No, the Country Doesn’t Have to Be in Permanent Election Mode

Less Government Involvement in Your Life Would Reduce the Importance of Elections

Mainstream and other media, and pundits across the political spectrum, have been obsessed with the next presidential election since the 2022 mid-terms. And before that, they obsessed about the midterms, and before that...

Hopefully, you are like me; you have a life and are mostly able to tune out the noise until the last couple of months before the election. But if you’re a Fox News fanatic or MSNBC junkie, perhaps you’ve wondered in a moment of exhausted reflection “Why on earth does the country have to be in permanent election mode?” The short answer is “Because politics plays an outsize role in your life whether you pay close attention or not.”

Much of your well-being depends on political decisions outside of your control. You’re dependent on the government for a secure retirement, both financially (mandated Social Security) and with respect to your health (mandated Medicare). You’re most likely trapped by the government education monopoly for your children’s education (only the wealthy can afford to pay for private education on top of paying property and income taxes for education). And the government subsidizes, regulates, taxes and advises you on what you eat and drink (not too much fat, sugar, red meat, alcohol, etc.), how you power your house (solar panel subsidies, fossil fuel taxes), what car to drive (EV subsidies, gasoline taxes). The list of individual rights violations reducing your control of your life goes on forever. They are the inescapable consequence of our welfare statist social system where your individual rights are playing second fiddle to a diffuse notion of “the greater good” as determined by those who happen to be in a position of political power at any given point. As a result, what politicians and political parties claim they want to do to you after the next election becomes inordinately important.

There is another way, but it requires a radical shift away from welfare statism to a different social system. Regular readers know what system I’m referring to: capitalism. Capitalism as a social system is so much more than economics. Most crucially, it protects the rights of the smallest and only minority that fundamentally matters: the individual. If you’re a champion of individualism (and you should be), this makes it the only moral social system.

The government has three responsibilities under capitalism. It protects your individual rights from being violated by (1) foreign aggressors (the role of the military) and from (2) domestic aggressors committing fraud, theft, murder, etc. (the role of law enforcement). And it (3) prosecutes domestic aggressors and settles disputes (the role of the judiciary).

Capitalism doesn’t allow individuals, alone or banded together in groups (parties, majorities, minorities, etc.), to vote on anything that would violate the individual rights of others. This significantly reduces the importance of politics and makes voting a marginal issue. The amount of money you have or manage to raise for a political campaign is of little importance. It may “buy” you a federal, state, or local position—president, governor, county commissioner, etc., or a senate or house seat. But the constitutional checks and balances protecting everybody’s individual rights ensure that you cannot wield political power over others when you take office.

Consequently, the political oppression we experience under welfare statism doesn’t exist under capitalism, in which no slim majority wields power over minorities, and no minorities wield power over other minorities or the majority. Consequently, political power does not play a significant role in who gets elected.

Let’s say you’re going to the polls to protect your hard-earned Social Security check because some politician would like to reduce it. Under capitalism you are in control of your retirement without government involvement. You plan for it from the day you enter the work force. Neither you nor your employer pays social security taxes, leaving you with a larger paycheck and more money to invest toward your golden age. And your capital gains and dividends are not taxed, meaning that your returns are substantially higher than today. With a little saving discipline and steady work, it is close to impossible not to retire comfortably. Hence, without government involvement, there is no need to factor in retirement planning in your voting considerations.

Maybe you are casting your vote to ensure that your children get a good government (public) education? Under capitalism, education is provided by the marketplace without government interference; you are in control of your children’s education, not at the mercy of your local school board or the state or federal Department of Education. Do you think education is too expensive? Only under the control of federal, state, and local governments and boards does education get ever more expensive even as quality falters. Under capitalism, education becomes cheaper, better, and more efficient (in this context, probably leading to less time in school), just like other products and services do where capitalism dominates. In a free, capitalist market, the Walmart of education springs up in your neighborhood and the online education equivalent of Amazon offers stiff competition to brick-and-mortar schools. The Khan Academy offers a glimpse of what that may look like. And with property taxes for education a thing of the past, you control more of your own money. With education out of the hands of politicians, you and everybody else are in control, and your vote is of no consequence for your children’s education.

Does access to affordable healthcare factor into your voting decisions? Under capitalism the government is not able to force a healthcare scheme on you—Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, or the like. You are empowered to manage your own healthcare with the marketplace offering you a plethora of health insurance options, from inexpensive catastrophic plans to more comprehensive alternatives. And doctors and other healthcare providers compete for your business with both quality and price. All healthcare services will go the way of Lasik surgery, which is relatively less impacted by government and consequently cheaper and of better quality with each passing year. And with lower costs comes lower health insurance premiums. With nobody wielding political power over the fate of your healthcare, you’re in control and your vote is of no significance.

Under capitalism, this pattern repeats in every area of the economy. Political equality reigns supreme by protecting your individual rights from violations by collectives, groups, and other individuals. Capitalism as a social system mostly eliminates high-stakes election cycles, drastically reduces the amount of money poured into lobbying and elections, reduces the impact of voting fraud and redistricting, and radically curtails the power of our politicians and bureaucrats. With no tax, spending, and regulatory spoils to fight over, the incentives are radically diminished for those who lust for office and those who supply the money to get them elected. Under capitalism, they have no control over your life.

Ask yourself what you prefer: immoral, individual right violating welfare statist political warfare with endless, seemingly life-or-death elections cycles? Or moral, individual rights protecting capitalist political peace, where elections are quaint contests between candidates reluctantly nominated for powerless political positions. The answer should be obvious.