[This essay originally appeared in the February 1933 issue of The American
Mercury. It is collected in the book Snoring as a Fine Art, and Twelve Other
Essays.]
What the American Votes For
by Albert Jay Nock
My first and only presidential vote was cast many, many years ago. It was
dictated by pure instinct. I remember the circumstances well. Like all
well-brought-up youngsters, I had been told that it was the duty of every
citizen to vote - reasons not stated. I was prepared to obey in all good
faith, and accordingly, when the time came, I set forth to the polls.
But what was I to vote for? An issue? There was none. You could not get a
sheet of cigarette paper between the official positions of the two parties.
A candidate? Well, who were they? Both of them seemed to me to be mediocre
timeserving fellows who would sell out their immortal souls, if they had
any, for a turn at place and power, and throw in their risen Lord for good
measure. Suddenly, the ridiculous truth of the matter struck me: that the
whole campaign was based on no political reason at all, but on an
astronomical reason. We were voting simply because, since the time we last
voted, the earth had gone 1461 times around the sun, or some such number,
and for no other reason in the world. As I approached the polls my
resentment of this nonsense grew stronger and stronger, and when I arrived I
deliberately wrote in a vote for Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.
It was not an ignorant vote, for I was fully aware that Jeff was dead. Nor
was it a piece of mere flippancy - far from it. I found out afterward that
either Mark Twain or Artemus Ward, I forget which, had once done something
of the kind, on the plea that "if we can't have a live statesman, let us by
all means have a first-class corpse."
There is a great deal to be said for that idea, and I am proud to subscribe
to it, but it was not my idea at the time. My vote was a vote of serious
protest against what I regarded as an impudent and degrading absurdity, and
at this late day I am more than ever prepared to maintain that the instinct
which prompted it was sound and enlightened. I am also prepared to show
cause for believing that this instinct actually controls the majority of our
electorate, whether they are aware of it or not, and to show cause for
believing that they are fully justified in letting it control them.
Visiting Englishry, especially English politicians, are usually struck by
what they call the American lack of interest in politics. We seem to them to
have no sense of personal concern with national affairs - that is, of
course, the majority of us, exclusive of those who have something at stake,
like a tariff schedule, or something in the way of job-hunting, subsidy or
graft. The last one I remember as speaking about this was Miss Margaret
Bondfield, who was a member of the late Labor Cabinet. She used our Sunday
press to read us a good schoolmarm's lecture on the subject, and there is no
denying that she brought in a true bill.
As these English visitors see it, the American's interest in politics
(provided he has no ax to grind) differs from the Englishman's in being
occasional, not continuous. It is a sporting interest, like interest in a
horse race. When election day is over, he forgets it, buckles down to his
job, and contentedly leaves Washington to the mercy of such lobbyists,
crooks, blacklegs, editors, politicians and desperadoes as normally find
their way there, seeking what they may devour.
These foreign visitors also say that the American's interest differs from
the Englishman's in being more concerned with men than with issues. They
account for this by the fact that the official issues of our national
campaigns are so trivial that they are really no issues at all, and that
therefore the actual cleavage between our parties is not spacious. In other
words, we have nothing that an Englishman would understand by an effective
political opposition. Hence whatever public interest there may be in an
election must focus on the personality of the candidates.
There can be no doubt, I repeat, that this is a true bill. It takes a heroic
deal of prodding to goad the freeborn American sovereign into wielding his
royal prerogative on election day. An immense amount of money and energy is
spent on getting out the vote, but the result is never impressive. If 40% of
the total electorate turns out and votes, it is a good haul, and 50% is a
large one. If local contests did not coincide with national contests, the
national vote would be even slimmer than it is.
