The recent fight within the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) gives one hope for the future of democracy. It shows that Americans still have the fiber and sense to turn away from pursuit of their particular interests in favor of supporting our collective constitutional interest in making the system function.
The VFW, an organization of military veterans who have served overseas, proclaims its purpose as: “Simply put, the VFW strives to do good things for deserving people; particularly veterans, their families, and their communities.”
Following the rule that all institutions must be organized for the convenience of the tax collector, it has two parts: the VFW itself and the VFW-PAC, which contributes to political campaigns. The PAC is a separate entity established at the national convention and is not answerable to the officers of the main VFW.
No group is more dedicated to the ideal of America than veterans and the American Yeomen class(PDF) from whence they come, so it is unremarkable that VFW members are heavily invested in the Tea Party movement, which means they are passionately dedicated to America as a civilization and deeply concerned about the functioning of many of its institutions, starting with the government.
The VFW-PAC, however, has a different perspective. It sees itself as “charged with the single task of working in Congress to support candidates who have taken responsible positions on issues involving national defense and legislation pertaining to the nation's veterans.”
An interesting oddity about D.C. is that the terms ‘collective action,’ or ‘prisoner’s dilemma,’ or ‘constitutional versus particular interest’ are almost never used in public discourse, despite the ubiquity of their relevance.
In other words, VFW-PAC, like other D.C. interest groups, exists to get pork for its members, and endorses political candidates, almost all incumbents, who vote for goodies for vets. Since this philosophy fits well with the pork-barrel-based glue that holds the Democratic Party together, the recipients tend to be liberal Democrats, including Barbara Boxer (notorious for her “Call me senator” insult of a military representative during a committee hearing).
This pattern of support, inconsistent with Tea Party values, caused an avalanche of protests to VFW, which first defended itself on the grounds that it had no control over the PAC, and then asked the PAC to rescind the endorsements. The PAC refused, making clear that it is a special interest (“AARP for vets,” in writer J.E. Dyer’s phrase), and that the larger issues of the future of the Republic are not within its ambit of interest. So the head of the VFW fired the officers of the PAC and announced that at the next convention he will move to abolish it.
Dyer says that the PAC’s “narrow view of the issues is a marvelously instructive example of what I call ‘D.C. Capture’—the dynamic by which ordinary people get involved in the processes of government and proceed to lose all judgment and perspective.”
This assessment is not quite correct; the situation is an example of a collective action problem, in which anyone who focuses on the general interest (the constitutional interest) will be out-maneuvered by those who pursue only their particular ends. The basic position of VFW-PAC is strictly from the playbook of how a single player should react to a collective action situation, which is “grab as much as you can from the commons known as the public fisc.” Within the bounds of the D.C. decision structure, VFW-PAC’s judgment is fine.
It often takes a moral or religious tide to solve collective action problems, and it looks like that is flowing, in spate.
Collective action problems can be overcome, once the participants understand the shape of the dilemma and the destructiveness of the Hobbesian war of all against all (viz, the Constitutional Convention of 1787). The real D.C. problem is a willful blindness to the nature of the problem and its solutions. An interesting oddity about D.C. is that the terms “collective action,” or “prisoner’s dilemma,” or “constitutional versus particular interest”(PDF) are almost never used in public discourse, despite the ubiquity of their relevance.
One can see the Tea Parties, and the protests of VFW members, as a reaction to the Washington culture’s failure to address our collective problems of collective action. Judging by the speed and power of the reaction of the VFW high command, it must have been one hell of a mutiny, too. It often takes a moral or religious tide to solve collective action problems, and it looks like that is flowing, in spate.
So the next step will be for other groups to recognize that they, too, should be dedicated to replacing the rule of competitive pork with the rule of law, and that the long-term impact of such a bargain would be fatter pigs for all. This will not be easy, because one of the pernicious dimensions of D.C. is that its battalion of special interest representatives is itself a special interest that is dedicated to preventing anything that might lessen the importance of special interests, or themselves.
But Dyer is correct in that the citizenry, unlike D.C., has the judgment and perspective to understand that collective action problems can and must be solved, and, as stated at the outset, the VFW reaction is an example of its impatience with the failures of D.C. to understand this as well. So roll tide, roll.
James V. DeLong is vice president and senior analyst of the Convergence Law Institute, and a visiting fellow at the Digital Society.