EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more influential than is commonly supposed. In reality, the world is not governed by anything else. Practical people who think they are immune to any intellectual influence are usually slaves to some late economist."
~ John Maynard Keynes
This article was originally supposed to be about the European Parliament elections. But instead of once again expressing my disappointment with the candidates' current messages, their inadequate platforms, and their avoidance of the issues that matter to me, I decided to address a more fundamental topic.
Since the EKIP and the Bulgarian Libertarian Society have existed, we have been regularly asked the question of whether we intend to form a libertarian political party or engage in electoral politics. My answer is always a categorical "no", which puzzles many people. What puzzles them even more is when I tell them that in my opinion, political parties are at best one of the most ineffective tools for spreading and promoting certain political principles and ideas, and at worst they even harm the achievement of such goals. Before you reflexively object, allow me to explain.
First of all, the main goal of any political party is to win elections and gain parliamentary power. This goal is not always in sync with the popularization of a certain political worldview among society. Often the two goals are even in complete contradiction – winning elections requires taking political positions that are already relatively popular and generally accepted. Winning elections requires adjusting to the current political worldview of the average voter, while popularizing a given (new) political idea requires changing this worldview. You cannot work to change a given worldview if your career, and therefore your life, depends on adjusting to it.
The median voter theorem
In political science (specifically from the school of Public Choice Theory), there is the so-called Median Voter Theorem. In its simplest form, this theorem states that in a simple majority electoral system (in which a simple majority, i.e. 51% of the votes are needed for an outright victory), the politician/party whose platform most closely matches the preferences of the median voter will win. This concept can be easily illustrated with a simple example.
If we have three voters Gosho, Tosho and Pesho and they prefer 10%, 30% and 50% income tax respectively, the politician who proposes a tax rate closest to Tosho's preferences will win. Because Tosho's preferences are closer to both Gosho's and Pesho's preferences than they are to their own. If he has to choose between 30% and 50%, Gosho will choose 30%. If he has to choose between 10% and 30%, Pesho will choose 30%. And accordingly, Tosho can form an electoral majority in two different configurations (with both other voters), while Gosho and Pesho can form a majority with only one configuration each (with Tosho).
Because of this fact, politicians on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum will naturally propose policies that are closest to Tosho's preferences in order to increase the likelihood that they will win the election. Now imagine the same example, but enlarged to a national scale, and you now know how electoral adjustment generally works during democratic elections. This theorem explains very well the tendency of the most successful and largest political parties to be close to the so-called political center (i.e., the moderate compromise between the pure left and pure right political doctrines). It is no coincidence that the largest right and largest left parties everywhere are "center"-right and "center"-left (including in Bulgaria), not "far"-left and "far"-right.
The function of politicians and the Overton window
Politicians have to win elections. That is their primary goal. Their τέλος, as Aristotle would say. Their goal is not to promote a particular political doctrine, ideology, or even a set of political principles. For them, adapting one political platform or another is only a means to an end, which is power, and to gain power they have to win elections. And to win elections, they have to adapt to the preferences of the median voter, as we saw above.
That is why it is naive to rely on politicians to profess a consistent political ideology that they follow and promote. The politician is placed in a reactive position. He is not in a position to lead public opinion, but only to follow it. As paradoxical as it may seem, securing political power actually involves submission to foreign attitudes (of the voters). In this sense, the politician loses "intellectual sovereignty".
Prime Minister Boyko Borissov illustrates this very clearly every time, after the public has expressed violent indignation over a change in a law, he steps in and orders the change to be repealed or "softened" in order to appease public discontent. This is not the behavior of a person who is an "opinion maker", this is the behavior of a person who is completely subordinate to other people's opinion and is constantly afraid of losing their favor.
In short, politicians can only operate within the current framework of "acceptable" policies for society (the so-called Overton window ). They cannot go beyond this framework in their messages and policies, because if they do, they will move away from the preferences of the median voter and therefore will not be able to win elections in competition with other politicians who remain closer to these preferences. This is precisely why, if I, as a person who professes ideas that are currently quite far from "acceptable" in political discourse, have no interest in engaging in electoral politics if my goal is to implement these ideas in practice.
Who are the "opinion leaders"?
