The Distributive Model of Government: Evidence from the Confederate Constitution

Abstract

One of the well-established models of public choice is the distributive model of politics, which explains how narrow special interests are able to use the democratic political process to produce legislation for their own private benefit. Economic analysis of the problems of special interest politics is relatively recent,' suggesting that the problem may not have been recognized until recently.2 Higgs [8] notes that big government in the United States is a 20th century phenomenon, and carefully documents a shift in the dominant ideology in the progressive era prior to World War I that, he argues, set the stage for rampant government growth. Similarly, Anderson and Hill [1] trace the birth of the transfer society back to the 1877 Munn v. Illinois case that allowed the Illinois legislature to regulate grain elevator rates. Hughes [ 11], on the other hand, argues that Americans have always had the governmental habit, and that special interest programs have always been produced by the federal government. These two theses are not necessarily inconsistent: a trickle of special interest legislation in the 19th century might have set the stage for rampant government growth in the 20th century.3 The existence of pork-barrel politics in the late 20th century is beyond question, but there is a legitimate question about when it began, and about whether it is a direct result of the design of government specified in the U.S. Constitution. If problems of special interest politics began with Munn v. Illinois, as Anderson and Hill [1] suggest, or during the progressive era, as argued by Higgs [8], then the question arises regarding why the same fundamental political structure did not produce pork-barrel programs until then. However, this paper finds evidence in the Constitution of the Confederate States of America that special interest problem was well-recognized before the Civil War. The design of the Confederate Constitution makes it apparent that one of the fun-