The current presidential election in Turkey exemplifies a characteristic phenomenon of politics that is not absent from the American scene: unbridled political competition is the not ultra of the proverbial race to the bottom. As the main opposition candidate tries to defeat Turkish populist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the FinancialTimes reports (“Turkey’s ‘desperate’ opposition plays the nationalist card», May 20, 2023):
It marked the start of a makeover for Turkey’s main opposition candidate, whose campaign shifted from speeches about spring, images of cherry trees and heart-shaped emojis to belligerent speeches promising to drive out millions of immigrants. …
A Turkish journalist says:
When politicians in Turkey fail or need quick results, they play the nationalist card.
Compare the policy and the market. The unbridled competition in the market leads to the production of whatever anyone, however small their minority, is willing to pay for. Unbridled political competition produces whatever groups that are powerful enough and can be imposed on someone else. In politics, you win by fighting to the bottom of the barrel.
Nothing is perfect, of course, but imperfect freedom is better than imperfect tyranny.
The crucial question is whether political competition can realistically be “constitutionally” limited. We can interpret the work of James Buchanan Or Frederic Hayek as major attempts to provide a positive response. The crucial and underappreciated work of Antoine deJasay suggests a negative answer (see also his Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy and Order (Routledge, 1997).