Post No.: 0847
Furrywisepuppy says:
Aristotle, who was born in 384 BCE, classified 6 types of political regime according to who governs and who benefits from this governance, in an attempt to identify, on normative grounds, what might be the ideal constitution. These types are – tyranny (one person governs, few people benefit), oligarchy (few people govern, few people benefit), democracy (many people govern, few people benefit), monarchy (one person governs, everybody benefits), aristocracy (few people govern, everybody benefits), and polity (many people govern, everybody benefits). Although perhaps presenting far too simple a picture for modern eyes – the fact that we still use all of these categories or terms today shows us how much this classification has been influential in political science and philosophy.
For Aristotle, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy are undesirable forms of government because they govern for their own interests. Voters in a democracy each vote for their own interests, and then the majority wins at the expense of the minority and their interests (human rights may afford everybody a minimum basic level of rights that no majority should be able to override though). Not everyone can vote in a democracy anyway, like children. And unless voting is compulsory, the enfranchised with the most to gain are normally the most active voters.
The ‘sociological imagination’ in the field of sociology encourages us to stand back from a situation and see it from a dispassionate distance; by parking our own beliefs to one side, as best as possible. So we may like living in a democracy but this might also be because we benefit from doing so. But do all other citizens benefit from it in the same way (e.g. those with minority views who obviously cannot win by a majority to ever directly get their way).
Regarding compulsory voting – some countries, like Australia at present, make it illegal for their enfranchised to not vote in elections. They thus have higher rates of voter turnout. Does this necessarily make their governments more legitimate though? Well we must be careful about the naturalistic fallacy when assuming what is (a higher participation in this case) necessarily means what ought to be (what’s normatively required to make a democracy more legitimate). Democracy is far more than about voting once every few years too so should activities like submitting evidence to select committees, attending committee meetings and petitioning be made compulsory too? People may also need to be forced to watch the news regularly in order for their vote to be well-informed – especially if voting is compulsory.
Meanwhile, monarchy and aristocracy are considered unrealistic because they require those who govern to put the State’s interests before their own, and Aristotle didn’t have that much faith in humans to do so for the long term! This left polity (or politeia) as his preferred choice, where many people govern and everybody should benefit. Still, he recognised that people would soon resent the wealth of the few and fall too easily for demagogues, whose control over the population is based on their ability to incite hysterical enthusiasm. In the end, Aristotle personally preferred a mixed system of rule that incorporated democratic and aristocratic principles so that the middle class controlled State affairs since they were neither the richest nor poorest.
John Locke, another philosopher, who lived from 1632 to 1704, and who is often regarded as the ‘father of liberalism’, believed that humans can be entrusted to be rational, and so the only purpose of the State is to enforce contracts between individuals. Liberals do consent to living in a society governed by law, and the purpose of this law is to guarantee that freedom or liberty is conceived or protected in its widest sense.
Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, which was written in 1651 as the English Civil War was coming to an end, meanwhile, believed that humans are inherently selfish and violent in nature, thus the purpose of the State is to curb these traits in order to enable a civil society. Moreover, if people desired a civil society and were, you could say, rational, they should consent to such a governmental authority.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a philosopher who lived between 1712 and 1778 during the latter period of the Enlightenment, fundamentally disagreed with the development of capitalism during this period, and in particular the privatisation of previously communal land. This predates the collectivist arguments of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which were reactions to the Industrial Revolution and the inherently exploitative nature of the mode of production; although it postdates Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516, which was maybe one of the earliest texts that could be considered part of the socialist canon. (For an expanded discussion on the topic of utopias – read Post No.: 0839.) Rousseau believed that human nature was genial but that this state doesn’t last for long because people will start to enclose pieces of land whilst claiming, “This is mine!” (with enough other people simple enough to believe them) hence destroying the harmonious state of nature. Private property, he argued, drives a wedge between the love that mankind has for one another and ends up dividing people. In words that Marx strongly disagreed with however, Rousseau took this argument further to say that if any individual disagrees with the ‘general will’, they must necessarily be mistaken and be ‘forced to be free’, as it were.