I shall not take up space to fortify Miss Bondfield's true bill by
discussing the official issues of the last campaign, or the width of the
cleavage between the two parties. Nothing of all this impressed me
particularly, but that is a small matter. I do not think it would have made
much more of an impression on the average Frenchman or Englishman, but that
need not be considered, either. Beyond doubt, however, the personality of
the candidates, or of one candidate, counted for a great deal. It was
actually, though not officially, the major issue. A very large proportion of
the vote was cast in complete disregard of any question, except that of pure
personal sentiment, favorable or unfavorable, towards Mr. Hoover.
As for the postelection lapse of interest which now, once more, mystifies
foreign observers, I see nothing mysterious about it. All those who have an
ax to grind are of course very busy - jobseekers, bankers, brewers, farmers,
railroad men, everyone who stands to gain or lose something. Aside from
these, now that the sporting event is over, the general run of the
electorate has resumed its customary attitude of profound detachment. As far
as it keeps any track at all of national affairs, it views them as a
spectator and not as a participant. It waits to "see what they'll do" and
makes more or less idle conjectures, shaped largely by the journalists, on
what it will be. But, as usual, there is little if any personal concern with
"their" doings or misdoings.
II
"Now that the sporting event is over, the general run of the electorate has
resumed its customary attitude of profound detachment."
Now, what about this attitude? Does it prove that the American is
politically ignorant, shiftless, irresponsible, and gets no better
government than he deserves? I say no. All that may be true - in fact, I
think it is true - but his attitude towards national politics does not prove
it. Moreover, if he be ignorant and undeserving, it is fair to point out
that his political institutions give him no incentive to be less so.
Furthermore, if he were ever so informed and ever so interested and lively,
his institutions give him no adequate means of making his will effective.
"American efficiency," as expressed in American political institutions,
certainly means the poorest, slowest, most discouraging and incompetent way
of getting anything done.
In the many long years that have elapsed since my one and only presidential
vote was cast, I have seen an enormous amount of blame and obloquy shoveled
on the nape of the American sovereign for his attitude of detachment. I can
speak of this with a certain degree of personal concern, because it has been
shoveled on me, I being that American sovereign - one of them - and that
attitude being mine. I have waited a long time for some abler person to come
out and defend it, but nobody has done so, and I therefore undertake to
defend it myself. In so doing I may say that for once in my life, perhaps
the only time, I have the pleasing consciousness that I am speaking for many
millions of my fellow sovereigns.
We are blamed for laziness, triviality, carelessness, lack of patriotism. If
public affairs are ever in a bad way, it is our fault. If we do not express
our will at the polls, and do not strive between elections to have it
carried out, what may we expect but a reign of corruption, oppression and
bureaucracy? Not long ago our fine old friend, Mr. Wickersham, got into such
a pucker over our shortcomings that he proposed some scheme of compulsory
voting, under penalty, as I recall it, of fine or jail - good sound
paternalistic doctrine! Every once in a while somebody publishes a magazine
article urging us to take more interest in politics. I remember that the new
governor of New York, Mr. Lehman, published one lately that was very fine
and striking. And all sorts of clubs and societies are on foot to educate
the apathetic electorate and stir it into action.
If the rest of our delinquent sovereigns feel as I do, I may say that we do
not particularly resent these efforts. We are inclined to be rather meek
under the odium that is put on us. Mr. Wickersham's idea, now, is perhaps
another matter; we might think that would be crowding the mourners a little.
But in general we are willing to be patient and reasonable, for we are not
so ignorant and stupid as we may appear to be, and we really would like, as
much as anybody, to have things go shipshape and happily. All we ask is that
our monitors should be a little patient and reasonable too, and listen to us
fairly while we make a very simple plea of extenuating circumstances.
Let us look at the last election. Millions of voters got four years worth of
bile out of their systems on election day, and were more chipper and
cheerful next morning than they had been for months. This was all to the
good, no doubt, but the benefit seems rather in the scope of pathology than
in that of politics. A large majority registered their opinion that Mr.
