The welcome death of Gaddafi last week – and the unchecked, frantic killings by Bashir al-Assad - may bring us once more to reflect on the difference between dictatorship and democracy. Politics is said to be all about power. Democracy harnesses power; dictatorship monopolizes it. Gaddafi's death just as Tunisians went to the urns this weekend illustrate the span. Monopolize power or share it.
Yet the meaning of power remains elusive. Power is what it takes to deal with widespread conflict, public disagreement that is not easily otherwise resolved by compromise. The French say “trancher”, literally “slice through” a problem, as with a butcher's knife or an axe (Norwegians say the same, “skjære igjennom”) where compromise is unavailable. All societies have to find methods to handle public disagreement. In one way or another, all thinkable solutions involve what may be called the principles of (a) hierarchy and (b) unity. The principle of hierarchy says the top leader decides. The principle of unity says only one hierarchy is allowed; the domain in which decisionmaking applies must be preserved.
Complete hierarchy places all members of society in a rank order of levels where decisions for each level is made by the levels above, and one individual or small group at the top is the ultimate decisionmaker. China today is one example, Iran another, Burma a third. Within given functional areas sub-hierarchies may exist, like Chinese state-owned companies often posing as commercial ventures.
Nevertheless, hierarchies may be more or less complete or stringent. Dictatorships strive for complete hierarchy. But even democracies are hierarchies! All societies have to decide public disagreements; there is not room for everyone to participate in the making of every decision. Perfect democracy is a chimera. Democracies are always to some extent hierarchical, in that they define which representative assemblies and other publicly controlled bodies shall make which kinds of decisions, and prevent unauthorized decisions. Hence, although democracies strive for minimal hierarchy, they are not anarchical; they insist on the need for government to be given a mandate to make decisions for all. Implied here is also the legitimacy principle, the requirement that all must accept the decisions made, even if they disagree.
Here is where Greece makes a mockery of their own ancient invention – they elect a parliament and then take to the streets for months on end to oppose the parliament's decisions. And the Greek parliamentarians respond by similar betrayals, by increasing their own salaries while cutting everyone else's, and (most recently) by voting themselves new state-funded cars (!) after deciding on increased austerity for the citizens. (http://www.grreporter.info/en/greek_parliamentarians_privileges/5216 )
Here is where the opening for grey areas and sham democracy appears – like Iran's and Russia's circumscribed democratic systems, or even Gaddafi's “green socialism” run by “people's committees” without any decisionmaking authority.
Here is also where the unity principle enters: The legitimate right to make decisions for a society includes a prohibition against mass escape. If you disagree, you cannot just take part of the country with you and leave, setting up shop for yourself. This was Lincoln's defense against the Southern secession 150 years ago. Provided you or your ancestors have agreed to a voluntary federation, you cannot just leave. (If you were forcibly annexed, like the Baltics in 1940, it's a different matter.)
The ingeniously simple formulation by Albert O. Hirschmann (1970) comes to mind: Exit, Voice or Loyalty. In every economic or political project, party, association, company - even nations - disaffected members (customers, affiliates, citizens) have three choices – they can leave (exit), they can complain (voice), or they can shut up, stay put and be loyal. National governments, of course, insist on unity along with hierarchy. That is why governments of hierarchically run countries with centrifugal forces (e.g. China or Russia) refuse to let the UN Security Council endorse humanitarian intervention in places like Syria (though they stepped aside by abstention to allow the Libyan intervention, a decision in hindsight not likely to be repeated any time soon).
That is also why the new governing systems about to be established in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya should consider that absolute principles of government – like those deriving from literal readings of Islam – must be tempered by the need to minimize hierarchy and find solutions in maximum tolerance. The easiest solution is to revert to hierarchy, or by another name, dictatorship.
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6 comments:
Dear Olav,
Many thanks for your thought provoking blog about democracy. You seem to write quicker than God can read!!
What I miss in your argumentation, however, is a clear description of what ‘democracy’ means for you. The power, harnessed by democracy, one usually calls authority: the right to use force, based on a constitution and specifically granted by it. Authority is given by the people to representatives in order to act on their behalf and to their benefit.
For a well functioning democracy ready information and accountability are pre-requisites and when reality more or less meets this ideal in good faith, we live in the best of all worlds. But reality falls short miserably, especially in the USA. It is customary to blame the people for their lack of engagement, but ordinary people are too busy with their daily work to make a serious effort to get well-informed. Their representatives in government are most of the time not very forth coming with relevant information or simply misleading, if they can get away with it. The work environment for most US-employees is far from democratic and a critical attitude is not very much appreciated. So out of self-preservation he rather shuts up and accepts for the truth what his bosses or superiors all the way up to the top of the hierarchy make him believe as the gospel-truth.
