The Internet and Mobocracy

This was Coase's fundamental insight: "If a workman moves from department Y to department X, he does not go because of change in relative prices, but because he is ordered to do so." Accordingly, economic activity will be conducted within a firm when the costs of bargaining exceed those of command-and-control. From this perspective, Coase's argument doesn't look like a very good analogy for political parties does it?
-- Steve Bainbridge

Everett Ehrlich garnered fifteen minutes of blogosphere fame by mentioning Howard Dean, the Internet, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase together in the same article. It drew reactions from Clay Shirky, William Abraham Blaze, and others.

Professor Bainbridge is correct that the Coase theory of the firm is not a good analogy for Internet politics. I want to propose another analogy: Germany from 1928-1932.

Toward the end of the Weimar era, the German center collapsed, and politics degenerated into a battle between Communists and Nazis. It was literally a street fight, with beatings overtaking ballot boxes.

On the Internet, too, the center is relatively weak. Instead, the political Web sites that draw enthusiastic crowds include the left's MoveOn, whose name derives from the Clinton-era anti-impeachment mantra; and the right's Free Republic, once described by Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online as "knuckle-scrapers," suggesting a picture of ape-like creatures walking with one hand brushing the ground and the other holding up a political placard.

Ehrlich and other pundits argue that the Howard Dean phenomenon was caused by the candidate's discovery of how to use the Internet. I believe that it was the other way around. It was the militant leftwing movement on the Internet that created Dean. Members of the movement with whom I am familiar are actually rather lukewarm toward Dean -- many would prefer someone more radical.

Howard Dean emerged as a candidate of the left-wing militants the way that the Cha-Cha Slide emerged as a staple on the Bar Mitzvah circuit. It's not that the Cha-Cha Slide means something to Jewish culture. It's just that there is a Bar Mitzvah circuit that needs a silly dance. When the Macarena craze finally died out -- thank goodness -- something else came along to take its place -- unfortunately.

The political movement of affluent, college-educated, angry liberals needed a candidate for the same reason that Bar Mitzvah DJ's need a way to pull people onto the dance floor. Howard Dean is the left's Cha-Cha Slide. He did not create the parties that dance to his tune. He just replaced the Macarena.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Howard Dean phenomenon is the relative absence of the usual elements of the Democratic coalition. He has not energized labor, African-Americans, or other traditional party enthusiasts. Instead, while he has received a smattering of endorsements from some interest-group leaders, the expectation is that most of their funds and energy will go to other political races.

What explains the relative unimportance of the traditional Democratic coalition to the Dean campaign? Perhaps the Internet plays a role, by providing alternative channels for raising funds and mobilizing voters. Pretentious references to Coase aside, there is some truth to this.

However, my view is that the main factor that allowed Dean to emerge is that the Democratic interest groups have effectively decided that they are going to sit out the 2004 Presidential race, presumably because they see little hope for victory. My guess is that if the economy were a serious liability for President Bush, then Dick Gephardt would be a more formidable candidate. Labor unions, seeing an opportunity for victory, would back Gephardt more strongly.

The Dean movement likes to refer to itself as a Smart Mob. I believe that there is no such thing. If the future of politics in America is to swing back and forth between Freepers and MoveOn'ers, then I fear that we really will turn into Weimar Germany.

In my view, the genius of our nation's founders was not that they gave people the opportunity to vote. It was that they created a Constitution with limited government. If those Constitutional limitations still held, then we would be safe from whatever fads the Internet might facilitate. We would not have to fear what Alexis de Tocqueville called the "tyranny of the majority."

Instead, our Constitutional protections have largely broken down. A mass movement led by a popular demagogue would have the potential to curb individual freedom.

Some libertarians will argue that individual rights already are in tatters. I am not one of those pessimists who believe that freedom is on the decline in this country. As I see it, there have been many steps backward, but in other respects we have seen improvement. But that is a debate that falls outside the scope of this essay.

My concern here is the combination of weakened Constitutional protection and Internet-facilitated extremism. In my lifetime, I believe that what has protected our country from extremist demagogues has been the need for coalition-building in the two-party system. To build a winning coalition at the national level, each party must lean toward the center.

The Internet might change the dynamic. It appears that in 2004, the Democrats will be taken over by left-wing militants. My view is that this is because the centrist forces in the party are poorly motivated. The question is whether this could happen to both parties at the same time. If so, then some day we may see an election in which each party is captured by a narrow, rabid constituency. I hope that the Internet does not end up fostering such a mobocracy.

and the right's Free Republic, once described by Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online as "knuckle-scrapers," suggesting a picture of ape-like creatures walking with one hand brushing the ground and the other holding up a political placard.

each party must lean toward the center

If the future of politics in America is to swing back and forth between Freepers and MoveOn'ers, then I fear that we really will turn into Weimar Germany.

These goals would be opposed by Nazi goon squads, knuckleheads like the pseudo-conservative Goldberg and the author, Colonel Kling. Which goals would the 'center', according to Kling, find repugnant?

Free Republic

What is our mission? Free Republic is dedicated to reversing the trend of unconstitutional government expansion and is advocating a complete restoration of our constitutional republic. Listed below are some of the issues we feel strongly about.

Basically, we believe that the Founders designed our system of government in the form of a constitutionally limited republic, with maximum freedom intended for the people and minimum government control or interference into our personal lives and business affairs.

The united states of America was intended to be a federation of sovereign states, each with its own constitution and state government. Governments at all levels -- federal, state and local -- were to be controlled by the people. Our Constitution explicitly restricts the power of our federal government; and our Bill of Rights guarantees that NO government may infringe upon our God given unalienable rights. This is to ensure that the real power remains close to home, with the states, the local governments and always in the hands of the people.