Hoover was not a satisfactory public servant, and this also was all very
well. But if that is the way we felt towards Mr. Hoover, why should we have
had to put up with him for four years before dismissing him?
The French or English can turn out an unsatisfactory public servant at any
time. They do not have to wait four years; they can do it in four hours.
They have the political machinery for doing that, and we have not; if we
had, Mr. Hoover would probably have gone out of office at least two years
and a half ago. My point is that people who have no machinery for making
their political will immediately effective cannot reasonably be expected to
take much interest in a mere hopeful registration of what they want.
The "will of the people" repudiated Republican rule last November, with
almost unprecedented emphasis. Why do we have to wait four months before it
can really count? In England or France it would get action at once, almost
in four minutes. When an English or French government is hit by a vote of no
confidence, out it goes on the spot, and the party or combination that has
ousted it goes in. We all remember the series of French governments a couple
of years ago that one after another went down like a row of dominoes, almost
before the members took their seats. One of our newspaper paragraphers said
at the time that the French premiership was one turn around in a revolving
door. It was commonly understood, though I do not know how true it was, that
an international conference had to be postponed until the French found a
premier who could hold his job long enough to make the trip from Paris to
London and back before he was fired out.
In the last election we voted against Mr. Hoover - that is plain enough -
but what did we vote for? Many, presumably, voted for beer; all right, we
will find no fault with that. On the contrary, let us assume that the whole
prodigious majority voted for beer. But all it got was a vague promise of
beer on some uncertain tomorrow. The English have governmental machinery
whereby If they vote for beer they get it at once, and without going through
any further motions. If the people say beer, they pass the word to the House
of Commons, and when the House says beer, beer it is, and that is the end of
the matter.
If, by some trick of the politicians, we get only bad beer, or prohibitively
costly beer, or no beer at all, there is nothing we can do about it but wait
until the end of another "fixed term." Suppose Mr. Roosevelt and his crew
find it to their political or personal advantage not to give us a lower
tariff, or whatever we all may in good faith have voted for (and this has
often happened, e.g., the great tariff betrayal in 1894, and the war
betrayal under Wilson, who got his second term because "he kept us out of
war"), what can we do about it, short of another four years? Nothing. And
what kind of executive usurpations, indignities and rascalities does our
history show may be practiced on us with impunity meanwhile?
The fixed term means simply that ours is not a representative government at
all, but a delegated government. The vote that seats our president, our
Congress, our state and municipal officials, is simply a carte blanche, or
rather, something in the nature of a letter of marque. How can an
intelligent citizen be expected to take interest in the conduct of politics
under these conditions?
Even if our elected officials all stand by us loyally, we cannot get what we
vote for except on the sufferance of nine old men, irresponsible,
inaccessible, appointed for life, and concerning whose appointment the
people have nothing to say. The intelligent citizen knows this, knows that
even with the president and Congress unanimously on his side, his actual
sovereignty amounts to exactly nothing. The Supreme Court is the actual
sovereign power, the final lawmaking authority - not law-interpreting, but
lawmaking. How, then, can the citizen be interested? What the British House
of Commons says goes, even for the king on his throne, and it goes straight
off the bat; the Britisher knows it, and he feels and acts accordingly.
Moreover, not only can the American citizen do nothing between elections to
make his will effective, or to bring retribution on those who thwart it, but
his party can do nothing. The thing that most keeps the Englishman's
interest in politics alive between elections is the power of the opposition;
and the power of the opposition lies in the fact that it can turn out the
government at any moment when it can command a majority in the House. "His
Majesty's loyal Opposition" sits in the House like a cat by a rathole,
waiting for the government to make a break on some question, small or large,
that will shift enough sentiment to pass a vote of no confidence - and then,
down goes the government. No one can tell when this may happen, and the
constant surveillance of the opposition tends to make the government
prayerfully watch its step.