If not politicians, then who are the "opinion leaders" in society? Those people who change public opinion and move the Overton window in one direction or another? According to the Austrian economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek, these are the so-called "intellectuals" - those individuals who are active in the public sphere as "enlighteners", people who spread certain political ideas, both among other intellectuals and among society as a whole. These are people who are not directly involved in politics, but at least indirectly in practice are involved in it - because they actively comment on and criticize the political decisions that are made and offer alternatives.
These are also people who usually hold positions in institutions (private or public) that shape public opinion in a very direct way. Intellectuals, as you have probably noticed, usually work in the media, research institutes and/or educational institutions (universities most often). For the average person (and voter), the media and educational institutions are the main sources of information about what is happening in the world around them and, more importantly, what should be happening. In this way, intellectuals influence public opinion. It is also of key importance for them that they are not directly involved in electoral politics, because this way they can at least claim objectivity and, accordingly, the average voter will not be as skeptical of their opinion as they are of the opinion of a politician.
It is a common misconception that the "laladzhiystva" of intellectuals has no real weight in practice in current political processes. This is partially true. In the short term, from one parliamentary election to another, intellectuals cannot significantly change the outcome. But in the long term, from one generation to the next, it is the intellectuals who have the leading role. The history of socialism - undoubtedly the most successful political doctrine of the 20th century - is eloquent evidence of the power of the influence of intellectuals in the long term.
A brief history of socialism
Initially, in the mid-19th century, communism (and its milder form, socialism) was an ideology that was almost completely foreign to the political mainstream. It was completely outside the then Overton Window (in which classical pro-market liberals and conservatives competed). Only a few intellectuals professed this ideology. Over time, however, it became increasingly popular among intellectuals, to the point that by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries it was the most popular ideology among intellectual circles in Britain. A generation or two later, it was already the most popular ideology among the mass population, and socialists in Britain (from the "Labour" party) completely pushed the liberals out and took their place as the opposition to the conservatives in the Overton Window.
This is just one example, in just one country. A similar process is happening in the rest of Europe and in the USA. You will say "But this is very slow!". Yes, it is slow. But is shifting the worldview of a population to such a large extent an easy task that can be accomplished within a few years? Think about it - socialism, from a political doctrine with practically zero presence in the current political process of any European country in the first half of the 19th century, is the most popular political doctrine in the world just a few generations later in the early 20th century. Even the fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s were breakaways from the respective socialist movements in their countries.
The Libertarian Tradition
This whole concept is very much part of the libertarian intellectual tradition, especially in the area of activism and social change. The founder of the largest and most influential pro-market/libertarian institute in Britain (the Institute of Economic Affairs), Sir Anthony Fisher, a World War II veteran, originally intended to become a politician and run for Parliament to oppose the left-wing Labour Party, which in 1945 had managed to win an election for the first time. However, his friend Friedrich Hayek dissuaded him and advised him instead to found an institute that would be primarily concerned with "enlightenment" work, i.e. to disseminate pro-market and classical liberal ideas to the public and especially the nation's future intellectual elite. Fisher heeded this advice and, a few decades later, the Institute for Economic Affairs was a key intellectual influence during the government of Margaret Thatcher.
The goal of the EKIP is largely the same. Through "enlightenment" activities, similar to the Institute of Economic Affairs, to shift the Overton window in Bulgaria to the right in a more libertarian direction. Or at least that is my vision of things. At the EKIP, we are trying to popularize certain ideas that are currently outside the widely accepted political worldview in Bulgaria. If we become politicians, we will have to sacrifice this goal and compromise with a large part of our views in order to win elections, which would seem unprincipled at the very least. If we do not adapt to public opinion, we will not be able to enter power, which makes engaging in electoral politics meaningless.
Politics is not done in just one way, that is the most important message I would like you to take away from this article. Yes, in the short term, politics is a matter of electoral mathematics. Who will be able to win how many votes, which depends on how close their platform is to the median voter. In the long term, however, the worldview of the median voter is formed by the information and intellectual institutions. And accordingly - the platforms of political parties are also formed by them, be it indirectly. Today's election platform of a given "moderate" and "centrist" party is yesterday's pamphlet of some political radical.