Keeping all this in mind, the chances that a US-worker will rebel against authority are rather slim: normally he will not exit, will not voice dissent, but rather shut up. That is ….until recently! Why doesn’t Hirschmann’s democracy-model work anymore?
The façade of lies erected by the public media (Fox-news etc.) and political parties is cracking, for the grounds are shifting: officially the unemployment number is 9.5%, but the man in the street notices that 1 out of 6 friends are without jobs and that the true number is likely in the 20% – they and their friends and colleagues are losing their jobs, benefits and their homes, whereas the banksters are compensated for their losses at the cost of the tax-payers – they hear about crazy amounts of bonuses paid to CEOs while the rest of society gets saddled up with austerity-packets. It dawns unto them, that their democracy does not in any way act on their behalf and to their benefit. The relevant information about this reality was systematic withhold from them, but now it is out in the open, in the streets: all the wealth of the nation is sucked up by 1% and the houses of parliament do not any more represent them, but the financial oligarchy. Elections are a charade: all relevant issues are taken out of public discussion, like the truth about Israel and Palestine, the misinformation about the unemployment (20%), the inflation figure (11%) , the real amount of Pentagon funding for the irresponsible wars of choice in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libye etc. etc., the secret worldwide bail-outs by the Fed of 13 trillion dollars, the disastrous financial terrorism against defaulting homeowners by formerly bailed-out banks. No honest politician can step up the national platform to plead nation-wide for the cause of the people, because the flow of the campaign-money is determined by the giant commercial and financial corporations.
For more than 40 years democracy in the US has been a fool’s paradise, but that’s over now. “Occupy Wall street” is trying to fend off the toxic waste of the unregulated derivative market, which threatens the livelihood and freedoms of the 99%.
Which regime is preferable: Gadafi’s who brought welfare, free education, free healthcare, the liberation of women, a secular run state and an economic independence from the IMF and its predatory claims on the world’s resources and assets? Or a government which delivers its people in the death knell of merciless financial extortionists…..?
Such a government has lost its democratic legitimacy, if it keeps shutting up the legitimate grievances of the 99%.
Hello Anonymous – and thanks for taking an interest in my blog. Democracy, to me, is just the boring old formula - a system of representative government. I am talking about a system of government that allows the freedom of association, free formation of political parties or groupings and free elections (preferably under international supervision, should that freedom be in doubt) to a representative assembly covering the entire adult population. It also includes a civil service under the instruction of the elected government in power, and an independent judiciary.
Authority is not necessarily democracy, rather it is power accepted, legitimate power. A dictator whose rule is accepted without oppression has authority. A democratic system may be said to be authoritative to the extent it is accepted by a clear majority of the people – e.g., in terms of their participation in a succession of elections.
My point in all of this is that even a working system of democratic governance has to be somewhat autocratic; it has to have the authority to make demands on the population. This is where the crux is today. As a citizen you are entitled to benefits from the government, but the government also asks you to, e.g., pay taxes. You may find yourself without a job if that job is not needed anymore. If you have a job that entails no work (never heard of that? The Greeks have, and the French, ask Chirac), you would have to give it up, etc. The Greeks and many other people don't like such demands. This has got to change. Democracy is demanding – it is not a notion of paradise on earth.
Dear Olav,
Your article was packed with too many subjects to deal with in one go. So I hope you will allow me to come back on some points I had to leave untouched in my first reaction, because of lack of space.
I agree with you that in a democracy power must be legitimized, authorized by law, i.e. by the constitution of the land. It cannot be a blunt majority-rule – there are restrictions by the enforcement of the law, securing the rights and freedoms of individuals and minorities.
You write: “A democratic system may be said to be authoritative to the extent it is accepted by a clear majority of the people – e.g., in terms of their participation in a succession of elections.” But what if the official majority is rigged over a long period of time by corporate campaign money and corporate mainstream media so as to exclude dissident contributions of ideas and persons to the public debate? What if the government ignores the critique and needs of main street in favor of Wall street? What is a “clear majority” when the approval rate of government and Congress is lingering in the 30 % or less?
