The common theme was protesting what many see as the government’s overreaching in terms of taxation and spending, but also, and perhaps even more important and too little stressed—the erosion of values that have been at the core of American life since they were fought for and won during the American Revolution. Instead of the free market commanding the economic heights with its emphasis on consumer choice, competitive prices and profit-seeking, they see a shift to government control and industrial policy dictating the nation’s commerce. Instead of self-reliance, a traditional work ethic and personal accountability, the tea party protesters see a shift to rent seeking (the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution) and moral hazard (the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk).
Alexis de Toqueville, in his seminal “Democracy in America,” worried that democracy might lead to a tyranny of the majority—a tyranny of “all over all,” which might result when the people seek to use government to protect them in their mediocrity by restricting the freedom of any who might challenge or endanger them. This could lead to a kind of sterile suffocation of talents or ambitions, he feared, and the utter surrender of freedom in exchange for equality. “The nations of our day cannot prevent conditions of equality from spreading in their midst,” wrote de Toqueveille, “But it depends upon themselves whether equality is to lead to freedom or servitude, knowledge or barbarism, prosperity or wretchedness.”
One senses de Toqueville would sympathize with the tea parties.
