 One of the most foundational assumptions behind modern democracy is that the elected officials somehow represent the interests of those who elected them Hello, this is Ryan McMacon, and you're listening to Radio Rothbard Advocates for the political status quo flog this position repeatedly Claiming that taxation and the regulatory state are all morally legitimate because the voters are represented Even conservatives who often claim to be for small government often oppose radicalism of any kind such as secession on the grounds that political resistance movements such as the American Revolution are only acceptable when there is quote taxation without representation on quote the implication being that since the United States holds elections every now and then No political action outside of voting and maybe a little sign waving is allowed This position, however rests on the idea that elected officials are truly representative if taxation with representation Makes government legitimate as some argue then we must first establish that the government's claims of representation are believable On a theoretical level Gerald Casey has already cast serious doubt on these claims Casey draws on the work of Hannah Pitkin who admits it is plausible that quote Perhaps representation and politics is only a fiction a myth forming part of our folklore of our society or perhaps Representation must be redefined to fit our politics Perhaps we must simply accept the fact that what we have been calling representative government is in reality Just party competition for office on quote After all as Casey points out Representation in the private sector usually means there is an agent principal Relationship in which the agent is legally bound to attempt to represent the material interests of a clearly defined person or group of people Clearly this does not describe political Representation not only is it unclear what the material interests of the voters as a group are But the supposed agent of the relationship the elected official is not legally bound to pursue the interests of the voters He supposedly represents To conclude therefore that any specific voter has consented to say a tax increase because his representative approved it Is an extremely sketchy endeavor at best Nor is there any reason for us to expect that such a scheme of representation could possibly be meaningful under modern Conceptions of representative government and democracy Neither the system itself nor the sorts of people who run for office give us any reason to believe in the viability of such a system Specifically there are two ways that real-world political representation doesn't fit the popular notions of how it all works First of all even if a politician wanted to faithfully represent the people within his constituency This would be impossible It is impossible because the politicians can't know the views of the whole population Within his constituency and it's impossible because the more diverse a constituency becomes the more unlikely it is that any Legislation can be crafted to serve the interests of everyone Secondly, we must not fall into the trap of assuming that political representatives even try to respond to the policy desires of the district voters The idea that government coercion is made legitimate through political representation leans heavily on the idea that politicians adhere to a Delegate model of political representation in which they try to advance or protect the interests of their constituents Unfortunately, this is a bad assumption Casey illustrates that political representation does not work on a theoretical level But let us be practical types for a few minutes and imagine that we could in theory put together a constituency of people With similar economic cultural and religious interests We could then at least entertain the idea that it might be possible to represent this group That is with a constituency that is highly homogeneous We could at least make a claim that we can understand and pursue the interests of the group overall But even if this is our standard do such legislators even exist Limiting our analysis to the United States. We might find examples in some small culturally homogeneous areas This may be true at the level of a county commission or in the legislature of a small state like New Hampshire Where legislators represent only a few thousand people per district at the congressional level However, we're a single district typically includes hundreds of thousands of people claims of homogeneity are obviously nonsense And the larger the constituency the worse it gets as Francis Lee and Bruce Oppenheimer note in their book a sizing up the Senate Quote large states will encompass more political interests than small states all other things being equal Although small population does not guarantee homogeneity large population does result in heterogeneity unquote It logically follows then that a more heterogeneous Population is unlikely to have a political representative who actually shares many of their ideological views in his book a congressional representation and constituents Brian Frederick concludes quote an expanding constituency size is not an insubstantial Contribution to house members level of ideological divergence from their constituents in smaller ideologically cohesive Constituencies it is easier for legislators to satisfy the policy desires of the citizenry the growth in house district Population seems to have increased the distance between the representative and the constituents of the area of policy representation unquote Consequently, it's not surprising that once we get to the level of the US Senate representatives show virtually no congruence with the ideologies of the people they're supposed to represent in his empirical study of representation political scientist Michael Barber writes quote senators preferences diverged dramatically from the preference of the average voter in their state The degree of divergence is nearly as large as if voters were randomly assigned to a senator unquote Naturally, this can be affected by factors other than mere heterogeneity of the population Such as the need for candidates to cultivate relationships with those who can provide campaign funds Nevertheless the impossibility of representing the interests of such a large population drives a legislator to pick and choose Whose interest he decides to listen to in the case of the Senate? Barber finds those who do get represented are often the constituents quote who write checks and attend fundraisers unquote But it's not necessary to conclude that legislators listened to wealthy donors for cynical reasons Even if a senator under these circumstances wanted to represent all five million of his constituents as would be the case in a Medium-sized state like Minnesota or Colorado It's important to reiterate that this is simply an impossible task under the delegate model of representation But up to this point we've been assuming that elected officials imagine themselves largely as delegates of the populations they represent This after all is the assumption behind the basic framework of Madisonian political theory that different socio-economic and cultural groups Will be represented in Congress by elected officials and these different groups will pursue their own interests Thus providing checks and balances against each other But what if elected officials don't view themselves this way? What if they view themselves as trustees whose job it is to do what's quote best for the people unquote in their district regardless of what the voter preferences actually are Those who have worked with elected officials will see little novelty in this suggestion if I may be permitted a personal anecdote I will note that in my days working with state legislators It was not uncommon to be told by a legislator that he was torn as to whether he should vote in a way that the voters want or to Do the right thing the right thing in the mind of a legislator Of course is simply that which comports to his or her personal ideology If the legislator chose to overrule what he or she perceived to be the opinion of the people then at least on that day The legislator was acting as a trustee rather than as a delegate There are numerous studies suggesting that such behavior is hardly rare The political science literature showing a disconnect between the votes of legislators and constituent opinion has been mounting for years one particularly interesting study is a 2017 paper from John Matsu sake in which he concluded quote when legislator preferences differed from district opinion on an issue Legislators voted congruent with district opinion only 29% of the time the data Do not show a reliable connection between congruence and competitive election term limits campaign contributions or media Attention the evidence is most consistent with the assumption of a citizen candidate model that legislators vote their own preferences unquote There is of course no such thing as a quote-unquote district opinion But the general idea is clear enough when confronted with how to vote on an issue a legislator At least in Matsu sake study usually votes according to his own ideological views Even when he suspects a majority of his own voters prefer otherwise While it's certainly possible to defend legislators who vote according to personal principle on various grounds We cannot then also claim that this sort of governance is a representative system in line with popular notions of how political Representation is equivalent to voter consent for various political agendas If elected officials are in the habit of voting to suit their own ideologies Even when it means overriding the ideological preferences of many voters then it's hard to see how we can also call this Representative or a system that transmits consent from the voters to their political representatives And yet in spite of all the evidence that elected officials neither know the preferences of voters nor vote in accordance with them We continue to be told that governments must be respected and obeyed because they have legitimacy Granted to them by the fact that they are democratic and representative for centuries This myth of representation has served to quash opposition to government abuse and to bolster claims that submission to government is quote-unquote Voluntary it's time to abandon those myths Thank you for listening to radio Rothbard. 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