Dan Lufkin Misses the Boat

Business and Society Review

Fall 1975, No. 15

A review of Many Sovereign States by Dan Lufkin

David McKay & Co., New York City. $7.95

Mr. Lufkin’s strongest view is that state government, because it is closer to individual citizens and therefore more responsive to them, is a better place for addressing social problems than the federal government.  Yet he says that for a good part of this century the states have “slept the dreamless sleep,” that they have been “ill-prepared” to cope with urban problems, and that they have been shrouded with a “pall of mediocrity and impotency,” terms which suggest a certain lack of responsiveness.  He apparently believes that the pall has now been lifted and the states awakened from their sleep primarily because of court-ordered reapportionment.  But we are not told why this should make the states more responsive in any broad sense.  Even now, Mr. Lufkin writes, the states have failed to enact “progressive social legislation” or realistic taxing policies” and have neglected their large cities.  Moreover, revisions of state constitutions have frequently been rejected:

“Dominant forces in state legislatures have viewed with alarm the economic, cultural, and social changes sweeping over them with increasing force…[and have] attempted to use the state constitution as a dike to hold back the inevitable ocean of change.”

Since Mr. Lufkin obviously regards these omissions as bad rather than good, it is difficult to square them with his view that a state legislature’s greatest strength is its responsiveness to the voters.  Of course, it could be that these omissions are examples of state “responsiveness” because they are precisely what the voters want, but then it is hard to see why Mr. Lufkin regards these omissions as unfortunate.

One of the reasons Mr. Lufkin prefers state government is that it is less vulnerable to influence by special interests.  But it is far from clear that the states are freer of organized economic influences than the federal government.  The state statute books overflow with special deals for every conceivable interest group, and I had always thought this was precisely because state government was “closer to” and “more responsive to” the electorate.  Ironically, one of Mr. Lufkin’s favorite quotations is Louis Brandeis’s famous passage from his dissent in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, about how “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”  In the name of novel economic experimentation, Justice Brandeis would have permitted Oklahoma to lend its political power for the private economic gain of established ice companies (and the private economic loss of consumers) by preventing anyone from selling ice in competition with the established companies.  Under present constitutional doctrine, Justice Brandeis’s would be the majority opinion.  The state (and federal) legislatures are today entirely unrestrained in their freedom to confer economic benefits on politically effective groups, and this kind of responsiveness is one important reason why state government remains in such low repute with ordinary citizens. 

The ambiguity of Mr. Lufkin’s approach pervades his discussion of the book’s central topic: environmental control.  The first chapter argues that national environmental standards are necessary to prevent industries from avoiding strict state standards: “with everyone conforming to federal standards, there is no escape—no place to hide.”  Yet, a few pages on, we are told that “there are too many hiding places in the federal bureaucracy.  But, on the local level, there is no place to hide.  The lake or river must be cleaned or some bureaucrat’s neighbors are going to toss him out of office…”   Presumably the bureaucrats in question have no industrialists for neighbors.  In Connecticut, industry made “substantial economic sacrifices” to meet the state’s vigorous enforcement of air and water quality standards—and they did it “for the good of all, including industry.”

Now, these are matters of the highest importance.  The available evidence suggests that the existing schemes of air and water pollution control administered by the Environmental Protection Agency and the state agencies have resulted in expenditures of many hundreds of millions of dollars and have produce little results.  Has Connecticut really done much better than other states?  And is it true that the states cannot enforce environmental controls vigorously because industry will move elsewhere?  Mr. Lufkin does not answer these questions.

The stories of his adventures as director of Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection, highly entertaining and informative, are by far the best parts of his book.  We are told with great enthusiasm how citizen committees, professional groups, bureaucrats, and imported Harvard graduate students were mobilized to draft Connecticut’s “Clean Air Plan.”  The effort was a success because…the plan was approved and submitted on time!  Except for one aside, there is no mention at all of the degree to which the plan has been implemented, how much it has cost, or how much it has actually reduced air pollution.  We hear of Minnesota’s “spectacular” results in harnessing private enterprise: One hundred businessmen spent six months drafting 138 recommendations which will save the state $75 million a year.  Again, no results are shown.  I suppose one answer to my complaint is that it is just too soon to tell, that if everyone will just stop carping and put their shoulders together and work hard the plans are bound to succeed.  But I doubt that Dan Lufkin, investment banker, would be satisfied with such an answer. 

Perhaps it is unfair to treat this book with such scrutiny.  Mr. Lufkin is a businessman and politician (in the highest sense of both terms), not a political scientist or economist.  Twenty years from now we may know that he did more as a practicing politician to restore the states to an effective role in our federal system than an army of activist authors could have.  Still, arguments about the proper role of government in our society, and the proper roles of the various federal levels, are too often stated in an offhand, anecdotal manner.  Those who share Mr. Lufkin’s political inclinations (I am one) need all the allies they can get.  But I doubt that his book will convince anyone who is not already convinced.