A simple solution to America's fiscal cliff problem

Allow congressmen to vote in private.

This isn’t my idea. I’m channelling the noted political philosopher, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Sir Humpy explains to Jim Hacker in the very first episode of Yes Minister that Jim’s election winning slogan, “Open Government”, is in fact an oxymoron. You can be open, or you can have government, you can’t have both. I’m also channelling Fareed Zakaria’s excellent (and serious) book, The Future of Freedom.

Zakaria’s argument is that most American politicians are not stupid. Most of them don’t want to drive off the fiscal cliff. Most of them would happily cut a deal to avoid disaster, if they could. They can’t. Because they lack the privacy needed to cut deals.

For most of America’s history, Congress could do its work in private. Politicians could imply one thing while talking to constituents, go to Washington, exercise their better judgment on what is best for the country, and go back to their constituents with a shrug and an I-tried-my-best story. For most of America’s history, that worked well enough.

At some time in the 1960s some well-intentioned people thought pols should not be allowed to tell lies to the public, and decided to make their deliberations and voting records public. As a result, politicians live in a fish bowl, utterly at the mercy of special interest groups. They can’t exercise mature judgment, and therefore can’t fulfil the design of representative democracy.

This shouldn’t be hard to explain. Perfect transparency is unhelpful in most everyday contexts: in family life, in sports teams, with friends or at work. But, unfortunately, even my ardent inner optimist doesn't think politicians are going to be allowed to escape their fish bowl world any time soon.

Wish you were here, Sir Humpy. We miss you.

Sir Humphrey Appleby