As the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) prepares for its annual meeting next week, there remains a great deal of confusion about what the organization supports. ALEC advertises itself as a group that supports free markets, limited government, and federalism. But in reality, ALEC pushes a broad range of oppressive policies that distort markets, attack liberty, and centralize power. ALEC does all of this on behalf of multinational corporations that would not and could not exist without state intervention.
ALEC has supported some of the most tyrannical legislation in recent memory. It wrote SB 1070, Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant “Papers Please” law. Why would a “limited government” organization support giving police new powers to violate privacy and attack immigrants? Because detaining more immigrants means more profits for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), one of ALEC’s corporate members. CCA receives taxpayer money to operate prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers. ALEC’s anti-immigrant laws, as well as its harsh sentencing bills, exist to keep prisons full for CCA’s benefit. Locking human beings in cages so that a corporation can receive government money hardly sounds like a free market policy to me.
ALEC also endorsed the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Like SOPA, its sister bill, PIPA would empower the government to censor the Internet in the name of protecting so-called “intellectual property” (IP). IP “rights” are monopoly privileges granted by government. They coercively limit competition to keep prices artificially high. In addition to enforcing monopoly privileges, PIPA would allow censorship of sites that even link to copyrighted content, flying in the face of the First Amendment.
Consequently, the bill faced diverse opposition from groups including Google, Wikipedia, Human Rights Watch, and the Tea Party Patriots. But ALEC apparently does not support free markets or limited government enough to stop supporting a bill that would eviscerate internet freedom and the First Amendment. As always, corporate profits come first for ALEC.
In addition to advertising itself as an advocate of free markets, ALEC talks a lot about championing federalism. Yet the very nature of ALEC undermines one of the principal advantages of federalism. In theory, federalism is valuable because it keeps decisions under local control, allowing people to influence the policies that govern their lives, and leaving them the option to move if they disagree with local policies. Yet ALEC is a mechanism for multinational corporations to push similar legislation in every state. This erodes local control, putting power in the hands of a national organization run by multinational firms. Furthermore, by pushing similar legislation in all 50 states, ALEC undermines the ability of citizens to ‘vote with their feet’ and leave states that pass bad laws.
ALEC further undermines federalism using their International Relations Task Force. This task force exists to push international trade agreements. While this may seem benign, so-called “free trade” agreements do much more than just lower trade barriers. These agreements create centralized international bodies that can overrule decisions and laws passed by national and local governments. This is the very antithesis of federalism. Is it possible that ALEC supports these international bodies on free market grounds? To the contrary, ALEC pushes trade policies that they say “strengthen the intellectual property rights of our members.” And as we have seen, IP regimes are anti-competitive, not free market, policies.
Ultimately, ALEC’s member corporations do not support liberty. Rather, they fear the freedom and decentralization their stated principles would permit. In a free market, they would not be able to collude with legislators for favors or profit from prisons and IP monopolies. In a society with decentralized federalism, corporations couldn’t use trade agreements to force pro-corporate policies globally. Corporate power needs state power to thrive, so ALEC fights daily for state power, all while talking about “free markets.”
Citations to this article:
- Nathan Goodman, ALEC is an enemy of liberty, I4U News, 07/12
- Nathan Goodman, ALEC is an enemy of liberty, Hernando [Florida] Today, 07/19/12
"Why would a 'limited government' organization support giving police new powers to violate privacy and attack immigrants?"
The people involved in groups like ALEC must have read 1984 and come away believing that "double speak" was a good and useful tool instead of a way to deceive and manipulate the people.
Nathan, you appear dead set on characterizing ALEC in a negative light, even if in order to do so you have to zero in on just two ALEC policies. At the same time you ignore the plethora of pro-liberty policies they have supported: the National Debt Relief Amendment, constitutional constraints on taxation and spending, resistance to federal aid and health care mandates, taxpayer procedural protections, state accounting accuracy and transparency, opposition to sin taxes, and it goes on. Additionally, ALEC's research, such as Rich States, Poor States book, brings attention to where the economic climate is best and facilitates competition between jurisdictions.