By the way, “a dictator whose rule is accepted without oppression” is a highly hypothetical case and a contradictio in terminis: any dictator who is worth the title has grabbed power by suppressing and oppressing. In times of utmost peril during the Roman Republic the Senate appointed a dictator for a period of half a year – that might have been “without oppression” for a limited time. Which other examples do you have up your sleeve?
In your writing ‘the Greeks’ and ‘Greece’ are made out for true scapegoats. Maybe I have become a bit oversensitive about such statements, since my son-in- law is a Greek. As a consequence I could not help getting rather interested in their plight. As a result it made me doubt the notion “profligate” Greek. You write: “If you have a job that entails no work (never heard of that? The Greeks have, and the French, ask Chirac), you would have to give it up, etc. The Greeks and many other people don't like such demands.” This passage reminded me of the president-director of the Dutch Post office guiding visitors around the new office building, when one of them asked: ”How many people work in there?”, he quibbed rather maliciously : “Half of them!” This myth of profligation shows little insight in the causes of what is really the matter in Greece.
Marshall Auerback and Rob Parenteau argue in a recent article (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/marshall-auerback-and-rob-parenteau-the-myth-of-greek-profligacy-the-faith-based-economics-of-the-%e2%80%98troika%e2%80%99.html), that “the heart of the problem is in the antiquated revenue system that supports that state, which results in a budget shortfall consistently about 10% of GDP. The top 20% of the income distribution in Greece pay virtually no taxes at all, the product of a corrupt bargain reached during the days of the junta between the military and Greece’s wealthiest plutocrats. No wonder there is a fiscal crisis!” Research has shown that “ if the Greek welfare system was as generous and inefficient as it is usually described, then administrative costs would be higher than that of more disciplined governments such as the German and French. But this is obviously not the case, as Professors Dimitri Papadimitriou, Randy Wray and Yeva Nersisyan illustrate. Even spending on pensions, which is the main target of the neoliberals, is lower than in other European countries”
Prof. M. Hudson holds the same view in http://theglobalrealm.com/2011/06/10/will-greece-let-eu-central-bankers-destroy-democracy/ and concludes: “Only a referendum can commit the Greek government to repay new debts imposed under austerity.”
And last but not least an article which supports my argument for progressive taxation by Gar Alperovitz in Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org/how-99-percent-really-lost-out-far-greater-ways-occupy-protesters-imagine/1319561990)
Charles Rodijk, 01/11/2011, 2.07
Charles, you ask “what if the official majority is rigged over a long period of time by corporate campaign money and corporate mainstream media so as to exclude dissident contributions of ideas and persons to the public debate?” Obviously your point of reference must be the US. But calling the majority “rigged over a long period of time” implies an intent, a massive conspiracy and a lack of freedom of choice that are just not there. Now among political scientists there is no denying that the pressure of money on legislators and candidates for election to US federal and state office is way beyond what is healthy in a democracy. In fact, however, the financing of politicians is a problem in all democracies. Consider again the case of Greek parliamentarians who voted themselves new cars at the peak of the economic crisis, or the Spanish head of the Valencia region who resigned this year because of corruption charges, retaining a life-long full salary and a chauffeured limousine. That such practices also have their effects on the citizens' attitudes to their governing system as a whole is predictable and evident in the recent protest movements. Any democracy is in trouble when voter participation falls to 50% or even less, or massive numbers turn to the streets.
Here again, in assessing the significance of the “anti-Wall Street” demonstrations, we must be realistic. You ask: “What if the government ignores the critique and needs of main street in favor of Wall street?” How do you propose to bring “main street” into the democratic system unless through the open doors of political structures that already exist? Come on, Charles, you write in slogans. This is not serious.
Then there is the dictator whose rule is accepted without oppression. Examples? Heard of Hitler, Mussolini? Of course, over time even these crowdpleasers resorted more and more to oppression.
Finally, the Greeks. With all respect to your family - keep them out of our discussion, this is a public forum. The Greeks' sense of honor may be offended, but more serious matters are at stake here. Everybody, even Greeks, need to reflect on some honest critique, but Greek protective mechanisms are nearly impenetrable. How can it be that every other person interviewed on the street in Greece seriously believes the EU – we, the rest of Europe - have a DUTY to help them out of the morass they created themselves? If you buy the common Greek line that it is only their politicians who are corrupt, have a look at their tax evasion behavior. You may look for statistics, but alas, those coming out of Greece have been cooked for years. Instead, check out websites with advice on working in Greece. Work ethic? As a life-long state employee I fully sympathize with your president-director of the Dutch Post office. Lazy people are found everywhere, but Greeks have made loafing a way of life. Of course, that is charming, it shows their strength in resisting the stresses of modern life. That is also why we love to go there on our vacations - although we do pay for that. Even in Greece goods and services have to be paid for in the end. Fine if it is only their own problem, but in this case the other euro countries are paying the bill, and several of them are poorer than the Greeks. I regret making this sound like the other Mediterranean countries of Europe are guilt free, which is not the case. Greece is just the outstanding case.