We the People have granted our federal government limited powers to oversee certain things, such as national defense, interstate commerce, the postal service, the coining of money, and the operation of a court system. Most other powers now in the hands of the federal government were illegally usurped from the states and from the people.

Somehow, over the years, our guiding principles of law, as set forth in the Constitution, have been eroded to the point that the federal government now has total control -- leaving the states impotent and the people as captive servants to the federal government. This must be reversed if we are to survive as a free Republic and a free people.

We at Free Republic are determined to return the Constitution to its rightful place as the Supreme Law of the land as the Founders intended.

It is not necessary for everyone to hold the same views to be members of Free Republic, however, many of us do share many of the following as common beliefs and goals:

The preservation and complete restoration of our Constitution and Bill of Rights with special emphasis on the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth and tenth amendments and, of course, our right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness -- free of government intervention.

We call for the repeal of the 17th amendment, which will reverse the independence of the Senate and reestablish the Senate as a representative of the State governments, as intended by the Founding Fathers. This arrangement was intended to be a critical check against illegal federal expansion over the States, and the people residing in the various States, and will act to return the powers not granted to the federal government, as enumerated in the Constitution, to the states.

We call for the repeal of the 16th amendment and to abolish the income tax and the IRS. Revenues to the federal government should come from excise taxes and tariffs.

We call for the repeal of the Emergency and War Powers Acts, an end to all national emergencies and a ban on the unilateral creation of law by Presidential edict. We are also working for the repeal all laws created by unconstitutional and extraconstitutional devices, such as Executive Order or Presidential Directive.

Repeal of the war and emergency powers acts and the various states of national emergencies will allow the abolishing of all unconstitutional federal law, agencies and departments. This will return us to a Federalist system of government and return many responsibilities to the States and personal rights to the citizens.

A return to a strictly Constitutional form of federal government will automatically repeal and abolish all unconstitutional federal involvement in states issues such as: crime, health, education, welfare and the environment. The Tenth Amendment will again be in effect, which will bar all federal attempts at legislating social issues. This will also require that social programs such as Social Security, welfare and Medicare be repealed. So too, will most federal subsidies.

We further call for the rescinding of all treaties and/or International Agreements which are not in perfect agreement with the federal government's Constitutionally mandated task of protecting the rights of the people.

We believe that the United States should disassociate itself from the U.N. and that the U.N. should be forced to leave the United States. Furthermore, we demand that the federal government refrain from meddling in the business and squabbles of foreign nations, unless there is an imminent threat to the people of the United States.

We also call for the strengthening of our military and defenses; the effective control over illegal immigration and smuggling; the paying down the national debt; and strict control over federal agencies like the CIA and the FBI.

NOTE: Free Republic does NOT condone bigotry or violence and does NOT advocate an overthrow of the government.

Instead, what has happened is, the government and the corporate media have created, through regulation and policy a liberal propaganda machine whose goal is to continue the expansion of a collective state and to control every aspect of our lives and fortunes. Dissenting views are stifled by selective interpretation of copyright law and unfair litigation leveled at whistleblowers and those who would attempt to use the news media's own copyrighted "news" stories to expose the lies, spin and half truths therein.

We, on Free Republic, are determined to speak out against this illegal alliance and to peaceably work toward reestablishing the Constitution as the supreme law of the land as our Founders intended, and to petition our representatives to force the government to operate within its Constitutional limits. We are determined to stand up for our Constitutional rights, for liberty, truth, justice, and the rule of law.

We, the People, are exercising our Constitutional right to freedom of speech and peaceable assembly to demand that our elected representatives fulfill their Constitutional duty. ~~ Jim Robinson, March 1999

Oddly, Bush isn't the hard right candidate (nobody adds new, unconstitutional entitlements and signs spending increases that go through the roof can be considered hard right to me). I'd expect something more akin to Barry Goldwater being a better representation of the average Freeper. But most Americans don't want that. Liberty and independence aren't what they want from government. Checks are what they want from government.

You have described Kling's 'missing middle.' It is the present government of the middle, by the RNC and for the DNC.

Texas Straight Talk: An Interview With Ron Paul - Sierra Times. ...

Q. Sir, on May 6th, on the floor of the house you asked the question: "Are the American people determined they still wish to have a Constitutional Republic." How would you answer that question, Sir?

A. A growing number of Americans want it, but a minority, and that is why we are losing this fight in Washington at the moment. That isn't as discouraging as it sounds, because if you had asked me that in 1976 when I first came to Washington, I would have said there were a lot fewer who wanted it then. We have drifted along and, although we have still enjoyed a lot of prosperity in the last twenty-five years, we have further undermined the principles of the Constitution and private property market economy. Therefore, I think we have to continue to do what we are doing to get a larger number. But if we took a vote in this country and told them what it meant to live in a Constitutional Republic and what it would mean if you had a Congress dedicated to the Constitution they would probably reject it. It reminds me of a statement by Walter Williams when he said that if you had two candidates for office, one running on the programs of Stalin and the other running on the programs of Jefferson the American people would probably vote for the candidate who represented the programs of Stalin. If you didn't put the name on it and just looked at the programs, they would say, Oh yeah, we believe in national health care and we believe in free education for everybody and we believe we should have gun control. Therefore, the majority of the people would probably reject Thomas Jefferson. So that describes the difficulty, but then again, we have to look at some of the positive things which means that we just need more people dedicated to the rule of law. Otherwise, there will be nothing left here within a short time.

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