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James V. DeLong

Ending 'Big SIS' (The Special Interest State) and Renewing the American Republic Paperback – May 23, 2012

by James V DeLong (Author), David Strong (Illustrator)

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"Ending Big SIS (The Special Interest State) and Renewing the American Republic" is a stern look at the current crisis in politics and government. The surface problems are known to all: uncontrolled spending; exploding debt; legal and regulatory absurdity; imperious bureaucracy; misdirected investment; and crippled private businesses and institutions. But these are actually symptoms, not basic problems. They cannot be cured until we face up to a deep crack in the structure of our political institutions. We have allowed special interest groups of all kinds – the Founders of the republic called them “factions” – to capture segments of the government and then use its sovereign powers to tax, legislate, spend, and regulate to promote their own agendas rather than the interests of the nation as a whole. Indeed, we celebrate capture. We assume that this jockeying for governmental advantage is part of democracy, and that somehow it will all work out. But it will not work out, because too many interests have won too much over too long a period. Our institutions, which were designed to make government act slowly, make it impossible to reverse course, especially because the winning interests support politicians who will block reform. In fact, the problems will worsen, as ever-more groups demand a share of the pie. The Founders regarded capture by faction as a threat to the existence of the republic, using, in the words of one historian, “a dreadful image of a spreading rot” of a cancer eating at the vitals of the body politic. They were right, and American politics is approaching the day when the very legitimacy of the government will come into question. The book assesses the fears of the Founders, how their ideas governed our political arrangements for 150 years, and the rise of the special interest state in the 20th century. It analyzes the powerful forces that uphold Big SIS, and closes with some specific suggestions on how to reverse course. From the book: The Founders’ view: Like architects analyzing the lines of force necessary to prevent the collapse of a building, the Founders focused on making the forces of factional passion neutralize each other, thus keeping the republic standing. (p.2) Effect on other institutions: The leverage exerted by Big SIS affects decisions far beyond the money that it commandeers directly. It distorts the incentive structures throughout society, and sends investors and workers skittering off in unproductive directions. (p.91) The ratchet: Big SIS [is a ratchet that allows] motion in one direction only – toward greater government activism -- and then locks. (p.112) Rational ignorance: As more rules are created, and as complexity and opacity grow, it becomes more difficult to be “well-informed”. The rational response is not to increase one’s efforts but to cut them back, becoming even less diligent in seeking knowledge. 9p.119) Rapacity: The interest gets the benefits while the costs are borne by society at large, so there is “no constraint on the social cost such an organization will find it expedient to impose on society in the course of obtaining a larger share of the social output for itself.” (p.120) True Greens: [T]he strongest clients of the True Green agencies would regard shutting down most industry as a worthy sacrifice to Gaia. (p.146) Motivations: The power motive is as strong as the profit motive and is usually more destructive. (p.178) Legitimacy: A dire consequence of a government’s loss of legitimacy: in a crisis, people do not step up to defend it. . . . Lenin said that the Bolsheviks did not seize power in 1917; they found it lying in the gutter and picked it up. (p.168)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Ending 'Big SIS'"...is that rarest of books, the kind which tells you things you've long suspected about big government but had never systematically put together.... Whether the present is up to the task [of keeping the Republic] is an open question.... And there is no better guide for understanding it...."
-- Belmont Club (PJMedia)

"Big-SIS is a bloated and obnoxious bully. In this superb volume Jim DeLong bracingly documents her nastiness, and prescribes a strict regimen to improve her constitution." -- Donald Boudreaux (Professor of Economics, George Mason University)

"A major contribution to understanding the reality of what is going on...powerful, well-written, and very important." -- Carter Lord (Executive & Entrepreneur)

"Ending 'Big SIS'"...is that rarest of books, the kind which tells you things you've long suspected about big government but had never systematically put together.... Whether the present is up to the task [of keeping the Republic] is an open question.... And there is no better guide for understanding it...."
-- Belmont Club (PJMedia)

"Big Sis treats the reader to Jim DeLong's historical and political brilliance applied to today's client state....the author erases any question that . . .[our] system of government [is] diametrically opposed to the Founders' design of checks and balances."
-- Property Rights Foundation of America

From the Author

Some quotations from the book:

+ [T]he experience of the twentieth century . . . shows that removing all checks on government power does not result in wise rule by disinterested mandarins. It produces . . . "an unstructured, undisciplined, exploitive interest group free-for-all". (p.189)

+ Big SIS [is a ratchet that allows] motion in one direction only - toward greater government activism -- and then locks. . . (p.112)

+ Reading contemporary [judicial] opinions on government power is like making an archaeological dig into the intellectual ruins of the political thinking of the 1930s, if not the 1910s. (p.186)

+ [T]he great tides of history are moral and spiritual, and these can sweep away many structures once thought solid. As the Tea Party movement shows, our classic ability for justified moral outrage is asserting itself again. (p.192)

+ The leverage exerted by Big SIS affects decisions far beyond the money that it commandeers directly. It distorts the incentive structures throughout society, and sends investors and workers skittering off in unproductive directions. (p.91)

+ The genius of a republic is its blend of limited government and autonomous private institutions that most emphatically do not mimic the government's response to special-interest pressures. (p.175)

+ In surveying the landscape of government, you find everywhere this pattern of broad, vague laws implemented by detailed regulations that impose murky costs on the private sector, with little attention to rational assessments of costs, benefits, or effectiveness. (p.119)

