACY AS IDEAL AND METHOD

      In The Public and Its Problems, Dewey drew a distinction between "democracy as a social idea" and "political democracy as a system of government."(3) Democracy as a social idea is a regulative ideal of self-actualization in all aspects of social life. I will call this ideal democracy. Commitment to it is a moral commitment, and Dewey often refers to it as a faith, a creed. By contrast, political democracy as a system of government is the set of institutional mechanisms by which we hope to realize the social idea. I will call this nonideal democracy, or democracy-as-we-know-it. Dewey warns that the two must not be conflated. Criticism of existing democratic government (the nonideal) does not "touch the social and moral aspirations and ideas which underlie the political forms" (the ideal).(4) Dewey says we should clarify and deepen our apprehension of the ideal, and use this deeper understanding to "criticize and remake its political manifestations."(5)

      How does Dewey define the democratic ideal? First, from the standpoint of the individual, "it consists in having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which one belongs and in participating according to need in the values which the groups sustain."(6) Second, from the standpoint of the groups, "it demands liberation of the potentialities of members of a group in harmony with the interests and goods which are common."(7) Third, "[s]ince every individual is a member of many groups, this specification cannot be fulfilled except when different groups interact flexibly and fully in connection with other groups."(8) This "free give-and-take" makes "fullness of integrated personality possible of achievement."(9) Dewey disavows the traditional dichotomy between individual and social values: self-constitution is only possible within a group. Indeed, the democratic ideal is nothing other than "the idea of community life itself."(10)

      One reason groups are essential to individual self-development is that only in groups do we possess language and engage in communication; indeed, as Dewey argued in Experience and Nature, only in groups can we have mind and consciousness.(11) Groups allow us to make progress in knowledge by preserving previously acquired wisdom and tools and by allowing new insights and methods to be widely shared; and it is progress in knowledge which enables us to get closer to the democratic ideal of full development of human capacities. Thus there is a close connection between knowledge and democracy.(12)

      A problem for democracy, then, is how to make all our various splintered interests and groups into one community in the sense requisite for progress in knowledge and full development of human capacities. It is clear at least that certain things are needed: unobstructed, genuine communication; open-ended experimental method; education and culture-creation to make these possible.(13) So the democratic ideal entails a democratic method. Dewey argued in Freedom and Culture that "democratic ends demand democratic methods for their realization."(14) An "obvious requirement" if the democratic ideal is to be fulfilled is "freedom of social inquiry and of distribution of its conclusions."(15) Freedom of social inquiry in turn requires freedom of expression, and, if it is to achieve any success in adding to the store of shared knowledge, "full publicity in respect to all consequences" which concern the public.(16) Precise knowledge of the factual details which are the consequences of social activity is needed, as well as willingness to try alternatives in order to alter the consequences. In other words, Dewey says, what is required is social inquiry that exactly parallels modern scientific inquiry.

      Thus, an experimental or scientific method as applied to social problems is the method of democracy. Dewey refers to this method of free inquiry as the method of "organized intelligence,"(17) the "procedure of organized cooperative inquiry."(18) We must use it to create a culture in which free inquiry is featured. In order to make this method part of our social life we require education in its use, and hence Dewey's deep concern with education. The culture that is needed to produce and support the method of cooperative inquiry is humanistic culture. Thus, Dewey says, "democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail"(19) The humanist view of democracy "tells us that we need to examine every one of the phases of human activity"--culture in general, education, science, art, morals, religion, industry and politics--"to ascertain what effects it has in release, maturing and fruition of the potentialities of human nature."(20)

   2. DEMOCRACY IN PRACTICE: THE NONIDEAL

      Dewey was passionately committed to the democratic ideal. But he was also a passionate critic of democracy-as-we-know-it, political democracy in practice. He viewed our institutions of government, and our society as a whole, as falling far short of the democratic ideal. Many of his criticisms seem apt today as well.

      In Liberalism and Social Action, Dewey outlined a "crisis in liberalism," connected with "failure to develop and lay hold of an adequate conception of intelligence integrated with social movements.. . ."(21) This is in large part a failure of social science, which has not matured to the point where it can improve our day-to-day existence; it has not developed to parallel physical science. Whereas "every discovery in...