You Say You Want a Revolution. Well, you know . . .

 . . . it is too late for establishment politics and establishment economics. It is too late for a corrupt campaign finance system and super-PACs that raise enormous amounts of money from special interests.  We need in this country a political revolution where ordinary people stand up and reclaim the government that men and women fought and died for.

Bernie Sanders

March 6, 2016, Flint, MI

            Bernie is right.  We do need a revolution.  It’s too bad his understanding of current political realities and the scope of his imagination don’t match his rhetoric.

            There’s a lot wrong with a political system that’s awash in unaccountable cash contributed by millionaires and billionaires.  And that does lead to an establishment economics that rewards investments in politicians with tax breaks, bailouts and a marketplace skewed away from the needs of most Americans.

            But with due respect, it’s going to take more than a moment in history where voters “stand up and reclaim the government.”  Revolutions require permanent changes in institutions, not merely a reshuffling of the people occupying the seats of power resulting from a single election.

            Here’s what a real revolution would look like.

            First, we have to recognize that the American government exists in its present form because of an accident of history and an outdated political theory.

            The accident of history is that when the British Crown decided to colonize the New World, it gave separate charters allowing independent companies to set up geographically defined and independent enclaves.  These enclaves became the colonies that, in turn, morphed into the independent states that formed the United States in 1776.

            There is no good reason that the British Crown should have established separate colonies or that we ought to have a union composed of separate and sovereign states possessing powers that do not derive from the national government.  The states themselves, for instance, have counties, cities and towns that derive their power from the state.  Those derivative jurisdictions often have sufficient power to accommodate local ways of life.  But they have no power to obstruct state policy formulated in the state capitals.

            Our federal system of dual sovereignty, on the other hand, has been responsible for a fair share of the mischief that mars American history.  The perpetuation of slavery and Civil War are but two examples of this mischief that readily come to mind.

            The federal system of dual sovereignty gave rise to the fear and suspicion that led to the “Connecticut Compromise” in the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  The Connecticut Compromise called for a bifurcation of national legislative power into a House of Representatives in which states would receive representation in proportion to their populations and a Senate where states would receive equal representation.  This arrangement, the framers thought, would prevent the states with large populations from imposing their wills on the states with small populations.

             But all of that would have been unnecessary had our forbearers no reason to think of themselves as citizens of separate states.  We could easily have decided to have a unicameral legislature dedicated to the general welfare. 

            And if we had done it that way, there would be no variation in the level of education we provide our children, no variation in civil rights, no variation in voting rights and no variation in the treatment of the poor because all of these would be matters of federal policy.  I have yet to see a persuasive argument that any of these variations are good things or that our nation gains other valuable things for tolerating a system in which these variations can exist.

            The logical institutional change, then, that real revolution requires, is the replacement of federalism with a national unitary system in which major policy for the nation gets written in Washington and states serve as administrative jurisdictions responsible for implementing national policy.  Washington would have the responsibility for funding these policies, and it could give limited discretion, consistent with national policy to the states.

            The outdated political theory real revolution would have to dispatch is the idea that tyranny results when all legislative, executive and judicial power resides in the same hands.  In the United States, we know the practical application of this theory as the “separation of powers” or the system of “checks and balances.”

            If we really believe in democracy, then the real check on the government ought to be a clear enumeration of matters beyond its control and the verdict of the people delivered through regular, inclusive and fair elections.  It ought not to reside in the power of a Senate minority to sustain a filibuster or even in the power of an executive to veto the actions of the legislature.  An independent judiciary would protect minority rights, while a vigilant citizenry would possess the power to replace a government that fails to deliver on its promises with another government more to its liking in the next election.

            Our close ally, the United Kingdom, has had a system without these two “bugs” for hundreds of years, and it’s done quite well.  Its government is relatively efficient, highly accountable, reasonably democratic and capable of protecting individual rights.  And it doesn’t present nearly the potential for gridlock that currently afflicts our system.

            So if you really want a revolution, let’s start with these two changes.

            Power to the people, right on!