The left cannot let go of the notion that President Trump is in the process of destroying American democracy and creating some sort of dictatorship. A leading force behind this belief is the frequently cited book, How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Donald Ziblatt, two Harvard political science professors. They identify four “Key Indicators of Authoritarian Behavior.” Unsurprisingly, they find that Trump meets all four criteria. But the criteria are not helpful. They are loose enough that it would be easy to find that President Obama (and probably any president or presidential candidate) also met them, and the anti-Trump resistance also meets these criteria.
But what is more important is what is omitted. Probably the best-known study of the rise of dictatorship and the end of democracy is F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Hayek was a Nobel Prize-winning economist, but also an actual observer of the rise of Hitler. Indeed, the book was written while Hayek was an exile in England from Nazism. Thus, Hayek had both a theoretical understanding of government and personal experience with the end of democracy in Germany. Hayek’s point is simple: Economic control by the state greatly facilitates dictatorship.
Hayek may have overstated the point: apparently economic control by the state does not inevitably lead to dictatorship, but there is no doubt that economic control facilitates dictatorship. Levitsky and Ziblatt do not include any measure of economic power in their four factors or elsewhere in their book (there is no entry for “economics” in their index), and in their discussion of Venezuela they do not mention socialism as a contributing factor to the collapse of democracy in that sad country. They do indicate that in the 2012 election, Chavez “deployed the vast machinery of the government in its favor.” Of course, Chavez had control over this “vast machinery” exactly because he had socialized or nationalized much of the economy.
This is where Trump has exactly weakened any chance of dictatorship and an end to democracy. His appointees to both regulatory agencies and the courts have systematically weakened government control over the economy. Perhaps the most important weakening of government control with respect to democracy is the repeal of “net neutrality” rules by Trump’s FCC. Net neutrality gave the FCC strong control over the Internet. Control over the Internet is one of the major tools of dictatorships, and by eliminating net neutrality Trumps’ appointees have voluntarily given up a powerful tool which could have been used to weaken democracy.
Other Trump appointees have also worked hard to weaken government economic control. Trump in an Executive Order issued ten days after his inauguration called for the elimination of two regulations for each new regulation imposed, and for many other reductions in regulation. Naomi Rao at OMB has achieved this and more, and greatly reduced the number of new regulations. Government control over banks and the financial system, a powerful tool for government economic control, has been reduced by reforms to Dodd-Frank and the restructuring of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Had Obamacare been eliminated, as Trump wanted, another powerful tool of government control over a large fraction of the economy would have been removed, and anyway has been substantially weakened. Tax reductions have made it more difficult to weaponize the IRS, as was done in the previous administration. There is evidence that one of the first moves towards dictatorship is the limitation of gun ownership, and Trump has resisted calls for increased gun regulation.
Trump’s record is not perfect. Tariffs do give the government more power. Trump’s attacks on Amazon, apparently as an effort to punish the Washington Post, are inconsistent with press freedom, although these may lead to an efficient restructuring of the Post Office. But overall, it is clear that Obama moved us down the road toward serfdom, and Trump has led us a good way back towards freedom. Perhaps the University of Chicago Press should issue a new popular edition of Hayek’s classic.
Paul H. Rubin is the Dobbs Professor of Economics at Emory University. He held several senior regulatory positions in the Reagan Administration.
Interested in real economic insights? Want to stay ahead of the competition? Each weekday morning, E21 delivers a short email that includes E21 exclusive commentaries and the latest market news and updates from Washington. Sign up for the E21 Morning Ebrief.