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The Problem with Referendums Following his 1830s tour of America, French aristocrat Alexis DeTocqueville famously prophesied that the biggest threat to the American ideal of individual liberty would be a phenomenon, which he dubbed, the tyranny of the majority. Under a democracy, authority belongs to those whose opinions are most popular. The most popular view on a given topic, however, is not necessarily the correct view, or even necessarily a view that may be arrived at objectively. There are, for instance, no objective criteria for judging the morality of a swimming pool. So, in a town where, by virtue of majority opinion, a public pool is built, the non-swimmers are forced to fund something they will never use. They suffer at the hands of the swimmers only because the swimmers hold an opinion, which is distinguished by no characteristic other than popularity. People campaigning in favor of a particular referendum often present the issue as a matter of objective morality. The campaign in favor of building a new school is typically presented as a choice to help the children or neglect them. Only the stone-hearted would refuse a child in need, but raising taxes to build a school has nothing to do with helping children. In fact, in a family where mom & dad earn just enough for private school tuition, a tax hike to fund public school might force their kids out of the private school. How is that helping children? Though there is nothing objectively preferable about public schools, if 51% of residents decide to increase funding, then the 49% who did not want to pay, and who may not even patronize the school, are forced to pay anyway: the tyranny of the majority. In a country founded on the principle of individual liberty, this is obviously problematic. The catalyst of this dilemma is public, or government-directed, allocation of goods. George Mason University Professor of Economics, Walter Williams, is fond of pointing out that private, or market-directed, allocation of goods is vastly preferable to public allocation of goods because market allocation minimizes the potential for conflict. Nobody protests against Nike for manufacturing shoes instead of furniture because nobody is forced to finance Nikes operations. Nor is there a law stipulating the production of shoes at the expense of other goods. If allocation of shoes was indeed controlled by the government, conflict would arise just as surely conflict exists today over the public allocation of such goods as housing, groceries, military jets, guns, drinking water, health insurance, beaches, rivers, golf courses, park land, garbage cans, libraries, education and hundreds of other goods. As city-dwellers, we implicitly agree to some level of municipal control, and consequently must accept the forfeiture of some rights and must tolerate a certain level of conflict amongst ourselves when deciding the alternatives for allocating public resources. But there is no need to tolerate massive, unending expansion of government resources. The trouble is that such expansion generally does not occur in massive and conspicuous fashion. It tends to come in small, scattered, increments, which appear solitary and insignificant by themselves. Constraining government growth, and preserving individual liberties, therefore, requires vigorous and defiant protest against any attempt no matter how small to expand public resources. The expansion of public resources should always be considered a desperate move the choice of very last resort for free citizens. Which brings us to the most disturbing aspect of referendums: most always they are false choices. For a municipality to present citizens the choice of higher taxes with better service or lower taxes with worse service is disingenuous, irresponsible, and dare I say tyrannical. If citizens are being taxed, funding is already available for anything but not everything that is desired. Funds for a new grade school may be made available by closing the public pool. The library may be built if the public opera house is closed. And so on. The true decision in any referendum should be which public goods will be sacrificed if we want to pay for a new public good? Such a choice presents valid economic alternatives that recognize the scarce nature of public resources, are true to the American ideal of individual liberty, and respectful of the vital principle of limited government. Schools, pools, and libraries may be virtuous institutions, but as the saying goes, there is no virtue in overpaying with money or with individual liberties. |
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