+ Special-interest greed takes many forms. While everyone is familiar with the concept of capture of agencies by those with an economic interest, ideology equals money as a motivator. (p.121)

+ The representatives earn their money by being unreasonable, and justify themselves by a professional ethic that binds them to demand things for their clients that no decent person would demand for herself. (p.121)

+ Pretty much wherever government has asserted the old Progressive/New Deal/Great Society need for total control of some segment of the society or economy, the ground has been sown with salt. (p.164)

+ We are at a point of constitutional crisis, and this is all to the good. Only in such times does the public pay enough attention to assert its true long-term interest. (p.192)

Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (May 23, 2012)
Language : English
Paperback : 252 pages
ISBN-10 : 147000626X
ISBN-13 : 978-1470006266
Item Weight : 10.6 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.57 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #7,732,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,629 in United States National Government

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a true conservative

Extremely interesting approach

Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2013

Verified Purchase

After an interesting and somewhat unique analysis of the causes of the problems/issues our society faces today the author actually proposes actions that could resolve major concerns. Nothing easy about it but well thought out. Those who think big government provides solutions to problems will likely be put off by the authors analysis. However if you believe that the present welfare state is not the answer, you will find this analysis of how we got to where we are very much on point.

Well intended programs leading up to the present situation started long ago and are only apparent in retrospect.

One person found this helpful

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Red123matt

This book makes you think!

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book is filled with thoughtful insight about the biggest problem facing our country right now (next to obesity in my opinion). Much of the information is common sense, but the author does a great job of putting it together in a format that is easily readable and digestable. You can arm yourself with great information for those debates you want to have with your big government friends but never knew how to do it. It's always good to have a reminder to follow the money to the power. Thanks for this great insight!
Matt Elledge

One person found this helpful

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Chipster521

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book answers the question "What's going wrong with our country?"

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Blue Ridge

A Must Read

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2012

Verified Purchase

"Ending Big Sis and Renewing the American Republic" explains how "out of control" government suffocates economic growth and corrodes liberty. Most important, it tells us what we need to do to get our nation back on track. This book is a must read for everyone who wants to understand how private interests hijack government power for their own benefit and how the people can fight back.

4 people found this helpful

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The Constructive Critic

Past the point of no return on the road to serfdom?

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2012

James V. DeLong's Ending 'Big SIS' (The Special Interest State) and Renewing the American Republic is a non-fiction horror story, one that should outrage every reader. A reader must be impervious facts and logic if he gets very far into "Big SIS" without grasping the direness of America's present condition.

What is that condition? It is enslavement (not too strong a word) to the regulatory state. DeLong does an admirable job of describing the growth and entrenchment of the regulatory state (chapter 2). But the most compelling parts of his thoroughly factual narrative arrive with his documentation of the costs of the regulatory state and his enumeration of example after example of its lunacies. If you have a visceral feeling that government in the United States has become entirely too intrusive in its methods and perverse in its results, DeLong's book will confirm that feeling and give you plenty of weapons with which to refute those who believe in government as a disinterested, omniscient force for good.

If chapters 2 and 3 outrage you, as they should, surely chapter 4 will depress you. There, DeLong enumerates and explicates the many reasons that the regulatory state's death grip on America is unlikely to be loosened. DeLong holds out some hope for change in chapter 5, where he discusses many ways in which the death-grip might be loosened.

But I am less sanguine than DeLong seems to be about the possible efficacy of his proposed counter-measures. The forces that DeLong describes in chapter 4 are likely to prove too strong to be defeated in gentlemanly fashion. In the end, it may well come to non-gentlemanly counter-measures, something along the lines of a new Declaration of Independence from the imperial state that has arisen in Washington.

If it does come to that, DeLong's catalog of imperial acts and their vile consequences would serve splendidly as a replacement for the original Declaration's enumeration of King George III's "repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny."

One person found this helpful

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S. Singleton

Gets at really fundamental issues with political process

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2012

This book gets to the heart of what is driving the growth of the federal deficit and popular skepticism about the press and the political process. The author describes how special interests have come to control Congress, the White House, Administrative Agencies, and other powers that be. These factions, everyone from banks to environmentalists, big business to the AARP, are driving the growth of the deficit and a nasty legal tangle of loopholes, rules, and privileges. But who can blame them? As long as the government is in the business of handing out privileges, it is in everyone's interests--in the *short* run--to get in line. In the long run, the republic is on a course that cannot be sustained. After running some history and supplying a lot of pithy current examples, the author closes with some ideas for practical reforms, offering guidance on what battles those concerned with reform had best focus their resources on.

This books stands out for the following reasons:
--It takes good-natured digs at both parties, and everyone involved in the current process--but it is not mean-spirited in the least. In the end, the author offers hope that ordinary people really can turn the system around.
--It looks at the long run. Too much public policy in this country is driven by people thinking no further ahead than the next election.
--The author really knows his history and economics. The end-notes are impressive. But there's no academic jargon, and the author doesn't take ten pages when one paragraph will do.
--The author is interested in rules and systems--not personalities or scapegoats. It is easy to think that things are going wrong because the guys on the other side are just wicked people. But they are really a lot like you and me...

I recommend this book for anyone really interested in the economic future of the children and grandchildren.

One person found this helpful

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