The Word “Interest” Smuggles a Communist Revolution into US Case Law

The term “interest” is not in the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, or Ku Klux Klan Act. But it shows up in Trump v. Anderson, and the concept of “strict scrutiny”. It’s rise in US case law mirrors the popularity of communist thought.

The word “interest” in US case law, disguises a communist structural change as an outcome preference.

An “interest” conflates an outcome preference, with the jurisdiction of a collective decision-maker who is assumed to serve that preference. It involves:
1) a preference
2) a mirage that a collective decision-maker is more virtuous serving that preference
3) an “interest” in this imagined social mind usurping jurisdiction

An “interest” contains the implicit mirage that a social decision-making scheme serves public interests better than distributed decision-makers coordinated by prices and laws. So tribal leaders are legally justified to usurp who decides what, to better serve preferences.

Congress could hold a unanimous vote, declaring that it would be nice if everyone had a big house.

Congress could hold a separate vote that the government must seize all land, to build housing.

Implicit in the second vote, is the idea that government provides housing better than the free market does. (Government under social influence would better coordinate labor and other resources to provide housing, than private decision-makers under price signals would.)

It implies that because 1) we would like for everyone to have a nice house, and 2) we assume that government employees under social influence are more virtuous than greedy businessman supervised by price signals and legal boundaries, then 3) government must have a right to decide how land is used.

Rather than seize all land, Congress could hold a politically more palatable vote, that local administrators can seize any houses they need to — from unpopular people as politically expedient — to make sure police have good enough housing to solve crime. Since government has historically done everything from regulating ferries to quartering soldiers, the vague language of the Constitution implies this particular detail that government can “regulate” property to produce public benefits.

Then the Supreme Court could say this law doesn’t violate the Constitution, because there is a uniquely important public interest that police have a place to live.

This particular ruling implies that the interest of police having housing is better served by government seizing property and giving it to them, than government collecting income taxes and paying police who then get housing from private parties. But a ruling could just as easily imply that local social factions decide who should be punished better than juries, or that states deciding who is on their President ballot doesn’t serve some interest.

Implicit in such rulings, is the idea that a particular decision-making system is more virtuous, and therefore more likely to serve the preference. The ruling assumes this preference won’t be served urgently unless society is rationally ordered in a communist utopia. Or assumes there is no practical reason for giving the decision to the current decision-maker, whether states or juries or businessmen or whoever.

Once you assume police are more virtuous than ordinary citizens, then the way to serve preferences is to move more decisions to police. Once police are assumed to serve preferences more virtuously, the interest in serving preferences is conflated with a right to move decisions to police. So an interest in an outcome equates to an legal right to move the decision to the more virtuous decision-maker.

To say the structural change of how decisions are allocated is legal because of an “interest” in fulfilling a preference, implies that collective decision-making through social influence better coordinates resources to serve the needs of strangers than distributed decision-making under incentives of prices and legal boundaries.

“Interests” are used as a reason to move decisions to executive-branch discretion. This hides the real argument which is not that solving crime is good or government has a right to, but that police discretion under political regulation is more cost-effective than juries.

So an interest in doing good, translates to a legal right to move all decisions to government under regulation by social influence. This ignores the problems that distributed decision-making solves, to say distributed decision-makers and checks and balances don’t produce virtuous outcomes, so that because we want to do good we must give all decisions to police.