DIY democracy

Why wait for Washington?

The great thing about living in a free country is that people are free to do things other people choose not to do. This freedom is most celebrated and cherished in the realm of religion, speech and the other areas covered by the First Amendment. But it can apply equally, and in some cases more constructively, in the arena of public policy.

Certain policies are all-or-nothing affairs. These are most common where the benefits of action can’t be confined to those who pay for the action. If a country successfully defends itself against a foreign aggressor, soldiers and noncombatants benefit alike. For this reason it's appropriate to require all to contribute to the defense. Allowance can be made for religious objectors to opt out of military service, but they still have to pay taxes to support the army.

Other cases allow a loosening of the one-size-fits-all approach. Here individuals unhappy with existing law can modify their private behavior to mitigate what they perceive to be the negative consequences of the status quo.

For example, people upset about the effects of imports on American jobs don't have to wait for Congress or the president to impose tariffs or other restrictions on those imports. They can choose to buy American counterparts to the imports. They'll have to pay more, but they can save American jobs. And they can feel good about doing a worthy thing.

Similarly, people who think that the descendants of slaves ought to be paid reparations for their ancestors' misfortunes don't have to wait for their states or the federal government to legislate reparations. They can calculate what their share of reparations ought to be—a difficult task, to be sure, but no more difficult than if it’s done collectively—and they can write checks to organizations devoted to the welfare of descendants of slaves. They will do good, presumably, for the recipients of their donations, and they will alleviate guilt they might feel.

Climate change might seem an issue where a solution has to come as a package deal. But this isn't necessarily so. Just as the United States doesn't have to wait for China in devising American climate policy, so individuals in the United States don't have to wait for government. True, global collective action will be more effective than individual actions. But until that happy consensus arrives, ordinary people can reduce their personal carbon footprints. They can switch to electric cars or dispense with cars altogether. They can take fewer airplane flights. They can live in smaller houses. No one person will remedy climate change, but lots of people can make a dent in the problem.

The obvious objection is that the benefit from the sacrifices of the climate-conscious will be enjoyed equally by the climate-profligate. This isn’t fair. The latter must be compelled to behave better.

The unfairness is unarguable. The correlate—of compulsion—is more dubious. In the first place, in a free society, compulsion carries its own cost. People don’t like having their autonomy infringed. Second, because compulsion is costly, the political deck is stacked against it. So far, American climate reformers have had little luck imposing carbon-saving behavior on anyone. Proposals for carbon taxes have gone nowhere. Cars get bigger and heavier, even if more of them are electric. People are flying more than ever. Realistically, compulsion is a faint hope. Blue-state laws to ban the sale of gasoline vehicles have prompted a backlash from red states to ban electrics. In Texas, the leading wind-power state, legislators have proposed to curtail wind in favor of oil and gas.

Persuasion is a better choice than compulsion. To the extent that voluntary buy-American campaigns catch on, tariffs become unnecessary. Voluntary reparations obviate the nasty political fights sure to accompany tax-funded schemes. If climate-skeptics see that voluntary carbon-reducers can lead normal lives, the skepticism will soften.

But persuasion doesn’t scale, some will say. The numbers from any voluntary scheme will never match those from a program decreed by government.

This is true, but it’s a mark against government schemes, not against voluntarism. The leverage of government programs comes from the fact that they compel the unconvinced. Fifty-five percent, say, favor a program. They would volunteer anyway. Because they’re a majority, they get to dragoon the forty-five percent who oppose the program. Majoritarian rule is appropriate where the nation has to act as one—again, going to war or not. But where the nation can act incrementally, majoritarian rule is unnecessarily coercive. If fifty-five percent of consumers are willing to pay higher prices to protect American jobs, let them pay the higher prices. And let them try to persuade the forty-five percent to join them. But don’t let them pick the pockets of the forty-five.