This sort of machinery makes any change possible and practicable at any time
the people want it. If the government is fairly sure that the people do not
want the change, it can always "go to the country" - that is, hold an
election on that issue. The issue is likely to be a pretty real one, and
thus it is that the British voter gets the habit of regarding politics as a
matter of issues rather than of men.
III
Again, how can the American voter be expected to have any interest in the
doings of the executive between elections, when the whole executive is
irresponsible and un-get-at-able by any means short of a congressional
investigation, which takes dynamite to start, and is a matter of months
spent in all sorts of futile and vexatious foolery?
The president picks his cabinet where he likes, and they are utterly
inaccessible; they cannot be seen or spoken to unless they choose, let alone
called to account. The British prime minister must choose his cabinet from
the House, and they keep their seats in the House and can be called to
account by any member. Once when I was in London a member got up at
question-time, took an envelope out of his pocket, and said, "Mr. Speaker, I
wish to ask the postmaster general," who was sitting about fifteen feet in
front of him, "why he did not deliver this letter on time." The letter
belonged to some constituent who had kicked about it to his representative,
and got him to put the question. The postmaster general asked for time to
look the matter up, and in a few days made his reply, and the thing was
properly straightened out. He had to do that, or he would have lost his job.
That is the British equivalent of a congressional investigation, whether
concerning a small matter like a delayed letter, or a large matter like a
profiteering army contract. It is direct, simple, businesslike. There you
have the machinery of really representative and responsible government. The
citizen who has that kind of machinery at his disposal can afford to be
interested in politics because he knows he can get action and get it at
once.
It is even conceivable that the government might have fallen on the
apparently petty occasion of that delayed letter. Such a thing has happened,
and it could happen again. Suppose the government has only a small majority
and is not very popular; suppose the opposition has smelt out a few
disaffected votes that they think may turn the scale; suppose the postmaster
general is evasive and does not give a straight answer. The leader of the
opposition makes a red-hot speech, asking Mr. Speaker what in Heaven's name
he thinks the empire is coming to, when a venal and bungling government
won't let His Majesty's loyal subjects get their mail. Some one on the
government bench, perhaps the prime minister, replies as best he can - then
a vote of "no confidence," and down goes the government.
I was once told in London that one government had just missed destruction by
the closest kind of shave, on what would seem to us the curious issue of a
girl having been picked up by the police for soliciting. She told the police
that she was a daughter of the rector of some church out in the country,
that she had lost her direction on Piccadilly, and had stopped a stranger to
ask her way. The police detained her overnight. Next day it turned out that
she was that rector's daughter, and that her story was true.
At question time that afternoon, the member for her district was on his feet
with fire in his eye, asking the home secretary what in high Hell he meant
by sloughing up the daughter of his rector, and the government was in a
hole, knowing that every newspaper in the kingdom would be on the warpath
next morning. As I got the story, the government compounded handsomely
within two hours, with an apology and a cash indemnity, and so saved its
neck.
I pass by the Electoral College, that remarkable institution which every
once in a while gives us a minority president, like Harrison. Why should any
one who voted in that election, when Cleveland got the votes and Harrison
got the presidency, ever take the trouble to vote again, at least until the
Electoral College is abolished and the president elected by direct vote? I
see no reason why he should do so.
Finally, how can we be interested in politics when our Constitution makes
the existence of a national issue impossible? The provision which obliges
our representatives to reside in their districts automatically converts
every issue into a local issue. We have at last learned that General Hancock
told the truth - which so mystified the country at the time - when he said
that the tariff is a local issue. But so is every issue, and must be;
Prohibition, for instance, is notoriously a local issue. What is one to
think, really, of the state of politics where the Constitution forbids the
legislature to take any but a purely parochial view of every public
question?
