Consent to constitutional governance varies by degrees and from person to person. Different levels of consent give different levels of justification. The hard problem is justifying the use of political violence against someone who expressly objects to it.
We respect the right to defend against a tort even absent the tortfeasor's express agreement, true. Everyone impliedly consents to the fundamental principles of tort law; they offer background rules for human conduct on which all socialized people depend. Our implied consent to tort law counts for a lot. It trumps merely hypothetical consent to the contrary, for instance. Some people offer fancy theories about that to which we would consent (usually something that benefits them). The implied protections of tort law trump such arrogant presumptions.
How, then, can a statist justify initiating coercion? Note that tort law boasts only a moderately powerful justification--one founded on implied consent. Express consent has greater power to justify. Therefore, the implied consent justifying tort law gives way before express consent, as when sparring partners tap fists before attacking each other. (Funny thing I've noticed about the BJJ studio I frequent: Lots of fighting; smiles all around.)
Have we expressly consented to constitutional governance? Some individuals undoubtedly have, such as those who have sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution. Perhaps run-of-the-mill citizens and residents show their implied consent to the authority of the U.S. federal government simply by not emigrating. And eloquent arguments have been made that the Constitution, if interpreted well, merits our hypothetical consent. See, e.g., Randy Barnett on the presumption of liberty.
Against those measures of consent, we hear polls suggesting that "consent of the governed" has fallen to a new low. We hear strong arguments that mere residency implies nothing about political allegiance, and philosophical claims that nobody would agree to a system of institutionalized coercion.
Consent weighs on both side of the scale measuring the justification of constitutional governance, both for and against. I cannot answer for anyone else about justifying the Constitution; you must answer for yourself. But with graduated consent theory, I offer you a way to tackle the question.
(With thanks to Sasha Volokh for stimulating discussion.)
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Hard Question
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Three Kinds of Diversity
Diversity comes in many flavors. I here compare three types—diversity of skin color and sex, cultural diversity, and ideological diversity—and offer some observations about the distinctive costs and benefits of each. I conclude that, holding all else equal, a group of people having diverse colors and sexes will enjoy modest institutional gains at low cost, while a group touting ideological diversity runs the risk of high transaction costs but wins a shot at great intellectual gains. Groups with high cultural diversity fall in between those two extremes.
Diversity of skin color and sex appears on the face of a group, thus offering ready proof that its selection, such as through hiring and promotion, was not tainted with invidious discrimination. Holding all else equal—assuming, specifically, that the racially and sexually diverse group does not possess above-average cultural and ideological diversity—the costs of intra-group transactions remain low. Thus, for instance, might a facially diverse group of culturally and ideologically similar people get along very smoothly. Think, here, of an elite law school where every professor has absorbed Ivy League norms and all lean moderately left. They might bicker, of course; law professors specialize in that. But such a culturally and ideologically uniform group is not likely to host nasty public fights about ballot initiatives or the like.
Are there downsides to pursuing diversity of skin color and sex in hiring and promotion? Not if you can find enough well-qualified candidates, and not if you avoid discriminating against candidates for blameless having an uninteresting color or sex. Happily, it is not too hard to satisfy both conditions, these days.
Cultural diversity proves harder to document, and runs some risk of increasing intra-group transaction costs. Someone brought up solely within the confines of respectable East Coast institutions will have to work a bit to understand a peer raised Mormon, in Utah's backcountry. So, too, might differences of sexual orientation (which like cultural differences generally do not appear on a person's face) sometimes lead to innocent misunderstandings. Holding equal for other sorts of diversity, however, cultural differences offer many charms and few serious costs. Most of us, and especially those of us in academia, enjoy meeting friendly people with exotic backgrounds. When we share ideologies, moreover, meeting fellow travelers who differ from us suggests that our most heartfelt values transcend race, sex, and culture—a comforting, if somewhat smug, idea.
Ideological diversity, standing alone, proves at least as hard to document as cultural diversity—it does not appear on a person's face nor even, typically, in a person's dress or hairstyle—and much more likely to raise intra-group transaction costs. Religious differences prove largely intractable, though in polite society we tend to keep them private. Political differences, at least in American institutions, threaten to burst out into loud and public disagreements, however. Such frank exchanges can help each side to hone its arguments, of course, and thus offers the prospect of considerable gains both to the disputants and the group that harbors them both. But if local norms do not temper the tone and proper boundaries of ideological debate, transactions costs can easily soar, making it hard for a group to manage even run-of-the-mill functions efficiently.
In sum: diversity of skin color and sex offers few costs and modest benefits; cultural diversity creates slightly higher transaction costs but compensates with intriguing charms; and ideological diversity presents a high risk/high return strategy for institutions devoted to generating new and useful ideas.
[Crossposted at Agoraphilia, and MoneyLaw.]
Friday, March 26, 2010
Landsburg Defends Economics vs. DeLong
Steven Landsburg steps to Mario's defense:
You’d never know it from DeLong’s selective summary, but Rizzo’s post is dense with interesting (if elementary) economics. ... Personally, I don’t mind tipping but I found a lot to chew on in Professor Rizzo’s post. DeLong, true to form, ignored the content and jeered like a third grade bully. Most sadly, whenever he indulges this habit, DeLong sacrifices a chance to teach a little economics. Fortunately, the web is a big place and there are plenty of alternatives for readers who care about ideas.Yes.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Whole Conversation
A couple of weeks ago, Mario Rizzo made a curmudgeonly but interesting post on the subject of taxi tipping. Today, Brad DeLong responds by calling him a “psychopath”. In Mario’s defense, I made two comments on Brad’s post -- both of which Brad expurgated. So for those interested in the full story, here’s what I said in my first comment:
Wow, Brad. You're supposed to be an economist. Economists can and should question the wisdom of social norms that affect economic activity, and that's just what Mario was doing. You could have taken the opportunity to discuss the peculiar economic activity of tipping. Instead, you selectively cut-and-pasted precisely those passages of Mario’s post that you think make him sound like a psychopath.The wording above is approximate, since Brad deleted the last two sentences and I had to reconstruct them. So I made sure I kept a copy of my next comment:
Shame.
And so you've clipped out the rest of my comment, where I noted that Mario made actual economic arguments about the effects of changing the norm? And the part where I shamed you for selectively quoting Mario while dodging the chance to talk about the fascinating issue of tipping norms?Which he did. He clipped everything after the first two sentences.
Shame again.
Your comments section is yours to do with as you please, and if you wanted, you could have just clipped out my entire comment. Instead, you selectively kept only that part which was convenient to you. Just as you did with Mario's post. Classy.
If you read Mario's post carefully, instead of being deliberately uncharitable, you'll note that he *does* tip. He just doesn't like it, so his tips are small. And his purpose in doing so is to help shift the norm.
And now we'll see if you delete or selectively clip this comment as well.
What sticks in my craw about this exchange is the selective editing, of both Mario’s original post and my comments. For what it’s worth, I delete comments on this blog when they are wildly inappropriate (or spam). But I have never selectively edited a comment. They either stay or go in their entirety. This matters, because it’s easy to make someone sound worse, or better, by choosing what stays and what goes.
Incidentally, although I respect Mario’s position, I don’t 100% agree with it. I think social norms are very difficult to shift, and trying to do so can have unfortunate side effects on innocent parties -- see my comments on Mario’s post for more. I also think tipping does help to motivate better service. But for tipping to serve that purpose, it cannot be obligatory; we have to preserve the option of withholding the tip when service is poor.