I happen to be on the tax and fiscal task force—although admittedly a new member—and I have not supported any anti-liberty legislation. And yes, I have reviewed all the model bills that we will assess in Utah.
Assisting with model legislation, which still has to go through committees and get voted on in each state, does not undermine federalism. Many legislators and organizations, such as the one I work for, are eager for support to facilitate policies that favor state and local control. ALEC members offer support and networking for those who share the organization's mission, and the model bills can be amended or thrown out as state legislators see fit.
Perhaps you get a kick out of attacking anyone who seeks to engage in the political process, even if their goals really are greater freedom. Regardless, the members of ALEC (which include legislators, corporate representatives, and policy researchers such as me) do not deserve the characterization you give them.
What a weak defense of your organization.
Crony capitalism does not equal support for "greater freedom". Any organization that supports the types of policies which you didn't even try to defend deserves exactly the kind of treatment OP has given them.
Funny how greater privilege has become twisted into meaning greater freedom.
If a people and market are truly free, at liberty and advocate such, then why would either have to constantly keep going to a so-called higher authority to get permission and intervention to do what is claimed as being a natural consequence of market and voluntary action? Unless the truth is that it's really not. How is transforming negative rights to positive rights going to reduce the size and scope of gov't? How is a Hamiltonian monarchy going to allow Jeffersonian liberty?
"Crony capitalism." Please. The only two policies he specified were for immigration and IP enforcement. I would also oppose those policies—although they are not in my task force—but they are ones that divide even the libertarian community. They do not mean ALEC overall is an enemy of liberty.
If you want to attack organizations for working against liberty, going after ALEC is ridiculous. Ever heard of NCSL? Try them on for size.
My recent post Sloppy Science and Environmental Scaremongering
I have to be honest. I read the first few sentences of the post and completely lost interest.
I have exactly zero interest in babysitting middle-aged men and women in Congress or groups like ALEC.
I shouldn't have to.
Here's an idea I've had for some time which does an end run around all of that nonsense. It's a Constitutional Amendment through which Politicians and Judges can finally be held truly accountable. It addresses a number of foundational problems by applying the economic principle of profit and loss to our political system. If Politicians stand to lose something (besides just and election) they will make better (and fewer decisions)
You can find it here: parallelparty.blogspot.com
I hope you'll take a few minutes to give it a quick read. Please remember it's a work in progress. I'm trying to determine if there is any interest in such an idea.
Feel free to comment and tell others.
Thanks
"immigration and IP enforcement … divide even the libertarian community"
Yes, they do — into "libertarians" and "non-libertarians."
Structurally, ALEC is clearly a crony capitalist institution. It directly facilitates politicians passing laws on behalf of business interests. That's businesses using political rather than market means to increase their profits.
Regarding specific statist policies promoted by ALEC, their support for authoritarian criminal justice policies go beyond immigration. I apologize for not going into more detail on this point. Some of these policies are discussed here. http://www.thenation.com/article/162478/hidden-hi…
Furthermore, IP is not somehow tangential to ALEC. Protecting intellectual property monopolies is explicit in the mission of their International Relations Task Force.
To deny that ALEC is an institution complicit in crony capitalism, you must ignore their member corporations. Heavily subsidized behemoths like GE, CCA, Pfizer, and Exxon Mobil are all involved in ALEC. Even war profiteers like Northrop Grumman, which earns the vast majority of its profits through government contracts, are participants in ALEC.
As Kevin Carson has previously written at C4SS, "ALEC’s proposals represent “free enterprise” in much the same way that a chain gang from one of their “private” prisons represents “free assembly.”
Great job Nathan! It is sad to see corporatism defended as liberty by so many, it shows how much work we have to do.
I love the irony of ALEC giving out a Jefferson award, as if Jefferson would have supported them.