A Nice Rant

Kevin Williamson writes,

the Left’s fundamental intellectual defect — at least in the critique of those liberals who are now obliged to call ourselves “conservatives” — is that it seeks to establish something very much like the arbitrary princely powers that Smith and Hayek warned against, and that Washington fought against. The Left believes that this power can be made benevolent not by the strengthening of democracy — that is not precisely right — but rather by making ever-greater portions of society subject to arbitrary princely powers when those powers enjoy the endorsement of a plebiscite, as though handing over Augustus’s powers to the tribune of the plebs would constrain the imperial tendency.

I try to resist posts of the form “Hurray for my team, boo for their team.” But I am making an exception for Williamson’s piece.

4 thoughts on “A Nice Rant

  1. It isn’t that conservatives have any less preference for princely powers, but believe only they should be entitled to the privilege of exercising them, so no vote becomes necessary and any vote becomes a threat.

    • Why make them equivalent?

      Why don’t you say something like “conservatives equal and opposite blind spot is that externalities should not be brought into the domain of law simply based on the arbitrary standard that they haven’t thus far?”

  2. Can we make a Godwin’s Law for comparing America to Imperial Rome? Because I honestly have no idea what that reference to Augustus is supposed to mean.

    It’s especially bizarre in this case, since 1. The exact opposite happened — Augustus received the power of a tribune and retention of that power became a defining feature of the early emperors, often being bestowed on an heir to designate him as the emperor’s favorite. Augustus took the power of a tribune of the plebs, he did not give imperial power to the tribune of the plebs. Using a counterfactual in this case is dumb: if what you are arguing for really is some long-standing trend in human affairs, you should be able to find an example of it actually happening. 2. In general, assaults on the power of the tribune of the plebs are a marker of the increasing imperial impulse in Rome, IE Sulla stripping the office of its powers, patricians finding ways to stand for the office and strip it of its association with the masses, etc. It’s weird to say “I bet that office couldn’t have stopped the slide to empire if it was given more power” when everyone bent on seizing power kept trying to cripple the office. 3. You could make a convincing argument that, yes, the tribune of the plebs functioned as a counterweight to Rome’s march towards empire for several centuries. Marcus Livius Drusus attempting to bring the Italian “allies” in as equal citizens, for example. Of course, you could also make a convincing argument the other way.

    Just looking at the office at a general level, the tribunes of the plebs often did things to oppose the rise of imperialism, but also often did things to encourage wealth redistribution. And, of course, they often pursued agendas totally unrelated to that. That right there is a pretty good argument for not imposing a “small government free market vs. big government centralized market” framework onto imperial Rome.

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