Categories
term limits

Democracy vs. Power Grabber

Like many countries with a young democracy, Panama constitutionally term-limits its president. And like many such countries, Panama has endured a president eager to dispense with the irksome restriction.

Too often, deleting the term limit comes too easy. All it takes is a few cooperative lawmakers of the ruling party or a few cooperative judges; at most, a national referendum, if the officeholder is popular . . . or ruthless enough to rig it.

In Panama, though, Martinelli — who must sit out the next two terms before running for the presidency again — has been hitting a brick wall.Panama MAP

Amending Panama’s constitution is easier than amending our own. But it still requires the co-operation of two separate legislative bodies. He could not obtain it.

A referendum was also a non-starter. Martinelli proved less popular toward the end of his term than he was at the beginning, and Panamanian voters showed little inclination to lengthen his tenure.

He tried packing Panama’s supreme court so that it would determine the constitutional term limit to be unconstitutional. But mass protests forced a retreat there as well.

Finally, the incumbent tried the hand-picked-successor gambit — “re-election in disguise” — ardently campaigning for José Domingo Arias and Arias’s vice presidential candidate, Martinelli’s wife. On May 4, though, Juan Carlos Varela won a three-way contest for the presidency with a 39 percent plurality.

The result is not a permanent victory for term limits or democracy; such victories are never permanent. But it is a victory, and a big one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Lysander Spooner

Government is established for the protection of the weak against the strong. This is the principal, if not the sole, motive for the establishment of all legitimate government. Laws, that are sufficient for the protection of the weaker party, are of course sufficient for the protection of the stronger party; because the strong can certainly need no more protection than the weak.

Categories
Today

May 14

On May 14, 1787, delegates convened a Constitutional Convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to write a new Constitution for the United States. George Washington presided over the convention.

On the same day in 1887, Lysander Spooner — author of the pamphlets titled “The Constitution of No Authority” — died.

Categories
Today

Brazil outlaws slavery, May 13

On May 13, 1888, Brazil abolished slavery with the passage of the Lei Áurea (“Golden Law”).

Categories
Thought

George Orwell

George OrwellWe have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

Categories
national politics & policies property rights Tenth Amendment federalism

Land Un-Grab?

When I took up the Cliven Bundy story, just before Bundy spewed his racist farragoes, I concentrated not on him, but on the broader issue: too much federal government ownership of real property in “the tiny state of Nevada” and elsewhere.

Since then an expert has weighed in on my side: Terry Anderson of the Property and Environment Research Center.

Sorta.Barbed Wire Fences in Grazing Lands - a technological way to establish private property on the range

I supported privatization of grazing lands. But I mentioned that forest land should “at least be ‘state-ized,’” that is, transferred to the states. And that, it turns out, is what the current crop of Sagebrush rebels want for grazing land.

But there’s a downside to such a transfer. Grazing fees would likely go up.

Anderson titles his piece “Careful What You Ask For.”

And that cuts both ways. The environmentalists who want to centralize even more control in Washington, D.C., think that booting out privately owned ungulates would accrue benefits to the ecosystems. They are wrong, Anderson explains:

But “no moo” may mean fewer tweets, clucks, and bugles from wildlife. As private ranchers demonstrate, good land management can control noxious weeds, improve water quality, sequester more carbon, and generate more wildlife habitat.

Yes, “cattle grazing has improved the ecosystem.”

Anderson prefers privatization.

But that remains politically unlikely. The Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole suggests a compromise: fiduciary trusts, where the feds retain land title. Centuries of common law bolster the idea, says O’Toole, who assures us, under this form of oversight, “trustees preserve and protect the value of the resources they manage, keep them productive, and disclose the full costs and benefits of their management.”

Both of these alternates are better than current government mismanagement and overkill.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets

Bigots Hate Competition

Apparently, economics is hard. But some things are pretty straightforward.

For example, both parties to a trade gain: it’s called “mutual benefit through exchange.”

Another basic principle? Employers hire labor expecting productivity. Businesses don’t hire workers who can’t produce enough to more than cover their wages — and managers fire workers when they prove they aren’t productive enough.

And yet another? Competition for trade increases the quality of products, reduces price, or both and tends to equalize prices for goods of the same quality.Gary Becker: 1930-2014

An appreciation of late economist Gary Becker on reason.com shows the consequence of the latter principle in a perhaps unexpected area: discrimination.

A company that pays someone less than they are worth encourages worker flight, “jumping ship.” Companies that refuse to hire qualified women or minorities when they could underbid similarly productive workers (demanding higher wages) could find themselves out-competed by less discriminatory businesses. Indeed, studies suggest they could find themselves less profitable and even out of existence.

Nobel Laureate Gary Becker saw this, and realized that free markets impose a check upon bigotry. Regulations that limit competition in industry also stifle gender workforce participation and increase inequality. “[C]ountries such as Japan that have avoided deregulation, shareholder capitalism, and open markets,” summarizes Elizabeth Nolan Brown, “tend to lag in both productivity and workplace gender equality.”

There are many good reasons to favor free markets. They not only make us wealthier, they discourage prejudicial behavior. Competition punishes bad behavior even while it emphasizes win-win scenarios.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

Axis in Africa surrender, May 12

On May 12, 1943, during World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

Categories
Thought

Gary Becker

I was not sympathetic to the assumption that criminals had radically different motivations from everyone else.

Categories
Today

Minnesota becomes a state, May 11

On May 11, 1858, Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. State. Other May 11th events include Luxembourg’s gaining independence in 1867, and Klaus Barbie going on trial in Lyon, 120 years later, for war crimes committed during World War II.