Silver
Lining Part IV:
Term Limits and Female Politicians
by
Walter
Block
by Walter Block
This
is the fourth in a series of columns dealing with silver linings:
the phenomenon that unwarranted and unjustified acts can sometimes
have positive elements. This of course does not justify them, but
we do ourselves a disservice if we ignore these benefits.
In
the first of these columns, "A
Silver Lining in Drug Prohibition," I noted that real criminals
who might not otherwise be caught are sometimes jailed for engaging
in the drug trade, which they have every right to do. But fewer
murderers and rapists at large is surely a good thing. In the second
of these columns "A
Silver Lining in Unjust Executions," I observed that those
executed for murders for which they are innocent (a travesty of
justice if ever there was one) were sometimes guilty of committing
other capital crimes for which they were not charged. Thus, a critique
of the death penalty was not as powerful as otherwise thought. In
the third, I tried to clarify my position on this issue vis-à-vis
several objections that had been made of it.
Today,
we consider the silver lining involved in term limits: it reduces
the percentage of female politicians.
There
is much wailing and gnashing of teeth at this phenomenon on the
part of our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. According
to an editorial appearing in the Seattle Times (8/17/03, p. A6;
okay, okay, this statement doesn’t appear on the editorial pages,
but rather is disguised as "news"): "Fewer female
legislators in statehouses: Term limits are seen as culprit in curtailing
women’s progress in winning seats, which has stalled since the early
1990s." The editorial, sorry, the story, goes on to say that
in states with term limits, female politicians are very rare. For
example, 9.4 per cent of South Carolina legislators were female,
in Alabama it was 10 cent, and in Kentucky the figure was 10.9 percent.
In contrast, in the non-term limit states, the percentages were
much higher. E.g., 36.7 percent in Washington, 52 percent in Michigan,
33 per cent in both Colorado and Maryland. (The overall average
in 2003 was 22.3 percent, down from a high of 22.7 percent in 2002).
So
much for the facts. Where is the silver lining?
In
order for there to be a silver lining, there has to be an evil,
and, also, some good must come out of it. I am already on record
(Block, Walter. 7/9/02. "The
Evil of Term Limits") in taking the position that term
limits are highly problematic. I did so on grounds blazed by Professor
Hans Hoppe. His argument is based on time preference: other
things equal, the longer a politician is in office, the more of
a long-run viewpoint he can afford to take. If he can leave the
office to his children (e.g., a monarchy) he will act even more
responsibly; he doesn’t want to kill the golden goose, otherwise
there will be nothing left for his progeny to exploit.
In
the other direction, if a politician could only be in office for,
say, one month, then "make hay while the sun shines,"
even more so than at present, would become his motto. That is, he
would have very little incentive to reign in his natural rapaciousness,
for he would be turned out all too soon. There would only be the
thinnest veneer of "public service" to cover the theft-as-usual
policies. Why leave much of anything for the next officeholder,
certainly not if it interferes with your own pillage?
Term
limits, then, are a disaster, in that they enhance the already very
great incentives for politicians to loot.
But
there is a silver lining: females appear to be booted out by this
initiative to an even greater degree than males. Why is this to
be considered a good thing?
On
the economic front, it is clear that women on average favor social
welfare schemes more than do men, and I extrapolate from females
in general to their sister politicians. It is surely no accident
that programs such as social security, welfare and unemployment
insurance came after the "weaker sex" was given the right
to vote. This phenomenon might stem from women being more risk averse
than men, and seeing such coercive socialistic policies as somehow
"safer."
Further
evidence: there is a large "gender gap" between the Republican
and Democratic parties on domestic issues; females favor the latter
over the former; as well, the membership of the Libertarian Party
is overwhelmingly male. (As against this, I must concede that on
matters of imperialism and foreign military adventurism, female
timidity probably inclines them to a less aggressive stance).
Secondly,
apart from considerations of this sort, there is no intrinsic reason
to favor male over female politicians. With the exception of Ron
Paul and only a few others, all are hypocritical and pompous mountebanks,
not content with merely robbing us, but determined to convince us
they do it for our own good. However, another issue arises: one
of the strongest motivating forces behind the leftish push for female
politicians is the quaint notion that apart from underhanded skullduggery,
all groups would be exactly equal. That is, in the truly just society,
both genders, all races and nationalities, all ages, people of all
sexual orientations, etc. bloody, etc. would be equally represented
in all callings. If they are not, this is due to exploitation, or
injustice, or some such. That is, absent improprieties such as racism,
sexism, look-ism (I kid you not), able-ism, etc., since males and
females comprise roughly 50 percent each of the electorate, this
would also be their representation amongst office holders. (Also,
the National Basketball Association would employ as players tall
strong athletic blacks, and short fat Jews, in proportion to their
overall numbers in the population; it is only due to racial discrimination
against Orientals that so few of them are on National Football League
team rosters.)
There
is no one who has done more to combat this pernicious fallacy than
Tom Sowell. (See this, among his many excellent books, Race
and Culture). But he needs all the help he can get on this
mission. It is incumbent upon all men of good will to help him in
this regard. And one way that we can do so is to recognize one of
the side order benefits of that otherwise insidious policy of term
limits: that it disproportionately penalizes female politicians.
To
clarify matters. I do not favor term limits. However, I do
recognize that there is a silver lining in this particular cloud.
 September
3, 2003
Dr.
Block [send him mail]
is a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. See
his Autobiography
Archive.
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© 2003 LewRockwell.com
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