These divergent ideologies present a few contrasting ‘social contract’ concepts. Although this is only one dimension – these stances represent different optimisms or pessimisms towards human nature. Relatedly, they also present different beliefs regarding whether nature or nurture is more influential upon the behaviours of people. If nurture is more influential then maybe it’s sufficient to educate everyone to be better people – or if it needs more, or everyone’s fuzzy nature is unsavoury and cannot change, then we’ll need to intervene and regulate people’s behaviours. Science says that, overall, both nature and nurture shape people’s attitudes and behaviours. Philosophy and politics then attempt to justify what we ought to do about knowing such findings.
We will probably perpetually disagree about whether individuals take priority over groups. We will also probably forever disagree about whether those born with advantages should keep their head starts in life or those born with disadvantages should be brought forwards to level out the starting line for all.
The key elements of liberalism arguably include individualism (the individual is prioritised over the group, groups aren’t greater than the sum of their parts, and the purpose of politics is to create a society in which humans can develop in their own individual ways to the best of their own individual abilities); freedom (in the sense of negative liberty, or the freedom from external restraints upon one’s actions, yet not in an anarchistic way but a ‘freedom under the law’ way); and reason (the faith in humans to make rational judgements and choices, and the belief that humans prefer progressive and peaceful debate over that of war and bloodshed).
Other key elements of liberalism perhaps include equality (of opportunity, with the assumption that all individuals are born equal, not in terms of their abilities but by virtue of being human, alongside the assumption that society becomes a meritocracy); toleration (if all individuals are born equal then we ought to tolerate their individual differences too, via the freedom of speech, religion and so forth in a multicultural society); and consent and constitutionalism (all forms of relationship must be based upon the consent of those involved).
The key elements of conservatism possibly include preserving tradition (your elders know better than you because the long-standing ways must be safe since they’ve been tried-and-tested for this long, although it can sometimes require radical change in order to ‘return to these past ways’); pragmatism (what works should continue only until it is considered to no longer work, although for whom e.g. those in power or the poorest?); and human imperfection (humans are flawed from birth thus any new ideas they develop will therefore also be flawed, hence the need for a powerful State with tough laws to govern and control an inherently corrupt society).
Other key elements of conservatism maybe include organicism (families, groups and the nation are prioritised over the individual, along with the belief that there should be a shared and common culture for all, as opposed to diversity); hierarchy and authority (although the group is more important than the individual, there are nevertheless different roles and classes within it, and those who are at or rise to the top of society deserve to be there and vice-versa, and inequalities and inequities are considered to be a natural part of society); and property (the private ownership of property gives people freedom from the government and rewards people’s merits).
The key elements of socialism contestably include community (the community is prioritised above all because human beings share a common humanity with each other, and the ‘rational individual’ makes no sense because people’s ideas and values are learned only in the context of their community); fraternity (cooperation is vital because ‘we’re all in it together’ and the group is greater than the sum of its parts, whereas competition only breeds mistrust, resentment and hostility); and social equality (of outcome rather than mere opportunity because some people start races with unearned and undeserved advantages over others due to inheritance or fortune, although how far this equality should be enacted is hugely contentious amongst different socialists e.g. social democrats, democratic socialists and Marxists).
Other key elements of socialism probably include need (from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs, thus who gets what depends on their needs, and everyone should be guaranteed at least the basic necessities in order to enjoy a worthwhile existence and have the ability to participate in social life); social class (the exploitation of the working class by the upper class, expressed via capitalism, ought to be minimised or eliminated, from via the form of trade unions fighting for better employment conditions and pay in the struggle for workers’ interests, to taking more militant approaches at the extreme (which is to say that we mustn’t conflate the militarism of the Stalinist and Maoist regimes with socialism as an ideology)); and common ownership (from the nationalisation of health and transport services and national power grids at one level, to Soviet-style State collectivisation at the extreme (which is to say that we mustn’t conflate totalitarianism or authoritarianism with socialism either), in order to enable the distribution of material resources to all).
This post has set forth only a brief overview of a handful of different possible ways to govern a population, according to a few influential historical thinkers on the subject. There seems to be no perfect way to govern a nation, or we just haven’t figured out a way to please all of the people all of the time yet…
Woof.
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