Voters will decide next week which leaders will oversee North Carolina state government in 2009. As candidates have been touting their goals, the John Locke Foundation offered its own suggestions in the biennial report, Agenda 2008. Dr. Roy Cordato, JLF Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar, discussed the agenda and its guiding principles with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Martinez: Roy, why do principles matter, and what differences do they make?
Cordato: Of course, policy that’s guided by no principles – I don’t really think there is such a thing, actually, if people say they’re non-ideological; there are always principles, some set of principles under the surface driving public policy – but what we should look for in public policy is a coherence. Our government, our country, was founded on a set of principles. Our Constitution is a guiding rudder in terms of the application of those principles. That’s not only the U.S. Constitution, but the North Carolina Constitution. And so, policy without principle is just ad hoc.
Martinez: What happens when we deviate from the principles you just described in the U.S. Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution?
Cordato: I think that, first of all, we are deviating from the traditions of America. And what I think has made America great – which is freedom and personal responsibility, individual liberty, free markets, the things you just mentioned – those are moral principles. But they’re also great principles for prosperity, wealth creation, making people better off, and they can be used to guide pretty much everything the state and federal government does in public policy making, and should be used to guide those policies.
Martinez: In fact, Roy, those principles are woven throughout this new policy report called Agenda 2008. Let’s talk about how they are woven into the different categories – things like the state budget or education. Let’s talk about limited government. What does that really mean, and how can it be applied?
Cordato: First of all, I want to point out that we’ve been putting this out since 1996, so this is our 12th report; it’s every two years. Limited government, the purpose of it, isn’t to limit government per se, but it’s to maximize freedom. The biggest encroacher on people’s individual liberty is government. So our purpose for limiting government in all the areas we’re talking about – the state budget, which is spending and taxation, and economic development policy and education policy and so on – by limiting government, what we are doing is maximizing freedom. When we maximize freedom we unleash creativity, we unleash entrepreneurship, and we essentially make the state wealthier and the citizens happier.
Martinez: Agenda 2008 also focuses on free markets.
Cordato: That’s right. Again, it’s hard to separate any of these things. Free markets cannot exist in an environment of unlimited power. The idea of a free market is that there is a clear distinction between what the state does and what is in the private sector, and what private citizens do. And in that situation, the role of the state basically is to set basic rules, enforce property rights – another point you mentioned – and then step back and allow people to purse profit opportunities, to allow consumers to buy what they want, when they want, where they want, and at the lowest price they can get.
Martinez: What about the principle of property rights?
Cordato: All of this hinges on property rights, because the opposite of a system based on property rights is communism and socialism. And ‘property rights’ is really a misnomer. It’s human rights with respect to property. Property doesn’t have rights – unless you’re an extreme environmentalist who thinks trees have rights and the earth has rights – but that’s absolutely silly. People make a statement – human rights, not property rights – that’s silly. We are talking about humans’ rights to use and work with and enjoy the material part of our world. That is so important; that’s what freedom is all about. You cannot have any kind of freedom whatsoever without the right to use property.
Martinez: Importantly, Agenda 2008 focuses on the issue, the principle, of personal responsibility.
Cordato: Of course, that’s the flipside of all of this. We’re not looking at unlimited freedom. Freedom has responsibility in the sense that my freedom ends where yours begins, and it’s famously said [that] my right to swing my arm ends at the tip of your nose. Well, of course that’s the case. And my responsibility and the state’s responsibility, too, is not to violate people’s rights and freedoms, but to [allow them to] pursue their goals within the context of trying to maximize people’s liberty, and not to trample on them.
Martinez: Let’s talk about how these principles can manifest themselves and, in fact, do manifest themselves into public policy. For example, you mentioned economic development. How would the principles you’re talking about apply to economic development? Because candidly, there are a lot of people who believe that government should take a very active and muscular role in trying to bring jobs to the state, for example.
Cordato: That’s right. Basically the model that the state of North Carolina is pursuing is a central-planning model. Their view is [that] it is the state’s role to manipulate the economy, to funnel subsidies to favored businesses and groups to bring specific groups in. But what all economics show is [that] if you want true economic development – and I like to say what we should pursue is not economic development; that almost has a socialist tinge to it – we want you to pursue economic growth. That is, maximizing the welfare of all, and not simply grabbing resources from one sector of the economy and then using them as subsidies to bring in a business from out of state. That is simply penalizing the hardworking people of North Carolina to benefit a smaller group.
Martinez: Agenda 2008 also covers education, a very controversial subject in North Carolina.
Cordato: Yes. In the area of education, we believe, again, in trying to apply principles of freedom. One of our big goals is to expand the charter school system – school choice in North Carolina. We have a cap on charter schools. So one of the proposals that comes out in Agenda 2008, and has for a number of years now, is to lift that cap. In fact, we would argue to get rid of it completely. It’s 100 schools. We’ve maxed out on it, but there are a lot of people across the state anxious to have alternatives. And so again, allow parents to exercise freedom with respect to where their kids can go.