The Ash Twins Blog

The overriding goal of the government is to preserve itself in its current form. That goal will be pursued to the degree that institutional safeguards allow it to do so. In the words of Economist Paul Seabright, “the problem of how to constrain the exercise of power within the state has come to be seen as the central problem in political philosophy.”^[1]

A legislator gains pecuniary and other benefits from his employment at the legislature—sufficient perks as to justify a costly and risky campaign for office. It is thus assumed that the legislator prefers to remain in office. Assuming this goal, one predicts that the legislator will implement short-term and long-term strategies to preserve incumbency. Campaign advertising, pork barrel, logrolling, and gerrymandering are classic examples of such strategies.^[2] A complicating factor is that congressional incumbency is virtually guaranteed in most cases; once a candidate is elected, he can “slack off” most of the time and still get reelected.^[3]

The executive branch follows similar logic. While the president and vice president are the only directly elected officials in the executive, assignment, promotion, and termination in other positions is controlled by elected officials. They therefore may also be reasonably classified as democratically determined.

The most politically isolated position in government is the federal judge. Judges are hired for life except by reason of impeachment, which is rare. Bad judges are thus preserved, but they can’t make too much mischief thanks to the appeals process and other institutional safeguards. Still, though, the political nature of judging remains, since hiring and promotion decisions are made by politicians.^[4]

As a singular organization, the government has vast monetary and other resources, including near-limitless access to information.^[5] Because the survival motive extends more or less to all officeholders, it is presumably operative on the government as a whole. Interestingly, though, the instrumental value of money is distorted for the government, since it can borrow almost infinitely without punishment. Voters tend to think retrospectively rather than prospectively,^[6] so the electoral benefits gained from deficit consumption’s satisfaction of short-term preferences often outweigh the electoral costs associated with prospective worries about the national debt.

Notwithstanding these vast resources, the government still faces efficacious behavioral constraints, which come in three types: 1) the democratic process, 2) constitutional safeguards as implemented by the judiciary, and 3) institutional constraints that are either self-imposed or a byproduct of the organizational structure. The democratic constraints on the actions of government and government actors consist in the threat that politicians will be ejected from office if they abuse their positions. Primary and election procedures probably prevent most undesirable characters from gaining office, alongside many desirable characters. The threat of an electoral challenge is mitigated by the stark electoral advantages imparted to incumbents by the government’s organizational structure.

Legal and constitutional institutions also constrain government action. The U.S. Constitution, its amendments, and their implementation by the Supreme Court have had substantial effects on what activities the government is allowed to undertake.^[7] American citizens still retain some protection of their private information from surveillance, for example.^[8] More generally, the government and its actors are considered not to be above the law. A defense contractor in the employ of the government would still be liable for murder, for instance.^[9]

Perhaps the single most important safeguard to the government maintaining iron incumbency and arrogating even more power to itself is the separation of powers as provided for in the U.S. Constitution. Among other institutions, the legislature can impeach executive and judicial officers, the executive can veto and pardon, and the judiciary can exercise judicial review. As James Madison emphasized in Federalist 51,

the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others… You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.^[10]

Madison’s prescience has been confirmed by America’s relative freedom and success throughout history. The Constitution’s checks and balances limit the power of any one branch of the federal government. However, separation of powers as instituted by constitutional law breaks down in military matters, a weakness exploited by militaristic political actors.

In conclusion, the preeminent goal of government as an organization is to preserve itself, but pursuit of that goal is constrained and influenced by the institutional norms defining government offices. Government agents will act selfishly, regardless of social harmfulness, unless selfishness is deterred by institutional enforcement. We should expect abuse of office to be rare if such abuse is punished, but common if abuses are not punished. While the American government can get away with many abuses of power, it is true that oftentimes the worst abuses are remedied by electoral ejection of abusers from office and adverse rulings by courts.^[11]