The United States is often criticized for having no continuous foreign
policy. But this provision of the Constitution makes it impossible to have
any foreign policy at all. The members of the foreign relations committees
of Senate and House must live in their districts, and each one must first
and foremost reflect the prevailing interests and sentiment of his district,
or lose his job. He simply cannot afford to take a national view of any
foreign relation, even if he were ever so willing and able to do so. He may
take a national view only in so far as it is not incompatible with local
interest.[1] Hence every change in the personnel of these committees brings
new sets of local interests to the fore, and our policy is merely a series
of improvisations.
In England, on the other hand, a representative who falls out with his
constituents over a matter of public policy may get himself put up in any
other district in the whole kingdom where he thinks local sentiment will
support him. He may be an utter stranger who has never set foot in that
district in his life, but that does not matter. If we had that mechanism, a
dry Rhode Island congressman, for instance, could go out and put himself up
for some safe dry district in Maine or Kansas. A pacifist devotee of the
League of Nations, living in an armament-making district of Pennsylvania,
could get himself put up in some Midwestern district where sentiment ran the
other way. This mechanism, obviously, tends to preserve dignity, integrity,
self-respect, all around. If we had it we need not have been disgraced by
the odious spectacle of the dry-voting, wet-drinking legislator - nor by the
more odious spectacle of the rush for the bandwagon.
IV
Nevertheless, Mr. Wickersham might say, it all comes back to the people in
the end. If our institutions seem expressly designed - as everyone who knows
their history knows they were designed - to paralyze our activity and
suffocate our interest, why do the people put up with them? Why are we not
whooping for reform? Why not unite, organize, get up "campaigns of
education" and all that sort of thing, in the orthodox American way, and
crusade for a brand-new set of political machinery?
This is plausible. It has the right sound, and is all right "in principle,"
as the diplomats say, but it is actually impracticable. We have seen those
crusades before, and we know what happens to them when they meet what Ernest
Renan so finely calls la bassesse de l'homme intéressé. Suppose the
Forgotten Man, who is about 80% of our population, asked Mr. Roosevelt and
his horde of voracious Democrats to pause on their way to the trough long
enough to call a constitutional convention aimed at the reforms I have
suggested. Would they do it? Not in the whole history of our republican
institutions is there a single incident to warrant the suspicion that they
would. But suppose they did. Then that same history enables us to forecast
exactly what sort of convention we would get. We can see the whole makeup of
it in our mind's eye; it would be made up of the very people who have every
interest in keeping our political machinery exactly as it is.
No, there is nothing in crusading. The English can have what the Duke of
Wellington called "a revolution by due course of law" whenever they think
the occasion warrants it. They have the machinery for doing it, and we have
not. There remains to us only the recourse to violence, which is no doubt
our privilege, but is not to be considered, for we have no confidence in it.
Probably our descendents will have to come to something of the kind, but it
is nothing for us at the moment. We have learned something from our own
revolutions and also from those in other lands; the outcome would be far too
uncertain.
It turns out, then, that our practical instinct about politics is sound. All
that the Forgotten Man can do is what we so largely find him doing. He can
take our national politics as supplying him with a recurrent sporting event,
a sort of extravaganza, in which the actors appear to him as more or less
clever mountebanks, and his own relation to it is that of a spectator who is
only mildly stirred. He may walk out on it, and usually does so whenever
anything more attractive comes along; that is to say, as a rule, when he is
not wholly idle. He may use it as an occasion for the display of resentment;
indeed, the returns seem generally to show that this is the most nearly
serious use he ever makes of it. To expect more than this of him seems to me
unreasonable, whatever Mr. Wickersham may say; and whether more be expected
of him or not, this appears to be about all he will do.
Albert Jay Nock (1870-1945) was an influential American libertarian author,
educational theorist, and social critic. Murray Rothbard was deeply
influenced by him, and so was that whole generation of free-market thinkers.
Notes
[1] 1 Those who feel inclined to doubt this may be referred to the
disgraceful history of the dispute with Canada over the fisheries question,
in Cleveland's first administration. Examples are plentiful enough, but this
one will suffice.
http://mises.org/story/3255
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