SHORT NOTES ON MIXED GOVERNMENT AND CHECKS & BALANCES

AM | @agumack

"Checks and balances are our only security" — John Adams

[1] Proto-libertarians vs. checks & balances. In preparation for my annual blog post on Mariano Moreno and the May 25 Revolution in Río de la Plata [see], I am reading a compilation of Gabriel Bonnot de Mably's political works published in 1975 by the very leftwing Éditions Sociales under the title Sur la théorie du pouvoir politique. I wish I owned more of these small, very well-edited volumes. In Doutes proposés aux philosophes économistes, Mably attacks Pierre Paul Le Mercier de La Rivière's L'Ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques (1767). LMLR, an avowed physiocrat or 'proto-libertarian', enjoyed some success —and even the temporary support of Denis Diderot— with his proposal of despotisme légal. 

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François Quesnay's and LMLR's despotisme légal derives, in their view, from « la loi naturelle ». As such, it requires no « contre-forces ». This draws the ire of the bon abbé, who would later become friends with John Adams in Paris: « ... il s'agit d'établir des contre-forces entre les magistratures pour qu'on ne soit pas la victime de l'ignorance et des passions des magistrats ». Mably then singles out Sweden, England, Switzerland, Holland and l'Empire as examples of gouvernement mixte. Brilliant! The Physiocrats' despotisme légal reminds me of Raymond Aron's view on Friedrich Hayek: « Pour que le libéralisme économique de Hayek pût s'imposer, il faudrait la dictature politique » (*).

[2] Argentina's ABBA problem. People keep complaining about the irrational behaviour of Argentine politicians. Nothing could be further from the truth. Given the incentives at their disposal, they are behaving in a pretty rational manner. In the absence of robust political checks and balances, winning elections virtually gives them the power to control the legislative and judicial branches of the government, most provincial administrations, part of the press, and —last but not least— the central bank. ABBA's 1980 hit 'The Winner Takes it All' (1980) comes into play here:

The winner takes it all

The loser standing small

But I was a fool

Playing by the rules

I see that Adam Przeworksi (@AdamPrzeworski) comes up with a similar idea in a recent post: "... danger emerges when the stakes in an election become too high". This problem is otherwise known as Winner-Takes-All Politics. (See Jack S. Hacker & Paul Pierson. Winner-Takes-It-All Politics. How Washington made the rich richer and turned its back on the middle class. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010; I haven't read it).

 

[3] IDEA's indicators. Stockholm-based IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) uses surveys to assess, among other variables, what it calls Checks on Government. This indicator comprises Effective Parliament, Judicial Independence and Media Integrity [see]. The results are neatly displayed on a map. Denmark is the top-performer at 1.00. Latin America features the usual suspects: while three countries display a decent performance (Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay), members of the so-called Bolivarian axis (Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela) all show dismal results.

[4] Archytas. I'm glad I just solved the math behind the 'democratic, oligarchic and aristocratic' proportions —arithmetic, geometric and harmonic— as shown in the equations featured in note 10 (p. 524) of Glenn Morris' book on Plato's Laws. I struggled a bit with the proof of the arithmetic proportion. In fact, it's ridiculously easy, and I should have done in two minutes instead. But that has only piqued my interest about the mathematician-statesman Archytas of Tarentum, an interesting figure in the history of the mixed constitution in Antiquity. I'll report back after reading the following pieces: (a) "On Law and Justice. Attributed to Archytas of Tarentum", by Philip Sydney Horky and Monte Ransome Johnson, in David Conan Wolfsdorf (ed.) Early Greek Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2020, p. 455-490); (b) Carl Huffman: "Archytas", Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2016.

 

(*) F. Bouthillon, J. Mouric & M. Oppermann. Raymond Aron et la défense de la liberté. Nationalisme, libéralisme et postmodernité. Paris: Éditions de Fallois, 2016 [web]. See also Brice Coutourier: "Pourquoi il faut avoir raison avec Raymond Aron", Le Point, 2 June 2016. On Physiocracy and 'legal despotism' see Bernard Herencia: « L'optimum gouvernemental des physiocrates : despotisme légal ou despotisme légitime ? », Revue de philosophie économique 2013/2 (Vol. 14), pages 119 à 149.

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