Dear Olav,
To round off our discussion regarding your latest two blog, I like to make e few closing statements.
You have tried hard not to get annoyed with me and I do appreciate that, especially because I can sympathize with you.
To give you a first example: I did not bring my Greek family connection as such in the debate –I was just emphasizing what got my interest in Greek matters going. It did not imply in any way I might have first-hand knowledge on the basis of this family-connection. You jumped too quickly to a conclusion.
With regard to the Greek loafers you keep sticking to the myth of a democratic society, in which they flout their responsibilities! This is an irresponsibly, simplistic statement of affairs. Not unlike in the US, but slightly differently, big banks like Stanley Morgan in total secrecy (hidden from democratic oversight) made a fraudulent deal with the then Greek government to hide the extent of their debt from the outside world and the Greek people. Together with the lousy antiquated revenue-system and the fraudulent tax-exempt deals for the rich, all this has come to bear on ordinary people who are enraged to be made the scape-goat for the fraudulent mismanagement of their government. And don’t forget: the financial crisis in the USA has shifted the burden of their fraudulent, totally deregulated banking system onto their own tax-payers and the poorer countries in the world. Greece needs to take its sovereignty back from the claws of the EU.
This ‘grreporter’ article reaffirmed for me once again how miserably politicians fall short in serving their people. A propos, do you have any information about the salaries and emoluments of English, Swedish or US parliamentarians? Just to have a balanced view.
Next point: When I suggested more ‘democratization’ in bureaucracy you should have known I hinted at “Harnessing the State: Rebalancing Strategies for Monitoring and Evaluation” by P.B. Evans, 2003” in which he discusses correctives for ´bad bureaucracy´:
1. Enhancing bureaucratic capacity in the field of efficiency and competence.
2. Following market signals, what enables a better conveyance of the costs and benefits of public service use.
3. Empowering bottom-up democratic participation and in doing so – increase the transparency and accountability of actions.
Bureaucracy is indeed to facilitate the lawmakers in their job, but you go much further in saying: ¨”to “democratize” the functions of bureaucracy would steal the authority of the parliament or other democratically elected body in whose name the bureaucracy works. Obviously, I would oppose that.” Apart from working for the Parliament, bureaucracy ought to serve the public, just like the parliamentarians do (or should do). Bureaucracy cannot or must not serve as their exclusive instrument, only answerable to the authority of parliament - that will in the end result in degeneration of their service or with other words: in bad bureaucracy! It has an explicit function to the parliament and to the public.
Finally, how serious one must take your belief in the nowadays democratic system of the USA? It is a mummified look- alike of democracy without flesh and bones, manipulated by so called corporative “persons”. Your “open doors of existing political structures” are vault-doors. Prof. Bill Black (erstwhile financial regulator) put forward three steps to make the US sound again: (1) government- financed job creation via already existing non-profitable NGOs - (2) calling for a halt to house foreclosures and for restructuring of the still existing mortgage-loans, for the appraisals of the house-values were deeply and purposely flawed – and – (3) immediate dismissal of Bernanke, Paulson and Geithner and putting the banksters behind bars: FBI should concentrate on the big fraudeurs from now on.
Olav, this are examples of thinking outside the box, in stead of out of the box!
Dear Charles,
In our cases it may not be the question of inside or outside the box, but rather which box and what kind of box.
Your views of US democracy speak for themselves. I cannot share them or see any merit in them. (See my previous answer to you.) Doubtless there are many who share your views. I only wonder, if it is so, then how could Obama have been elected in 2008?
I have not read the book by Evans that you refer to.
The Swedish parliamentarians, the Riksdag, have during the past decade voted themselves a higher pay increase per year than the public at large, 4.6% annually from 2000-07 and 1.8% per year since then. Many citizens are outraged, including me, but I challenge you to show anything in this or other North European cases approaching the reckless attitude to money shown by the Greek parliament.
As for the fraud to cover Greece's debt exposure in the early 2000s, it was not Morgan Stanley but Goldman Sachs who contributed to that. This story came out a year and a half ago when the first round of Greek problems surfaced in Brussels.
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