Public debt and the common good : philosophical and institutional implications of fiscal imbalance

The American national debt stands at $20.49 trillion as of January 2018, or roughly $63,000 for every person in the United States. The national debt has grown six-fold in the past 25 years, and borrowing only has accelerated in recent administrations. What are the factors driving such unrestrained borrowing? Is American fiscal policy different now than in an earlier era? Is there a moral dimension to public debt and, if so, how can that dimension be measured? Public Debt and the Common Good addresses these and other questions by looking to the fiscal policy of the American states. Drawing on classical themes and the longest quantitative review of state debt in the literature, James Odom expertly integrates institutional analysis with dimensions of culture to define the parameters of political freedom in a theoretically coherent way. In doing so, Odom argues that centralization and injustice, or the incapacity for the common good, can help explain state indebtedness. Contributing to ongoing scholarly debates on public debt theory, this book will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners who work at the intersection of political philosophy and economics, as well as those who specialize in state public policy, state politics, and federalism more generally Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 8 List of Figures 9 List of Tables 10 1 Introduction 12 A Note on Terminology 14 Methodological Perspective 14 Political Culture 15 Initial Considerations Regarding Justice and Overview of Chapters 17 Conclusion 21 Notes 21 Bibliography 22 2 Justice as the Common Good 24 Aristotle 25 Modern Relevance 25 Aristotle’s View of Justice 27 Aristotle and Modern Political Thought 30 Tocqueville 33 Equality, Political Freedom, and Centralization 33 Checks on Centralization 35 Integrating Aristotle and Tocqueville for Contemporary Analysis 38 A Socratic Diversion: Justice as the Advantage of the Strong 39 An Aristotelian Reading of Rawls 40 Conclusion 45 Notes 47 Bibliography 49 3 Of Keynes, Crisis, and Credit: An Overview of American Fiscal Trends in the Twentieth Century 51 Review of Debt and Revenue for Local, State, and National Government 53 Several Theoretical Perspectives on Debt 59 Toward an Explanation of Public Debt in Terms of Justice or the Common Good 66 Conclusion 71 Notes 72 Bibliography 73 4 Modeling Injustice 75 Literature Review 76 An Aristotelian Contribution to Federalism Theory 83 Studies of State Debt 84 Methodology and Variable Selection 86 Preliminary Modeling 90 Final Models 91 Model 1: Real Income Per Capita Without Real Intergovernmental Aid to a State Per Capita 91 Model 2: Real Intergovernmental Aid to a State Per Capita Without Real Income Per Capita 92 Model 3: Percent of a State’s Population in Cities Greater Than 100,000 94 Discussion of Dependent Variable Real State Debt PerCapita and Significant Independent Variables, with Chartson Historical Trends and State Rank 95 Real State Debt Per Capita 95 Population Density 95 Centralization Variables: City Size, State to Local Revenue Ratio, and Real Intergovernmental Aid to the State Per Capita 97 Voter Turnout 103 Protestant/Catholic Population Ratio 105 Real Income Per Capita 106 Lawyers Per 1,000 Population 108 Remarks on Insignificant Variables 111 A Comment on Elazar 111 Injustice and Public Debt 112 Notes 112 Bibliography 115 5 Interpreting Injustice 119 The Size of the State Bar as an Adequate Measure of Injustice 119 Model 5.1: Effect of Select Variables on Lawyer Population (1920–1990) 121 The Size of the State Bar as a Measure of Legal Complexity 124 The Size of the State Bar as a Measure of the Dominance of Attorneys in the Public Square 126 Conclusion 132 Notes 133 Bibliography 134 6 Progressivism and the Rise of the American Administrative State 135 Defining Progressivism 136 The Presidential Campaign of 1912 137 Placing the 1912 Campaign in Historical Context 141 Applying Themes from Aristotle and Tocqueville 151 Notes 156 Bibliography 160 7 Conclusion 161 Summary of Findings 165 Areas for Further Research 166 A Qualification 167 The American Administrative State: A Hypothesis 167 Notes 169 Bibliography 170 Appendix: Data Sources 171 Index 175